Chapter Three #2
“Thanks for inviting me.” She looked around. “Wow. This place is amazing.”
“C’mon. I’ll give you a short tour before we discuss the garden.” Willow led her to the big house, a mixture of old and new. The older stone that looked original to the house against brand-new crisp black trim gave Fern a sense of home that most places she visited didn’t.
“The house is so charming.”
Willow beamed. “Thanks! I spent a lot of time on improvements. We built additions not once but twice to make room for our big family. I have six brothers. Add in their spouses and two little ones, and we need a lot of space. My own house just got built on a plot of land that direction.” She pointed toward the field.
They rounded the corner of the house, and she waved at the new addition. “My brothers run a security agency that includes personal protection, and there’s an entire cyber division.”
Feeling even more awed, Fern was swept along to a big barn with several corrals behind it. When they paused in front of the therapy lodge, Fern’s stomach gave a little lurch at the prospect of bumping into the veteran from the other day.
She never intended to hurt people with words—she of all people knew the impact such things could have on mental health.
Looking up at the lodge, constructed with heavy log siding and a grand entrance formed by log posts and beams crisscrossing over the door, her own troubles felt insignificant compared to the weight of what the men in the therapy program carried.
At last, Willow led her behind the lodge. The first thing she noticed was how quiet it was. The big building sheltered the spot of verdant grass from the sounds of the working ranch. Out here, there was only the whisper of the wind and the music of birds.
Heart fluttering with happiness, Fern turned to Willow with a smile. “It’s perfect.”
Willow grinned and bobbed her head in agreement. While she explained her vision for a garden where the veterans could grow vegetables and herbs, her face came alive.
Her excitement was contagious, but add in that Fern was already thrilled by anything and everything with roots, and she felt like she was floating as she stood in the middle of the plot and envisioned what it could become.
Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a notebook and pencil she carried everywhere on these projects. Though this plan would make the backyard gardens she’d worked on before look like they belonged to dollhouses.
She opened her notebook. “I always wanted to be part of a community garden. I almost spearheaded a project in Salt Lake City. That…fell through.”
Meaning her ex axed it as soon as he realized she would get to spend time away from home, doing things she enjoyed.
To cover the small glitch in her happy moment, she dipped her head and began to sketch out the lines of the perimeter.
“Oh, Crew! You’re just in time.”
At Willow’s voice, Fern looked up.
Right at the cowboy from the hardware store.
The big, muscled, hunky one she’d insulted.
His stare landed on her, and she detected a pause in his gait. Then he seemed to recover from seeing her again too, and crossed the small yard to where she and Willow stood.
“Fern Foster, this is Crew Diaz. Crew, Fern is helping us with the garden project.”
He was just as ruggedly handsome as she remembered, and she was just as off-balance when he pinned her with those dark brown eyes.
“We’ve bumped into each other in town,” she told Willow.
Crew arched a brow. “I thought you only dealt with dead plants.”
The only thing about their encounter that made her smile was the plants she rescued. “I enjoy bringing them back to life. But I like living ones too.”
Willow took in their exchange with a smile on her face. “Sounds like you two will work well together. I’ve got horse therapy in two minutes. Fern, just send me an estimate when you’re ready.”
She barely registered that Willow was leaving her alone with Crew before the woman disappeared around the corner of the lodge.
Shifting her feet, she eyed Crew. “I guess you’re helping me stake out the area.”
When he ran his fingertip along the brim of his hat, she picked up that it could be a sign that he was a little nervous around her too. “I’ll go grab some stakes and string.”
“No need.” She reached for her bag. “I brought what we need.”
Looking a little impressed at her readiness, he watched her set down her notebook in the grass, and proceed to dump out wooden stakes and a ball of twine.
“We’ll need a rubber mallet to pound in the stakes—”
She cut him off midsentence by pulling that out too.
He eyed the tool. “It’s pink.”
“All my tools are pink.”
When he held out a hand, she passed the mallet to him, but not before she noticed small round calluses at the base of each finger. Her insides bunched, and she found her lungs a bit tight.
Catching her gaze, he twitched his head toward the expanse of grass. “Should we start with the perimeter?”
Still a little off-balance over the surge she felt when she saw his rough hands, she nodded. She led the way to the far corner of the grass and glanced around to ensure it was a good starting point.
Pressing the toe of her boot to the spot, she said, “Here.”
As he dropped to one knee—so close that she felt his body heat—her insides tightened again.
While he hammered in the stake, she couldn’t look away from the flex of his arm muscles and tendons.
