Chapter Six #2
"I'll send the request through Daphne's work email and copy our project administrator so there's a formal record."
"Fine."
"Good. One more thing. If Fletcher contacts either of you about Cascadia documents, don't argue details with him. Send him to me."
I looked toward the open shed door, where sunlight cut across the dirt floor. "He won't like that."
"I don't require him to like it."
Daphne's smile came back, slow and relieved.
I looked at her. "I'm starting to understand why you work for her."
Monica said, "I'm still on the phone, Mr. McCrae."
"I know."
Daphne covered her mouth with one hand.
Monica's voice stayed dry. "Daphne, finish your community service. Then take the afternoon if you need it. I expect you tomorrow morning."
"I'll be there."
The call ended, and Daphne lowered the phone. For a second, the shed was quiet except for water ticking outside and Tyler saying something faintly about compost democracy. "That went better than I thought."
"Yes."
She looked up at me. "Are you okay?"
"No."
Her smile faded, and her attention sharpened on my face.
I stepped closer and took the phone from her before she could drop it, then set it on the workbench. "I'm not angry at you."
"I know."
"Good."
Her hands moved toward me, then stopped. We were in the shed during her hours, with the clipboard ten feet away and Birdie pretending not to watch through the pepper plants.
I took one slow breath.
"You have two hours left," I said.
"That's what you want to say right now?"
"No." I looked at her mouth. "It's what I can say right now."
Daphne's lips parted, and I stepped back before I forgot the clipboard existed.
Outside, Tyler called, "Zane, the compost is making a smell."
I closed my eyes for half a second.
Daphne whispered, "The garden is committed to stopping us."
"The garden has terrible timing."
She laughed, and this time the sound didn't shake.
I stepped back. "Come on. Let's finish the shift before I stop caring about municipal boundaries."
Her cheeks went pink.
The color in her cheeks didn't help at all.
The next two hours stretched. Daphne worked beside me on tomato ties first, then helped Birdie sort peppers by the shaded table near the shed. She kept glancing my way when she thought I wasn't watching. I kept catching her because I was always watching.
She laughed with Birdie over a crooked pepper that Tyler said looked like a boot.
She carried water bottles to Gus without being asked.
"Tyler," she said, stopping beside the compost bins, "don't put your glove on your face after touching compost."
Tyler froze with his glove halfway up. "I knew that."
"Your hand was moving toward your face."
"It was a test."
Gus said, "You failed."
At noon, the heat pressed hard over the P-Patch. The sky had gone white-blue above the pines, and the paths smelled like tomato leaves, warm dirt, and hose water. Daphne stood near the west bed with dust on her knees, sweat at her temples, and four hours of work behind her.
I took the clipboard from the shed.
Her eyes followed it.
The whole garden seemed to notice.
Birdie went very busy with her pepper basket. Gus leaned on his rake. Tyler stopped halfway through lifting a compost bucket.
Daphne walked to the workbench and pulled off her gloves. "That's it?"
"That's it." I wrote the date, start time, end time, and four hours in the last open line. "Twenty completed."
She stared at the sheet.
I handed her the pen. "Initial here."
Her fingers brushed mine when she took it.
She signed slowly. Her handwriting was still tidy, even with dirt on her wrist.
I added my signature beneath hers, then looked at the completed sheet for one second longer than I needed to. It was twenty hours, five shifts, and one completed sheet between Daphne and the court side of this place.
I set the pen down.
"You're done, Daphne."
Her breath left her in a rush.
Birdie clapped once from outside. "Congratulations, honey."
Tyler lifted both arms. "You're free."
Gus looked at him. "She was doing community service, not hard time."
"I was being supportive."
"You were being loud."
Daphne laughed, but her eyes stayed on mine. "I'm done."
"With the court hours," I said.
Her smile shifted. "That was specific."
"I'm a specific man."
Birdie appeared in the shed doorway with her basket. "Before anyone gets too specific, Daphne, you should know you're welcome here without a court order."
Daphne turned toward her.
Birdie's face stayed warm, but her eyes were sharp enough to cut twine. "We always need hands. Especially hands that ask before murdering vegetables."
Daphne's throat moved. "Thank you."
Tyler leaned into view behind Birdie. "And I need someone who respects my compost journey."
Daphne wiped under one eye with the heel of her hand. "You need several things, Tyler."
Gus said, "A list would help."
I hung the clipboard on its hook and stepped back before I reached for her in front of all of them.
My phone rang before I could answer Birdie. Fletcher's name lit the screen, and the shed went quiet around it.
