Chapter Three #2
Zane kept his eyes on the drip line, but his shoulder eased beside mine. He didn’t ask what I meant. He didn’t push. He just handed me the next little plastic stake and let me press it into the soil.
The stake dug into my palm. Julian had always wanted the version of a story that made him look reasonable.
He’d asked questions like traps, stood there with that wounded expression after I found out what he’d done, and somehow made me feel like the unstable one because I’d stopped being polite about being humiliated.
My hand pressed too hard on the stake.
It snapped.
I stared at the broken plastic in my palm.
Zane reached out, not touching me this time. “Hey.”
I blinked.
“You okay?”
“Yes.” I closed my fingers around the broken piece. “I murdered irrigation equipment.”
His gaze stayed on my face. “It happens.”
“Does it?”
“To Tyler, usually.”
“Hey,” Tyler called.
Zane ignored him. “Give me that one. I’ll get another.”
“I can pay for it.”
“It’s a drip-line stake, Daphne.”
“That sounds like something people say before invoices happen.”
His expression softened just enough to make my chest hurt. “No invoice.”
I handed over the broken piece.
Our fingers didn’t brush. Zane made sure of it.
That carefulness should’ve calmed me down. Instead, it made me want to climb directly out of my own skin.
Lunch happened under the pines with water bottles, Birdie’s cooler, Tyler’s loud complaints about healthy snacks, and Gus eating a sandwich wrapped in wax paper with the solemn focus of a man who had seen things.
I had a protein bar from my tote and a peach Birdie pressed into my hand.
“Nobody should look at fruit that suspiciously,” she said.
The peach was cold from the cooler and sweet enough to make me close my eyes on the first bite.
When I opened them, Zane was watching from beside the shed.
He wasn’t staring or leering. He was watching.
His gaze dropped to the peach juice on my thumb, then snapped back to my face.
Heat bloomed under my skin.
I lowered my hand very slowly and wiped my thumb on a napkin.
Birdie, who had missed nothing in her entire life, said, “Hot day.”
I bit into the peach again because my mouth needed a job.
The last hour of the shift dragged and flew at the same time.
My arms and thighs were tired, but my nerves stayed lit.
Every time Zane passed behind me, I felt the movement before I heard his boots.
Every time he said my name, my stomach tightened.
Every time I caught sight of Beargrass Lake through the trees, I thought about water on sun-warmed skin and Zane’s hands and the fact that I had never been in more trouble while technically following rules.
At one, Zane called the shift.
“Tools in,” he said. “Water before you leave.”
Tyler raised both arms. “I survived.”
Gus looked at him. “You’re still holding the rake wrong.”
“That feels less important now.”
“It’ll feel important when Zane notices.”
Tyler lowered the rake immediately.
I laughed and carried my gloves to the shed. The dim interior smelled like cedar dust, work leather, and hot plastic. I set the gloves on the bench, flexed my fingers, and tried not to think about how much of my day now revolved around not thinking about Zane.
He came in behind me with the clipboard.
The shed got smaller, at least everywhere my pulse could measure.
“Four today?” I asked.
“Four.” Zane wrote the date and hours in the neat boxes beside my name. “That puts you at twelve total.”
“Twelve.” I let out a breath. “Only eight left.”
“Two shifts if you stay with fours.”
The math should’ve made me happy.
Instead, my chest tightened.
Only eight hours left meant I was closer to being done with the P-Patch, done with the sign-in sheets, done with dirt under my nails and Birdie’s earrings and Tyler’s compost commentary and Gus’s dry wisdom. Closer to being done with Zane.
He handed me the pen. “Initial here.”
I bent over the clipboard and signed. My hand only shook a little.
Zane noticed.
“You’re tired,” he said.
“I’m victorious.”
“You’re both.”
“That’s generous.”
“It’s accurate.”
I looked up.
He was close enough that I could see a streak of dust near his jaw and the pulse beating at the side of his throat.
The sun cut across the shed doorway behind him, catching the worn edge of his shirt and the ink winding down his arm.
His expression stayed controlled, but his eyes had gone darker, fixed on mine with the kind of attention that made every inch of my skin aware of being skin.
Outside, Birdie called, “I’m taking Tyler and Gus with me before the compost starts giving legal advice.”
Tyler said, “It had one good point.”
Gus said, “Get in the truck, kid.”
Footsteps moved away. Voices faded toward the gate. A truck door opened, then shut. Tyler’s laugh drifted back through the sun.
Then the P-Patch went quiet.
Zane hung the clipboard on its hook.
