Page 4 of The Contractor's Rose
That made her go still. Her eyes lifted to mine, wide and dark and filled with something I wasn’t sure she understood yet.
I shouldn’t have said that. I knew better. She was young.Sweet. Fragile, even if she’d never admit it. And I was—hell, I was fifty-two. A widower. A father. And her dad’s best damn friend.
But something about her pulled at parts of me I thought had long since gone quiet. Parts that had died with Vanessa. Parts I hadn’t let anyone near in years. Something about Rose made those parts stir again—and that scared the hell out of me.
“You’ve always called me Rosie,” she said, fiddling with the edge of the blanket. Her lips parted slightly, and a flush crawled up her throat. She looked innocent in that moment, vulnerable and raw. “Tell me again why you called me Rose earlier.”
I shrugged. “That was before I saw you fall apart and still try to hold it all together. That was before I realized you’re not a girl anymore.” I looked at her, and for a second, I let it all show. The ache. The wanting. The guilt I carried like a second skin. “Rosie is soft and sweet and doesn’t scare anyone. But Rose …” I leaned forward slightly, my voice low. “Rose has thorns. Rose can bleed and still bloom.”
She sucked in a breath, and for a moment, time hung suspended between us. Like the air was weighted. Like if I moved, something irreversible would happen.
I wanted to kiss her. God help me, Ialmostdid.
Instead, I stood up. Too fast. My hands ran through my hair, desperate for something to hold onto that wasn’ther.
“I should go,” I said, throat tight. “You should rest. I’ll come back tomorrow and check the damage downstairs. Bring some fans and dehumidifiers.”
She nodded slowly, watching me like she could feel everything I wasn’t saying. But it was her voice—soft and tentative—that stopped me at the door.
“Gavin?”
I turned, heart thudding.
“Thank you. For … being here with me.”
I nodded, unable to trust myself to say anything without it coming out wrong. Without it coming out honest.
Because what I wanted to say was this:
You have no idea what you’re doing to me, Rose. And I don’t know how much longer I can pretend my feelings for you haven’t changed.
THREE
ROSEMARIE
I woke to silence.
Not the peaceful kind, either. Theaftermathkind. The kind that settles over a room like a damp sheet, thick and still, where everything feels just slightly wrong and off-kilter. It was the silence that follows chaos—when you’re too scared to move because something might break further.
The morning light was dull through the curtains, gray with overcast. The air smelled faintly of wet wood and scorched wiring. Below me, my bookstore sat in quiet ruin, its shelves soaked, its heart gutted. I hadn’t gone down yet. I couldn’t.
But that’s not what kept me curled under the covers, my heart stuttering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
It was Gavin.
More specifically, the way he’d looked at me last night.
No one had ever looked at me like that. Like I was something … fragile, but burning. Like I was something a man like him hadno businesswanting—but did anyway.
The memory of it made my breath catch. My face heatedand I rolled onto my side, gripping the pillow like it might anchor me.
And then there was thatname.
Rose.
He’d said it like a secret. Like he’d seen something in me no one else ever had and wanted to claim it for himself. Like he liked the thorns, not just the petals.
I didn’t know what to do with that. Didn’t know what to do withhim.
