Wrecking Crew

Shes there to save the building. Hes there to renovate it. Neither of them planned to demolish every wall theyd spent years hiding behind.

Historic preservation officer Lana Merritt has twelve weeks, one crumbling 1922 textile mill in Asheville, and zero patience for contractors who think a financing deadline outweighs a hundred-year-old buildings soul. She names every structure she fights for — this one she calls the old girl — and she will burn through every regulation in her arsenal before she lets anyone tear out what matters. Then she rounds the east corner on day one, finds Jake Berg already there with two cups of coffee and an opinion about the original masonry, and realizes her most dangerous obstacle might not be the building at all.

Jake Berg has carried the weight of his familys construction company through debt, grief, and a brother who left at exactly the wrong time. He stays. Thats what he does. He stays, he handles it, and he doesnt let himself want things he might not be allowed to keep. The woman from the state preservation office is thorough, relentless, and infuriatingly right about almost everything — and sharing a site trailer with her for twelve weeks is going to make staying very, very complicated.

This is a forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers slow burn that earns every degree of its heat. These are two people who love the same things — old buildings, honest work, the beauty of something built to last — and who have spent their entire adult lives protecting themselves from exactly whats growing in the space between them. Lana fights for things worth keeping and cant admit shes afraid to keep anything for herself. Jake honors his obligations so completely hes forgotten hes allowed to have desires of his own. What unfolds between them isnt a collision — its a renovation. Careful, contested, and entirely irreversible.

Set against the cobblestones and converted brick of Ashevilles River Arts District, Wrecking Crew is a richly atmospheric workplace romance standalone about two emotionally guarded people who communicate in structural assessments, archival discoveries, and loaded silences — until they cant anymore.
For readers who want the tension to build until its almost unbearable, the intimacy to feel genuinely earned, and the ending to land like a load-bearing wall: solid, necessary, and built to last.

One-click Wrecking Crew — and find out what happens when the people most committed to preservation finally stop protecting themselves.