Page 10 of Redeem

Ciprian—God I loved that name—had broken the wood down and was now rearranging some of my heavier items and supplies.

He was right, he was good at lifting things, and quite a sight to watch as he did so.

Not that I actually allowed myself to watch him.

I kept my eyes firmly glued on the latticework and tried not to look at him. But I knew he was there, and those times I did glance up at him, I was rewarded with the most amazing sight.

His T-shirt clung to his broad shoulders and was tight enough that I could make out the sculpted muscles of his chest and ripped stomach. Could just as easily imagine running my fingers across those defined muscles, feel his warmth, his strength…

Which was why I hadn’t looked at him for more than an hour.

Last time I had dared risk it, he’d had his back toward me, positioned to give me the perfect view of his strong shoulders and sculpted arms, and I couldn’t stop the thought that he’d be strong enough to hold the world, strong enough to hold me if I’d let him.

I wasn’t equipped to think that, wasn’t equipped to deal with the feelings he was stirring, so I worked steadily, forcefully keeping my mind off the man who worked next to me.

Or rather, trying to and failing.

Because while I managed not to look at him, that didn’t stop me from thinking of him. Right now, I thought back to the memory of him in front of the table saw. That had been one of the most amusing things I’d ever seen. He’d stared at it as though it were some kind of alien technology, but I could see his mind working as he tried to figure out how to use it.

It was an interesting contradiction, and another reminder of the folly of taking people at first sight. I’d been on the opposite side of such assumptions more times than I could count, and I found it amusing that we, as different as we seemed to be, had that in common.

Even more, I’d found his desire to try to figure it out on his own relatable. I would have done the same myself. Yet another similarity we shared and yet something else I shouldn’t have noticed. I did, though, and my thoughts of the man didn’t stop there. The simple interlude opened up so many questions about him. Chief among them, at least at the moment, was what he’d done before.

I imagined he must have fallen on hard times, and he was right that given the way he looked, people would fall all over themselves to hire him for physical work. But he didn’t seem to know the basics of construction, so that hadn’t been his profession before. I risked another glance, but looked away quickly before I let myself stare at his biceps, which strained with the weight of what he lifted.

He clearly hadn’t worked in an office. Even without his physical presence, I didn’t peg him as the sort.

So not construction and not an office, then what?

I supposed it would be possible that he just moved things from one place to another, but I didn’t get that sense either. Ciprian had a story, one that I found myself increasingly interested in hearing.

I dropped the piece of latticework I had been shaping and then stood. For hours now, I’d been trying and miserably failing not to think of him, so it was time to do something else. I forced myself to look at him, wishing he was wearing a parka and not that T-shirt, though I doubted that would help.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

He nodded. I had brought a small thermos of coffee and some water, but now it was time for lunch. Ciprian looked at the front door and then back at me. “I’ll wait out here,” he said.

I nodded and then pointed to the side of the house. “There’s a storage shed around back. It has facilities you can use,” I said.

Then I went up the porch steps to go inside. I was again struck by his thoughtfulness, by the way he seemed to anticipate what I was thinking. It didn’t mean anything. He probably was used to this sort of thing, discomfort that people might have about letting him into their homes, something that should be even more acute for me, a single woman alone with no neighbors within a mile.

I told myself that those worries made sense, and they did, at least on the surface.

But that wasn’t the source of my reluctance to allow him inside.

As much as I hated to acknowledge it, this morning had been wonderful.

It seemed a silly thing to say that something as simple as turning big pieces of wood into smaller pieces of wood and then arranging them in a pattern had been wonderful. It probably said a lot about me that something so mundane had been so pleasurable. But it had been.

And all because of him.

We hadn’t even talked very much. Not at all, really. But it had been amazing nonetheless, and I’d felt an immediate connection, one that felt comfortable, welcome, even as the ease of that connection threw me off completely.

Today had also made me realize something that before yesterday had been unthinkable.

I was lonely.

I went to my bedroom to change shirts, and then went back to the kitchen, washing my hands vigorously as I considered that realization.

---