Page 34 of What Remains of Grace

She snorted. “Yeah,” she muttered, “I might as well type thank you for soaking my panties yesterday.”

Delete.

Instead, she wrote, The soffit looks worse than we thought. Let me know if you need dimensions on the bakery side.

“See?” she said to Biscuit. “All business.” He just yawned like he was over this entire back-and-forth.

She glared at him, annoyed. “Don’t judge me.” Then she shoved her phone in her pocket and slid the yearbook back onto the shelf. “See.”

The cat just blinked, unimpressed.

She leaned against the doorframe, exhaling slowly. “Professional,” she told herself, softer this time. “Professional, starting tomorrow.”

9

Demo Day

The hammers started before eight.

The first real demo day felt different from the walk-throughs. Now there were trucks in the drive, voices over radios, the rhythmic clang of tools—an audience of motion she hadn’t had in weeks. Cole moved among them easily, professional, deliberate, the kind of man who somehow made chaos look organized. Surrounded by his crew, he was all business, which should have made it easier for her to be the same. And it did. Mostly.

Jenna had forgotten how loud construction could be when you weren’t the one running it. She stood at the kitchen sink listening to the thud-thud-thud from next door and the low voices of men she didn’t know. The bakery had always been laughter and music and the clatter of dishes. This clatter sounded like… tearing down.

She checked the time. 7:52 a.m. Cole had texted her earlier:

COLE: Crew’s here. Starting on the exterior and flooring. I’ll knock before I come through the house.

COLE: Don’t freak out if it sounds like the world is ending.

Too late.

She pulled her hair into a clip and headed for the back door just as someone knocked—two knuckles, polite, not the bang-bang of a worker.

She opened it to find Cole on the step, ball cap turned backward, tape measure hooked to his jeans, that worn work shirt stretched across his chest like it had given up trying to contain him.

“Morning,” he said, his voice was calm enough that the noise behind him didn’t feel like chaos. “We’re going to open up some of the floor in the front. I wanted to let you see it before we start pulling anything you might cry over.”

For a second, she forgot how to form words. Her eyes traced the line of his forearm as he gestured toward the bakery, the faint tan on his skin where a watch must’ve sat. There was nothing delicate about him, but everything about the way he moved was careful.

He caught her looking. Not a smirk, just a quick flicker of awareness that sent heat crawling up her neck.

His hand went to the brim of his hat, tugging it a little lower, that shy gesture men made when they weren’t sure if they should grin or apologize.

“Appreciated,” she managed, the word catching slightly in her throat. Trying to decide if she had actually been biting her lip.

They crossed over to The Blue Cypress. The front door was propped open with a tool bag. Two of his guys were already pulling up the warped boards near the display cases; another was outside examining the fascia. The place smelled like sawdust and old sugar.

“Morning, Ms. Hart,” one of the guys called.

“Jenna’s fine,” she said automatically.

Cole gestured toward the corner. “We’ll replace anything soft, then run new transitions. The good news is, it’s not as bad as I thought from the estimate.”

“That’s rare,” Jenna said. “Contractors never tell you good news.”

“I’m special,” he said, straight-faced.

She rolled her eyes, but the smile was there anyway.