Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“There are a lot of reasons. Dexter. Hollie. You’re young. A great nanny. All that, and my last relationship didn’t go so well. I don’t want to hurt you, Autumn. And I don’t want . . . Bethany’s life disrupted.”
Gabriel usually said so little, but right now he seemed to be sharing almost everything on his mind. I didn’t want to push things too hard. I wasn’t angling for a ring. Honesty and openness were all I wanted.
“I’ll tell you what it will take me to concede at Monopoly,” I said, wanting something from him that was beyond words. “Show me your workshop.” I’d been wanting to get behind that door since the moment I moved in. And now I’d seen him naked, it seemed suddenly unfair that he was keeping it from me.
“Now?” he asked.
I shrugged. Seemed as good a time as any. He looked deliciously rumpled, softer somehow in the afterglow of the best sex I’d ever had.
He shoved a hand deep into his jean pocket and pulled out a key.
“Okay,” he said, like it was no big deal.
I wasn’t sure if my heart was racing like a greyhound out of the gate because I would finally get to see where Gabriel disappeared to every night, or because he took my hand, kissed me on my knuckles, and then slid his fingers between mine. “Don’t touch anything, mind.”
The click of the lock sounded, and he bent to kiss me before he turned the doorknob and pushed open the door.
I didn’t know where to look first. “It’s a . . . workshop.” A huge wooden island sat in the middle of the room, aged with layers of bumps and scratches. Clamps were attached around one edge and a couple of machines were set on the other side. Beneath my feet were bare floorboards littered with wooden boxes full of . . . implements. The walls on two sides were covered in green racks of chisels, hammers, and lots of other tools I had no name for, sitting over built-in wooden cabinets. Along another wall was open shelving, stuffed full of books and cans of paints and tubs and jars. It was like I’d walked into a small factory. How was all this hidden behind that door?
“I told you it was a workshop.”
“I know you did,” I replied, stepping inside. “But I didn’t expect it to be this kind of workshop.” Gabriel Chase, the serious, soulful lawyer, was a secret carpenter on the side. Who would have guessed?
He glanced down at his feet. “I’ve never shown anyone.”
I snapped my head toward him but didn’t say anything, feeling sad for him that for whatever reason, he hadn’t had anyone to share this with. I was honored to be the first.
“So, you use all this stuff?” I asked, trailing my free hand over a smaller side bench that was up against the near wall. I liked the idea of him in those worn jeans, flexing his delicious muscles as he sanded, painted, and chiseled. It was so earthy. So freaking sexy. And I thought he was sexier than any man I’d ever met before I’d known what was behind his secret door.
“Yeah. I’m surprised you’ve never heard me.”
Now that I thought about it, I had heard banging from time to time, but I’d assumed it must be the neighbors. I wasn’t exactly used to living in silence at the Sunshine Trailer Park, so I’d just accepted it.
“What kind of thing do you do in here?”
He dropped my hand and moved to the far side of the room. “This is my latest project,” he said, pulling off the plastic cover from a huge bookcase, taller than even Gabriel. “I haven’t really started yet but it’s a Globe-Wernicke,” he explained, and his chest lifted with a hint of pride as he spoke.
“It’s nice,” I said, unsure what to make of the reddish-brown, hulking piece of furniture.
“It’s not really. Not yet. And I overpaid for it.” He sighed. “I’d wanted to do one for ages.”
I grinned up at him. “And when you say you want to do one, what exactly does that entail?”
“Well,” he said, bending and running his fingers down the edge of it. “See here? The beading has been knocked. It’s splintering all down this side. And this . . .” He pinched the brass knob on the front of one of the shelves. “This is my favorite part.”
Each of the six shelves had a glass front and he lifted up the door on one and pushed it back on itself so it stayed up. “Isn’t it great?” he said, turning to me, a grin across his face. “These little up and over doors . . . It’s perfect. Or it will be. Two of the shelves are broken.”
“So you’re going to fix it?”