Chapter Five #3
Larch Bend slid past my windshield in bright summer pieces: the bakery awning, the hardware store with stacked bags of soil out front, the library steps, a couple of tourists in sun hats crossing too slowly because Montana had tricked them into thinking all roads were scenic suggestions.
My office flats pressed the pedals. My cream blouse stuck lightly to my back despite the air conditioning.
My bag sat on the passenger seat with the folded note inside it, which felt both too small and too heavy for what it carried.
At the last stop sign before the P-Patch road, I looked down at my clothes and almost laughed.
I was dressed wrong again.
Not for court-ordered labor this time. For honesty.
The P-Patch sign came into view, blue against the white afternoon light.
The gate stood open. Tomato vines shone green behind the fence, and the shed sat under the pines exactly where it always did, practical and weathered and unfairly calm.
The south row ran dark in places where yesterday's repaired drip line had done its job.
Daphne Willoughby, administrative assistant and occasional destroyer of tires, now reporting for emotional disaster in office flats.
I parked near the gate.
For a few seconds, I stayed in the car with both hands on the steering wheel.
Zane stood near the south fence.
He wore faded jeans, work boots, and a sleeveless dark shirt that left his tattooed arms bare in the sun.
He had one hand braced on a fence post and the other holding a pair of pliers.
His light hair was damp at the temples, and a smear of dirt marked his forearm.
He looked like the kind of man who could fix almost anything with enough time and enough stubbornness.
He looked up before I opened the door.
Even from the car, I saw him go still.
My chest pulled tight.
Then I got out.
Heat hit me first. Real heat, not office thermostat drama. It rose from the path, pressed through my blouse, and brought with it the smell of tomato leaves, dry soil, sun-warmed wood, and hose water.
Zane watched me walk through the gate in my pencil skirt and office flats.
His gaze dropped once to my shoes.
Under other circumstances, that would've been funny.
Under other circumstances, I might've said something about trusting sidewalks again.
Nothing funny came.
Zane set the pliers on the fence rail and started toward me. His expression was controlled, but his eyes were careful in a way that made my throat hurt.
"Daphne," he said. "You're early."
"I know."
"You're dressed for work."
"I came from work."
His gaze sharpened.
The first piece changed the air before I had time to be ready for it.
He stopped a few feet away. "Are you okay?"
I wanted to say yes.
I wanted to be the woman who could make a joke, keep it light, and delay the worst of it until the garden was less bright and his eyes were less focused on my face.
I couldn't.
"No," I said. "I need to tell you something."
Zane's jaw tightened, but his voice stayed steady. "Come to the shed."
The shed was empty when we stepped inside. No Birdie. No Gus. No Tyler. No clipboard ceremony. Just dim heat, old wood, the metal tang of tools, and the workbench where Zane had signed my hours while both of us pretended his hand near mine didn't change the size of the room.
I set my bag on the bench but didn't sit.
Zane stood near the door, leaving it open behind him. Sunlight cut along his shoulder and caught the ink on his arm. He didn't crowd me. He didn't cross his arms. He just waited.
That almost made it worse.
I pulled the folded note from my bag.
"My job is at Cascadia Land Partners," I said.
Zane didn't move.
Not even a blink.
But everything about him changed.
His hand flexed once at his side. His mouth went flat. The shed felt smaller than it had a second ago.
"Cascadia," he said.
"Yes."
"What does Cascadia have to do with Fletcher?"
"More than I knew this morning."
Silence pressed between us.
Outside, a sprinkler ticked somewhere down the row. A truck passed on the road beyond the gate. The ordinary world kept doing ordinary things while I stood in the wreckage of my own missing truth.
Zane's voice came out low. "Tell me."
I made myself start at the beginning.
"Monica assigned me a West Ridge packet this morning," I said. "I thought it was a normal project file. Cover memo, agenda, revised index, broker materials, all the usual things I process."
"West Ridge," he said.
"That's the project name in the folder. I didn't know it touched Beargrass. I didn't know it touched you."
His eyes stayed on mine. "Until when?"
"Until I opened the external broker summary."
His shoulders stayed loose, but his face had gone still in a way that made every word feel sharper.
I unfolded the note. "The first line said, External Contact: Fletcher McCrae, Owner/Broker, McCrae Land Brokerage."
Zane's jaw worked once.
