July 7, Sunday

MY ENCOUNTER with Sawyer King was still pinging at me the next morning when his pickup rolled by the house toward the cemetery. I felt like an idiot for misinterpreting his good deed, and for overreacting when he asked about my vocation.

So I'd decided to take him a peace offering of fresh chicken eggs.

I was afraid the eggs wouldn't survive the bike ride over the rutted road, so I walked the short distance, with a little basket under my arm, feeling like Laura Ingalls Wilder. When I reached the metal gate I'd unlocked a few hours earlier, I almost turned back. Sawyer was erecting a tall wooden tripod over the pieces of the monolithic monument he'd been working on yesterday, which now lay in three pieces on a blue tarp. He was shirtless and his muscled back was shiny with sweat. The faded jeans he wore rode low on his hips. The moisture evaporated from my mouth.

This was a bad idea.

I turned to go, but I stepped on a twig and when it snapped it sounded to my ears like a gunshot.

He turned around and just as I feared, his front was as moist as his back. Except with a light matting of dark hair that had fallen out of trend in wake of manscaping tools and Instagram posing.

But I confess I prefer the natural look.

"Hey," he said with a wave.

"Hi," I said.

He stepped away from the wood contraption and reached for a T-shirt hanging on a wheelbarrow. I know he was trying to be respectful, but stretching high to don the shirt and pull it over his shoulders pushed the PG-13 exposure into R-rated territory.

I squeezed my eyes closed.

"You okay?"

I opened my eyes, then rubbed at one of them. "Forgot my sunglasses."

"You should get a hat."

"A hat?"

He gave a little shrug. "You look like a hat person."

My lips parted. I owned at least fifty hats, but I couldn't bring myself to wear them in public.

"What's in the basket?"

"Hm?"

He pointed to my arm. I looked down. "Oh. I brought you eggs."

He smiled. "You did?"

"Only if you want them," I said, back-pedaling. "I can't possibly eat them all."

He ambled toward me, then peered into the basket. "Thanks—I'll have these for supper."

Was he hinting that he cooked for himself because he lived alone?

"By the way, Coleman at the grocery will be happy to buy your extras. Fewer people around here fuss with chickens these days."

"They are noisy," I offered. "And dirty. And mean."

He laughed. "They just need to get used to you, and you to them."

But the way he said it made me think he wasn't talking about chickens. "I won't be around long enough for it to matter."

"I heard you'd be here through the end of the year."

I frowned. "Who told you that?"

He shrugged. "I don't remember. Does it matter?"

To change the subject, I looked past him. "What's all this?"

"Ah, so you do want to watch."

At his self-satisfied tone, I smirked. "I'm just curious about your hobby."

He walked back to the wood tripod and pointed to the wheel and cable hanging from the center. "This winch helps me lift and move the stones safely." Then he grinned. "I understand you work with a different kind of wench altogether."

At the outdated reference to the female characters in my historical books, my tongue lodged firmly in my cheek. "You Googled me."

"I'm more of a DuckDuckGo guy, which I figured you would appreciate since you like your privacy."

My cheeks flamed at the thought of this man reading the recent salacious headlines attached to my name. I handed the basket to him. "Enjoy the eggs." Then I turned to walk away.

"Hey, I was kidding," he called. "I read somewhere that your books are funny."

I frowned harder and didn't respond. My books were funny—that was the problem. After months of being the punchline of bawdy jokes, my funny had gone on hiatus.

And I was afraid it wasn't coming back.