Page 67 of Denim & Diamonds

Though there is nousanymore, is there?

You haven’t even spoken to the man in five days.

And he moved on pretty quickly after things ended with his ex, didn’t he?

My palms started to sweat. This was ridiculous.Iwas being ridiculous. Yet when I raised my hand to knock again, I still couldn’t do it. Fear crippled me.

Though when I heard a deep voice behind me, I certainly jumped high enough.

“Just gonna stand there all day?”

Brock.

I covered my racing heart and turned around. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry.”

“I went to the bar to look for you, but they said you took tonight off.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I was working on a cabin.”

“At midnight?”

“I have a personal project I work on whenever I have time. A log home I’m building for myself.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

Brock nodded. We fell quiet as we stared at each other, but the ever-present sexual tension was still there. It crackled in the air all around us.

“You want to see it?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’d love that.”

Back downstairs, Brock opened the passenger door of his truck. Once I climbed in, he took off his flannel and wrapped it around me before going to the driver’s side. “You should really wear a jacket.”

Unfortunately, that was pretty much the extent of our conversation for the fifteen-minute drive. I had no idea what to say, and it seemed Brock didn’t either. The silence was awkward. The roads were dark, and Brock stared straight ahead.

When we turned off the highway and headed down a dirt road toward a wooded area, I attempted to break the ice. “You’re not taking me out into the woods to kill me, are you? I don’t want to die wearing a blue flannel over a red dress.”

Brock shook his head and parked. “Wait here. I have to turn on the generator.”

A minute later, the entire area was illuminated by floodlights. The view took my breath away.Wow. Just wow.Nestled deep in the woods, a wide, welcomingporch stretched across the front of a big log cabin. I could easily envision rocking chairs and some hanging ferns, and maybe a rustic lantern over the tall front door.

Brock opened the passenger door and held out a hand. Somewhere nearby, a brook babbled.

“This is incredible. You built this yourself?”

He nodded. “Every last bit of it. Cut down every log and handmade every cabinet in the half-done kitchen. I’ll probably be ninety by the time it’s finished, but I wanted to do it all myself.”

“I can totally picture Oak pulling a fish out of that brook I hear running.”

“He better. Or I’m not putting in a bathtub for his lazy ass.”

I smiled, though being here was a painful reminder of how different Brock and I were. The man built log cabins in the woods out of trees he cut down with his bare hands, and I’d never even been camping. “It’s really beautiful, Brock.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I see inside?”

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