7. Junie
JUNIE
Junie tried to ignore the nervous flutter in her stomach.
She stood by the scarred oak table, her fingers busy lining a deep wicker basket with a clean, red-and-white checkered cloth.
On the counter behind her sat a steaming ceramic dish of beef stew, a dozen warm yeast rolls wrapped in foil, and a tart cherry pie with a meticulously braided lattice crust.
She smoothed the edges of the checkered cloth, mentally justifying why she was about to bring Micah a meal.
She was only doing this to repay a debt.
Micah had spent his day sifting through dusty folders to help her family, and he had delivered a crucial warning about Sam Hollis's public records request. Junie hated accepting favors without returning them.
Packing a warm dinner was a neighborly transaction, a practical way to balance the ledger so she didn't owe him anything.
At least, that was the story she kept telling herself as she carefully tucked the pie into the bottom of the basket.
She knew the choice of dessert was a dangerous giveaway.
Weeks ago, during their frustrating argument about pie crusts at the diner, Micah had dryly observed that a true New England cherry pie required sour tartness and a cold butter pastry, rather than the sweet canned fillings most tourist stands used.
Micah had only mentioned it once, a casual detail dropped in the middle of the conversation, but she had remembered.
She had spent an hour searching the bottom of the chest freezer for the sour cherries she had preserved during the July harvest, cutting the butter into the flour with precise, anxious strokes until the pastry was perfectly flaky.
She lifted the heavy wicker basket, her fingers curling tight around the woven willow handle. The weight of the ceramic dish made her forearm ache, but the physical strain was a familiar, comforting distraction.
The basement parking area behind the brick Town Hall was cool when she arrived, the fall twilight casting long shadows across the concrete foundation.
A few dry maple leaves scraped against the brick walls of the building, driven by a sharp evening breeze.
Junie held her shoulders straight, keeping her gaze fixed on the glowing yellow pane of the basement window.
She knew Micah was still inside, working late to finish the preliminary boundary review before the county registrar's office closed for the monthly audit.
She pushed the heavy metal basement door open, the hinges letting out a low creak that echoed in the quiet concrete corridor. The air in the hallway was cool and damp, smelling of old concrete and furnace steam, but as she neared the records annex, the scent of paper and aged leather took over.
The door to the research room was slightly ajar.
Through the narrow gap, Junie saw Micah sitting at his wide oak desk, his salt-and-pepper hair slightly rumpled as he rested his chin in his hand.
His wire-rimmed spectacles were pushed up onto his forehead, and his green eyes were closed, his face carrying exhaustion that made her chest tighten with an unfamiliar tenderness.
He was surrounded by towers of leather-bound tax ledgers, his desktop cluttered with hand-drawn property maps and legal folders.
She tapped her knuckles twice against the wood of the door frame, the sharp sound breaking the silence of the vault.
Micah blinked, his spectacles sliding back down his nose as his head snapped up.
He looked toward the doorway, his face shifting from startled confusion to sudden surprise as he recognized her.
"I didn't expect to see you here tonight," he said, his voice slightly rough from hours of silence as he sat up straight in his desk chair.
"I was finishing the weekend baking," Junie explained, her voice quick and efficient as she carried the wicker basket into the room, placing it on the only clear corner of his desk.
"Everyone had already eaten, and I ended up with a massive surplus of beef stew and rolls.
I can't stand to let good food go to waste, and I remembered you mentioned you'd be working late to finish the boundary files. It's just leftovers."
Micah adjusted his glasses, his green eyes reflecting a dry amusement as he looked from her guarded face to the large basket. "That's a very substantial basket for simple leftovers," he noted, his mouth twitching with a faint smile.
"The ceramic dish is large," Junie insisted, her chin rising as she smoothed her apron with her free hand. "It's just a practical way to transport the stew. I'll need the dish back eventually, but there's no hurry."
Micah reached out and folded back the checkered cloth, the rising steam from the warm foil immediately filling the dry, paper-scented room with the rich aroma of rosemary and roasted garlic.
His smile widened as he pulled out the warm foil packet of rolls.
