Chapter Two
Daphne lasted the full four hours.
That should've been the only thing I carried with me while I shut off the spigot, coiled the hose, and checked the latch on the shed door.
She'd shown up. She'd worked. She'd completed the shift.
But nothing about Daphne had felt simple since she'd stood inside the P-Patch gate in those pale pink shoes with tiny bows on the toes and court paperwork clutched in one hand like it might bite her.
I hung the hose where it belonged and flexed my fingers once before I reached for the hours clipboard.
My shirt had dried, but I could still feel the cold shock of water hitting my chest. Worse, I could still see Daphne's face afterward, all wide green eyes, flushed cheeks, and that soft mouth trying not to smile while she braced for me to be angry.
I hadn't been angry.
That was the problem.
The paper still held the facts. Four hours signed. Sixteen left. Nadine's probation office would care about the boxes, the dates, my signature, and whether Daphne kept showing up.
That was my job too.
My job wasn't to remember the way she'd laughed after soaking me, bright and mortified and so relieved I hadn't made it worse for her.
My job wasn't to think about her ruined shoes tapping against the shed floor while she initialed the line beside her name.
It sure as hell wasn't my job to notice how her blouse clung after the heat got to her, or how fast I'd looked away because she was under my supervision and I wasn't an idiot.
I noticed anyway.
The late July sun threw the tomato cages into long shadows across the paths. Beyond the far fence, past the city's garden beds, my land dropped toward Beargrass Lake.
That view usually settled me.
Today, it didn't stand a chance.
I finished the hours sheet, locked it in the metal file box, and shoved the shed door closed hard enough to rattle the latch. The sound snapped through the quiet garden.
The snap helped.
A man needed something sharp when his head was trying to wander somewhere it had no business going.
I checked the tomato cages first. One had split near the bottom, and Tyler's repair job involved enough wire to hold together a bridge and enough poor judgment to make the whole thing lean. I cut it loose, reset the stake, and wrapped it properly while the smell of wet soil rose from the beds.
The P-Patch looked softer after everyone left.
There was no Birdie moving down the rows with her clippers, no Gus making the compost pile look personally intimidated, no Tyler asking questions that made me question whether public education had failed him, and no Daphne crouched in the carrot bed, frowning at weeds like they'd wronged her.
I tightened the last wire and stepped back.
The city owned the garden. The city handled the water meter, the insurance forms, the sign on the gate, and the cheerful language about community pride.
I handled tools, volunteers, crew assignments, bed rotation, and people who came in mad at the court and left surprised that tomatoes weren't impressed by their attitude.
The south edge of the P-Patch ran against a narrow strip of scrub grass. Past that, the fence line marked the start of my land. Pines, slope, old access road, and the clean blue flash of Beargrass Lake through the trees.
I called that view worth protecting.
Fletcher called it underutilized.
My phone rang before I made it to the fence.
I didn't have to check the screen to know.
Still, I pulled it from my back pocket.
FLETCHER.
Of course.
I let it ring twice while I walked toward the gate. Then I answered. "What?"
"Nice to hear your voice too," Fletcher said.
I stopped in the strip of shade thrown by the P-Patch sign. "If this is about the same thing it was about yesterday, my answer's the same."
"Zane, you haven't even heard what I'm calling about."
"You're calling at six-thirty on a workday. It's about the lake."
"It's about opportunity."
"That's the same thing in a cleaner shirt."
Fletcher laughed softly, like I'd made the exact joke he expected and he was willing to let me have it. He'd been doing that since we were kids. He let me swing while he stepped out of range.
"I'm trying to have a real conversation with you," he said.
"We've had it."
"We've had the part where you say no before anyone finishes a sentence."
"I save time."
"You turn stubbornness into a profession."
"Only when you're trying to sell me something I already own."
A truck rolled by on the road beyond the gate, kicking up dust that drifted gold in the low sun. I watched it pass and kept my eyes off the lake.
Fletcher sighed. "You know this area is going to change whether you like it or not."
"My land isn't an area."
"Everything is part of something larger."
"Does that line work on sellers who don't know you?"
"It works on people who can look five years ahead." His voice stayed smooth, reasonable, almost gentle. "The P-Patch, the road, the lake access, the west side of town. You're sitting in the middle of a natural growth corridor."
"I'm standing beside a community garden with a cracked tomato cage and a kid's crooked compost trench."
