Page 58 of A Little More

It was a good thing he hadn’t done anything. It would let her have a firsthand experience on sanding the original floors and sealing them. She’d researched it so many times before, hoping she’d get a chance, and here it was. She wouldn’t walk away from the project, but the day she finished the renovations, she would finish with Nash.

Temporary. It’d always been temporary.

Damn it, then why were her eyes filled with tears at the thought?

No. He’d given her this opportunity to prove to herself what she could do with an old farmhouse and at least bring the kitchen to life. He might not appreciate it now, but one day when she was gone, he’d think back and be grateful.

With her emotions shoved back inside and under lockdown, she began clearing the room, keeping an eye on the clock to try and get done before he returned. After two hours of sanding the floors with several different grits of sandpaper, she sent Ms. Peggy a text message, letting her know that she was working at the house and would be late.

She could get the base coat of polyurethane down, finish them in the morning, and head back to Atlanta. She’d been an idiot for holding out a small, microscopic shred of hope that somehow there could be more between them.

Now a Category 1 hurricane,the storm continued to dump buckets of water on his fields and even more upstream. Seventy-five miles per hour winds whipped through the county. He’d waited for a lull in the storm before leaving Cameron’s house and heading back to his own. This amount of rain and wind it didn’t bode well for most of the farmers. Or his country store, now completely underwater.

Only Lexi could tell him what that meant for the construction.

It was nearly one in the morning. She’d be asleep at his mom’s by now. He’d made sure to stay away long enough for her to leave. He turned onto his road, his truck splashing through a foot of water and dodging a tree that’d fallen at the top of the driveway. Great. More work.

The thought of her in her little car sliding off into a ditch made his heartache. He should have sent her on when she first showed up before the wind had arrived. He’d text her when he got back, make sure she was safe, tucked into his old bed and probably dreaming of getting back to Atlanta after the way he’d acted.

He didn’t want to hurt her any more than he already did. She wanted his help with the kitchen, and he tried to help, but how could he do something knowing it would tear him apart once she left? With almost everything needed for the kitchen sitting in his house, once he finished those floors, the kitchen would be done in no time.

He dreaded walking into his kitchen every morning and seeing her memory floating around. Her influence. Her taste. Her damn sink.

Her dream.

And not having her there to share it killed him.

She’d come to resent him if she had the lapse in judgment and decided to move down from Atlanta. She’d end up torn apart between the two worlds just like he’d been with his ex-wife. She wouldn’t do that. A little difficult to believe that the smart, independent woman would move this far, give up a job she loved, and be happy with him. Sometimes love wasn’t enough. Not that he was in love with Lexi.

He drove through another puddle, deeper than the last, as his headlights shined on Lexi’s car, parked at his house. Every light on the lower level still on. How long did it take to figure out if a sink would fit?

In a mad dash, he ran from the truck to the house, shaking his coat off as much as possible before opening his door. He hung it up and paused. A quiet house greeted him.

“Lexi?”

No response.

He immediately headed toward the kitchen, the light smell of chemicals tingling in his nose. He turned the corner and came face-to-face with gorgeous wood floors. She’d finished his floors.

There she went, pushing forward with life whether he was on board or not. She didn’t need him to do anything.

Guilt flooded him when he noticed her body curled up in a chair in the dining room. She’d exhausted herself because of his ego.

His vain attempt to keep the memory of her from wrecking him after she left.

She still wore her suit pants from work but with a tank top, her nice work shirt on the table. Her toenails were the color of raspberries. Her hand rested on the arm of the chair, palm up, three distinct, red blisters cutting straight into the very fiber that held him together.

He was such a dumb ass.

Maybe it was the exhaustion or worry about the rain. Maybe it was knowing that he’d put her through hell having to finish the kitchen floor alone. But, right then, he didn’t look at her the same as before.

For that one moment, he acknowledged his love for Lexi Caden.

He’d take the pain that came with letting her leave. But the pain would come later.

For now, he only wanted her.

She had every right to reject him, tell him he’d been stupid and an idiot, but he hoped she wouldn’t.

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