Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bennett
For the past several weeks, Delaney and I have been coming to Blue Prairie Country Club and instructing the crew on the overhaul of the landscaping. Today is the first day we’ll be planting.
It’s pure and utter torture every time she hops in my truck smelling like whatever perfume or shampoo she uses. I think it’s some combination of pear and freesia, and it’s intoxicating as fuck.
The best part is that every day it seems like I’m able to chip away a piece of that tense and closed off woman who arrived in Willowbrook.
But she’s still trying to keep her distance from me, and I can’t really blame her.
I picked Kristie over her, and the damage and pain that caused won’t get washed away with a few flirtatious looks or words.
The rain starts in the middle of our second install—soft at first and enough to make us believe it will pass quickly.
Delaney’s kneeling beside a bed of lavender, her hands tucking the roots in the soil gently and precisely. I admire her working longer than I should. She hums under her breath, a song I can’t place.
“Are you going to watch everything I plant?” she asks without turning around.
“You have a touch with plants and flowers.”
She looks over her shoulder. “That is a compliment, right?”
I chuckle and kneel beside her, digging the next hole for her. “It’s a gentleness, like a caress.”
She reaches across me, lightly putting the roots in place then sliding the dirt to fill the hole. “It’s called nurturing. I like to think the calmer you are, the more it feels at peace with the earth.”
I sit back on my ankles, and she puts up her hand.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“What?” I hold out my hands, unable to take my eyes off her.
“That it’s some new age thinking. I’d like you to know, in my private garden, only two things died, and they were both roses.” She sighs. “Should’ve been a sign.”
“I wasn’t judging. I love to watch you work.”
She side-eyes me, reaching farther to dig the next hole, but I get there first.
“What?” I ask when she doesn’t continue the conversation.
“It’s just… this needs to stay platonic between us.”
“I only said I love to watch you work. I don’t see the harm in complimenting you.” We start on the second row of lavender.
Honestly, I should be on the seventh hole with the hackberry trees being planted along the fairway, but I can’t seem to find it in myself to leave her.
The other night when Wren told me she went riding with Leia and her mom had braided her hair, I was pissed that I’d missed it. Though to see her doing something so motherly with my daughter might’ve broken that final thread of willpower and had me kissing her.
Delaney stands and stretches, water dripping from the ends of her hair. “Thank you.”
I sit back and stretch my arms, watching her tip her head back. “Don’t thank me. It was purely selfish reasons that I came over to help you.”
I forgot how exciting it is to flirt with her.
“No, for giving me the job. Convincing me to take it.” Her voice is soft. “It draws me out of my head and reminds me who I am.”
I stare at the water that’s coming down a little steadier now, the dark clouds looming overhead. “It’s the best. You’ve been missing out.”
She laughs and tilts her head back again, closing her eyes, face lifted to the sky, allowing the rain to wash over her.
She throws her arms out at her sides, her chest rising and falling.
She’s breathtakingly gorgeous, and I want to kiss her more in this moment than I did the other day in my kitchen.
“Why did you allow him to tell you to stop?” I’m taking a chance with the question, but I’m desperate to know since the Delaney I knew would have told him to fuck off.
She hesitates, and when she does finally speak, her voice is low.
“It’s not like from day one he said, ‘You’re not going to work.
’ It just happened slowly. He was gone a lot, we had the money, and it made sense for me to stay home with Leia at first. But I see now, I let myself shrink to fit a life I never really wanted. ”
The air shifts around us… thickens, as guilt washes down on me faster than the raindrops.
She looks up at the dark sky again. Rain traces her cheekbone. And for a second, I forget all the shit between us.
“You’re here now, and you’re definitely making the most of it.” I glance at the lavender perfectly planted by her side.
“Well… thank you again.” Her lips tip in a sweet smile.
“You’re repaying me by looking so gorgeous right now.”
Her head dips, and she opens her eyes slowly, blinking at me through the rain that’s gotten heavier in the last minute. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
She twirls her finger, pointing at me. “That. We’re coworkers. For real this time. You are my boss, and I am your employee.”
I climb up off the ground. “You’re so much more than my employee, and you know it.”
“Okay, you have hackberries to oversee being planted.” She kneels back down on the ground, digging another hole for the next set of lavender.
“I’m really happy you took the job,” I confess to her back when I should be staring into her eyes. “It’s been a long time since I was this excited to come to work every morning.”
“Hackberry trees!” she shouts with a giggle and points away from where we are.
I take my chances because I’m losing control of my usually calculated decisions. I squat behind her, leaning closer. “It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted someone like I want you, Delaney. Like, seven years long.”
Her breath hitches, and I lean in closer, inhaling her scent once more to carry me through the next few hours before we’re in the cab of my truck again.
“B,” she sighs.
“Call me that again.”
She shakes her head slowly. “We can’t.”
I sit down so that I’m facing her, interrupting her work.
“I’m here when you’re ready. We can go slow.
Start as friends if you want, but…” I stop for a second because I haven’t really thought this through.
For the first time in a long time, I’m going on instinct and feelings.
For a split second, I doubt myself, until I look at her.
“I want to give us another try.” There, it’s out there, and I can’t take it back. “You know, when you’re ready.”
I may not have weighed all the pros and cons of my admission, but the moment the words leave my lips, I know them to be true.
For the first time ever, there’s something in her eyes I can’t piece together. “And if that’s never?”
I bring my legs up and wrap my arms around them. “I don’t think the word never applies to us.”
She holds my gaze. “That’s not what you thought seven years ago.”
And there it is, the flash of hurt still sparking in her brown eyes. My roadblock to getting her back will be the worst mistake I’ve ever made and the one I’ve regretted the most.
“Dela—”
“No, just… go.” The pain lining her voice warns me not to push this issue right now.
I open my mouth, but Mark hollers from the edge of the green that he needs me on the seventh hole.
“Hackberries,” I murmur.
“Told you.”
I get up but then squat beside her. “I want to continue this conversation.”
“There isn’t much to say.”
I stand and wipe my ass although I’m sure my shorts are ruined from the rain and muddy grass. “I disagree.”
I walk toward Mark, hoping like hell I’m right about all the signs I’m seeing. That the pulse between us is still alive and just needs a jumpstart.