Chapter 77

Whenever the front door opened, the alarm dinged. Darian wiped the sawdust from his hands and told Stacy he’d be right back as he pushed through the saloon doors. Every single time, “I’ll be right back.” Soon Stacy anticipated the comment, and he grinned when Darian said it and proved him right.

Out behind the counter, Darian’s booming laugh carried back to him easily, another thing about the guy that Stacy liked. When the customer left and the alarm dinged again, Stacy would wait to hear those saloon doors swing against each other, indicating Darian had come back to the workshop. If the sound didn’t come, he would look up to see his teacher—his boss—leaning above the doors, watching him with a hooded expression that he couldn’t quite read.

Once Darian came up beside him at the workbench, standing much closer than he did in class, and wanted to know, “So what do you think?”