Currant Creek Valley - By RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,82
all,” Alex murmured, even though she was trying hard not to remember just how good Sam Delgado could be with those big, strong hands of his.
“Remember...what I said the other day. If you like the man, and his hands, you need...to let him know. A smart girl...would snap up a handsome widower like that in...two shakes.”
She was not a smart girl. Hadn’t she proved that again and again? “I will definitely keep that advice in mind.”
“I mean it. Don’t waste chances. Life is...gone in a moment.”
She blinked back tears, refusing to show them to her friend. Caroline was dying and she couldn’t fix this with chicken broth and fresh-baked cookies.
“I do...need to rest. Please tell everyone...thank you again for me.”
She kissed Caroline’s sunken cheek. “I will. Sweet dreams, darling.”
She left the room and pressed a hand to her stomach for only a moment before she drew in a deep breath, squared her shoulders and walked outside into the sunshine.
* * *
“YOU CAN DO IT. I’ll hold the board in place and you just nail where I showed you.”
“What if I mess up?” Ethan asked, a glimmer of uncertainty in those clear, blue eyes.
“That’s the great thing about nails. We can always pull them out and start over,” Sam answered.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to ruin it.”
“You won’t. Look. Just hold the nail in one hand and the hammer in the other. That’s the way.”
“I did it!” his son exclaimed a few moments later when the support on the sagging arbor was firmly in place.
“Yes, you did. Now every time we come past this house, you can look at the arbor and the porch steps and remember how we fixed them.”
Ethan glowed with satisfaction. He was very proud of himself when he accomplished something he had once deemed hard. Sam envied that in his son, his ability to celebrate his successes instead of looking for the next mountain to climb.
He loved spending time with Ethan while they worked together on various projects around this small, trim house. Being in this close proximity to Alexandra, on the other hand, was another story. All morning, he had been aware of her working in the garden, her hair in braids and a big straw hat shielding her lovely features.
Though he tried not to stare, his attention had been drawn back to her again and again. He liked looking at her, but this was bigger than simply finding a woman beautiful. He loved the way she smiled at her friend and went up frequently to check on her, the way she teased Ethan at every opportunity, the way she brushed her hair back with her forearm to keep from smudging dirt on her face.
He had almost run the nail gun through his finger when they had been working on the porch, simply because she had stood and stretched, her hands at the base of her spine.
She had been inside with her friend for the past twenty minutes. He hoped everything was okay. Caroline didn’t look good. Before she sent him over here, Claire had told him the woman was dying from cancer.
After seeing Caroline, he recognized the signs from Kelli’s last days. She had the same pale cheeks, the same hollow eyes, and Sam knew she wouldn’t be enjoying this arbor he was fixing or the garden Alexandra so diligently cleared for much longer.
Alexandra would hurt when the other woman died. He wished he could protect her from the pain, absorb it onto his own shoulders somehow.
That’s what a man did when he loved a woman. Comfort her. Ease her sorrows.
He frowned. What good did it do him to be in love with her when she pushed him away at every turn?
“Can we have one of these arbors in our garden?” Ethan asked.
Right now they didn’t have much of a garden, just a weed patch that had been neglected for years, along with the rest of the house. “Sure. Maybe not this summer but someday. We’re going to be pretty busy with that awesome tree house.”
Once that would have filled him with satisfaction, the idea that he could make plans to build something in the future. He would have loved nothing more than knowing he could plant a tree in his yard tomorrow and be around to enjoy it for years to come.
Now he didn’t know what was happening to him. He was beginning to second-guess everything. He was very much afraid he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the house he had planned for,