Beth held the cool handle of the hammer in her hand as she gripped the rung of the ladder to pull herself up a step or two.  She wished her hand wouldn’t sweat so much. Oh great. Now she had to worry she’d drop the tool on someone’s head! Bad enough the guy waiting for the hammer made her so nervous she squeaked in reply when he asked her to fetch the hammer for him. Now she felt like she might be sick from the nerves.

Ever since she’d moved in with her father and his wife, she felt so out of place. The kids at her school all grew up together practically since before they were born. As a newcomer in the middle of junior year, she had already arrived at a disadvantage. A year later and not much had changed. She was shunned from the start because she came to a rural town from a big East Coast city and she had no chance whatsoever to find friends to save her from outer Mongolia in her social life.

She’d only ever had one boyfriend in her old high school. Rick was a few years older than her and had dropped out of high school. Beth didn’t really like him all that much, but she kept dating him anyway because he kept her from feeling so alone. Her leper like status at her new school and her inexperience left her completely unequipped to handle the more than friendly attentions of the hot guy balancing on the rafters above her head, waiting for her to hand him up the tool.

Nick was everything from the movie boyfriends she daydreamed about wrapped up in a taught, well defined package. His face wasn’t movie star perfect and yet his intense eyes, full lips quick to smile and reveal his pleasantly crooked but white teeth came together in a perfect picture of masculine attractiveness. He didn’t seem exceptionally tall, although to be fair, Beth only ever saw him up on the roof or from enough distance she couldn’t really judge. He did seem to tower over his wife.

A sigh escaped her lips as she glanced up the ladder and handed over the now slightly damp hammer. “Thanks, Beth!” His beautiful mouth curved in a slight smile and her heart fluttered a little.

“You’re welcome.” His gaze held hers for a few seconds. Beth looked away as she felt the heat creep up her cheeks and started down the ladder. Why was a god like Nick married to that old dried up skank, Felicia? Immediately, Beth felt awful at the thought. It was bad enough she was crushing on a married man, but Nick and Felicia were having marital problems. Or so the gossip indicated.

It wasn’t really fair to Felicia to use that word either. Beth bit her lip and glanced around as her feet hit the floor. She’d find the woman and see if she could help her in her project. Maybe she could ease the sense of guilt she carried around most days she helped out on the church construction when Nick was there.

Beth didn’t spend much time analyzing things, but sometimes she had to chase away the nagging thought Nick might actually be seeking her out on days her family crossed paths with his at the church. It started the week before when work began on the roof. Since Nick had worked for a roofing company, oftentimes he could be found up high on the new construction, balancing on some nerve wrackingly narrow piece of wood. Usually he had his shirt off. Best not to think of those times, Beth reprimanded her conscious mind.

He’d sat next to her father at the lunch break – her father got on with him well, as Nick’s work roughened hands were as good an endorsement of a man’s worth as any to Beth’s father – talking over the plans for the rest of the afternoon. In an offhand manner, Nick mentioned how his knees were starting to hurt from going up and down the ladder so much. Her father, without even looking her way, offered her up to Nick as his personal gofer. He glanced at her and nodded. His eyes twinkled with good humor. “That okay with you, Little Bit?” Nick embarrassed her with her father’s nickname for her.

She blushed then, too, the first of many times over the last week or so she’d been his assistant. “That’s fine,” she’d dropped her eyes just after he smiled wide at her.

“I thank you, and my knees thank you.” She glanced back up just in time to catch the wink he aimed at her. Her heart nearly stopped. He was teasing her. Unmercifully, too.

Each day, he grew a little friendlier and she got just a tiny bit more comfortable. She could actually hold one syllable conversations with him now without blushing very much at all. The last couple of days of fetching for him, though, something between them had shifted ever so slightly.