Safe In His Hands

#2 Elias

ELIAS

The day had been longer than Elias had planned.

He'd started at six that morning, the way he always did, with coffee brewed strong enough to strip paint and a mental checklist of everything that needed to happen before sunset. The custom dining table for the Hendersons was due by Friday, which meant he had two days to finish the final sanding, apply the last coat of finish, and let it cure properly. The wood—black walnut he'd sourced from a mill three hours north—had been temperamental, the grain fighting him at every turn, but that was the nature of the work. You didn't force wood. You learned its language, respected its character, worked with it rather than against it.

Control through patience. That's what his mentor had taught him fifteen years ago, when Elias had first apprenticed under him. The wood will tell you what it wants to be. Your job is to listen.

By noon, his shoulders had been burning from the repetitive motion of hand-sanding, his fingers cramped around the block. He'd taken a break to eat the sandwich he'd packed that morning—turkey and swiss on wheat, the same thing he ate most days because routine was easier than decision-making—and then gone back to work. The afternoon had blurred into a rhythm of sand, wipe, inspect, repeat. The physical labor was meditative, allowed his mind to quiet in a way nothing else did.

Except today, his mind hadn't quieted.

He'd been thinking about the shipment arriving tomorrow. About the email from a potential client in Seattle who wanted a custom bookshelf and had a budget that would cover his expenses for two months. About the fact that he was thirty-eight years old and lived alone in a house he'd built with his own hands, and some days that felt like exactly what he wanted, and other days it felt like a prison of his own making.

About the fact that it had been four years since he'd let anyone close enough to matter.

Four years since Rebecca had looked at him with something between pity and disgust and said, I can't do this anymore. I can't be what you need. And I don't think you even know what you need.

She'd been wrong about that last part. He knew exactly what he needed. He'd always known. The problem was that needing it and having it were two different things, and the gap between them had proven insurmountable with every woman he'd tried to build something with.

So he'd stopped trying. Built his life around work and routine and the careful maintenance of boundaries that kept him safe. It was lonely sometimes, but loneliness was manageable. Loneliness didn't leave scars the way hope did.

By six o'clock, he'd been covered in sawdust, his arms aching, his mind still restless despite the physical exhaustion. He'd cleaned up his workspace with the same methodical care he applied to everything—tools returned to their designated spots, sawdust swept and collected, work surfaces wiped down. His workshop was a reflection of how he lived: everything in its place, everything controlled, everything exactly as it should be.

The building itself was a converted barn on his property, twenty minutes outside Pine Ridge proper. He'd bought the land eight years ago—five acres of pine forest with a creek running through the back corner—and spent three years building the house exactly to his specifications. Two bedrooms, though he only used one. An open-concept living area with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the trees. A kitchen with commercial-grade appliances because he liked to cook, liked the precision of following recipes, the way ingredients transformed under the right conditions.

The house was quiet. Always quiet. Sometimes that was exactly what he needed. Tonight, it felt oppressive.

Which is why he'd ended up at Donna's Diner at seven-thirty on a Thursday evening, ordering his usual—meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, coffee—to go. He could have cooked. Should have cooked. But the thought of standing in his kitchen, eating alone at the counter while the silence pressed in around him, had been unbearable.

At least at the diner, there were voices. Movement. The illusion of connection even if he wasn't participating in it.

Donna had greeted him the way she always did, with a warm smile and a comment about how he worked too hard. She'd been saying that for the better part of a decade, ever since he'd first moved to Pine Ridge and started building his business. In her mid-sixties now, with steel-gray hair she wore in a practical bun and laugh lines that spoke of a life well-lived, Donna had appointed herself as something between a mother figure and a friendly busybody to half the town.

"You look tired, hon," she'd said, leaning against the counter with the ease of someone who'd been standing behind it for forty years. "When's the last time you took a day off?"

"I take Sundays off." Usually. When there wasn't a deadline looming.

"Sundays don't count if you spend them doing maintenance on your equipment." She'd given him a knowing look. "I saw your truck at the workshop last Sunday afternoon."

"The planer needed recalibrating."

"Uh-huh." Donna had shaken her head, but there was affection in it. "You're going to work yourself into an early grave, Elias. You need to find something—or someone—to do besides work."

It was a familiar refrain. Donna had been trying to set him up with various women in town for years. Her niece who taught at the elementary school. The new librarian. The woman who ran the flower shop. All perfectly nice women who Elias had politely declined to pursue, because he knew how that story ended. He'd start something, they'd realize he wasn't what they wanted, and he'd be left picking up the pieces of another failed attempt at normal.

