A Tailor-Made Bride by Karen Witemeyer Read Free Book Online

nonetheless.
    “Thank you for fixing the step. I’ll gladly pay you for your time.”
    Mr. Tucker glared up at her as if she had just impugned his honor. “I don’t charge for being neighborly, ma’am.”
    “So I guess I shouldn’t offer to compensate you for your heroic rescue of me, either, then.” She grinned, hoping to get some kind of reaction out of him, but he never looked up.
    “Nope.” He accented his refusal with a final swing of the hammer and jumped with both feet onto the new stair.
    His craftsmanship held.
    “There.” He tipped his hat back and finally met her eyes. “That should stand up to any amount of stomping you feel the need to dish out.”
    His lips stretched, and for a moment she thought he might smile, but his mouth never actually curved. Hannah shifted against the railing, unsure if he had spoken in jest or censure.
    “Yes, well, thank you. I never know when the urge to stomp might next come over me.” Although she imagined if it did recur, the man before her would somehow be responsible.
    He flicked the brim of his hat in salute and turned to go, but she remembered the table and called out to stop him.
    “Mr. Tucker? On your way down, would you help me carry this old table to the shop? It’s too large for me to manage on my own.”
    He shrugged and followed her inside. “What’s wrong with it? Planning on ordering a roomful of new furniture or something?”
    The playfulness she thought she’d detected in his voice earlier had vanished, leaving nothing but frost in its wake. Well, she needed his muscles more than his cheer, so as long as he was willing to help, he could grouch to his heart’s content.
    “It’s a perfectly fine table. The only problem is that I need it downstairs.” She set her purse on the seat of the rickety chair and moved around to the far end of the table. Grabbing hold of the edge facing her, she waited for Mr. Tucker to pick up his end. He chose to stare at her instead, with a look that raised her hackles.
    Hannah eyed his shins and aimed the point of her toe in his direction. Lucky for him a hefty piece of furniture stood in her way.
    “I don’t plan to entertain many guests up here,” she said, “so I can make do without a table. But I can’t very well cut out patterns for my customers on the floor of the shop, now can I?”
    He just stared at her, a clouded expression on his face. She was about to shoo him away, determined to move the table without his help, when he stepped up and clasped his side of the tabletop.
    “It . . . uh . . . wouldn’t be nothing fancy . . .” He stopped and cleared his throat. “But if you want, I could loan you a couple of sawhorses and some spare planks I got piled out back. It’d serve until you could buy a real table.”
    The heat of her temper mellowed into a warm pool of gratitude.
    “You would do that for me?”
    He nodded, finally meeting her gaze. His mouth held fast to its rigid line, but the hard glitter had left his eyes, giving him an oddly vulnerable appearance despite the steely strength that radiated from the rest of him.
    “Thank you, Mr. Tucker.” A soft smile curved her lips. “I must warn you, though, that I don’t plan to order any furniture until I’ve successfully established my business, so it could be months before I am able to return the borrowed items.”
    “Keep ’em as long as you need. I can always make more.”
    “Really?” The seed of an idea sprouted in her mind.
    “Sure. I got a heap of scrap lumber left from when I tore out the dividing wall in the wagon shed last year.”
    “Enough to spare me four boards that I could use for shelving in my shop? I’d pay you for them, of course.”
    He leaned over the table toward her. “Now, don’t you go insulting me again.”
    “No, sir,” she rushed to assure him, even though there was no heat behind his words. “But I don’t want to take advantage of your generosity, either. Are you sure I can’t mend a shirt or darn a