The Woodworker

by Westlake, Samantha

  “Not according to what she told me.”

  “And what was that?”

  Niall grinned, looking especially wicked. “She told me that you were just stammering out anything that came to mind, desperate to not lose her. I almost didn’t believe it. Rick Morgan, the guy who’s never flustered or serious, babbling out his declaration of love?”

  “Not at all what happened,” I declared.

  “Exactly what happened.”

  I jumped at the higher-pitched voice, hastily shoved the drawn-up plans under a nearby notebook. I turned to find Ellie smirking at us both – although the smirk couldn’t overpower the love in her eyes whenever her gaze passed to me.

  “You should have seen the poor man,” she continued, stepping over to me, reaching out to drape her arms around me. She tilted her face up, and I kissed her. “He was…” She ran a hand along my cheek tenderly. “He was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen, completely honest.”

  “Still doesn’t sound like Rick,” Niall said.

  “It was,” Ellie said, still sharing that private little smile of love with me. “It was the real man who showed me that I didn’t need to be strict and formal all the time. The man who convinced me to let my hair down, enjoy life, and who won my heart after freeing it from all the barbed wire that surrounded it.”

  I kissed her again. Damn, but how could I not, when she poured her heart out to me like that, when she told me just how strongly she reciprocated my feelings?

  “Enough, enough!” Niall finally groaned, after another couple seconds of watching us lock lips. “Let’s talk about something that doesn’t make me feel like I need a cold shower afterwards.”

  Ellie turned her smile on him. “I do have some friends who would love that Irish accent of yours,” she offered.

  Niall laughed, but held up a hand. “No thanks, I prefer to find my dates on my own. Gotta make my own mistakes. But on another topic, Ellie, how’s the new business going?”

  Ellie smiled, and I sensed that she’d been just waiting for the chance to talk all about it. “It’s going great! After the Woodworkers’ Association meeting, I got half a dozen artists interested in hiring me to handle their store presence – online shop, media, advertisement, everything. I had to quickly throw together a business plan and contracts for them – I didn’t get much sleep for the next few days until everything was set!”

  I saw her blush a little at this last sentence and I remembered how I kept on dragging her away from her computer, back to my bed (or to the sofa, or any other nearby and convenient horizontal surface). Yeah, that had been an interesting few days.

  “But now,” Ellie continued, “it’s all going smoothly. I’m even thinking of hiring my old assistant, Jack, to help out with some of the work! I’m making more than enough to afford him, I’ve got some great ideas for expansion, and he keeps on reaching out to tell me all about how awful his job is now at Integrated Technologies.”

  “Where you used to work?” Niall asked.

  She nodded. “To tell the truth, I think my boss there might have tasked him with luring me back – but Jack’s always been more loyal to me than to anyone else at the job.”

  “Jack, huh?” I asked, telling myself that it didn’t mean anything that Ellie wanted to hire a man from her past.

  She laughed, instantly reading my mind. “He’s a wonderful man, young and snappy and a brilliant dresser,” she told me. “He helped pick out the dress that I wore to the Woodworkers’ Association party.” Ah, so he couldn’t be all bad. “And if he could just find a nice husband, I’m sure he’d settle down a little.”

  Oh. Ohh. “Just don’t expect me to keep on giving up bedrooms,” I allowed.

  “Even though we’re only using one?” Ellie pressed in against me for another kiss, reminding me intimately of how it felt to wake up each morning, her slender form pressed against mine, my big arm around her warmth as she snuggled in closer. For a moment, I couldn’t speak, feeling almost overwhelmed by my love for this woman.

  I could have kept on holding on to Ellie forever, but the moment was finally interrupted by the rumbling of the little printer in the corner springing to life. I sighed, and Ellie released her arms from around me.

  “Hey, each new order is another deposit in your bank account, right?” she said, smiling as she snagged the freshly printed order and passed it over to me. “Got to look on the bright side!”

  “Thanks, hon,” I said, taking the order and looking it over. It was a fairly simple one, mostly premade stuff that I already had ready to go. I moved around the shop, starting to assemble the order.

  “I’ll leave you two boys alone,” Ellie called, stepping back. “But don’t dawdle too long – I’m cooking dinner tonight!”

  “What’s on the menu?” Niall asked.

  “I’m trying short-ribs! Fingers crossed!” A bounce of her ponytail, and she was gone, the workshop door closing behind her.

  “Fingers crossed?” Niall repeated, glancing at me. “Should I be worried about getting food poisoning?”

