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exactly awash in either.
    She walked over to the small loft door. It would eventually become a window overlooking a bend in the creek beyond the mill and the long line of weeping willows lining the bank. She envisioned a gazebo in that bend complete with a table and chairs for special, private meals for guests.
    Inspired, she grabbed her notebook of ideas and started sketching the gazebo and the surroundings. She pictured it white in contrast to the greens of the trees shading it, covered in twinkling white lights, a quaint table with two chairs in its center. A romantic spot for couples on a special date. She smiled as she imagined marriage proposals being offered there by nervous grooms-to-be.
    She might not be lucky in love, but she had a romantic streak several miles wide. And this gazebo idea had it humming. Even though she should be focusing all her energy on the mill and not adding even more expenses, she couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm. The desire to go buy twinkling lights, tulle for the gazebo’s ceiling and magazines with gazebo designs rushed through her, but she forced her attention back to her list of priorities. With the structural work progressing well, she needed to go buy the lumber necessary for the construction of the kitchen in the back corner next to the stairs. She estimated it was time to look at appliances, as well.
    After all, she was at a standstill on the mill until the electrician came tomorrow morning. Maybe she could get some landscaping flowers for the area around the front of the mill, and a couple of hanging pots.
    Okay, she had to stop her runaway brain before she imagined herself right into debt.
    She grabbed her keys and purse and headed for the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she noticed Brady leaning against the railing around the mill’s machinery, wiping the sweat from his face with a paper towel. She swallowed when she saw how his damp T-shirt molded to his honest-work muscles. For a shocking moment, she pictured her and Brady in that fairy-tale gazebo before she looked away and mentally smacked herself upside the head.
    “Where you off to?” he asked.
    “Need some supplies. I think I’ll drive down to Elizabethton.”
    “Mind if I ride along? The last piece of framing I have isn’t quite long enough. We could use it for a smaller window, but not this one. And since the old man left me without wheels…”
    So much for the peace of a solo trip. She forced herself not to scream at his self-invitation. As if to spite her efforts to avoid him, now she was going to be trapped ina small, confined space with him for the twenty miles to Elizabethton and back.
    “Sure. We’ll get enough to do the window upstairs, too, while we’re at it. And make sure we get the best lumber for the kitchen.”
    “Do you have the measurements for the upstairs window?”
    “Yeah.” She patted her purse where she kept her running to-buy list. “Right here with your dad’s specs for the kitchen.”
    “She’s on the ball,” he said as he pushed away from the railing.
    It was hardly a romantic compliment, but she couldn’t help how her skin warmed as she met his gaze. Seriously, she should have dunked her head in the creek instead of her feet.
     
    “Y OU DO KNOW that Christmas is seven months away, right?”
    Audrey glanced up from her spot in the garden section at Lowe’s as Brady wheeled the cart with the lumber needed for the window up next to her. He looked so at home here, in the middle of a warehouse full of home-improvement ecstasy.
    “They’re for the gazebo, not a Christmas tree,” she said as she placed several boxes of stringed white lights in the cart. At his confused expression, she flipped open one of the magazines she held and showed him a beautiful gazebo decorated for weddings. “Guys find these things cheesy, but women will love a romantic gazeboby the creek, a private dining area for couples.” She looked at the picture again and smiled at the magic the simple