"I'm fine, Donna."

"You say that, but fine isn't the same as happy." She'd patted his hand where it rested on the counter, her touch brief and maternal. "The usual?"

"Please."

While she'd gone to put in his order, Elias had let his gaze drift around the diner. Thursday nights were always busy—families grabbing dinner before school events, couples on date nights, groups of friends catching up over coffee and pie. He recognized most of the faces. Tom and Sarah Mitchell with their three kids, the youngest still in a high chair. Old Mr. Peterson sitting alone in his usual booth, reading the newspaper with his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. The Henderson brothers arguing good-naturedly about football while their wives rolled their eyes.

This was his community. These were his people, in the way that mattered in a small town. He knew their names, their stories, their orders at the hardware store when they came in looking for supplies. He'd built furniture for half of them. Fixed things for the other half. Showed up when someone needed help moving or raising a barn or clearing a fallen tree.

But he wasn't part of them. Not really. He existed adjacent to their lives, helpful and reliable and fundamentally separate.

And then the bell above the door had chimed, and everything had shifted.

Elias had felt it before he'd seen her—a change in the air, a prickling awareness at the base of his skull that made him turn his head even though he hadn't consciously decided to look.

She'd stood in the doorway for a moment, backlit by the fading evening sun, and even from across the room he could see the tension in her body. Small frame, dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, clothes that looked like she'd been doing manual labor. But it was the way she held herself that caught his attention—shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around her middle, eyes scanning the room like she was looking for threats.

Prey animal in unfamiliar territory.

She'd made her way to a booth in the back, moving quickly, trying to be invisible. And Elias had watched, unable to look away, as she'd slid into the seat and immediately pulled out her phone like a shield.

New, he'd thought. She's new.

Pine Ridge didn't get many newcomers. People were born here, grew up here, left for college or careers and either came back or didn't. The population had held steady at around three thousand for as long as Elias had lived here. Everyone knew everyone, and strangers were noticed.

This woman was definitely a stranger.

"Earth to Elias." Donna's voice had pulled him back. She'd been watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read—knowing, maybe, or amused. "You listening to me?"

"Sorry. What were you saying?"

"I was telling you about my grandson's baseball game, but I don't think you heard a word." She'd glanced over her shoulder toward the back booth, then back at him with raised eyebrows. "See something interesting?"

"Just noticed someone new."

"Ah. Yeah, she came in yesterday too. Lila something—I didn't catch her last name. Just moved here from Seattle, apparently. Renting the old Morrison cottage on Maple Street." Donna had leaned in conspiratorially. "Looks like she could use a friend, if you ask me. Seems a little lost."

Lost. Yes. That was exactly the word for it.

Elias had turned back to the counter, forcing himself to focus on Donna's continued commentary about her grandson's pitching arm and the team's chances at regionals. But his awareness had remained split, part of him tracking the woman—Lila—in the back booth. The way she'd ordered quietly, barely making eye contact with Donna. The way she'd eaten mechanically, like food was fuel and nothing more. The way she'd stared at her phone with an expression that looked like longing mixed with regret.

He'd recognized that look. Had seen it in his own mirror often enough in the months after Rebecca had left. The look of someone who'd cut ties and was second-guessing the decision. Someone who was alone and trying to convince themselves it was what they wanted.

His food had arrived, and Donna had bagged it up with her usual efficiency. "You want this to go?"

"Yeah."

"All right, hon. You take care of yourself. And maybe think about what I said—about finding something besides work to fill your time."

Elias had paid, left a generous tip the way he always did, and headed for the door. But something had made him pause, some impulse he didn't examine too closely, and he'd glanced back toward the booth.

Lila had been looking at him.

The impact of her gaze had been physical—a jolt that went through his chest and settled low in his gut. Her eyes were dark, wide, startled. Like she hadn't meant to look, hadn't meant to be caught looking. Color had flooded her cheeks immediately, and she'd dropped her gaze back to her plate so fast it was almost comical.

Except Elias hadn't felt like laughing.

He'd felt like crossing the diner, sliding into the booth across from her, and asking what had put that haunted look in her eyes. Like offering to carry whatever burden was making her shoulders curve inward like that. Like doing something, anything, to ease the tension that radiated from her in waves.

Instead, he'd walked out. Because that's what he did. He observed, he noted, he filed away information. He didn't get involved. Didn't insert himself into other people's lives uninvited. Didn't let himself want things he couldn't have.

