He shook his head. “Are you familiar with the concept ofpermaculture?”
I shrugged. “I’ve heard of it.Why?”
He motioned for me to walk with him. We both grabbed another pallet and headed back toward the porch. “It’s a state of gardening where everything is beautiful, but also functional. You can have a rainwater collection system, but why not use it as a place for koi? Or you could grow an herb garden that’s both functional and delicious. If you need a fence to keep the deer out, you could turn it into a trellis for squash or cucumbers.” He set the pallets down and looked at me. I blinked, taken aback by his direct stare. His eyes.Gorgeous.
“Are you tilling the soil every time you replant?” he asked, taking a few steps closer tome.
Inodded.
He shook his head and sighed. “That’s terrible for the land. Try planting perennials. They’ll last longer. Take me around to yourbackyard.”
He was close enough for me to breathe in his citrusy scent. But the smell of fresh dirt and somethingelse…
I took one step back and studied him closely. “Hank?”
He was looking at me with a confused expression. “Yes?”
“What areyou?”
Hank’s expression turned back into the familiar scowl except this time it was heaped with a whole lot of anger. “That’s extraordinarilyrude.”
It was. I reddened and cursed my word vomit. “I - I’msorry.”
But Hank? He was dead. I’d never stood close enough to him to notice. But the dead always had a certain hint of smell to them. Now, don’t get me wrong. The walking dead didn’t have an unpleasant scent, but all of them had a certain hint of...moss to them. Vamps smelled like graveyard dirt and black moss. Zombies had more of an earthy, wet grass smell. And ghouls...ghouls smelled just likeHank.
Except Hank also smelled like sunshine and life, but the hint of moss was enough to make me wonder. And, since he’d never been to my house before, nor had I ever seen him smile, I also wondered about the note from the dating agency. The cryptic words came back to me:“He’s alreadydead.”
If Hank was a ghoul, he was dead.Technically.
Hank shook his head and made a disgusted noise. “I’m a ghoul,” he snapped. He headed back to the truck, apparently no longer wanting to see mybackyard.
Orme.
I rushed after him. “Hank, I’m sorry. That was rude.” I shoved my hair out of my eyes. “It’s just been a weird day. Somethinghappened-”
He abruptly turned back to me. “What does that have to do with me being aghoul?”
“I -” I clamped my mouth shut. If he wasn’t the guy the agency was talking about, I was going to look like a big ol’ idiot. From what I knew about them, they didn’t discuss their matches with either of those clients. Things just sort of fell into place. But not alwayseasily.
He huffed out an annoyed breath. “Thought so,” he said. Hank gently lifted the puppy out of his truck and gave her a gentle pat on the head. “Bye girl.” He set her on the ground, gave me a final long stare and got into histruck.
“But I wanted to know about permaculture!” I yelled to the truck peeling out of mydriveway.
If a puppy could give a disgusted huff, that’s what happened. She walked right past me and up to theporch.
“Fine,” I muttered. “I’m ajerk.”
I let us both inside the house and thought about Hank for the rest of theday.
