15. Fran #2
“Miller’s. Take the truck.” I nod toward the keys hanging by the shed door. “Tell them to put it on my account.”
“I can pay-”
“It’s my fence. I’ll pay for my own supplies.” I turn back to the seedlings. “While you’re in town, pick up lunch. There’s a deli on Main Street, makes a decent sandwich.”
“Any requests?”
“Surprise me.” I glance at him over my shoulder. “And get something for Junie and the crew. They’ve been working all morning.”
He nods, and I watch him walk toward the truck, and I tell myself the flutter in my chest is just the baby moving.
He comes back with sandwiches, chips, and a container of strawberries that he presents to me with an almost shy expression.
“The woman at the deli said these were fresh this morning,” he explains. “I remembered you like strawberries.”
I do like strawberries. I’m surprised he knows that.
“Thank you,” I say, and take the container without meeting his eyes.
We eat lunch on the porch, the whole crew spread out on the steps and the grass, Gertrude wandering between us looking for scraps.
Logan sits on the far end, giving me space, and I watch him navigate conversations with Junie and the workers with a careful politeness that I’ve never seen from him before.
“He’s different,” Junie murmurs, leaning close. “From what I expected.”
“He’s different from what he was,” I say. “I’m still figuring out what that means.”
After lunch, the crew goes back to work and Logan finishes the fence.
I watch him from the greenhouse, pretending to check on the seedlings while actually tracking his progress across the field.
He works with the same focused intensity he brings to his furniture, but there’s something different about it here, a looseness, maybe.
Sawdust I know. Mud up to his knees is new.
When he finishes, he comes to find me.
“Done,” he says. “Anything else?”
I could send him away. I could tell him the fence was a one-time thing, that I don’t need his help, that he should go back to wherever he came from. But the truth is, I don’t want him to go. Not yet.
“The goose needs feeding,” I say instead.
His face goes through several expressions in quick succession: surprise, alarm, a kind of resigned horror. “The goose.”
I don’t look up from the seed trays. “Gertrude. She eats grain and vegetable scraps. The bin’s in the shed, the scraps are in the kitchen compost.”
He eyes the door like Gertrude might be waiting behind it. “And she won’t… attack me?”
I finally turn around. “She might if you crowd her. But here’s the trick - approach from the side, never head-on.
Set the bowl down near her dish, not right on top of it, then back away slowly before she finishes inspecting you.
No direct eye contact. And if she starts hissing, just freeze and let her settle. ”
He blinks at me. “That’s… very specific.”
“Geese are specific creatures.” I shrug. “You wanted to be useful.”
He nods, squaring his shoulders like he’s preparing for battle. “Side approach, bowl near the dish, no eye contact. Freeze if it hisses.”
“You’ve got it.”
I follow at a safe distance, to supervise, I tell myself, not because I want to watch what happens.
Logan approaches Gertrude’s feeding area with the bowl of grain and scraps, moving slowly and carefully. Gertrude watches from her corner, head tilted. He sets the bowl down exactly as instructed, starts to back away-
And his heel catches on a rake I forgot to put away.
He stumbles, arms windmilling, and Gertrude takes instant offense at the sudden movement. She charges, honking, and Logan scrambles backward, tripping fully over the rake this time. He goes down on his back, and before I can intervene, Gertrude is standing on his chest, honking triumphantly.
“Don’t move!” I’m already crossing the yard. “Gertrude, off. OFF.”
I grab a handful of grain from the spilled bowl and toss it toward her dish. Gertrude’s head swivels, calculating, and then she dismounts Logan with an indignant ruffle and waddles toward the food.
“You okay?” I offer him a hand up.
“She stood on me.” He’s staring at the goose with a mixture of horror and grudging respect. “She actually stood on my chest.”
“Establishing dominance.” I pull him to his feet, fighting back laughter. “You’re definitely at the bottom of the pecking order now.”
“Below the goose?”
“Way below the goose. But hey-” I gesture at his feet. “She got your shoelaces. That’s actually her signature move. Consider yourself initiated.”
He looks down. Both laces are untied, one of them trailing goose-slobber.
“I’m going to make a carving of that bird,” he says darkly. “A very small, very smug carving.”
“She’d be honored.”
For a moment we stand there, and something shifts in the air between us. His eyes meet mine, warm despite the indignity, and I see it, that pull I’ve always felt, the same gravity that drew me to his workshop at midnight.
“Fran,” he says softly.
I step back. “You have grass in your hair.”
He reaches up, self-conscious, and I watch him pick bits of lawn out of his dark waves. It’s stupidly endearing. Everything about him is stupidly endearing today, and I have no defense prepared for it.