“Stop it,” Juniper whispered.
Rowan smirked. “You first.”
Rowan shifted her papers to one hand to hold the door open for Juniper who strode confidently into the chambers. She sat first and waited for Rowan to be seated before she cleared her throat to garner her attention. Rowan turned to face her but immediately looked down to watch Juniper seductively cross her legs and begin nudging her foot up and down the back of Rowan’s leg.
Rowan leaned forward and pretended to read the proposal again. She reached down and lightly, slowly traced two fingertips up and down the back of Juniper’s bare calf. “You need to stop it, Ms. Banks,” she whispered.
Juniper flushed at the slightfucking on the deskcallback and bit back a groan as she imagined those two fingers stroking somewhere else. “You need to stop it.”
The both straightened up as the room was called to order. The back two doors to the Chambers opened up and Council members filed in one by one to sit at the long table that flanked the back wall.
“There she is,” Juniper murmured as Councilwoman Lightfoot shut the door behind herself and took the final seat at the table just to the left of center.
Beckett Lightfoot was dressed in a crisp white button down shirt, sleeves perfectly and meticulously cuffed just below her elbows, exposing chiseled forearms that Juniper suspected were part of the overall package, judging by the strain of fabricaround her biceps and shoulders as she situated herself.
A full sleeve of tattoos unfurled down the skin of her exposed right forearm. On her left wrist, an aviation watch with a black frame and tan leather band. Hands a little rough around the edges, but neatly trimmed bare nails nonetheless. Her black hair was parted directly in the middle, pulled tight, and slicked back into a very tightly coiled low bun, strands of silver just starting to show around the edges of her face. No matter when Juniper had ever seen her, she always wore her hair like that, military regulation style.
Even if Beckett unclenched her jaw, Juniper was pretty sure her jawline could still cut through glass. She looked downright unfuckwithable. And she doubted anyone had ever tried. Or at least they learned very quickly they shouldn’t have. She was certainly striking, and Juniper imagined she likely made some woman, or many women maybe,veryhappy.
After a slew of formal proceedings and other proposals, Beckett reached for her next stack of papers in front of her, and judging by the height of the stack, Juniper was sure it was their proposal. She nudged Rowan’s knee with hers.
Beckett tapped the bottom edge of the papers on the table top, and ran her fingers across the top edge to ensure a perfectly aligned stack before calling out, “Next we have plans for a proposed expansion of the Tribal gardens, submitted by Rowan Birdsong, Senior Environmental Advisor, and Juniper Banks, Program Manager of the Tribal Food Sovereignty Program.” She looked at both of them and paused. “Please step forward.”
Juniper officially understood why people called her the General now that she was in the hot seat.
Beckett looked back down at her stack of papers as Rowan and Juniper settled at the podium in front of the Council table with their own stack of papers to reference. Beckett picked up her black fountain pen that had been perfectly aligned to the side of her papers and scribbled something in the top right margin. Juniper was dying to know, already, what she hadwritten. Patience was obviously not her strong suit.
Beckett trailed her index and middle finger down the left margin of the document, stopping at every few points, before she stated, “For the record, these plans were submitted on Tuesday of last week. Council, do you feel that you were given sufficient time to review said plans before this meeting?”
After only a few seconds of silence, Juniper couldn’t stop herself from apologizing.
“I’m sorry, Councilwoman, I thought I submitted them according to the timeline I was given—”
“No need to apologize, Ms. Banks,” Beckett interjected, finally looking up. “No one has objected to the time given for review.”
Juniper pressed her lips together and saidokay, thank youin her mind instead of out loud. She wasn’t going to risk speaking out of turn again.
“These plans propose that the Tribe allocate additional space needed to expand the garden in the amount of four acres. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Juniper paused before adding, “the unused area directly adjacent to the existing gardens.”
“I see that.” Beckett tapped her index and middle finger next to a spot in the left margin about three-quarters down the page.
Fuck. This was not going how she thought it would.
“These plans also propose the construction of a farmer’s market arbor, providing one central location for the purchasing of produce by both Tribal citizens and other local area residents. For the benefit of the Council’s knowledge, you have discussed this with the Tribal Infrastructure Department?”
Juniper looked at Rowan, indicating her turn.
“Yes, that’s right. After we developed the initial idea,” Rowan looked to Juniper before looking back to Beckett, “I proposed the idea to Chairwoman Grant, who provided initial guidance to liaise with the Director of the Tribal InfrastructureDepartment. We met over the course of two weeks and revised and finalized that part of the plan together, which is what you see on page four.”
After writing notes in the right margin on page four, Beckett asked a few more questions that Rowan answered in her perfectly trained, lawyer way. Beckett wrote more notes in the margins of other pages. Then she set her pen back down directly parallel to the stack of papers in its prior position. She folded her hands in front of her and looked up at Rowan.
“You have to understand this Council has been given the charge of overseeing the administrative activities of the Tribe, including land use, construction, acquisitions, and major expenditures. When there are intergovernmental implications for allfourof these imperative charges, which is what we see in these plans, we have to review these requests more diligently.”
“We understand that, Councilwoman, and we appreciate the Council’s thorough review.”
Juniper was glad Rowan had taken over this part. She was sure she would be struggling not to addYour Honoror evenYes sirto the end of each line.
