Chapter 26 Jack
TWENTY-SIX
JACK
I stare at the marked-up contract. Isla’s still watching the door, waiting for Beau to come back with some last-minute twist or condition.
“Do you believe him?” I ask.
She flinches slightly, then pulls her attention back to me. “About what?”
“About this being some blend of civic duty and town preservation, and not a longer play.”
“I believe his reasons are his problem. Mine’s the orchard.”
We sit in silence. June drops off an extra pot at the table next to us and laughs at something one of the regulars says. Outside, the square is starting to wake up—alive with the sound of delivery trucks and early shoppers.
Still, I can’t seem to wipe away the smell of Beau’s expensive cologne and unique brand of bullshit. He says there’s no ulterior motive, but I still don’t know if I buy it.
“You hate this,” Isla says.
“I don’t hate having a lawyer on our side. I hate that the lawyer comes with Beau attached.”
“His lawyer comes with his checkbook attached,” she says. “Which is the only reason we can afford the time this’ll take. You’ve seen my accounts, Jack. I can’t pay a retainer on a maybe. If Beau wants to eat that cost because of whatever inane reason he’s cooked up, I’m not too proud to let him.”
“Why is it that Beau can throw money at the problem, but you won’t let me do the same?”
She smiles sweetly. “Because I don’t like or respect Beau, which means I won’t feel bad about using him.”
It shouldn’t matter that much, hearing where I fall on her internal ranking system, but apparently, I’m pathetic enough these days to take a little pride in being a step or two above Beau Langford.
“While I’m glad to know you respect and like and value me—” She opens her mouth, and I continue, cutting her off. “—I’m still standing here with perfectly usable money.”
“Sorry, do you already have a lawyer on retainer that specializes in grant contracts?”
“No, but I can find someone that’s well versed in this kind of thing.”
“But Beau’s lawyer is already in motion. They’re up to speed on the contract and the committee, and Beau can be the intermediary so we don’t have to deal with the funders directly.”
She drags a hand through her hair, loosening the knot. A piece falls around her face.
“You’re trying to offload some of the stress?” I ask.
“I’m trying to keep the orchard,” she replies. “That’s the goal here. If Beau’s handing us a tool, we can’t refuse it just to make a point.”
“Tools come with strings.”
“So does everything else.” Her voice tightens. “You think the grant itself doesn’t? You think marrying you didn’t come with a thousand unspoken expectations I’m still trying to live up to?”
That lands center mass. I feel it low and hot.
She winces. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah, you did.”
Maybe that’s not what gets under my skin. Not that she said it, but that some part of me has been worrying it’s true. That I won’t be enough once the shine wears off.
I’m useful right now because I solve problems on paper and look stable from the outside, but eventually, she’ll look at me and see all the ways I fall short of whatever she really needs.
“I meant,” she says more softly, “that every choice I make right now has a cost. Saying yes to the grant. Saying yes to you. Saying no to Beau. Saying no to Roland. There’s no version where I keep Mirabelle without paying something. I’m trying to choose the thing I can live with the most.”
I’m included in the long list of people and things she feels indebted to. That stings because this was never about tit for tat. This was never about her paying me back.
“And you can live with owing Beau?”
“Like I said, I can live with using Beau,” she says. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation.
“Then trust that I’m not going to hand him the keys to Mirabelle when all is said and done. I’m asking for his help, not his permission. I know he sucks most of the time. I’m painfully aware of what happened to Greer.”
I look at her, at the line between her brows, at the way her shoulders have been riding up around her ears all morning. I don’t want to add to the pressure she’s already carrying, but I also can’t pretend this doesn’t feel like inviting a wolf to review the henhouse security.
“I don’t like this,” I say.
“I don’t like it, either. I like it a bit more than losing the orchard, though.”
June appears at the edge of the table, her tension radar apparently pinging. “Refill?” she asks lightly.
“Please,” Isla replies.
I push my mug forward, too. June fills both, then raises a brow at us. “You two look like you’re plotting either a heist or a murder,” she says. “As your friend and occasionally nosy neighbor, I feel compelled to remind you that we don’t want to lose another good contractor to prison.”
“Thank you, June,” I say.
“Anytime.” She squeezes my shoulder before heading back to the counter.
Isla wraps her hands around the fresh mug. “So,” she says, not looking at me, “next step is waiting for the markup, then deciding if we send it back. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“We can talk about the rest later.”
