front and two side walls were up, and as she watched, some unseen force shifted the back wall into place and fired a nail gun a few times before the air fell silent again.
Even the McLarens’ dog shut up for a couple of seconds.
“Uh, hello?” She took a few tentative steps closer, but only a few. If the crazy shed builder turned out to be an ax murderer, she wanted as much distance between them as possible.
“You told me you’d lock your bike up.”
No. Oh no. No no no no no. If this was some kind of joke, it wasn’t funny. If it turned out that that voice belonged to someone else…
Bare-chested, with his jeans covered in sawdust and his T-shirt dangling out of his back pocket, Brett stepped out from behind the shed with a pair of clear plastic goggles covering his eyes.
“Last time I came back here, I almost broke my neck on the damn thing, so from now on, keep it in here.”
If she opened her mouth right then she was only going to blubber, so she sucked both her lips back behind her teeth and just stood there blinking at what surely couldn’t be real. And yet…
She took a couple of steps toward him, slowly, carefully, in case any sudden movement would burst the image. “Nice goggles.”
And just like that he smiled—big, bright, and beautiful—as he dragged them up and over his head. “Well, you know how it is. Safety first.”
Another step closer. “Looks like you’ve been here awhile. You missed a fun game.”
“Yeah. Jayne tried to talk me into going.”
“Jayne?” Understanding all but clubbed her over the head. “Oh…you’re the guy….”
“I’m the guy.” His shrug was slow, unsure, as he twisted the goggles in his hand. “She had this big flashy plan, you know, where I’d show up at the game and surprise you, but that’s not us.”
Us. Such a beautiful word.
“So you decided to build a shed instead?”
Finally he started toward her. “Well, you know how it is: I was feeling kind of useless and I didn’t have anyone to yell at, so I had one of the guys at work bring all this shit over for me.”
“Work?”
“Yeah. With me gone, they were even more shorthanded here, and not so much back there, so because it was just a lateral transfer between detachments…turns out it wasn’t such a big deal to undo it.”
“So you’re back?”
He half-shrugged, half-nodded, as though he wasn’t quite sure he’d be ready for her response if he came right out and said yes.
“That’s nice.” She nodded slowly. “And you’re here, in my yard, building me a shed because…?”
Slowly his smile began to grow again.
“Well, obviously because you need one.”
“Obviously. But do you really think you can just waltz back into my life after two months and we’ll just pick up where we left off?”
“It’s been seven weeks plus a day, and yeah, that was kind of the plan.”
“I see. Well, tell me this, then.” She tipped her face up to his. “Is the shed as far as you got with this grand plan or were you thinking about maybe kissing me at some point?”
Goggles tossed, he closed the distance in two long strides, tugged the bat from her grip, and gathered her up in his arms.
“Kissing you is all I ever think about,” he murmured, breathing the first feathery kiss against the corner of her mouth.
Ellie wrapped her arms around him and hung on tight, then tighter still when he pressed his lips against her neck and sighed.
That sound, a simple, quiet exhale that said so much, settled inside her, filling the void and making everything else she’d thought she needed meaningless. This was all she needed, and from the way he was holding her, with a strength that went deeper than his arms, it was what he needed, too.
“You stopped calling,” she whispered. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“Nah. I was just trying to wean myself off you, to give you some room in case you wanted to, you know, let Jayne set you up with some other guy.”
Ellie took his face in her hands so she could look right into his eyes, through the storm clouding them.
“That wasn’t going to happen. Lightning doesn’t strike twice, Ponch, and you were my lightning.”
His brow furrowed. “I have no idea what that means, but the more I thought about you with anyone else…Jeezus…All I wanted to do was crawl through the phone line and strangle Jayne for even suggesting it.”
“Yeah, I’m starting