The September air had been cool against his face, carrying the scent of pine and approaching autumn. His truck had been parked right in front, and he'd stood beside it for a long moment, the paper bag warm in his hands, trying to shake off the lingering effect of that brief eye contact.

Not your problem, he'd told himself. She's an adult. She can take care of herself.

But even as he'd thought it, he'd known it was a lie. Or at least, not the whole truth. Yes, she was an adult. Yes, she could probably take care of herself on a basic level. But there was a difference between surviving and thriving, and everything about her body language said she was barely managing the former.

And something in him—something he'd thought he'd successfully buried four years ago—had responded to that. Had wanted to help. Had wanted to provide the structure and care and support that she so clearly needed.

Dangerous, he'd thought. This is dangerous.

Because he knew himself. Knew his patterns. Knew that once he started caring, once he let himself get invested, it was almost impossible to pull back. And women like her—women who were struggling, who needed someone steady—they didn't actually want what he had to offer. Not once they understood what it meant. Not once they realized that his need to care came with expectations and structure and a level of control that most people found suffocating.

Rebecca had called it obsessive. Had said he didn't know how to love someone without trying to manage every aspect of their life. Had accused him of wanting a child, not a partner.

She'd been wrong about that. He didn't want a child. He wanted someone who understood that care and control could be the same thing. Someone who found safety in structure rather than feeling trapped by it. Someone who could surrender without losing themselves.

He'd thought Rebecca might be that person. Had spent two years trying to make it work, trying to find the balance between what he needed and what she could give. In the end, it hadn't been enough. She'd left, and he'd promised himself he wouldn't make that mistake again.

Wouldn't let himself hope that someone might actually want what he had to offer.

Wouldn't let himself care.

And yet, one look from a stranger in a diner, and here he was, standing in a parking lot, debating whether to go back inside.

He'd climbed into his truck instead and driven home, the paper bag sitting on the passenger seat, the image of her burned into his mind. Those dark eyes. That tension. The way she'd looked at him like she was afraid and curious in equal measure.

His house had been exactly as he'd left it that morning—clean, organized, quiet. He'd unpacked his dinner and eaten standing at the kitchen counter, the meatloaf perfectly seasoned the way Donna always made it, the mashed potatoes creamy and rich. He'd tasted none of it.

His mind had been on her. On the way she'd hunched her shoulders. On the lost look in her eyes. On the fact that she was living in the Morrison cottage, which meant she was planning to stay at least for a while, which meant he'd see her again.

Which meant he needed to decide what, if anything, he was going to do about this pull he felt.

After dinner, he'd tried to work. Had pulled up the design files for the Seattle client's bookshelf, had started sketching modifications based on the dimensions she'd provided. But his concentration had been shot, his mind circling back to the diner, to Lila, to the way his entire carefully constructed equilibrium had tilted in the space of a single glance.

He'd given up after an hour and gone to bed early, lying in the dark and listening to the familiar sounds of his house settling. The creak of wood expanding and contracting with the temperature change. The whisper of wind through the pines outside his window. The distant call of an owl hunting in the forest.

Usually, these sounds soothed him. Tonight, they felt like a reminder of how alone he was.

This is what you chose, he'd reminded himself. This is safer.

But safe and satisfied weren't the same thing. And lying there in the dark, Elias had to admit that he hadn't felt satisfied in a very long time.

He'd thought about control. About the careful balance he'd built in his life over the past four years. About the boundaries he'd established to protect himself from wanting things he couldn't have. About the walls he'd constructed, brick by brick, to keep himself from getting hurt again.

One woman. One look. And all of it felt suddenly fragile.

You don't even know her, he'd told himself. You don't know if she needs what you have to offer. You don't know if she'd want it even if she did need it.

But he would find out. Pine Ridge was too small for secrets. By tomorrow, he'd know more about her—why she'd come here, what she was running from, whether she planned to stay. And then he'd decide what to do.

For now, he'd wait. Watch. Keep his distance.

It was what he was good at, after all. Control. Patience. Restraint.

Even when every instinct in him wanted to do the opposite. Even when his hands itched to reach out, to steady, to care. Even when his mind was already cataloging all the ways she needed someone to look after her—the exhaustion in her eyes, the tension in her shoulders, the way she'd eaten like it was an obligation rather than a pleasure.

Wait, he'd told himself firmly. Just wait.

But waiting had never felt harder than it did right now, with the memory of her eyes meeting his still echoing through his chest like a bell that wouldn't stop ringing.