“You don’t have to be delicate with it,” Elias added mildly – and a little belated, having gotten caught up in watching her polite, reserved reverence with something near amusement. (And maybe a little fondness.) But it was only a workshop, after all, where things went wrong twice as often as they went right – and he was a craftsman, not some genius artist or a grand architect. For all intents and purposes, it was an oversized, glorified garden shed in which he did a little woodworking.

But she had paused now, letting her hands drop from where she had been keeping stray strands of hair from falling in her face; she remained where she was, across the room from him. The workshop almost felt like an entirely different place.

“Oh?” Elias echoed at her pronouncement. It felt almost forward to ask it, as if he was fishing for something and not just curious. But he was sure Miss Potts was sincere with most everything she said, and he couldn’t bring himself to mind her wandering through his space, and there was a slow smile creeping in at the corner of his mouth in return, whatever she thought about him. “And what does all this say about me?” (With any luck, not just that he was a haphazard mess.)

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