She wouldn’t spoil her neighbor’s surprise. “Asked me to handle a project for her. I have plenty of room.”
“Might make interesting reading. I like looking into the history of old houses. When you’re finished, I’d like to take a look, see what I can find.”
“I won’t be done anytime soon.” She cocked her head at him. “Are you planning on staying in town that long?”
“Only long enough to…repair your house. Then I’ll move on.”
Exactly as she’d thought. She wouldn’t get involved with Jacob Smith or the problems she felt lurking beneath his polite, standoffish exterior. Why, he could walk out of her life as quickly as he’d walked in and never finish the job. She straightened her spine. Another reason to steel herself against this strange attraction she had for him.
“You might want to lock the screen so you and Elise don’t use that door and fall through the floor joists.”
Nodding, Callie closed the screen, hooked it, closed and locked the wooden door, and then found a red ribbon and tied it around the knob. Satisfied that Elise wouldn’t miss the warning to avoid the porch, she left for her walk by the back door.
A warning she’d take to heart. The truth was Jacob Smith could hurt her. Not physically. She’d never think that. But hurt her nevertheless. She’d lock her heart against this drifter. And focus on making a family with her baby, with Elise and her child and focus on her dream. She’d have a full life.
The excitement bubbling within her like an effervescent underground spring sputtered and died. In truth, she’d been lonely for years—most of her life. Marriage to Martin hadn’t filled that aching void.
Hadn’t she learned anything? Attraction meant nothing.
Jacob Smith was the last man on earth she wanted in her life.
In a matter of hours, Jake had torn the planks off the porch. He’d found ample lumber in the barn to replace them, the boards covered with a layer of dust and mice droppings, evidence that the intent to make repairs exceeded Martin Mitchell’s follow-through.
As Jake pounded in another nail, he cringed at his rush to judgment. If he’d been married when he’d ended up in jail, he’d have no doubt left some things undone. Not everyone was suited for restoration. The poor guy lost his life trying.
Still, Martin’s widow lived in a house all but unfit for human habitation. Jake couldn’t let a woman endure such conditions. Not that he blamed the house. Time and effort would bring this place back to its former grandeur. Though enough work was here to tether a man indefinitely, a sentence without parole.
Yet to walk away, when he’d witnessed Mrs. Mitchell’s relief and joy at the house’s revival would be cruel. In the time he remained, if possible, he’d see the task to completion.
His heart lurched. Was the pull more the woman than the work? Either way, he doubted he’d get the job done. Someone was sure to discover his jailbird past.
The aroma of something sugary drifted on the air. Jake pulled the tantalizing scent of home into his lungs then released it in a gust.
Who was he fooling? This wasn’t home—at least not his.
He grabbed the length of lumber he’d cut. Grasping another large nail between thumb and forefinger, he pounded it into the pungent pine, the perfume of Jake’s life. Far better than the stench of prison, but nothing like the aromas floating out of Mrs. Mitchell’s kitchen.
A shadow fell across the porch floor.
He turned to face a man and woman standing on the flagstone walkway. Offering a tentative smile, a round-faced, sturdy woman wore a feather-adorned hat atop her salt-and-pepper hair.
The burly man’s brow furrowed beneath the brim of his hat. “Who are you?”
Jake laid the hammer down and rose. “Jake Smith,” he said offering a hand.
The visitor didn’t take it. “The name means nothing to me.”
“Doubt it would. I’m new in town.”
“What are you doing to our daughter-in-law’s porch?”
So these people were Callie Mitchell’s in-laws.
The screen door opened and Mrs. Mitchell stepped out on the solid boards he’d laid, looking fresh as a summer morning after a rain. She glanced at Jake, then at her in-laws. Her bright smile slipped. “I see you’ve met Mr. Smith, the carpenter who’s fixing up the place. I’m sure you’re pleased to see I’m taking action to ensure our safety.”
Square jaw set in a stubborn line, Mitchell folded beefy arms across his chest. “The best thing you could do is torch this place.”
Callie sighed, obviously not the first time she’d heard such nonsense. Father-in-law or not, Mitchell had no right to badger his dead son’s wife, a gentle woman with a heavy load.
He turned his gaze on her, ready to toss the idiot off the property if she showed the slightest inclination, but she continued to wear that calm expression of hers. How did she keep her patience, when Jake would like nothing better than to punch the guy?
“We aren’t here to argue, Commodore.” Dorothy Mitchell laid a hand on her husband’s sleeve. “Tell Callie why we’ve come.”
Mitchell shifted on his feet. “I, ah, we brought the fabric and some of those baby things you were looking at before we, ah, got off on the wrong foot.”
“Thank you.” Smiling, Callie Mitchell motioned to the house. “Would you care for tea? I just took an angel food cake out of the oven.”
Ignoring his daughter-in-law’s peace offering, Mitchell swept a hand toward Jake. “Can’t see how you can afford a handyman.”
“Mr. Smith agreed to do the work for a roof over his head and meals.”
He turned narrowed eyes on Jake. “Why? When you could get a good-paying job at the grain elevator or lumberyard?”
“I don’t plan on staying long.”
“That so? Then why did you come?”
Jake kept his expression blank, a skill that had held him in good stead in prison. “Peaceful sounded like a nice town.”
“Peaceful is the way we aim to keep it. Most folks around here distrust drifters.”
“I appreciate your concern, Commodore, but I’ve already arranged for Mr. Smith to do the work.” Callie Mitchell tapped the toe of her serviceable shoe on the newly laid porch floor. “His work speaks for him.”
“Let’s have that tea,” Callie’s mother-in-law said. “Please.”
Ignoring his wife, Mitchell frowned. “You’re hardly a good judge of character, Callie. The last man you hired ransacked the place and took every cent in the house.”
Jake took a step forward. “Where I come from, a man