"I checked the revised access appendix next," I said. "It named Beargrass Lake access. It named the adjacent McCrae parcel. It treated your land as a viable acquisition or easement path."
His voice dropped. "Viable."
"Yes."
"I told him no."
"I know."
Zane looked toward the south fence, though the shed wall blocked the view. "That son of a..."
He stopped before the rest of it came out.
I kept going because if I stopped, I might lose my nerve.
"The land-use map showed the P-Patch as a community amenity.
It wasn't colored as part of the acquisition, but the access route curled right past it.
It made the garden look like proof the project cared about community while the route pressed against your land and the lake. "
"Was there owner agreement language?"
"No." I held up the note with both hands because my fingers had started to shake. "That's one of the things I wrote down. No owner agreement noted."
Zane's eyes closed for half a second.
When they opened, they were hard and clear. "He put my land in Cascadia's file."
"Yes."
"He made my no look temporary."
"That's how it read to me."
"Did you bring the packet?"
"No." I said it quickly. "I didn't take it. I didn't email myself anything. I didn't copy maps or remove documents. I wrote down the page titles and exact phrases I saw because I was assigned to check the materials and I couldn't pretend I didn't understand what they meant."
"What phrases?"
I read from the note. "External Broker Summary. Revised Access Appendix. Land-Use Map. Fletcher McCrae, McCrae Land Brokerage. Beargrass Lake access. Adjacent McCrae parcel. Viable acquisition or easement path. No owner agreement noted."
Zane took the note then.
His fingers brushed mine.
This time, neither of us had the space to pretend the touch was only a touch.
He looked down at my handwriting. "You told Monica?"
"I disclosed that I had a conflict connected to the external broker and the landowner. I told her I'd seen access language without owner agreement noted. She told me not to remove materials or make accusations until she reviews the broker history."
"Good."
That single word hit me so hard my eyes stung.
Zane looked up.
I pressed my lips together, but it didn't help.
"I'm not done," I said.
His face changed again, but he didn't step back. "Okay."
My breath scraped in my throat.
This was the part I'd hidden from him through four shifts, one lake, and every moment he'd looked at me like maybe the paperwork wasn't the whole story.
"I didn't tell you why I'm here," I said.
"You didn't have to."
"I know. But I let you think it might be worse than it was because I was ashamed. And then I kept not telling you because every day made it harder, and then you touched me, and I wanted to be someone who hadn't done something so stupid."
Zane's voice went rough. "Daphne."
I shook my head because if he got gentle too early, I might not get through it.
"My ex-boyfriend's name is Julian Thomas. He cheated on me. I found out, and I handled it with all the grace and emotional maturity of an overcaffeinated disaster in a parking lot."
Zane stared at me.
I closed my eyes. "Sorry. That was a joke. A bad one. I'm nervous."
"Keep going."
"I went to the parking lot where his car was. I had my keys in my hand. I was furious and humiliated, and he'd spent twenty minutes making me sound unreasonable for being hurt." My throat tightened. "So I slashed his tires."
The words sat between us, ugly and small and completely mine.
"I didn't plan it," I said. "That doesn't make it fine.
I didn't hurt him. I didn't threaten him.
I damaged the tires, and he pressed charges, and I ended up with Nadine and community service.
That's why I'm here. Not because I'm dangerous in some mysterious way.
Because I was angry and stupid and I chose the worst possible object lesson in not letting a man make me feel small. "
Zane looked at me for a long time.
Too long.
My fingers folded around each other, tight enough to ache.
"I should've told you before," I said. "Before the lake. Before today. I'm sorry I didn't."
Outside, the sprinkler ticked and ticked.
Zane looked down at the note once more, then set it carefully on the workbench.
"You slashed his tires," he said.
"Yes."
"All of them?"
My face burned so hot I could've warmed the shed through winter.
"Two."
Zane's mouth moved.
I stared at him. "Are you trying not to smile?"
"No."
"You are."
"I'm trying to be appropriate."
"This is a confession."
"I know."
"You can't smile during a confession."
His mouth curved despite him. Not big. Not cruel. Just a rough, unwilling almost-smile that broke something tight in my chest.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"No, you're not."
"No," he said, and this time the warmth in his eyes hurt worse than judgment. "I'm not."
A laugh escaped me, shaky and too close to tears. "Zane."
He stepped closer then. Slowly enough that I could move away.
I didn't.