And those long, capable fingers wrapped around the pink handle of her mallet looked both ridiculous and hot.
After a few taps, he pushed to his feet. For a brief moment, their gazes locked.
Should she apologize now for her verbal diarrhea back at the hardware store? Or wait until they finished laying out the garden?
“Did you bring a measuring tape?”
“Oh yes.” She reached into her bag and whipped it out.
His lips twitched. “You weren’t kidding when you said all your tools are pink.” Taking the tape, he pulled out the end. “Hold this while I walk to the other end.”
The small whir of the tape in her fingertips shouldn’t have an effect on her, but somehow it felt oddly familiar to be linked to Crew by the metal tape.
Once they set all the stakes and had a loose form, she sat down on the grass to sketch. Crew sank down next to her so he could see what she was doing.
Without glancing up from the page, she knew exactly where every inch of his body was. One long leg hugged by denim extended outward and the other knee hitched up. His muscled chest seemed to take up half the garden plot. And he smelled good, like citrus and cedar.
“Can you tell me more about the people who will use this garden?”
He made a noise in his throat, like he was clearing it. “Veterans here for therapy. They’re from all branches of the military with all levels of skill.”
She drew four big quadrants for vegetable gardens and a berry patch. Then she added a small trellis to support grapevines.
“Some of the guys have physical constraints. In wheelchairs or on crutches. One walks with a cane. A few are missing fingers or other appendages.”
While he spoke, her eyes misted. She shook her head. “They’ve given so much for their country…for all of us.” She lifted her gaze to Crew. “Are you…?”
He nodded. “I’m a resident.”
Her breath caught. “I’m sorry I didn’t know. You just seem so…”
“Normal?”
She chuckled. “Sorry for sticking my foot in my mouth when we met. I didn’t know anything about you or the Black Heart that day in the hardware store.”
A shadow moved in the depths of his brown eyes, and it wasn’t a cloud moving in front of the sun. “Some of us carry our scars on the inside.”
She stopped breathing. The pain in his voice sliced through her, even as she recognized the truth of the words. She carried her scars on the inside too.
Their stares met, and whatever he saw on her face made him nod. It seemed Crew understood life in ways a lot of people didn’t, which drew her to him. Plus, he was hot enough that she almost had to close her eyes to black out any future daydreams she’d be having about him.
“You’re new to the area,” he said.
“Yes, I work at the greenhouse. But Cathy at the post office started telling customers about me, so now it seems I have a small side business.” She waved the pencil over the plan she’d sketched, inspiration hitting.
“We need raised beds for those in wheelchairs. And some benches where others can sit and work too. More benches for people to meditate or just commune with nature.” She talked faster as she sketched little rectangles all over the sheet.
“And bird feeders! Birdhouses! Birdbaths!”
She couldn’t draw fast enough, and Crew laughed.
She flashed a smile at him even as she cocked her head, thinking of more. “We need shade too. Perhaps a small wind sail that stretches over part of the yard, since there aren’t any trees. And a shed to store tools.”
“That would be great.” The low rumble of his voice made her pulse leap.
“You know what else would be nice? A water feature. Plants with koi? Can koi fish even live in Wyoming over winter? I’ll have to check on that.” She scribbled a side note in the margin.
A prickle of awareness washed over her, and she realized that Crew was staring at her. Nibbling her lip, she met his gaze. “Too much?”
He shook his head, sending the notes of citrus and cedar dancing across her senses again. “You really get it.” He sounded…stunned by her. And she hadn’t done anything special or extraordinary.
Her ex would have scoffed at all of her ideas and only given her sketch a careless glance before declaring that he had to get back to work, and the high school football team he coached couldn’t win their eighth playoffs in a row by sitting around drawing dumb gardens.
Now a cloud had moved over her.
She slowly stood and tucked the pencil behind her ear. Crew straightened to his full height of over six feet of impressive muscle bronzed by working hard in the sun.
“Think we have enough space for all these ideas?” she asked him.
He scrubbed a knuckle over his jaw, adding a rasping noise to her sensory overload. “Willow is the person to ask.”
Another idea struck, and she grabbed the pencil again and drew out three little circles in one corner. “Structures for climbing beans. So the guys can stand to work.”
Crew issued a noise low in his throat, and when he spoke, he sounded choked up. “I love your inclusive vision.”
She searched his face. “Why does it sound like there’s a ‘but’ in there?”
He dropped his stare to his boots. “No buts. It’s just that I’m nearing the end of my stay here. I guess I’m a little sad that I can’t see your vision through.”