Page 7 of Working for the Single Mom

What he’s doing is working for me, but that’s a problem because I work for him. Either way, this is a fucking bad idea.

He shuts the saw off and turns around, and I snap my eyes up to his face so fast I’m sure he knows I was ogling him. "Everything okay?" he asks.

"Marion Cole called. She said she’s got a bookshelf that’s three weeks overdue. She wants a real date, not a guess."

"Shit." He grabs a rag off the workbench, wipes his hands, and I try very hard not to watch the way his stomach moves, and his forearms flex when he does it. "I can have it done by Friday if I push. You want to call her back and tell her Friday?"

"I can do that." I linger a second longer than I mean to. "You always work like this? Shirt off, during the entire day with no break?"

He nods, running the back of his hand over his forehead. "It gets hot in here by ten. The AC unit's older than I am, and I haven't had time to replace it." He tosses the rag back onto the bench. "You want the shirt back on? I can put it back on."

"I didn't say that." It comes out faster than I mean it to, and I feel my face heat up right along with it. "I mean — it's your shop. You can totally wear what you want."

He grins at those words. It’s a slow spread across his face, showing a dimple in his left cheek that I haven't noticed before. It looks like he’s trying to decide if he should give me a hard time about enjoying his body. He doesn't, though, just nods toward the office. "Go call Marion back. I'll get this bookshelf moving."

I do, and I keep my eyes on the paperwork the rest of the morning, mostly, except for the handful of times I catch myself glancing through the doorway anyway.

Around noon, he knocks on the door frame, even though the door's wide open and there's nothing to actually knock on except the frame itself. "Have you eaten yet?"

"No.” I shake my head. “I didn't bring anything. I wasn't really sure what the setup was here."

"The setup's whatever we make it. I usually just grab food from the diner in town, but I can order in if you'd rather not leave." He's got his shirt back on now, thank God, though it doesn't do near as much as I'd like it to about the fact that I already know what's underneath it. "What do you like?"

My stomach growls, and I’m just thankful it looks like he’s going to pick up the bill because I don’t have a lot of extra money. Being a single mother to a little kid isn’t the easiest thing to do. "Anything, honestly. I'm not picky."

"Everybody says that and then hates whatever I pick." He pulls his phone out anyway, scrolling. "I'm getting the diner's turkey club and fries. You want the same, or you want to actually tell me what you like so I don't get it wrong?"

"Turkey club's fine. I’ll take extra pickles, if they do that."

He smirks. "More than likely they do that." He taps out the order, phone against his ear a second later, and I listen to him rattle off our lunch to somebody named Peggy who apparently knows him well enough to ask about his mother before she even takes the order down. He hangs up and leans against the door frame. "Twenty minutes. Peggy delivers to me, so she’ll make sure it’s here almost as soon as it’s done.”

"Thanks." I stretch my hands over my head, feeling my back pop from sitting hunched over a desk for four hours straight. "You know, watching you out there all morning, you work hard. Like, actually hard, not just busy for the sake of looking busy."

He shrugs, and he’s almost shy about it, which doesn't match the man who took his shirt off in front of a woman he'd known for one day without a second thought. Like he’s shy about how well his business is doing, and how hard he works at it. "I don't know any other way to be, honestly. I grew up watching my dad work like that. He built furniture out of a shed behind our house, did it for thirty years, never took a day off unless he was sick enough he couldn't stand up. Guess it just got wired into me somewhere along the way."

"Is he still around? Your dad?"

"He passed away a few years back. Had a heart attack out in that shed, working on some cabinet he never finished." He says it like it isn’t a big deal, but I catch the way his jaw tightens for just a second before he makes a point of loosening it. "I finished it for him, and delivered it to the customer myself, told them it was the last thing he ever built. I’ve been trying to build my business up ever since, I guess, like it means he’s still with me if I keep going."

"It does mean he’s still alive if you keep going. In your heart, and in every piece you make." I don't know him well enough to say it, not really, but it comes out anyway, because it's true, and because the way he said it made my chest go tight. There was a sadness in those words, and I don’t like it. "You're keeping it alive. That's not nothing. That’s a lot of hard work, and a big emotional toll."

He looks at me for a second longer than feels comfortable, like he wasn't expecting me to say that, or maybe wasn't expecting anybody to say it in a way that landed. "Yeah," he says finally. "Guess I am."

The moment stretches a beat too long, and I look away first, back toward the desk, back toward the mess of boxes I've still got left to sort through. "I should get back to it. Want that bookshelf date confirmed before Peggy shows up with lunch."

"Yeah. Sure." He pushes off the door frame, heads back toward the table saw, and I hear the whir of it start back up a few seconds later.

I sit back down in the wobbly chair, pull the legal pad toward me, and try to focus on Marion Cole's bookshelf instead of the fact that I just learned more about this man in five minutes than I learned about my last boss in two years, and that I liked every single thing I learned.

This is a bad idea, I remind myself again.

I go back to work anyway, still looking up to enjoy the way his body moves.

five

. . .

Beau