Jodi Thomas - Sunrise Crossing

“That’ll have to do.” It crossed his mind that the lady might be a little nuts to show up at night in a stranger’s barn, but right about now in his life, a bubble off normal didn’t sound like too bad a place to be. He liked watching her work. She had skills he’d probably never develop. Plain, old, ordinary wood became art in her hands.

As the night aged, he began to feel like he was half-drunk. She’d come back. The work seemed to go more than twice as fast with her help. When he made a mistake, alone he would have sworn, but together they laughed.

It was funny, he thought as he watched her; deep inside, he felt like he’d known her all his life. He’d read once about an old Greek myth that claimed humans were once twice as tall. When the gods decided to make males and females different, they cut all the humans in half. From that day on, people walked around searching for their other half.

An easy way of just being together drifted between them. They didn’t need to ask questions or carry on small talk. Like they’d always been a part of each other’s lives. Or like they were each other’s missing half. Impossible, he thought. Men like him were loners, born to have no one care enough to last a lifetime.

She helped him carry the hearth through the darkness between the barn and the house. When he clicked on the construction lights in the old house, she squealed with pure joy.

Turning loose her side of the hearth, she circled the room. “Even in the shadows I can see the beauty of this place.” The construction lamps made spotlights on the floor of the huge open room, and she danced in and out of their beams like a ballerina on stage.

Yancy didn’t notice the beauty of the room he’d so carefully created. He was too busy watching her. “Take your time looking around. I’ll just stand here holding this hunk of wood myself,” he teased.

Her laughter filled the empty space. She ran back and helped him carry the hearth to where the bones of a fireplace waited to be dressed.

As he spread his arms wide to hold the frame in place, she moved between him and the hearth, measuring, taping everything in place. By the time she was satisfied all was level and balanced, he was no longer thinking, period. When she brushed against him, he seemed to be the only one who noticed they’d touched. She smelled so good. Like peaches and freshly washed linens. He could do nothing but stand perfectly still, holding the hearth in place and breathing in the nearness of her.

When she finally left to run back to the barn for the toolbox, he forced himself to relax and think of what they were doing, not what he would have liked to do. If he’d thought she would have welcomed an advance, he might have dropped the hearth and grabbed her. After all, he could rebuild the hearth, but he might never get another chance to hold her.

Only she might not welcome his touch. He wasn’t the kind of man who knew how to come on strong with a woman. He guessed his shy Rabbit wasn’t much more knowledgeable when it came to men and women than he was. She did love helping, though. A kind heart was rare in the world.

When she returned, she was all business, but the easy nearness, the light touches continued. He told himself she wasn’t noticing what she was doing, but he was memorizing every brush her body made against his, every time her hand touched his shoulder, and loving the way she leaned near. If she was launching a gentle attack, maybe he should tell her that he’d gladly surrender.

An hour later, they both stood back and admired their work. The hearth was beautiful. A work of art, thanks to her cuts and finishing.

“Not bad,” Yancy said. “We could roast marshmallows in a fire there.”

She nodded. “If we had the wood for a fire, a few matches, some chairs to sit in and some marshmallows.”

“Just details,” he admitted, looking around. “I’m almost finished with the downstairs and I have no idea about furniture.”

“You could make it.”

He liked that idea. “I wouldn’t need much. I got the bar to eat on. All I’d need is a stool and maybe a rocker by the fire.”

She moved to the bar and leaned against it. “What about your guests? Where would rabbits sit?”

Without thinking, he circled her waist and lifted her up. “You could sit on the bar.”

A moment later he realized what he’d done. He might have let her touch him, but this time he’d touched her. No, he’d handled her. Like she was a kid or a close friend. He didn’t even know her name. He had no right. He didn’t know much but one rule had always been clear. A woman could touch a man, but a man never handled a woman without an indication of the woman’s consent.

Yancy stepped back and straightened. His eyes staring down at the floor like he’d done in prison when he was little more than a kid lost in a world of rules and punishment. He’d spent every day since he’d been out trying to act normal, trying to do what was right, but deep down he knew part of him would always be an ex-con.

The silence of the empty room seemed to throb with each heartbeat.

They’d had a great night working together, talking, laughing. But a woman who wouldn’t tell him her name wasn’t likely to welcome his hands on her. When he’d caught her as she fell from the loft, he’d felt her stiffen even as he lowered her to her feet. She’d been polite. She’d thanked him for saving her, but she’d moved away.

“Yancy?” Her voice echoed in the empty room.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he forced himself to look up. “I didn’t mean to...”

Her gray-blue eyes were smiling. “It’s okay, Yancy. You didn’t hurt me.” She crossed her legs and put her elbows on her knees. “The bar may be a little high but the view is great up here. I can almost see your handmade furniture. Rockers by the fire. A writing table by the window. Bookshelves climbing along the wall to match the stair steps over there. If you build me a stool, make it a few inches higher than yours so we’ll look directly at each other. I get tired of always looking up at people.”

He leaned his head to the side, studying her as if she were an animal he’d never encountered. “You’re not mad at me?”

“Why?” She watched him.

“I put my hands on you, Rabbit.”

“You did that when you caught me. If you hadn’t I’d have probably broken a few bones.” When he just kept staring, she added, “I’ve made up my mind that you are a good man, Yancy Grey. I’ve not always been a good judge of men, but I’m learning. I am not afraid of you. I believe you won’t hurt me.”

“I wouldn’t,” he managed to say, knowing she had no idea what a gift she was giving him with her trust. “But most folks don’t warm up to me very fast after they find out I’ve been in prison. I’ve done hard time, Rabbit, and they say that changes a man forever.”

She looked more interested than afraid. “Want to talk about it?”

He’d been asked before and always said no, but somehow this time he thought it might be all right. He jumped up to sit on the bar a foot away from her and began.

He told her of how he’d been caught stealing when he was nineteen and had turned twenty in prison.

She listened as he remembered details he’d spent years trying to forget. He had to be honest with her. She trusted him.

“The smells in the whole place made me half-sick most of the time. I’d go out in the yard, even on the coldest days, just to be able to breathe. Once, it was snowing and I was the only one to step outside. I just stood, looking up at the snow, and listened to the rare sound of silence while I breathed in the smell of nothing but winter.”

She covered his hand with hers without saying a word.

“I used to lie awake in my tiny cell listening to the sounds around me, wishing I were somewhere, anywhere else. Sometimes I’d dream of getting out and just living a normal life, but prison is still there in the back of my mind. No matter how hard I breathe out, there’s still a little bit of the smell left in my lungs.”