Page 6 of Craving Her Cowboy
“Morning,” said Asha, first.
Gavin nodded, already bracing for the social part.
Andy thumped the paper onto the bed of the farm truck. “This here’s the blueprint. You’ve got the stakes laid out?”
“Started,” Asha said. “Ground’s soft, though. Some of it’s gonna shift if we get rain.”
“Use the gravel in the shed, just make sure it’s even. Concrete arrives on Tuesday. Everything else—lumber, insulation, roof trusses—comes in stages.”
Gavin scanned the plans while Andy talked, tracking numbers, jotting notes. Gavin grunted throughout the entire time. Andy handed over a battered thermos. “Bee says you’re to hydrate, or else. She’s got eyes everywhere, so you just need to do what she says.” He left them there, walking back down the hill toward the main house.
Gavin unrolled the plans onto the toolbox and flattened them with a palm. “Did you check the grade on the northwest corner? That’s where the runoff will hit hardest.”
“I saw it. I figured we dig a little deeper there, pour extra to compensate.”
“You figured.”
Asha shrugged. “I’m not in love with the solution. But we’re not gonna move the ridge.”
He crouched, pressing his thumb into the dirt. “We can re-contour the slope a bit, at least near the build line. Won’t take much.”
She eyed him for a beat. “You wanna dig it out by hand?”
“If it means the footings don’t rot, yeah.”
“Waste of energy.”
“Only if you plan to do it wrong.”
She stepped closer. “I plan to do it the way that lasts.”
Gavin’s jaw tightened. “That’s what I said.”
They stared, both waiting for the other to blink first.
Slowly, Gavin realized she was very pretty. Her terse tone and no-shit approach made him overlook just how fucking beautiful she was. His first thought was that she had no business being out here doing this kind of work. But then he caught himself. She was here for the same reason he was. Peace. He hated himself for noticing how full her lips were and how her nose turned up at the tip. Or how the sun shone on her brown skin. Hell, he needed to focus on what he came here to do and get the fuck out of Dodge.
“Fine,” she said. “You want to start with the ground work, we’ll do it. I’ll take the east side.”
He nodded. “I’ll mark the runoff path, get it started. Then we meet in the middle.”
“Meet in the middle,” she echoed, just loud enough for him to know she was making fun of him.
They worked in silence for the first hour, the kind that was so heavy it actually made the shovels seem louder. She dug with fast, tight motions, tossing dirt in neat mounds and moving quickly to the next. He liked her technique but said nothing, saving his breath for the labor. By eight-thirty, his shirt wasstuck to his back and his hands already ached from the cold steel of the spade.
He watched her as he worked, the way she sized up each shovel-full, never overexerting, never getting lazy. She was strong but didn’t show off. She must have felt his eyes on her, because at one point she straightened, wiped her forehead with the inside of her wrist, and said, “You think we’ll hit rock?”
“Not until the third foot. Andy’s got the geological survey.”
She went back to work, but her pace matched his now. Maybe she was testing him. Or maybe she just didn’t want to lose ground.
By ten o’clock, they’d finished the first pass on the perimeter and were down to fine-tuning the grade. Asha pulled the tape and double-checked the widths while Gavin used the line level to mark the points for the footings.
He glanced up, catching her watching him this time.
She didn’t look away. “I was told you run a consulting firm. How’d you end up swinging a shovel and digging up dirt out here?”
He flicked a bit of dust off the top of the level. “Pays to know how things work on the ground. Not everything runs on Zoom calls and spreadsheets.”