I should’ve picked up my tote.
I didn’t.
His hand stayed on the clipboard for a second before he let go. “You’re signed out.”
“I know.”
His gaze sharpened.
The air in the shed changed even though he didn’t move closer. He didn’t move away either, and I swallowed. “Is Beargrass really that close?”
Zane’s jaw flexed once. “Yes.”
I glanced toward the doorway, where sunlight burned white over the path. “I’ve lived here forever and I’ve barely seen it from anywhere except the public beach.”
“My access isn’t the public side.”
“I figured.”
He turned enough to look toward the south fence. For a second, I thought he would say no. I thought he would shut the moment down because he was responsible, and I was under his supervision, and wanting him was already making a mess of my common sense.
Then Zane looked back at me.
“If you want to see it, I can walk you down.”
My pulse kicked.
He lifted one hand before I could answer. “But listen to me first.”
I went still.
“Your hours are signed. Today’s work is done.
Whether you come with me or leave right now doesn’t change your sheet, your next shift, or anything I report to Nadine.
” His voice stayed steady, but there was a raw edge under it.
“I’m asking as me, not as your site supervisor.
If you say no, I’ll lock up, you’ll go home, and I’ll see you tomorrow like usual. ”
My throat went tight again.
My fingers tightened around the strap of my tote. He’d left the choice in my hands, and I wanted to put those hands straight on him.
“I want to see it,” I said.
His eyes held mine. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” My voice came out soft, but it didn’t shake. “I’m sure.”
Zane nodded once, then reached past me for his keys on the hook by the door. His arm came close enough that I felt the brush of air from his movement.
It wasn’t a touch, and it was still enough.
He locked the shed, then the gate, and we walked along the south fence toward a narrow opening I hadn’t noticed before.
The path beyond it slipped between pines and down a gentle slope through Zane’s land.
Dry needles softened the ground under our shoes.
The air changed as soon as we left the P-Patch behind, cooling by degrees beneath the trees.
Sap scented the shade. Grasshoppers clicked in the scrub.
Somewhere ahead, water slapped softly against rock.
Zane walked beside me, not touching, his keys tucked into one pocket and his hands loose at his sides like he was making himself keep them there.
I noticed that too, because restraint had become my newest bad subject.
“How often do you come down here?” I asked.
“Most days.”
“To swim?”
“To check things. Clear brush. Make sure nobody’s torn up the access road. Sometimes to swim.”
“Very practical.”
“Sometimes I just sit.”
I glanced at him.
He looked straight ahead, sunlight cutting in broken pieces over his face through the pine branches, and his voice had gone quieter than I expected.
I didn’t tease him for it.
“Sounds nice,” I said.
“It is.”
The path opened.
Beargrass Lake spread out below us, bright and blue under the afternoon sun, ringed by pines and dark rock.
Zane’s access sat in a small sheltered curve of shoreline away from the public beach.
A short weathered dock stretched into the water.
The shallows were clear enough to show smooth stones under the surface, and tiny waves flashed silver where the breeze touched them.
For a second, I forgot to be embarrassed.
“Oh,” I said.
Zane stopped beside me. “Yeah.”
“That’s not an adequate description.”
“No?”
“No.” I stepped onto the shore, where pale grass gave way to flat stones warmed by the sun. “This is unfairly beautiful.”
He stayed a few feet behind me. “Unfairly?”
“Some places should give warnings before they make a person feel underdressed for their own life.”
His laugh was quiet. “You’re dressed fine.”
I looked down at my dirt-streaked legs, dusty sneakers, black shorts, and tank top damp at the spine. “Zane.”
His gaze moved over me slowly, not careless and not polite, and my breath caught.
“You’re dressed fine,” he said again, lower this time.
The lake breeze slipped over my hot skin. I looked at the water because looking at Zane had become an advanced-level activity.
“I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”
“I didn’t ask you to swim.”
“No.” I pulled my hair tie loose and shook my hair off my neck. “But the lake did.”
Zane made a low sound. “Daphne.”
I turned back.
He stood at the edge of the shade with the water bright behind me and restraint written through every line of his body. His hands were still loose at his sides, but his shoulders had gone tight. His eyes stayed on mine. He looked like a man standing at the last good place to stop.
I was so tired of stopping.
I bent and untied my shoes.
Zane didn’t move.
I pulled off my socks, set them inside my sneakers, and stepped onto the first flat stone at the water’s edge. The rock was hot against my bare feet. The lake lapped cool over my toes, and I sucked in a breath.
“Cold?” he asked.
“Perfect.”