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"Sawyer will sleep all day, if you let him."
"Working the dinner shift does turn you into night owl by necessity. His job probably kicks off about the time yours starts to slow down.”
"Are you saying I should go easy on him?"
"I'm just saying, we can't all be early birds." I turn in a circle, taking in the impressive size and high ceilings of the stripped-down barn. “This is a really nice barn. How long have you been renovating it?”
“On and off for about a year.”
“All by yourself?” I can’t tell whether he’s consciously trying not to look at me, or if he’s just really absorbed in his work.
“For the most part.” He wedges the back of his hammer between a board and the post it’s nailed to. The muscles in his arms bulge slightly against the fabric of his sweater as he yanks the board free from the post.
I can only imagine how much more exciting the show would be if he took his shirt off.
“Can I help?” I ask, hoping manual labor will be enough to distract me from my thirst.
Colton eyes me curiously. “You can try.” He taps a toolbox on the floor with his foot. “Got a spare set of gloves and a hammer in there.”
I set my coffee down, slip off my coat, then put on Colton’s gloves. They’re massive on me. Immediately I’m reminded of jokes about guys with big hands, and what that usually means. I take out the hammer and begin attempting to wedge the back of it behind a board. It’s a lot harder than it looks.
“Sawyer didn’t tell you I was coming,” I say.
“Sawyer does as he pleases.”
When it’s clear I’m not going to be able to pry the board off the post, I move around to the other side and start hitting it with the hammer. The board falls to the floor after three hits.
“That’s one way to do it,” Colton says. His mouth pitches into a small smile that makes me feel warm all over.
After we’ve removed all the boards from this interior wall, we gather them into a scrap pile and move onto the next section.
“Why are we ripping down walls?” I ask.
“These used to be horse stalls,” he says. “We’re opening up the space so it can house more people.”
“You mean for events? Like weddings and graduation parties and stuff?”
“Yep.” He braces his foot on the wall as he jerks his hammer, splitting a board in half. He curses.
I glance around at the barn’s interior, trying to imagine it strung with lights, filled with music and people dancing. “It’s certainly big enough. I could get married in a place like this. A nice country wedding with daisies on all the tables.”
“That’s the idea.” His gaze darts from mine as soon as I catch him looking my way.
“Did you and Sawyer’s mom have a big wedding?”
“God, no,” he says “Thankfully, I realized pretty quick that legally binding myself to Miranda would be a terrible mistake. No offense to your old man.”
“None taken,” I say. “He makes terrible mistakes all the time.”
There’s an underlying sadness to Colton’s chuckle. To learn that he was never married to Miranda settles something restless inside me that has no right to be restless.
“Miranda and I were just two idiot kids who let hormones get the better of us,” he says.
“Good morning, dear family.” Sawyer saunters into the barn, looking more chipper than I’ve ever seen him—not that I’ve known him all that long. “Ready to go chop down a Christmas tree?”
He drapes an arm around me, drawing me into a side hug. His hair is damp from the shower, and the sweater he’s wearing is thin enough that I can feel how fit his body is.Like father, like son...
“Absolutely.” I turn to Colton, whose posture has visibly stiffened upon his son’s arrival. “Assuming we’re done in here?”
