“Umm, no. I’m gonna go find Candy and get sweaty. You have fun with the table, and maybe your new neighbor, and I'll see ya bright and early for practice,” he turned and climbed into his shiny black truck and left.

***

I worked for several hours on the table I’d started a few days before. My thoughts kept drifting back to my new neighbor. I tried to focus on the music blaring through my headphones, and before I realized it, darkness had settled outside the windows of my shop. I was about to begin staining the piece I’d been working on when I felt a hard tap on my shoulder. I turned to find the stunning brunette with her arms once more crossed over her chest, glaring at me in a way I was beginning to think I should get used to.

She shouted something I couldn’t make out as I was pulling my headphones from my ears.

“What?” I asked, unsure of what she’d said.

“One in the morning,” she repeated.

“It is?” I didn't know what else to say. She was standing there in a tank top and a tiny pair of shorts that were barely more than what a bathing suit would have covered. My eyes wandered over her body again, and her arms adjusted upward to cover her chest more as if she just realized what she was wearing.

“I have been listening to you work out here for hours, and it is very distracting. I really need to get some sleep.”

“I’m almost done?” I said, though it came across more like a question.

She huffed. “Ryan said you had a shop, but I figured you worked during the day like a normal person.”

“I work whenever I can.” I turned away from her, blood rushing hot through my body at the sight of her.

“Fine. Whatever. But can you please just try to keep it down?” she huffed and turned to walk away.

“Yes ma’am,” I responded as I looked over my shoulder at her form disappearing into the darkness of the doorway. I turned and pulled the piece I was working on from the machine. If I could finish this project tonight, it would be three thousand dollars in my pocket tomorrow and I could pay the mortgage for the next three months. With competition season starting, I needed to get as far ahead on my bills as possible, one less thing to worry about. Unfortunately, visions of my new neighbor in her tank top were now keeping me from staying focused. I guess turnabout is fair play. This was going to take longer than I thought.

Chapter Four

Emerson

Holy hell that man was hot. It took everything in me not to look him over like he was a hot fudge sundae after a year of dieting. The last thing I expected when I went out to ask him to keep it down was him standing in the workshop without a shirt on, specks of sawdust clinging to his skin. I had never been much of a beard girl, but there was something about the contrast of the dark hair against his tanned skin that made me tingle all over. His deep blue-gray gaze had followed the curves of my body and then came back to look me in the eyes. At that point, I had tried to cover my chest, knowing that my nipples stood at attention. It was chilly out, but it was the look he had given me that caused the reaction.

I was infuriated when I walked out of my door, but when I laid eyes on him, I could see that he was honestly just working. Ryan had told me there was a workshop, but I guess I hadn't understood that it meant chainsaws and other equipment being used at all hours of the night. Maybe I was a little cranky because I was exhausted. After all, I was too tired to even realize that I had stomped out of the house practically in my underwear. What a sight I must have been shouting at him with my hair pulled up on top of my head, pieces flying everywhere, a tank top, and my tiny pajama shorts.

He had started working again before I even made it back to my door. That had made it even worse. He didn't even care that I needed to sleep. I laid in bed and listened to him working for another half an hour before I heard the machines turn off. I listened quietly, praying that they wouldn't start again. The squeak of his screen door opening and then closing let me know that he was done, and I rolled over and closed my eyes finally able to get some sleep.

***

“What in the hell?” I rolled over in bed at the sound of wood being chopped and looked at my phone; it was just after seven a.m. for heaven’s sake. I heard shouting and chopping and then more shouting. I walked over and pulled my curtain to the side and saw him again, with no shirt on again, pulling an ax over his back and swinging it down into the wood while Ryan stood by. He repeated this action over and over before turning toward me and starting over. I watched in horror as he cut through the large piece of wood.

“Great! I moved next door to a tree murderer. Not only does he kill trees to make furniture, he also cuts them up for sport.” I said aloud. I watched for a few more minutes as he moved from that piece to another, and then he and Ryan worked together to pull a large saw through a piece. I finally walked away in disgust and headed to the shower. I turned the water on, got in, and stood there, thinking that maybe I should have just taken the job my grandfather had offered in Portland. But the research was important to me and I wanted to do something on my own, so here I was. I was just going to have to deal with the new neighbor. I dressed quickly and walked down the stairs wishing I’d thought to buy some instant coffee at the grocery store the night before. The last thing I wanted to do was ask the wood slaughterer next door to borrow some coffee, so I began pulling at cabinets that I knew were likely bare. To my surprise, I came across a bag of coffee, a singular mug, and a coffee maker.

“Thank you, Ryan!” I said out loud. I busied myself making my coffee and thinking about taking a stroll in the woods. I grabbed the cup from the otherwise bare cabinet and poured the coffee into it. I looked in the fridge and there sat a container of half and half. “Ryan is a god!” I half-shouted.

“Thank you!” I heard through an open window of the front porch. I jumped and almost dropped the carton in my hands. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” he said through the window. “By the way, the god also left some sugar in that container on the door of the fridge.”

I chuckled a little. “You’re the best!” I stated as I pulled the container out. “Seriously, I am in desperate need of a caffeine fix. I didn't sleep well.”

“New place?”

“No, my neighbor is very loud.”

“Who, Luke?” He threw his hand over his shoulder, thumb pointing toward the workshop. He was bent over lookin

g in the window, so I walked over to the front door and unlocked it, motioning for him to just come inside.

“Yeah,” I responded as he followed me into the kitchen. “He worked until around one this morning. I didn't realize when you said there was a shop that it would be all hours of the night. And then you two early birds were out there working at seven this morning. I tried to work last night, but couldn’t concentrate with the noise. I think I wrote three sentences. I have to turn a report in on Tuesday, and I would like to have it done.” I was standing there holding my cup of coffee while Ryan stared at me.

“I'm sorry?” he shrugged.

Tags: Claire Adams Romance
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