Daphne looked at the screen, then at me.
I answered without stepping away. "What?"
Fletcher's voice came through smooth and tight. "We need to talk."
"No."
Daphne's eyebrows lifted, but she stayed beside me.
Fletcher went quiet for half a beat. "I'm at the gate."
I looked past Daphne.
Fletcher stood outside the P-Patch sign in a pale blue button-down, dark slacks, and shoes that had never lost a fight with dirt because they'd never been near it. He held his phone at his ear and looked through the gate like the garden was a delay he hadn't approved.
My hand tightened around the phone. "Stay there."
I ended the call.
Daphne set her gloves on the bench. "Zane."
"I know."
"Monica said not to argue details with him."
"I'm not arguing Cascadia details." I walked toward the door. "I'm telling my brother to stay off my land."
Daphne followed me into the sun.
Birdie moved aside but didn't leave. Gus set down his rake. Tyler looked between me and Fletcher with the open curiosity of a man who should absolutely not be trusted near conflict.
"Tyler," Birdie said.
"What?"
"Compost."
"But this seems important."
"Compost," she repeated.
Tyler sighed and dragged himself toward the bins, looking back every three steps.
Fletcher lowered his phone as I reached the gate. He glanced past me at Daphne. Something in his face changed, quick and calculating, and I stepped in front of that look before it had somewhere to land.
"Don't," I said.
His attention came back to me. "You don't even know what I was going to say."
"I know enough."
Daphne stopped beside me, not behind me. She didn't crowd in, and she didn't try to speak for me. She just stood there in her dusty boots and green tank top, with her chin up and her completed hours sitting on a clipboard in my shed.
Fletcher noticed her clothes, the dirt on her knees, and then the way I stood close enough that my arm almost brushed hers.
His mouth tightened. "So that's what this is."
"No," I said. "This is you using my land in a packet after I told you no."
"I didn't use your land. I identified a potential route."
"You identified property you don't own."
"I identified a solution."
"You identified my fence, my lake access, and my no, then made it look like all three were negotiable."
Fletcher glanced toward the pepper bed, where Birdie had suddenly become very interested in a basket that wasn't fooling anybody.
"Do you want to do this here?" he asked.
"You came here."
"I came because Monica Owens called me ten minutes ago and told me Cascadia is pausing West Ridge's Beargrass access option pending review."
"Good."
His jaw tightened. "That pause puts months of work at risk."
"It puts your lie at risk."
Daphne's hand shifted near mine.
Fletcher's eyes flicked to her. "Is that her word or yours?"
I stepped closer to the gate. "You don't talk to her about this."
"She works for Cascadia."
"She disclosed the conflict to her boss. She did her job. You should try that sometime."
Fletcher's smile thinned. "You've always been good at making yourself the honest one."
Gus made a low sound from the south row.
I kept my eyes on Fletcher. "I told you no."
"You said no to selling. Access can be structured."
"I told you no to access."
"You refused to sit down."
"Because no is shorter."
Daphne made a small sound beside me, almost a laugh, and Fletcher's face hardened.
"This is bigger than your garden," he said.
"The P-Patch is a city garden. My land is mine. Beargrass access is mine. You don't get to bundle them because a bigger sentence sounds better in a meeting."
"I was trying to get you a seat before the table moved without you."
"You were trying to build the table on my property."
The silence after that landed hard.
Fletcher looked past me toward the south fence and the pines beyond it. For a second, he looked less polished and more like my brother. Then his face closed again.
"You're going to regret refusing every opportunity that doesn't look exactly like your current life."
"Maybe," I said. "But I'm not going to regret refusing this one."
"You think Cascadia walking back one access option ends the pressure?"
"No. I think it ends your claim that I'm considering it."
He looked at Daphne again, and this time his voice sharpened. "You should be careful what you attach yourself to."
Daphne inhaled beside me.
I moved before she needed to answer. My hand closed around the gatepost, and Fletcher's eyes came back to me.
"You're done," I said.
Fletcher's mouth flattened.
"You're done putting my land in your materials.
You're done calling the P-Patch a community amenity to dress up pressure on the fence line.
You're done using my refusal as a step in your process.
" I held his gaze. "If anyone asks, my answer is no.
If they ask tomorrow, it's no. If they ask through you, through Cascadia, through a lawyer, through a surveyor, through a man with a clipboard and a better haircut, it's still no. "
Daphne coughed beside me, and Birdie hid a smile behind the peppers.