"Exactly. Community amenities matter. Access matters. Planning matters."
"What you mean is money matters."
"Money keeps towns alive too."
I looked down at my boots. Dust clung to the leather. A smear of mud marked the left toe from the carrot row.
I closed my hand tighter around the phone.
Fletcher kept talking. "You don't have to sell tomorrow. Nobody's asking you to sign your life away over coffee. But you need to stop treating every conversation like an attack."
"You want Beargrass access."
"I want you to sit down and hear options."
"Then hear this option. I keep saying no, and you start believing me."
The silence changed. Fletcher didn't get loud when he could get precise.
"You're making this personal," he said.
"It's my land."
"It's a project conversation."
"It's my land."
"And you're not the only person who has to live with what happens around it."
"Then stop talking around it and say what you want."
"I want you at a table before every other table moves on without you."
"You mean before you move on without me."
Another pause.
When Fletcher spoke again, his voice had softened into something almost brotherly. "I'm not your enemy."
"Then stop circling my fence."
Fletcher exhaled. "For tonight, I'll let that go."
"That's generous."
"I'll be in town tomorrow."
"Congratulations."
"I may stop by."
"Don't."
"You can't avoid me forever."
"I'm not avoiding you. I'm telling you no in different locations."
This time, his laugh had less humor in it. "Get some rest, little brother."
"I'm thirty-six."
"You're still my little brother."
"Then act like it."
I ended the call before he could answer.
The quiet came back, but it didn't settle right. It sat over the beds, over the shed, over the line of my fence and the glint of water beyond it.
I shoved the phone into my pocket and went back to work.
There was always work.
Tools, plants, broken cages, and irrigation lines still needed hands, time, and enough patience not to make the problem worse.
I could do that.
I could fix a cage, coil a hose, sign a court sheet, and keep my land out of my brother's mouth.
I could keep my hands off Daphne too.
By the time I locked the gate, the sun had dropped behind the trees, and the lake had gone from blue to dark steel. I stood there a second longer than I needed to, one hand on the chain, the other remembering the weight of the clipboard when Daphne's fingers brushed mine.
Then I walked home before I could make a habit out of standing still and wanting things I shouldn't.
The next morning, Daphne showed up in sneakers.
White sneakers.
Clean white sneakers.
I stood by the shed with a bag of tomato ties in one hand and watched her pause just inside the gate, looking down at them like she'd brought children into a battle zone.
The sneakers were sturdier than the pink flats. Not smart, exactly, but better. Her cropped pants were olive green today, and she wore a fitted gray T-shirt with her brown hair twisted up off her neck. A few loose pieces had already escaped around her face.
She looked less like she'd come to apologize to brunch.
She looked like she'd tried.
That shouldn't have hit me anywhere below the ribs.
It did.
Daphne looked up and found me watching. Her mouth curved, small and wary.
"Before you say anything," she called, "they're not decorative."
I glanced at her shoes. "They're white."
"They were on sale."
"They won't be white long."
"That feels like a threat."
"It's more of a forecast."
She walked toward the shed, tote on her shoulder, cheeks already pink from the morning heat. "Good morning to you too, Zane."
My name sounded different in her mouth after I'd spent half the night telling myself not to think about it.
"Morning," I said.
Behind her, Tyler came through the gate with his baseball cap backward and a gas-station energy drink in one hand.
Daphne glanced at it. "Is that breakfast?"
Tyler looked at the can. "It has vitamins."
"It has lightning bolts on the label."
"That's how you know it works."
Gus stepped in behind him, gray beard loose over a faded black shirt. "Boy's going to vibrate into the mulch."
"I'm standing right here," Tyler said.
Gus gave him a calm look. "Not for long if you drink that."
Daphne bit her lip.
I saw it. I also saw the quick flash of teeth, the effort not to laugh, and the way the motion dragged my attention straight to her mouth.
I turned toward the shed. "Bags inside. Phones away. Water before work."
Daphne saluted with two fingers. "Yes, supervisor."
The word should've cooled me down.
It didn't.
It reminded me exactly why I needed to keep space between us.
Birdie arrived from the herb bed with a basket over one arm and a straw hat tied with a red scarf. Her earrings today were tiny silver suns that flashed when she turned her head.
"Well, look at you," she said to Daphne. "Those are almost work shoes."
"Almost is my brand today," Daphne said.
"Almost keeps people humble."
"I was hoping for competent."