“Ah, right,” she concluded with a laugh. “You are opposed to friendship.”
“I’m opposed to developing a whole new garden for pretty pictures when there’s other real work to do.”
“Aren’t you in charge? Why do you have to put in a friendship garden?”
“Like you said, the commissioner’s my boss. He’s got all kinds of ideas I don’t agree with.”
Like moving her library into his gardens.
Jack directed her to a bench facing a small circular garden with a bird bath in its center and some kind of clover surrounding it. When they sat, his hulking shoulders occupied a surprising amount of space. Tansy angled her body so their arms didn’t brush, freshly reminded thatshewas on his long list of complaints.
Another awkward silence descended. Or a kind of silence that was actually full of rustling leaves and a distant wind chime and the scratchy scramble of a squirrel up a nearby pine. It was chilly, too, and she tugged her sweater sleeves down over her hands, uncertain how to redirect their conversation back to the festival.
He crossed his arms over his chest. She’d come to realize there were two shirt options for gardens staff—the sage-green polo and a hunter-green button-down. Jack was wearing the latter today with the sleeves half rolled, half shoved up his thick forearms.
She could smell pine and grass, the slightly sweet scent of decomposed soil, sunscreen, and a hint of sweat. It wasn’t the designer scent of cologne, but one you’d find in a well-loved sweatshirt, something threadbare and broken in, warm and unfairly soft.Like he sweats a lot, but somehow it smells good. Tansy couldn’t explain it, but she understood this now. He smelled unquestioningly, oddly, irritatinglygood. And because it was so unmanufactured, she had to wonder if there were pheromones involved here. Body chemistry.
Which would be entirely unfair, given that she despised this man.
“Anyway, thanks for fitting me into your busy schedule,” she said, digging into her tote bag.
He raised an eyebrow at her tone, which sure, wasn’t exactly as gracious as the words themselves.
She removed the clipboard with her festival ideas, and with it came loose papers, which immediately caught in the breeze and cartwheeled down the paved path. Tansy was on her knees, gathering them all back up, when she spotted her Fullton grant proposal under Jack’s boot. She tried to yank it out, but he slid it back from her reach then crouched to peel it off the ground.
“Chet Fullton,” he murmured, eyes glued to the page. “The Brisket King?”
She rose, clutching her haphazard stack of papers, and smoothed her skirt, accidentally catching one of the front buttons and popping it through its buttonhole.God.When she’d bought it for five bucks at Goodwill, she’d convinced herself this midi linen skirt was cute in, like, a modern homesteader way, an independentLittle House on the Prairie-minus-the-racism way. But now, she felt like a frumpy one-room-schoolhouse teacher. She spun around, shoved her papers into her tote bag, and refastened the button.
When she turned back, he was angled away from her, still half crouched, eyes glued to her proposal.
Tansy reached over his shoulder to take it back, annoyed thatthiswas the rogue paper he’d caught. She hadn’t even told the others about the grant yet to avoid getting their hopes up prematurely. Just as she moved in for the paper, he jolted fully upright, extending it out of her reach, as if it was hisinstinctto thwart her.
Her own instincts weren’t much better. Instead of thereasonable thing, which would have been to back off as he lurched up, she threw her arms around his neck and held on, her feet losing purchase with the ground when he easily took her weight. He emitted a sharp grunt and pitched forward. At the sudden lurching movement, she tightened her hold, hooking her foot around the front of his leg. His large hand caught her thigh, gripping her tightly. She was sure he was going to pry her off him. Instead, he hitched her farther up his back, loosening her arm from his throat to gasp, “What iswrongwith you?”
“What’s wrong withyou?” she shot back, breathless and very aware of his fingertips still squeezing into her thigh. “Let me go.”
He released her immediately. She dragged slowly down his back. As soon as her feet hit the pavers, she reached around him and snatched her paper.
Jack gaped at her, his hand rising to his neck. “Did you just try to choke me?”
“You stole my paper.”
“That’s not a proportionate fucking response.” He rolled his shoulder melodramatically, cheeks and neck ruddy, chest rising and falling with effort, like her own. His hair fell loose from his skewed hat. He looked like he’d just had a run-in with a wild animal.
Abrupt laughter spilled from Tansy, as did all the tension in her body.
Jack was staunchly unmoved by her fit of giggles, committed to remaining grumpy, arms crossed, mouth set in a tense line.
It made her laugh harder.
And then he broke. First, it was just an aggrieved gust of breath, like he was trying to show how annoyed he was, but it caught on its way out, releasing a low, pent-up rumble of a laugh. A rockslide. The sound of it shifted something inside her.
As quickly as it happened, he locked it back down, dragging his hand down his mouth, erasing the last vestiges of a smile. His eyes dropped to her neck, where she was absently touching her collar, and then lower. Her shirt was twisted across her torso and down one shoulder, and she guessed she looked about as riled as he did. Then, as he licked his lips, his eyes trailed back up to her face, pinning her with a look so dark and heated and…pleading? She gulped, and she was sure he heard it.
“We should…” she breathed, tugging her shirt back into place and swinging her hair back behind her shoulders.
“We should what?” he asked, his eyes on her mouth, voice low and thick in a way that swiped through her middle like a finger through honey. His boots scuffed closer, one hand flexing as if to reach out and then clenching at his side.
