Page 52 of His Build

Now it was Lucy’s eyebrows that went up.

“Hey,” Graydon said.

“He’s so persnickety,” Casey said. “Everything has to be just right.”

Lucy gave a little laugh.

A door slammed and Sam, Casey’s six-year-old boy, appeared around the front of her truck, lit up in the bright light from the porch.

“Uncle Gray!” Sam called, then ran towards Graydon, his face split in a grin.

Graydon got down on his knee and held his arms open for the little guy to leap into. A rush of pure, unadorned love in his chest filled him as he held Sam’s little body. This guy was everything to him.

“It’s been a while, Buddy,” Gray said as he put his nephew down.

“We brought you Shepherd’s Pie!” Sam exclaimed.

“Shepherd’s Pie!”

“Mom says you love it when she makes it,” Sam said with his little guy chirp.

“Sorry,” Casey said. “I didn’t know you already had plans. You could have texted me back, you know.”

“I—” Graydon began. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt more awkward. He could sense Lucy trying to get away, and Casey trying to backpedal from an innocent and generous gesture gone wrong.

“Are you Uncle Graydon’s friend?” Sam asked, and Graydon jerked his eyes to his nephew and over to Lucy again, who had opened her mouth and closed it again.

“I work with your uncle,” she said.

“Can he really lift a whole tree?”

Lucy’s eyes went wide and she let out a little snort. It made Graydon’s stomach flip with yearning for her. He loved it when she did that. He loved that he knew she did that.

Shit.

“Sam thinks very highly of his uncle,” Casey said to Lucy, shifting the casserole dish to her other arm.

“I don’t know where you heard that I could lift a tree, Sammy,” Graydon said, embarrassed. He reached for the dish and Casey handed it to him, looking relieved.

“You told me,” the boy said.

Lucy’s mouth twisted, and now Casey laughed too.

“I don’t remember saying—” Graydon began.

“You said when you were at our house saving Mr. Furryneck—”

“Mr. Who?” Lucy said.

“Our Alpaca,” Casey said. “One of them.”

Lucy pinched her lips together.

“—you said you pulled a tree off a road at your house one time, and that you had to do stuff like that at your job.”

Graydon vaguely recalled telling Sam a story to try to distract him from the bleating Alpaca stuck in the wire fence at their place. That had been last summer. How the hell had that kid remembered it?

He cleared his throat, looking sheepishly at Lucy. “I may have embellished a story or two to make things more interesting for my six-year-old audience.”

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