Zane crouched beside the row and caught a curling bean vine between two fingers. He wore faded jeans, boots, and a sleeveless dark shirt that left both tattooed arms bare in the morning sun. A line of ink disappeared under the cotton at his shoulder. His hair looked lighter today, sun catching in it every time he turned his head, and the scruff along his jaw made him look like he’d shaved yesterday and regretted the concession.
My fingers tightened around the twine. Legally, I was a responsible adult completing court-ordered community service under appropriate supervision. In all areas involving Zane McCrae’s forearms, I was a public hazard.
He looped the vine gently around the twine. “You guide it up without snapping the stem. Loose enough to grow. Secure enough that it doesn’t fall over.”
“Why does everything in this garden sound like advice I’m not emotionally prepared to receive?”
His mouth twitched. “Because you’re dramatic before ten.”
“I’m observant before ten. The drama comes after lunch.”
Birdie laughed from the pepper bed. “That’s true. Yesterday she got philosophical about mulch at twelve-fifteen.”
“I was under duress,” I called.
Zane looked up at me, blue-green eyes steady under the brim of summer glare. “From bark dust?”
From you, I thought, and tightened my grip on the twine instead of saying anything stupid.
He held the vine in place. “Wrap it here.”
I crouched beside him and tried to look like a woman focused on legumes. This was difficult because Zane’s shoulder was inches from mine, and the sun had brought out the clean sweat-and-pine smell of him under the dry garden air. His hand dwarfed the green stem. Mine, in borrowed gloves again, hovered over the twine like I was being asked to defuse something.
“Here?” I asked.
“Closer to the joint.”
I moved the twine higher.
“Not that close.”
I lowered it.
“Daphne.”
“Yes?”
“You’re negotiating with a bean.”
“I’m trying to respect its boundaries.”
Tyler made a strangled sound from the compost bins.
Zane didn’t look away from the vine, but his voice went dry. “Tyler, if I turn around and you’re laughing instead of screening that compost, you’re doing the whole pile twice.”
“I’m emotionally screening,” Tyler called.
Gus said, “Boy, your emotions have rocks in them.”
Birdie made the kind of happy little sound that meant the morning had given her excellent gossip without making her ask for it.
I wrapped the twine around the stem, left a loose loop, and tied it to the trellis. “How’s that?”
Zane leaned closer to check.
The side of his arm brushed mine.
Bare skin brushed bare skin for one second, an accident caused by beans and civic improvement, and my breath thinned. My fingers pulled the knot too tight, and the stem bent sharply.
