Chapter Five
The Cascadia Land Partners copier jammed before nine, which felt unfair for a machine that had spent its entire life indoors.
I stood in the workroom in a cream blouse, black pencil skirt, and flats that had never met garden soil, holding the copier drawer open with one hand while a warm sheet of paper sagged over the roller like it had lost the will to participate in capitalism.
Cold office air blew against the back of my neck. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Somewhere beyond the frosted glass wall, phones rang in tidy little bursts, keyboards clicked, and someone's citrus hand lotion fought bravely against the permanent smell of toner and expensive coffee.
Yesterday, I'd been on my knees beside Zane McCrae in the July heat, arguing with irrigation parts while sweat ran down my spine and he handed me water like hydration was a legal requirement.
Today, I was back where I belonged.
Allegedly.
The copier beeped at me.
"I know," I told it. "I'm disappointed in both of us."
Amanda Morrison appeared in the doorway with a stack of folders against one hip and her dark hair clipped up in the kind of twist that looked effortless only because she'd probably used twelve pins and actual skill. Her gaze dropped to my hand inside the machine.
"Are you negotiating with the copier?"
"I'm establishing boundaries."
"It's winning."
"That's because it has internal parts and no shame."
Amanda leaned against the doorframe, smiling. "You're very dramatic for someone who usually treats office equipment like a personal kingdom."
"I've been humbled by outdoor labor."
"I can tell." Her eyes narrowed with friendly interest. "You're tanner."
I pulled the jammed sheet free. "That's sun damage with better branding."
The copier chirped, reset itself, and immediately started printing Monica Owens's ten o'clock materials.
Amanda stepped aside so I could stack the fresh pages into the blue cover folder. "How many hours do you have left?"
"Four."
"That's nothing."
"That's what people say when they aren't the ones squatting near tomato plants while a man with forearms keeps turning water breaks into a moral stance."
Amanda's eyebrows lifted.
I slid the first divider into place. "I said too much."
"You said enough."
"I said a normal amount."
"You said forearms."
"I'm an administrative assistant. I notice support structures."
Amanda laughed and shifted the folders higher against her hip. Her white blouse was crisp, her navy trousers were spotless, and her silver hoop earrings caught the office light when she tilted her head. "Is this the site supervisor?"
"That's not the point."
"That's absolutely the point."
"The point is I have four hours left, my thighs are in active negotiations with stairs, and yesterday I discovered irrigation has tiny parts designed to test a person's moral character."
"Was the site supervisor wearing sleeves?"
I looked at her.
Amanda's smile widened. "That's what I thought."
The copier spat out the last page. I took it from the tray and tapped the stack straight. Paper edges clicked neatly against the counter. That sound usually calmed me. Pages in order. Tabs in place. Everything lined up and no one watching me sweat through my dignity.
For one second, I almost missed dirt.
That was alarming enough that I reached for a binder clip.
Amanda noticed. Of course she did. Amanda noticed everything she cared enough to notice, and apparently today she cared about my face.
"You okay?" she asked, softer now.
"Yes." I clipped the folder. "I'm fine."
"You say fine like it owes you money."
"I'm sore, that's all."
She studied me for another beat. "Is the community service part awful?"
I thought of Birdie's tomato earrings, Gus insulting compost with the gravity of a man discussing politics, Tyler trying to develop a strategy for a pile of decomposing leaves, and Zane's hand steady around a drip-line connector.
I thought of Beargrass Lake under the sun and Zane's voice on the dock saying my hours wouldn't change.
"No," I said. "It's not awful."
Amanda's expression shifted, but before she could ask the question sitting right there in her eyes, Monica Owens appeared at the far end of the hall.
Monica moved through Cascadia like every meeting had already agreed to start on her schedule.
She wore a fitted charcoal dress, low heels, and a thin gold chain that never seemed to tangle, which I considered a personal attack from the universe.
Her phone was in one hand, a red pen in the other, and her short blond hair was tucked behind one ear.
"Daphne," she said. "Do you have the West Ridge packet ready?"
"Yes." I lifted the blue folder. "I'm finishing the copies now."
"I need one clean print set, one scanned set, and the broker materials flagged before ten-thirty. The outside contact pushed revised access language late last night, and I want to see exactly what changed before the call."
"Of course."
