My face grows warm, and my heart beats faster. I whisper, “Theo?”
Coop’s eyes are so blue. As blue as the sky above. He nods, grinning now. “The one and only. Sent word that we were to start work on the Buttercup as soon as I could get everyone together. So, I got us together. Here we are. We’re gonna start on the master bedroom first. Theo said make sure that gets done before anything else.”
The men look at me. My cheeks go from warm to burning.
Coop says, “You ready for us?”
I swallow, quickly nodding. “Yes. Please, come in.” I swing the door open, and the men file inside.
Coop is last to walk over the threshold. He stops and gazes down at me. He keeps his voice low so only I can hear his words. “I take it you and Theo hashed out your problems.”
My laugh is a little shaky. “I guess that’s one way to put it. Is he…is he coming?”
Coop slowly shakes his head. “But he seems better. What I could tell anyway, from his emails. I’m sure I have you to thank for that.”
“Well, you know what they say, Coop. The thing that breaks you is the only thing that can put you back together.”
“Yeah, I think Einstein said that, right?”
I rise up on my toes and kiss him on the cheek, making him blush. “Yes. It was Einstein, for sure.”
Coop chuckles, giving my arm a friendly squeeze. “You talk to Suzanne since you ran outta church like you were bein’ chased by the Holy Ghost?”
“No.” I think for a moment. “That must’ve been an interesting spectacle I made.”
“Hate to tell you, Megan, but it was all anyone could talk about after. New girl in town starts laughin’ like a hyena at the start of the sermon, then bolts for the doors at a hundred miles per hour—the general consensus is that you’re either on drugs or an atheist. Drugs bein’ the better option, by the way. Folks around here are pretty nonjudgmental, but nobody likes an atheist. You can’t trust a person who doesn’t believe in God.”
I smile at that. “I can honestly tell you, Coop, that I’m not an atheist this morning.”
“So it’s drugs, then,” he teases. “Guess I should make you pay up front for the job in case you’re incarcerated for possession. That way we can still work on the place while you’re dryin’ out in the poke.”
I laugh, pressing a hand to my forehead because it feels like my brain is cracking underneath my skull.
Coop shakes his head and sighs. “Okay, dopehead, outta my way. I gotta get to work.” He tweaks my nose and ambles past, his boots thumping hollowly against the wood floor.
* * *
That night, I wait, but Theo doesn’t come. He doesn’t come the next either, or the next. By Friday, I’m climbing the walls in frustration, my need to see him gnawing my guts like an infestation of termites.
So much for paddling upstream.
Meanwhile, the men of Hillrise Construction are hard at work turning my vision of the Buttercup Inn into reality.
One team works on the master bedroom—starting by ripping out the bathroom sink, bathtub, and shower—while another team goes to work on the roof. A construction Dumpster rental company delivers two huge trash bins on flatbed trucks and parks them along the curb. Every day, more workmen and equipment show up until the place is crawling with both. Coop keeps me abreast of all the plans and the progress, but I pay attention to his briefings with only half my mind.
The other half is in Theotown, searching desperately for its namesake.
A dozen times, I sit down at the computer to compose an email to him, but I always end up deleting it. I pick up the phone to call him but quickly hang up, my skin going clammy with a cold sweat. A voice inside my head keeps screaming hysterical warnings about looking a gift horse in the mouth.
I made a pact when I said in my email that we wouldn’t talk about each other’s crazy. I have to keep my word, even if it makes me grow even crazier.
Finally, on Friday night, he returns.
In the darkest heart of the evening, I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling when I hear footsteps downstairs. My pulse soaring, I jerk upright and stare at my closed bedroom door. For several long minutes, I listen to him rove around in the dark, going from one room to the next, pausing briefly before moving on.
I know it’s him, and I know what he’s doing. He’s checking on the work that’s been completed in his absence.
When heavy boots begin to ascend the stairs, my heart pounds so hard, it’s painful.
Outside the door, the footsteps pause. Electricity sizzles over my skin. Then my bedroom door handle turns.
It takes a lifetime for the door to crack open. When it slips a few inches wider, Theo silently eases into the room. We stare at each other through the shadows for a long, breathless moment, and everything I am or ever thought I was dissolves when I see the look of ardor in his eyes.