“What?”
“I saw that the only things you rescued in that flood were your art supplies. And I know that you are the one that left the little painting on my desk for Lilly.”
“Yes, but Lilly loves dance, not art,” she says.
“Well currently, as you know, her ability to dance is stunted. She’s frustrated and looking for a creative outlet while she waits for her ankle to heal. I donothave the creative talents that she and her mother, oryou, seem to have. It’s just not a hole that I can fill for her. I think that it might be good for Lilly to have another creative way of expressing herself until she is able to dance again.”
I almost can’t believe that I am suggesting this. My whole intention was tonothave Lilly get close to Seraphine, and now here I am suggesting that she give my daughter art lessons. It just seems to make sense in the moment. It will make Lilly happy, and it will allow me to help Seraphine without her stubborn refusal of “charity”.
“Okay,” she says with a wide smile. “I’d really like that, thank you.”
Without warning, she reaches out and hugs me. It’s the closest in physical proximity that we’ve ever been, and there is an instant physical chemistry as soon as our bodies touch. I try to shove my arousal down, and Seraphine jerks away after a couple of seconds as if she too realizes that she had done it without thinking.
“Sorry,” she stammers as she looks uneasily at me with flushed cheeks. “I just—”
She stops herself midsentence and turns to walk away, clearly unable to come up with a good reason as to why she just did that. And to be quite honest, I’m unable to come up with a reason why I didn’t want her to pull away so quickly.
This whole thing is all wrong.
I’m a single, widowed dad, and she is my employee. It’s a recipe for disaster no matter how you look at it. At least the deal is made, and things are settled. Seraphine will continue to stay at my house until the renovations and repairs are completed on her cottage. She will give Lilly art lessons and in exchange, I will give her the money and labor that she needs in order to get her cottage fixed up. I have no idea how long this is going to take, and I am still reluctant to think that it’s a good idea. But I can’t seem to turn my back on her and still be able to look at myself in the mirror.
***
For a while, things seem to be status quo at work, which is good because I am able to help Seraphine begin the repairs on her house. We make quite a team actually, making quick work of tearing out all the rotten, water-logged wood that will be prone to growing mold. I front the bill to bring in a contractor to look at the roof, while Seraphine and I knock out as much as we can on our own. It is mostcertainlyhard work. And I can’t even remember the last time that I have done so much manual labor instead of paying people to do it for me. But Lilly wasn’t completely wrong—itdoesfeel good to actually help with my hands instead of just my money.
Seraphine does every bit as much of the hard work as I do. I watch as she busts her butt knocking out one repair after another. She’s impressively self-sufficient and driven, and I can easily see how she was able to convert her van and live on the road on her own before coming here.
The more that I watch her work, the more impressed and in awe of her I become. And the more the two of us work side by side, the more my feelings for her grow.
At first, I wasn’t sure what kind of feelings they were—lust, empathy, the desire for companionship that I had pushed away for so long. But now I am starting to see that it is none of those things. It’s more than a simple attraction. I am actually really starting to care about Seraphine. Coupled with that, as my feelings about her intensify, so does my longing for her. Iwanther. And that feeling intensifies every day too.
As if all of that wasn’t enough to send me spiraling out of control, I also really like how well she and Lilly have formed a fast friendship. It all seems so natural for the two of them to get along. They seem alike in many ways, and they both have the biggest hearts. On the one hand, I still don’t want Lilly to get hurt or disappointed, but on the other hand, I can’t ignore how happy Lilly is when Seraphine is around. She sometimes almost forgets to be depressed about her still-healing ankle.
Still—none of that is reason enough to get romantically involved with Seraphine. There is way too much to lose if I were to try and things wound up not working out. I rely on her now as my assistant at work, and Lilly would be broken-hearted,andit’s not like Seraphine currently has anywhere else habitable to live. If things were to spiral downward between us, it would be even more awkward having her living in my house than it already is.
But even though Iknowbetter than to give in to my emotions, it is getting harder and harder not to.
“Can you hand me that wrench?” I ask as I call down to where Seraphine is standing at the base of the ladder.
I’m trying to loosen a fixture from the ceiling, and it’s already started to rust so I can’t loosen it.
“Here you go,” she says as she stretches to hand it up to me. It doesn’t work because I am still too high up.
“Hang on, I’ll come down.”
“No, it’s okay, I’ll climb up and give it to you. No sense in wasting time going back and forth.”
Before I can tell her that the ladder is probablynotsturdy enough for us both to be climbing on it, she is already halfway up. But just as she goes to hand it to me, the ladder creaks and startles her, and Seraphine’s foot slips from the rung she is standing on.
Instinctively, I turn around, reach down and grab her, and pull her up against my chest. I have one hand holding tight to the ladder and the other holding tight to Seraphine. She could have fallen and gotten hurt, but I can see it in her eyes that she isn’t even thinking about that right now. She’s holding her breath, but not out of fear.
Our bodies are pressed so closely together that I can feel the lines of her hips against mine. And her face is so close to mine that I can feel her breath against my lips. The sexual tension is a mounting wave that washes over both of us and threatens to topple my self-restraint with reckless force.
For a moment, I stand still, gripping her tightly against me to make sure that she doesn’t fall. Either one of us could give in at this moment, and neither of us would have fought it. But instead, we both refuse to act on the palpable urge between us. I don’t know what her reasoning for inaction is, but I know all of the things that I have at risk.
I wait for her to steadily regain her balance on the ladder and climb down, then I go back to working on the fixture with the wrench that she handed me. I could actually use a different size wrench, but I don’t dare ask her to bring me another one. Because I know that if that same moment were to repeat itself, I would definitely not be able to resist giving into it.
“I’m going to go get us some water,” she says as she walks away.