Page 43 of Time For You
Abruptly, I spun on my heel to face Colton, nearly losing my balance in the midst. He reached out and gripped my arm to steady me.
“Colton, hi.”
“Hi,” he said with a hesitant smile.
He was busy wiping his hands on a rag, but my focus was solely on the fact that the man wore no shirt. I’d imagined all the ways his chest and abdomen would look uncovered. I’d even seen a few pictures online from magazine shoots Colton had taken part in. But none of that did justice to the absolute Greek god standing before me. My tongue itched to taste the skin and I wanted to trace the ridges and valleys of his eight-pack.
“Can I help you, Autumn?” he said as he moved around me, heading toward the tools in the center of the room.
“Oh. The um. . .man outside said I could find you in here.”
“Well, you found me,” he said flippantly as he tossed the rag over his shoulder.
“I, er, wanted to apologize for how I acted the other night.”
“Really?” he said, peering at me from over his shoulder.
“I baked you an apple pie. My mother’s recipe.”
“You bake?” he said in surprise.
Wordlessly, I held out my peace offering, then added, “I also came to help.”
“Well, I won’t turn down either. I’ll run the pie over to the trailer and then you can help me sand these shelves down.”
“Sure.”
As Colton sauntered away with the pie, I grabbed a few things from the makeshift tool bag I had put together this morning. I’d done a few projects around my parents’ home, but nothing of this magnitude.
The sound of a screen door slamming alerted me to Colton’s approach.
“The wind is really starting to pick up out there. That storm they’re calling for is going to be brutal.”
“Yeah, they’ve issued some hail and tornado watches,” I added as I turned to face Colton.
“What is that?” He pointed at the canvas toolbelt I was wearing as I finished tying the straps around my waist.
“A toolbelt?”
“That is not a toolbelt.” Walking over to a massive leather and suede contraption draped on a sawhorse, Colton said, “This is a toolbelt. It will actually hold tools.”
“Well, this is what I had, so it will have to do,” I said stubbornly.
It was clear that Colton didn’t want to argue. He shrugged and then went to work showing me how to use the small orbital sander and how to work on the smaller details of the moldings.
My legs and back ached after the first shelf, but I felt like I’d accomplished something. It felt good. And as I glanced over to watch Colton working on a shelf at the other end of the room, it felt even better to be working beside him.
“How many more of these do we have?” I asked. When I arrived, I’d noticed that a few had already been worked on.
“Four and then we can go test some of the stains to see what color you think will work best.”
The contractor came by not shortly after and announced that his crew was packing up all of their items in the storm’s wake and would return the next day. Colton thanked the man graciously for staying onsite as long as they had.
I’d lost track of the hour as I moved onto the next shelf.
“Hey, want to go check out the stains while there is still some good natural lighting?” Colton asked and I eagerly jumped up from my crouched position only to groan in pain. I was definitely going to be sore the next day.
“Yeah. Let me go grab my binder from the car and we can look at some pictures I found of woodwork from the same time period.”