Monica glanced toward Amanda. "Amanda, the bank letter goes to me before you send it."
"I'll bring it in five minutes," Amanda said.
"Good." Monica looked back at me. "Daphne, check the attachments against the revised index. If anything's missing, don't chase the broker. Bring it to me."
"I will."
Monica turned and walked back toward her office, already lifting the phone to her ear.
Amanda waited until Monica's door closed before she looked at me again. "West Ridge?"
"Don't ask me. I make packets. I don't name things."
"Probably wise."
"Names are where optimism goes to get zoning approval."
Amanda snorted. "You're definitely sore."
"I'm workplace appropriate and emotionally flexible."
"Sure." She pushed away from the doorframe. "If the copier wins again, yell."
"If the copier wins again, tell my mother I fought honorably."
"Your mother would ask why you were fighting office equipment instead of drinking water."
That sounded dangerously close to Zane, so I pointed at the hall. "Go do your bank letter."
Amanda left laughing.
I carried the folder to my desk, where my monitor glowed over a tidy landscape of sticky notes, paper clips, and the little ceramic cactus Amanda had given me after Julian because she said I needed something that thrived on neglect and looked unfriendly to touch.
The cactus had been a joke.
It had also outlasted my relationship.
I set the West Ridge materials down and rubbed one thumb over the edge of the blue cover.
The project had been background noise in the office all week, one of those development names that floated through conference rooms and calendar invites without meaning much to the person formatting page numbers.
Cascadia had projects all over the region.
Some involved commercial pads, some residential clusters, some conservation language that made everything sound gentler than it probably was.
I didn't work strategy. I didn't sit at the table. I processed documents, tracked signatures, formatted spreadsheets, caught typos before Monica's red pen found them, and made sure people who had opinions about margins never had to speak directly to printer settings.
That was my lane.
My safe, climate-controlled lane.
I opened the folder and started with the index.
The first pages were normal enough: cover memo, meeting agenda, preliminary timeline, project overview, revised access appendix, external broker summary, land-use map, stakeholder contact sheet.
I checked each item against the attachment list.
Everything matched.
The document smelled faintly of toner and warm paper.
My coffee sat untouched near my keyboard.
Outside the window, Larch Bend's main street baked under July sun, bright awnings fluttering over shopfronts and parked trucks.
Somewhere beyond the buildings, the mountain rose green and steady.
Somewhere beyond that, or maybe closer than I wanted to think about, the P-Patch sat under the same sky with its blue sign, its raised beds, and Zane's land running down toward Beargrass Lake.
I turned the page.
External Broker Summary.
The first line stopped me.
External Contact: Fletcher McCrae, Owner/Broker, McCrae Land Brokerage.
The office sounds thinned.
Keyboards still clicked. A phone still rang twice near reception. Someone laughed in the breakroom. The air conditioner still blew cold air over my shoulders.
I stared at the name until the letters stopped looking like letters and started looking like the glow of Zane's phone screen in the shed.
Fletcher.
Not a random Fletcher. Not a client named Fletcher with a harmless last name and nothing to do with Zane.
Fletcher McCrae.
Zane McCrae.
My fingers tightened on the page, wrinkling the corner before I made myself let go.
"No," I whispered.
The page didn't care.
I looked toward Monica's office, but the glass was frosted and her voice was a muffled rhythm behind the door. Amanda was nowhere in sight. Nobody looked at me. Nobody knew that the papers under my hands had just reached across my tidy desk and grabbed me by the throat.
I read the broker summary again.
McCrae Land Brokerage had supplied revised access assumptions for the Beargrass corridor.
Beargrass.
My pulse kicked so hard that the desk edge pressed into my palm before I realized I'd grabbed it.
I turned to the revised access appendix.
The map loaded in my head before I wanted it to: Larch Bend P-Patch at the city edge, the south fence, Zane's strip of scrub grass and pines beyond it, Beargrass Lake flashing blue through the trees.
Zane's voice came back to me, steady and rooted.
Through my land, yes.
I swallowed and bent over the page.
The appendix used cleaner language than Fletcher had probably used with Zane.
It called the proposed route a natural access connection.
It described the adjacent McCrae parcel as a viable acquisition or easement path for Beargrass Lake access.
It noted that broker outreach was active and that owner engagement was anticipated within the current project window.
Owner engagement.
Anticipated.
Current project window.