Plaster had been removed in many of the rooms revealing the framing behind the walls. I had thought I’d be upset to witness the changes like the taking down of walls or ripping up the floors, but instead I felt a sense of delight. Colton wasn’t doing any of those things to destroy the home’s bones. It was to better her. New electrical wiring was being installed and better fixtures for the plumbing. It was all for a reason.

“Colton?” I called out when there was a break in the construction noise. When there was no response, I made my way back toward the wing of the house where he had pointed out the library on Friday.

“Colton?” I said again as I stepped into the room, only to find the space filled with dirty sheets and tools.

“Shoot,” I murmured as I adjusted my hold of the duffle bag in my hand and rested the glass baking dish against my hip.

Inspecting the space, I could imagine the wood with a glorious walnut hue filled to the brim with books and knickknacks, a desk in the center, and lush reading chairs beneath the window. The room screamed dark academia and the need to get my hands on the room was powerful.

“Autumn?”

Abruptly, I spun on my heel to face Colton, nearly losing my balance in the midst. He reached out and gripped my arm to steady me.

“Colton, hi.”

“Hi,” he said with a hesitant smile.

He was busy wiping his hands on a rag, but my focus was solely on the fact that the man wore no shirt. I’d imagined all the ways his chest and abdomen would look uncovered. I’d even seen a few pictures online from magazine shoots Colton had taken part in. But none of that did justice to the absolute Greek god standing before me. My tongue itched to taste the skin and I wanted to trace the ridges and valleys of his eight-pack.

“Can I help you, Autumn?” he said as he moved around me, heading toward the tools in the center of the room.

“Oh. The um. . .man outside said I could find you in here.”

“Well, you found me,” he said flippantly as he tossed the rag over his shoulder.

“I, er, wanted to apologize for how I acted the other night.”

“Really?” he said, peering at me from over his shoulder.

“I baked you an apple pie. My mother’s recipe.”

“You bake?” he said in surprise.

Wordlessly, I held out my peace offering, then added, “I also came to help.”

“Well, I won’t turn down either. I’ll run the pie over to the trailer and then you can help me sand these shelves down.”

“Sure.”

As Colton sauntered away with the pie, I grabbed a few things from the makeshift tool bag I had put together this morning. I’d done a few projects around my parents’ home, but nothing of this magnitude.

The sound of a screen door slamming alerted me to Colton’s approach.

“The wind is really starting to pick up out there. That storm they’re calling for is going to be brutal.”

“Yeah, they’ve issued some hail and tornado watches,” I added as I turned to face Colton.

“What is that?” He pointed at the canvas toolbelt I was wearing as I finished tying the straps around my waist.

“A toolbelt?”

“That is not a toolbelt.” Walking over to a massive leather and suede contraption draped on a sawhorse, Colton said, “This is a toolbelt. It will actually hold tools.”

“Well, this is what I had, so it will have to do,” I said stubbornly.

It was clear that Colton didn’t want to argue. He shrugged and then went to work showing me how to use the small orbital sander and how to work on the smaller details of the moldings.

My legs and back ached after the first shelf, but I felt like I’d accomplished something. It felt good. And as I glanced over to watch Colton working on a shelf at the other end of the room, it felt even better to be working beside him.

“How many more of these do we have?” I asked. When I arrived, I’d noticed that a few had already been worked on.

“Four and then we can go test some of the stains to see what color you think will work best.”

The contractor came by not shortly after and announced that his crew was packing up all of their items in the storm’s wake and would return the next day. Colton thanked the man graciously for staying onsite as long as they had.

I’d lost track of the hour as I moved onto the next shelf.

“Hey, want to go check out the stains while there is still some good natural lighting?” Colton asked and I eagerly jumped up from my crouched position only to groan in pain. I was definitely going to be sore the next day.

“Yeah. Let me go grab my binder from the car and we can look at some pictures I found of woodwork from the same time period.”

We went in opposite directions when we exited the house, and I took a moment to look off in the distance toward the looming clouds in the sky. The storm was still a way off, but it was going to be brutal. Some fluke of nature that had dumped snow in the southern half of the western United States like Arizona and had unleashed countless tornados in her war path.

I quickly grabbed the binder filled to the brim with new goodies I had researched online before heading over.

The mud and grass sloshed underneath my feet as I forged a path around the house toward the area Colton had set up with some pieces of the molding we were going to use to test the colors of stain. I could see he had five different shades set up.

“Hey,” I said as I approached. I greedily ate up the view of Colton’s back. “So, let’s see what you’ve got?”

“Enough to keep you busy, but let’s talk about the stain.”

It took a second before Colton’s words registered and I felt my cheeks flame under his watchful eye.

“I do love when your cheeks turn that color.”

“Really?” I asked as he started prying the tops off the multiple stain colors he had chosen. “Why is that?”

Grabbing a brush, he dipped it into the first stain, the darkest of the colors as he said, “Because I imagine what color your other cheeks would turn under my palm.”

The man didn’t even raise his head as he stroked the brush back and forth on the wood, spreading the stain.

“You shouldn’t say those things,” I whispered, hating the way my husky voice betrayed me. I absolutely wanted to feel his hands on me, but I knew nothing could come of it. There was a good chance that neither Colton nor I were staying in this town. I had potential jobs, or at least the desire to live in a bigger city like Knoxville, and Colton had bigger and better things as a sports star.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t imagine it. Now, what do you think of that one?” he asked as he moved to the next color, one with a redder undertone.

“No. It’s too modern and the one you’re doing now is too red. Let me show you a picture of what I was thinking.”

Opening the binder, I came to the page I’d added that morning and moved to Colton’s side to show him.