Page 60 of Love and Memories

Travis tightened his grip on the wheel. “We don’t talk.”

The finality in his tone implied the conversation was over. All of the hurt that had torn his family apart was still new and fresh to him. For a man who tried his best to do what was right for others, he’d probably gone out of his way to mend fences more than once.

They arrived at the first cabin, and Bella grabbed the trusty snack bag. “Travis?”

He turned to her, giving her his full attention in those warm brown eyes.

“Thank you for being so good to me,” she whispered.

He let her words hang in the air for a moment before nodding once. “You’re welcome.”

Without another word, he got out of the truck, leaving Bella with the memory of the sadness in his eyes.

23

TRAVIS

Working beside Bella every day was pure torture. The manual labor the Bensons needed had always been a welcome distraction. Now, he couldn’t focus long enough to remember the measurement he’d taken ten seconds ago.

It was worse when Bella sang. When she asked him if the singing bothered him, he should have found a polite way to say yes. Instead, he’d told her she could do whatever she wanted.

Her voice hit some deep buried place inside him every time she sang. She was a ruthless siren, and he was a sailor with little reason to resist her call.

Travis had heard that pregnant women had a glow about them, but he’d never experienced it until now. She’d come to terms with her pregnancy and could barely talk about anything else. Bella radiated joy, and it was both beautiful and soul-crushing.

Travis placed the jig between two boards with one hand and grabbed a screw with the other. When the screw was in place, he held it with the hand securing the jig and reached for the drill.

Installing the subfloor would be quicker and easier with another set of hands, but asking Bella to help was out of the question. He couldn’t be that close to her. He already wanted things he couldn’t have. Dangling the carrot in front of the horse would only drive him off the edge of a cliff.

Bella’s song stopped, and soft footfalls came closer from the bedroom where she’d been working. She stopped at the edge of the part of the floor that hadn’t been torn out and propped her hands on her hips. Most of the main room was a gaping hole with framing boards running in perpendicular lines.

“You need something?” Travis asked.

She pointed toward the snack bag Tammy continued to send every day. “Can you pass me a Payday?”

Travis rested the jig on the foundation and maneuvered to the other side of the cabin to retrieve the snack she wanted. He was too tall to fit beneath the joists, so it took some time to climb over them and cross the room.

Finally, he handed her the candy bar. “Do you have a drink?”

Bella rolled her eyes, but a grin stretched her lips. “You made me bring a case of water in here this morning,” she reminded him. “I should have remembered the snacks too.”

She sat on the edge of the exposed flooring and let her legs dangle through the structure he was rebuilding. “Everything okay in here?”

“Yep. I should be able to finish tomorrow.”

Bella took the first bite of the Payday and studied his work. “I bet you could build a whole house.”

Travis scratched at his bearded jaw. “I could definitely do most of it myself. The only thing I don’t trust myself to do is electrical work.”

“That’s amazing. How do you know how to do so many things?” she asked.

“Necessity, I guess. My grandma always called me when she needed something fixed around the house, and she couldn’t afford to hire anyone. Same deal when I got a car. We didn’t have the money for a mechanic, so whenever something went wrong, I just had to figure it out and fix it myself.”

He made the mistake of looking at Bella, and her smile sent a jolt of awareness tingling up his spine.

“I love that about you,” she said softly.

Travis’s hand gripped the two-by-four beside him. She couldn’t say things like that and expect him not to react. “What do you mean?”

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