“Which rest?”
She gives me a look, exasperated. “The part where you think Beau’s the devil and I think he might be a necessary evil.” Then, quieter, “And we still need to talk about that kiss.”
“Oh, do we?” I lean back in my chair. “I thought it was pretty self-explanatory.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re unbearable.”
“And yet, freshly kissed.”
She shakes her head, but there’s the tiniest pull at the corner of her mouth.
“After I check on the crew at the Rutherford job, would you meet me somewhere? Down by the river near my cabin. We can talk more then.”
“Yeah, let’s do that,” she says. “And thank you, Jack, for coming here this morning. For caring enough to be angry.”
I want to tell her I’m not only angry. I’m scared and protective and ridiculously hopeful. That the thought of the orchard being tied up for good sounds a whole lot like permanence, and that some reckless part of me wants that permanence to include us, too.
Instead, I say, “I always care, freckles.”
She rises onto her toes and presses her mouth to my cheek, giving me a quick peck before stepping back. By the time my brain catches up, she’s already halfway across the square, hair slipping free in the breeze.
I watch her go like a loyal Lab waiting at the window for his owner to return.
By the time I pull into the drive, the adrenaline from the meeting has burned off and left this hollow, buzzing feeling in its wake. I check my phone. No new emails from Beau. No catastrophic texts from the Rutherford crew.
I still swing by the site because that’s what I said I’d do. The guys are on schedule, siding stacked where it should be. I walk the perimeter, answer a couple of questions I could’ve handled over text.
Talia and Nico have this covered, so as soon as it’s reasonable, I head for the river.
My place looks the same as it did six years ago when I first bought it. It’s a small, square cabin with a sagging porch. I used to think I’d fix it up and flip it. Then Blue Willow got its hooks in, and I stopped making exit plans.
Inside, I move on automatic. Keys in the bowl. Boots by the door.
I open the hall closet and dig through the controlled chaos until I find an old picnic blanket. The thing’s been through enough summers that it’s gone soft at the edges, but it’ll do. I grab two plastic cups from the cabinet, toss them on top, then hesitate at the wine rack.
I’ve been saving a few bottles of Mirabelle wine left over from our reception at the Harbor Light. For “special occasions,” according to the label. I run my fingers along the glass necks until they land on one with a little smudge of ink near the bottom.
Special occasion. If this isn’t one, I don’t know what is.
I take the bottle and head out back.
The path to the river is muscle memory. Down the porch steps, past the woodpile, through the thin strip of woods. The trees open onto a narrow bank of flat rocks and packed dirt. The river curves here.
It’s midday, sun high and blazing.
I spread the blanket on the flattest part near the water and sit, legs stretched out, heels digging into the edge of the fabric. My brain, unhelpfully, starts running through sampling language again.
I shove it away and focus on the sound of the current instead.
Isla shows up ten minutes later. She steps through the trees, spots me, and huffs out a breath. “You could’ve warned me it was a bit of a hike.”
“It’s three minutes,” I say. “Five if you stop to argue with every sapling.”
“I considered it.” She squints at the blanket, then at the wine. “Wow. You went full date.”
Heat crawls up the back of my neck. “It’s not . . . I just thought . . . I know you like that one.”
“The 2019,” she says, eyeing the label. “You’ve been hoarding it.”
“I’ve been saving it,” I correct. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“One’s selfish. The other is thoughtful.” I lift the bottle. “Today, I’m thoughtful.”
Her mouth curves. “Sure.”
She drops onto the blanket beside me, close enough that our thighs brush. She’s swapped the sweatshirt for a lighter sweater, deep green, sleeves pushed up. Her hair’s down now, tangled from the wind.
Up close, she looks tired. The slow-burn kind that comes from holding everything up all the time. Still beautiful, though. Always.
I pop the cork and pour. She takes the first cup.
“God, that’s good,” she says. “I forgot this batch turned out so well.”
I take a drink, too. The wine is bright and familiar. Mirabelle in a glass—plums and sunshine and the faintest floral thing I can never name.
“It tastes so buzzy,” she says.
“Buzzy?” I glance at her. “Is that your official vintner term?”
“It’s very technical. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
She smiles, then tips her head back and looks up at the thin strip of sky visible through the branches. Cotton-candy pink and robin’s-egg blue. We sit, listening to the river and the birds twittering.
“You kissed me last night,” I say. “Did you mean it?”