Carolina Dreaming: A Dare Island Novel by Virginia Kantra

here.”
    Ha
. He had to be kidding. Jane drew in her breath, surveying the men assembled on the porch behind Sam.
    She was grateful—of course she was—that he had found a crew to start work on her enclosed porch. She knew the older man, Jay Webber, who had a fondness for chocolate doughnuts, and young Tomás Lopez, Marta’s son.
    But . . .
    “Except for the banging,” Gabe, the third member of the crew, offered. “You might notice that. And when we start sawing a hole in the wall.”
    She glared.
    He grinned as if he had no idea how much she hated having her space invaded. Or maybe he just enjoyed getting her hot and bothered.
    He held her gaze, his smile softening as if inviting her to share some private joke.
    He had shaved, she noted inconsequentially, his bad-boystubble scraped away to a mere whisper of texture along his jaw. His hair was clean and tied back. With all the angles of his face revealed, he looked harder but somehow younger, too. His mouth was well-cut and firm, his lips faintly chapped. Would they feel rough or smooth? Would his beard be hard or soft? Her fingertips tingled, her skin prickled all over with the urge to find out.
    Her flush deepened. She curled her fingers into her palms.
Oh no
.
    “No holes,” she said.
    “Just in the siding,” Sam said. Trying, like the prince he was, to make everybody around him comfortable, to make her feel better. “We need to get down to the plywood to attach the frame to the house.”
    “Where’s the door?” Gabe asked, not trying to make her feel better at all.
The jerk
.
    “On the outside,” Jane said. “So customers can go around from the porch.”
Why am I explaining myself to him? It’s my shop.
    “Fine for them,” Gabe said. “How were you planning to get back and forth from the kitchen?”
    “Through the front door.” The same way she always had.
    “Waste of steps,” Gabe said.
    Sam’s sharp eyes narrowed, as if he could see through walls to the restaurant. “I originally suggested combining the two dining spaces.”
    Wait a minute. He was supposed to be on her side. “And I told you I can’t afford to lose any inside seating.”
    “If you replaced that big middle window with a sliding door, you wouldn’t be giving up much,” Gabe said. “One table. Two, tops. Better traffic pattern for you, better view for your customers.”
    The possibility shimmered before her. She could almost see it, the front of house opening to the enclosed porch, the porch opening to the garden, the sea shining in the distance.
Perfect
.
    Her throat constricted. So did her heart.
    She had already invested all she could afford in this expansion. Why tempt fate by grasping too hard, by reaching too far, by wanting too much?
    “The plan is fine the way it is. I’m not going to spend another week and another two thousand dollars on a door.”
    “I can get you the door at cost,” Sam said. “Add, say, one day to reframe the opening, and then drywall and paint on top of that.”
    “Thanks, Sam.” She smiled at him. “That’s very generous. But I can’t afford to close the dining room while you knock a hole in the wall. And I can’t do food prep with construction dust everywhere.”
    “Of course,” Sam said gracefully. “Your choice.”
    Gabe cocked his head. “What time do you close?”
    Wasn’t he listening? Why didn’t he simply accept her limitations, the way Sam did?
    “We’re open seven A.M. until four P.M. Six P.M. in season.”
    Gabe glanced at Sam. “I could put in some time after hours. Be a late night, but I could get you framed in and buttoned up by the time you open.”
    Sam raised his brows. “Overtime?”
    “No charge for labor.”
    Jane’s breath went. He would do that for her? Why would he do that for her? “I don’t take—”
    “Charity. Yeah, yeah, you said.” His hazel eyes glinted. “So pay me some other way.”
    Her breathing hitched again as she imagined all the ways he might expect payment. “What did you