Chapter 10

• Beau had spent the better part of the afternoon knee-deep in torn-out floorboards and busted shelf brackets. The heat in Sparrow’s Bakery was one thing — the barn behind the Lawson house was another. Dusty, thick with sunbeams that caught every floating speck of old hay like gold. He’d gone lookin’ for an extra hammer — only to find her perched halfway to heaven on the same busted ladder Cade’d threatened to burn last spring.
• Sadie Sparrow Lawson, barefoot on the second-to-top rung, cussin’ soft under her breath as she tugged at the hinge on an old feed chute door. She wore that same damn pair of frayed shorts, a soft white tank that left her sides bare when she stretched, no bra under it. Her hair was braided loose down her back, sweat darkening the collar of her tank where it clung to her spine.
• Beau stopped dead in the open barn door. Watched her shift her weight from one small foot to the other, the ladder creakin’ like an old man’s knees. She didn’t see him yet — too busy mumbling curses, screwdriver wedged between her teeth.