  “Not likely. She’s gotten a lot better at cooking, thanks to my help. I don’t even need to watch her, and she hasn’t injured herself in more than a week.”

  “And that’s a good statistic?”

  “For her? It is, yes.” I winked at Niall. “And if worse comes to worst, I’ve got a few pizzas waiting in the freezer.”

  “Here’s hoping you don’t need to bust them out!” Niall finished off his beer, tossed it easily into the garbage bin in the corner of my workshop. “You need me to get out of here so you can do some work?”

  “Nah, I’ve got most of this under control.” I reached for the piece of paper I’d hastily slipped aside earlier, withdrawing it from where I’d hid it beneath the notebook. “Although I would like your thoughts on this.”

  I passed the sheet of paper with its diagrams over to Niall. He examined it for a long time, several minutes, not saying anything.

  “There’s something that goes in this, I think?” he asked, finally.

  I nodded. “There is.” After glancing back at the workshop door, making sure it had fully closed, I pulled open one of the drawers on my cabinets. From inside, I pulled a small box, flipped it open and turned it so Niall could see the singular item inside.

  He looked at it, let out a low whistle. “Man, that’s a gorgeous ring. How much did it set you back?”

  “Plenty,” I had to admit. “Pretty much all the rent that Ellie paid me since she moved in.” I’d been originally intending on giving the money back to her, as a final slap to prove that I didn’t invite her in just for her money – but then, when I fell in love with her, I decided on a better use for all that cash.

  Niall set the ring down in its box, looked at the plans again. “I can’t imagine the final product, not like you can, but if you’re making the ring box, I’m sure it will be gorgeous.”

  I nodded, although this wasn’t my biggest concern. In the past, I might not have been able to give words to my fear without half a dozen drinks, but even I had to acknowledge how much I’d matured in the last few months, ever since meeting Ellie.

  Ever since falling in love.

  “Niall,” I asked, softly. “You don’t think that I’m making a mistake, do you?”

  He looked at me, his face shifting through surprise to scorn, to finally settle on a more thoughtful expression. “Honestly?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  He took a deep breath. “Honestly, mate, I think that you’re damn lucky that Ellie came along when she did. Just think back to your life before her. Don’t even think about Ellie – just remember how you acted, a year ago. Sleeping with college co-eds, barely scraping by, not planning for any sort of future. You claimed you were happy, so I didn’t push things, but I worried about you.”

  “I remember.” Had I really been happy back then? Or had I just deluded myself, not knowing what I might be missing?

  “And then look at yourself now,” Niall continued
. “You griped a lot about how much Ellie drove you crazy, but I think that’s just the pain of becoming a better person. I’d definitely label you as a better person, now, and I think you’d do the same.”

  I nodded. I supposed that I would, at that.

  “And you love her, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I declared without hesitation.

  “Then I think that answers your question,” Niall finished. “You love her, she loves you, and it seems like you’ve both made each other better, happier people. I’m not sure how much more you could ask for.”

  “Just one more word,” I said, looking down at the plans for the ring box. I’d labored over every aspect, carefully choosing the design, the wood, the inlays, even the types of joins that would seamlessly connect the different pieces together to form a single, solid whole. It had to be perfect.

  Somehow, despite all my worries on the surface, I knew deep down that it would be perfect. I still had sources of stress and concern in my life – but Ellie wasn’t one of them. She’d become my rock, my confidant, my support in every day that helped give me energy to forge forward and do all that I could. She was my love, my strength.

  And I couldn’t wait to marry her.

  I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with her.

  I tucked the plans away, tidied up my work so I’d remember what I’d been working on when I returned the next morning, and headed inside with Niall. True to her word, the smells emanating from the kitchen were delicious, and I just had to pop my head around the corner for Ellie to give me a reassuring smile that convinced me she had everything under control. Niall and I dropped onto the sofa in the living room, checked out the football game.

  And there, sitting in my house, with my best friend beside me drinking a beer, the woman I loved just a few steps away, I realized that I hadn’t ever felt as happy in my life as I did right then. I had to close my eyes for a moment, just take in the moment and commit it forever to memory.

  My eyes snapped open when Niall punched me in the knee. “Hey, don’t go dozing off on me!” he griped.

  I slugged him back, laughing, my heart swollen with happiness. All was right in the world.

  * * *

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Samantha Westlake has an unfortunate habit of staying up far too late, reading romance and saucy stories when she really should be sleeping and preparing for work. Samantha currently lives in San Francisco, CA. She draws her inspiration from the wonderful people of the city around her, and can often be found relaxing on the wharf, gazing out in the mornings as the fog burns off the bay.