Chapter One
The Larch Bend P-Patch looked much more forgiving on the city website.
Online, it had been all tidy raised beds, smiling volunteers, fat red tomatoes, and a banner about community pride. In person, at eight-thirty on a July morning, it smelled like wet soil, hot pine needles, hose water, and consequences.
I stood just inside the gate with my court paperwork in one hand and a pair of brand-new gardening gloves in the other, already aware that I’d made several bad choices before breakfast.
The gloves were too clean.
My pale pink ballet flats had tiny bows on the toes and absolutely no survival skills.
My white sleeveless blouse was a joke the universe had decided to tell at my expense.
A volunteer in a straw hat glanced over from a row of tomato cages. A man with a gray beard down to the middle of his chest leaned on a rake and looked like he’d once scared a motorcycle into apologizing. Beside him, a younger guy in basketball shorts stared at the compost bins with the expression of someone who’d just realized community service involved actual service.
Excellent, I had witnesses.
I smoothed the front of my blouse, which only reminded me that cotton wrinkled when exposed to shame.
A weathered wooden sign near the shed read LARCH BEND P-PATCH in blue paint, with City Community Garden Project underneath in smaller letters. Below that, someone had taped a laminated sheet that said COMMUNITY SERVICE CREW: CHECK IN WITH SITE SUPERVISOR.
My stomach tightened around the words.
The site supervisor was Zane McCrae, and his name sat at the top of Nadine Purcell’s instructions in crisp black ink, right under the number of hours I owed the court and the line reminding me that missed shifts would be reported.
A shadow crossed the paper.
“Daphne Willoughby?”
I looked up.
The man in front of me wore faded jeans, work boots, and a sleeveless black shirt that showed ink down both arms.
I sucked in a breath.
Oh, good, because my punishment not only had tattoos; it was also the hottest man I’d ever laid eyes on, in a bad-boy, absolutely-wrong-for-me kind of way.
His hair was light from sun or genetics, short enough that it didn’t soften him. Scruff shadowed his jaw. His arms were roped with muscle and covered in ink, and his shoulders filled the shirt like cotton had personally insulted him by trying to contain all that mountain-man bulk.
His eyes dropped to the paperwork in my hand instead of my blouse or my shoes.
That should’ve helped, but it didn’t.
“Yes,” I said, then cleared my throat because the word came out like I’d inhaled compost. “I’m Daphne.”
“Zane McCrae.” He held out one hand.
I looked at it for half a second too long.
Big hand, callused palm, strong fingers, dirt in the creases like the man belonged here in a way I absolutely didn’t.
I shifted the gloves under my arm and shook his hand.
His grip was firm, warm, brief, professional, and completely appropriate. It was also inconvenient enough to send a bright little warning flare through my bloodstream.
“Do you have Nadine’s packet?” he asked.
“Right here.” I held it out too fast, and the top page fluttered against his very solid chest.
