Page 20 of Your Place or Mine

Challenging. Like he was waiting for me to crack under the pressure of his gaze.

“I’m here to live,” I said, surprising even myself. “To try. To make something of myself. This town feels like the first breath I’ve taken in months. Maybe longer.”

I hadn’t meant to get personal. It just slipped out, like the truth had been sitting there this whole time waiting for the right crack to leak through.

His jaw tightened without a word.

I took a steadying breath. “So yeah. I might fix some things. Paint. Patch. Update plumbing where the pipes are about to combust. But I’m not going to rip out the soul of this building. And I’m certainly not trying to put you out of business.”

“You say that now,” he said quietly. “But what happens when you realize this town doesn’t run like Seattle? That it’s slower, rougher around the edges, and not always pretty? You gonna stick it out, or take your clipboard and investment plans and run?”

I frowned. “Do you always assume the worst of people? Or just women with fresh ideas and a toolbelt in her car?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You have a toolbelt?”

“Figuratively. But I could get a real one.”

I didn’t need to mention I had no car.

He narrowed his eyes on me. “You probably shouldn’t. You don’t look like you know what to do with it.”

I glared at him. “Is that your charming way of calling me incompetent?”

“Nope,” he said, straightening. “Just honest.”

I folded my arms. “Well, honestly, I’d rather not be judged based on the city I moved from, the fact that I wear boots without steel toes, or that I dare to want a functioning faucet in my apartment.”

His eyes locked on mine. Still unreadable. But something was flickering behind them. Something like… curiosity.

“You done?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “But I’m pacing myself.”

He huffed something thatalmostresembled a laugh. Then he reached beneath the bar, grabbed a coaster, and placed it in front of me.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“Thought you might want a drink while you continue proving me wrong.”

I stared at the coaster. Then up at him.

And even though I wanted to smack him with the nearest barstool, I also… kind of wanted to keep talking to him.

Which was infuriating.

“I’ll take a gin and tonic,” I said, sliding the coaster an inch closer to him.

“With or without edible flowers?”

I gave him a tight smile. “Surprise me.”

He walked away to make the drink, and I sighed.

This man was impossible.

Tall, impossible, and annoyingly magnetic.

But I didn’t come to Reckless River to back down from hard things. And if he thought I would be the kind of girl who wilted under a little scrutiny and walked away with her tail tucked between her bootcut jeans, he had another thing coming.

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