Page 5 of Coach (Heartstrings of Honor #4)

Shane

T he chisel hissed across the wood, the blade shaving off thin curls that drifted down like lazy smoke.

I leaned into the cut—steady, deliberate. The grain fought me a little—walnut always did—but there was a kind of peace in the resistance, in the feel of good steel sliding through stubborn wood.

Out here, in the shop, with the old ceiling fan rattling above and the smell of oil and sawdust thick in the air, nothing needed explaining.

I just worked, kept my head down, and made something that hadn’t existed before . . . or fixed something that once held beauty and function but needed a little TLC before it could offer those things again.

When I worked with wood, really worked—not just banging nails or sanding until my arms went numb—it felt like the rest of the world disappeared. All the noise, the people, their worries and complaints and mindless cares . . . all of it slipped away.

It was just me and the grain, just me and the stubbornness in the wood daring me to be patient enough to find what lay hidden underneath.

I liked creating things, but I loved repairing old pieces even more.

There was something honest about them. They didn’t pretend to be perfect. They didn’t try to hide their cracks or warps or the parts that didn’t fit together like they used to.

I understood that kind of broken.

When I had a piece in front of me—some battered sideboard, a cracked chair, a dresser missing half its guts—I didn’t have to talk, or explain, or be anything more than a pair of steady hands. I didn’t have to fill the space with words that never came easily to me anyway.

And I liked the way old wood felt under my hands. It felt solid, even when it was falling apart, heavy with years and mistakes and stories no one dared speak aloud.

When I worked, the sun would come up, move across the windows, dip behind the hills, and I’d still be at my bench, hands tracing curves and faults and finding where the broken parts could come together again .

Out here, I didn’t have to perform, to smile or say the right thing, or guess what someone else wanted from me.

Wood didn’t expect anything except what I already knew how to give: time, care, patience.

Wood made sense.

Far more than people ever did.

Out here, in the quiet, even broken things still had a chance.

I wiped the back of my wrist across my forehead, smearing sweat and dust together, and scowled down at the piece on the bench.

At the piece.

The damn piece.

I’d started it years ago, back when I thought I could wrestle beauty out of solid walnut with little more than my bare hands and sweat. Back then it was supposed to be a chair . . . then a sculpture . . . then something else when both those ideas felt wrong.

Now, I didn’t even know what it was anymore, just something I couldn’t finish, couldn’t leave alone either. I ran a hand over a curve I still couldn’t get right and grunted under my breath.

Grabbing a file, I went back to it, gritting my teeth and dragging the rasp across a stubborn spot until my wrist ached.

Another pass .

Another growl.

Another few grains of progress, maybe.

I tossed the file onto the bench and grabbed a finer piece of sandpaper, rolling it between my fingers to soften it up.

That’s when it happened.

Right on cue, like a hammer to the damn thumb.

The hot Italian from the fair popped into my mind’s eye.

I cursed low, the sound vibrating against the inside of my ribs, and scrubbed the sandpaper across the wood harder than necessary.

I saw his big brown eyes, that smile I could get drunk on if I wasn’t careful,

his ridiculous, lyrical accent, thick enough to trip over . . . or taste.

And the way he looked at me yesterday at the fair, like he didn’t know if he wanted to shake my hand or climb me like a tree.

I worked faster, desperate to keep my breathing steady, trying—and failing—to chase him out of my head.

It was no use.

I still saw him, plain as day, standing there with powdered sugar dusting his jeans and smeared across his olive skin, one hand cradling a sad-looking funnel cake, the other hovering like he didn’t know what to do with it—or himself.

All that energy. All that heat. All of it aimed right at me.

I shook my head, trying to dislodge it like water in my ears.

Nope.

I was not going there.

I knew his type.

Flirtatious and loud, the life of the party. He was the kind of guy who loved a good project—loved poking at something rough until it smoothed out, polished up real pretty.

But when it didn’t?

When the cracks showed?

He’d bolt out the door.

Guys like him always did.

Tall guys with perfect lips and sculpted abs and arms for days.

They were all assholes. They had to be.

I pressed the sandpaper harder, feeling the grit bite into the wood—and into me.

“Stupid,” I muttered, tossing the paper down hard enough it slid off the edge of the bench.

It wasn’t like he was thinking about me, wasn’t like he would even know what to do with a guy like me. Hell, I barely knew what to do with myself most of the time .

Besides.

That smile? That voice? That immaculate hair that somehow shifted from black to midnight blue in the setting sunlight?

He belonged somewhere bigger than a dusty old workshop filled with half-finished dreams and broken hopes.

I reached for a fresh sheet of sandpaper, flexing it once between my hands.

Work first.

Always work first.

The wood didn’t lie.

It didn’t flirt.

It didn’t promise things it didn’t mean.

Still . . .

I rubbed the curve of the piece again, tracing the dip with my thumb, and somewhere in the back of my mind, Mateo’s voice teased me, his damn accent, the clumsy way he’d said “sideboard” like it was something sacred, like he was embarrassed just standing there.

I huffed out a breath and grabbed the file again.

“Focus. I need to focus,” I muttered.

The wood needed shaping.

The work needed doing.

And the Italian?

He needed to stop smiling in my head.