"I haven't eaten since noon," he admitted, his tone softening as he looked up at her.
"The annex cafeteria closed hours ago, and the vending machines down here are notoriously unreliable. "
"Then it's a good thing I had extra," Junie replied, keeping her tone strictly neighborly as she reached into the basket to pull out two plates, forks, and a small container of salted butter.
She began arranging them on his desk, pushing aside a stack of surveyor's notes to make room.
"You can't expect to analyze complicated deeds on an empty stomach. It's just common sense."
Micah watched her precise movements as she set the table, his hand resting on the edge of the desk. "And the pie?" he asked, pointing a finger toward the braided lattice crust visible beneath the edge of the cloth.
Junie's hand froze for a fraction of a second over the forks before she quickly smoothed her apron again. "The cherries needed to be used," she countered, her voice carrying a sharp edge of defensiveness that she couldn't quite soften. "They were taking up space in the farmhouse freezer."
"Tart cherries," Micah noted, as he leaned back in his chair. "With a braided butter crust. If I recall correctly, I'm the only person in the valley who has argued that sweet cherry pie is a cardinal sin."
"It was a coincidence," Junie retorted, her face warming as she turned her back to him to retrieve a serving spoon from the basket.
"I bake dozens of pies a week for the stand and for the shops in Harvest Hollow.
I don't design my kitchen schedules around casual comments made during an argument in a diner. "
She realized the moment the words were out of her mouth that she’d made a mistake pointing out the exact moment he had mentioned tart cherry pie was his favorite. She could feel the heat rising again in her cheeks.
Micah let out a soft laugh, his shoulders dropping as some of the tension from his long day of research seemed to melt away. "Of course not," he agreed, his tone carrying a teasing warmth that made her stomach flutter again. "That would be highly inefficient."
"Exactly," Junie said, her voice dropping as she focused entirely on spooning the rich beef stew onto his plate, determined to ignore the direct honesty in his green eyes. "It's just dinner."
Micah
Micah kept his attention fixed on the frantic precision of her hands as she folded the checkered cloth.
The rich aroma of garlic and fresh rosemary was almost overwhelming in the dry air of the basement annex, but his awareness was entirely centered on the lines of her face.
She was moving with that familiar efficiency he had observed behind her farm stand, arranging the ceramic bowls and heavy silverware on his research table as if she were executing a military maneuver rather than delivering a dinner.
Her face was pale in the harsh fluorescent light, and the dark circles beneath her warm eyes looked even more pronounced in the quiet of the office. She was running on sheer willpower, wrapping herself in the comfort of a chore to avoid the reality of the files stacked beside his ledger.
"I need to return to the farmhouse to clean up the cider barn," she said, her voice carrying a hurried sharpness as she reached for the silver serving spoon. "You should eat before the stew gets cold. I’ll tidy the basket and leave you to your records."
He had noticed the slight tremble in her hand as she’d been ladling a thick portion of the rich beef stew onto his plate.
She was hovering over him like a waitress in a diner, creating a safe physical distance by casting herself in the role of a server.
It was typical of the Junie he had come to know.
If she kept herself busy with tasks, she didn't have to face him as an equal, nor did she have to accept the simple warmth of his presence.
Micah reached out, his fingers brushing against the back of her hand as he gently intercepted her grip on the handle of the silver spoon.
Her skin was cool, and he felt the sharp tremor that ran up her arm at the contact.
She didn't pull away, but her posture went completely rigid, her gaze dropping to the point where his hand met hers.
"The cider barn can wait for another hour," he said, his tone low and unyielding as he carefully took the heavy spoon from her fingers. "And I'm not going to let you stand there and serve me like a guest in a boarding house."
He set the silver spoon back in the ceramic dish, his movement deliberate. Keeping his hand near hers, he reached behind him and pulled the second wooden chair closer to the research table, sliding it into the small gap between the filing cabinets.
"Sit down," he urged, pointing to the empty seat. "We're going to share this meal, or I'm putting the lid back on the dish and returning to these tax ledgers."