It was a tease. Obviously a tease. But it was still high praise coming from him.
Their gazes met. The laughter was still warm between them, and for a moment—just a moment—the humor softened into something quieter. Something that invited them to consider closing the distance between them.
He looked away first. Cleared his throat. “We need to catch the cat again.”
“Well, yes. You scared him,” she replied.
“I scared him? You’re the one who laughed like a hyena.”
“Because you said a hundred dollars was expensive for a purse.”
“I stand by it. No bag is worth thirty grand.”
“Spoken like a man who carries his wallet in his back pocket.”
“Where else would I carry it?”
“In a messenger bag, or maybe a cross body satchel. I can find you something starter level, say, in the five-thousand-dollar range?—”
“You will not.”
“Consider it an investment in your fashion education.”
He stomped up the steep stairs to the hayloft to retrieve Chairman Meow, muttering all the way about the decline of civilization. The cat must have sensed his foul mood, because he meekly allowed himself to be picked up and hauled back downstairs.
Tessa held the cat like a handbag and the technique actually worked—not that she would ever admit to Dillon—and he drew blood from its ear vein with efficient speed.
“Glucose is perfect, which means you’ve got the dose exactly right.” He said as he packed his kit. “You’re a quick study.”
It was such a small thing. Four words, delivered without fanfare.
She wasn’t prepared for how much it meant to her. “Why, thank you,” she replied warmly.
He tipped his hat and headed for his truck. “I’ll see you next Thursday. And don’t you dare buy me a man purse.”
“No promises,” she called after him.
That afternoon, Tessa stood reluctantly in front of Mick's woodworking shop.
She hadn't been in here since Mick’s death. It had never occurred to her in all that time to ask Fern what she'd done with Mick's tools. He'd had an elaborate setup with lathes, table saws, drill presses, and every hand tool known to man.
She'd walked past the padlocked door a dozen times since she and Makayla moved int and had averted her eyes every single time. Her grief counselor after the fire had warned her that losing a spouse was a wound that never healed, and she shouldn't expect that pain ever to go away. It hadn't. But it had taken a back seat to the daily routine as life inexorably went on.
It was time to face this final demon. She couldn’t find any other spot perfect for the last wedding gown’s photo shoot, and at the end of the day, it was just a wood shop. She could do this.
She took a deep breath and turned the key.
Mick had installed a pair of skylights in the roof that poured in plentiful natural light. While he’d worked in one sunbeam, painstakingly carving a piece of wood, she'd loved to sit in the other sunbeam in his goofy beanbag chair and read until she got sleepy. Then she'd do her best cat imitation, curling up in the beanbag for a nap.
It was those twin sunbeams that finally convinced her to face this place. The final dress in Charlotte's collection was the twin of the stunning white silk gown Tessa had photographed at Jenna’s ranch. The first dress had been completely unadorned, with a striking off-the-shoulder mermaid profile with a sweeping train. The last dress was the exact same gown but made entirely of lace. Tessa had no idea how many hours Charlotte had spent hand beading it, but the entirety of the gown was encrusted with thousands of faceted crystals. It would sparkle like a diamond in direct sunlight. The shop was paneled with reclaimed wood from a traditional red barn, a mix of bare wood and faded streaks of red. Its rustic texture would be the perfect counterpoint to the extreme refinement of the magnificent gown.
The shop’s smell hit her first. Sawdust, linseed oil, and mixed aromas of cedar resin, oak tannin, musky walnut, and of course, the Christmas tree scent of pine. One entire wall was taken up by long shelves of boards, carefully sorted and stacked. The air was cold and still, as if time itself had stopped the last time Mick closed the door behind him and left this place.
Fern had told her Mick was out here the day of the Shoemacher fire working on a secret anniversary present of some kind for Tessa when the call had gone out to Cobbler Cove's volunteer fire fighters.
The sunlight was as magnificent as she remembered, creating a glorious column of light in front of the old barn wood wall. It was perfect. Charlotte's dress would glow like it was lit from within.
Her attention strayed back to the shop. Mick's tools hung on the pegboard wall exactly where he'd left them, each one outlined in black marker on the board so he'd know where everything went. Chisels, planes, hand saws, clamps of every size were coated in a thick layer of dust but were still organized with precision on the wall. Mick had respected his tools and treated them like old friends.