Page 11 of Wild Thorns

He was leaner than his brothers. Not less strong, just built differently, precision instead of power. His features were sharper, more angular, the kind of face that would age well because it was already made of interesting planes and shadows. Behind those glasses, his eyes held a quality of focused intelligence that made me feel simultaneously seen and studied. Like I was a document he was reading, a pattern he was trying to understand.

He wore a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, the fabric soaked through and clinging to shoulders that were broader than I'd expected. His forearms were defined in ways that surprised me for someone Jasper had called the bookish type. There were scars on his hands, small ones, the kind you got from working with tools or paper or both.

"The breaker panel is in the shed," he said. "I can show you where."

"You came out in a storm to fix my power?"

"I was watching the weather. I knew it would trip." He said this matter-of-factly, as if everyone monitored storms and predicted electrical failures. "The wiring in these old buildings is connected to the original estate lines. It doesn't handle the load well."

"The original construction," I repeated. "From 1832?"

Something flickered in his expression. Surprise, maybe, that I'd done my research. Or something more complicated.

"Earlier, actually. The estate predates the town. The main house was built in 1798." He paused. "The electrical was added in the 1920s, of course. But the infrastructure follows the original layout. It creates inefficiencies."

"You've been meaning to upgrade it?"

"For a few years now." He almost smiled. "I have a lot of projects."

I followed him through the rain to the shed, which turned out to be less "shed" and more of a small outbuilding with a locked door and surprisingly sophisticated contents. Eli produced a key, and the door swung open to reveal something between a workshop and a laboratory.

The breaker panel was on the far wall, but that wasn't what caught my attention. Tools hung on pegboards in precise rows, organized by function and size. Labeled drawers lined one wall, each label handwritten in neat block letters. A workbench dominated the center of the space, its surface clean enough to perform surgery on, scattered with restoration equipment: soft brushes, archival tape, a magnifying lamp.

And books. Stacks of them, some clearly ancient, leather spines cracked and faded. Arranged on shelves with the kind of care that suggested each one was irreplaceable.

"This is very organized," I said.

"Callum's doing. The tool organization." Eli moved to the panel with practiced ease. "He can't stand disorder in functional spaces. Jasper's spaces look like a tornado hit them. Mine are somewhere in between."

"Organized chaos? Everything has a place, but only you know where?"

He glanced back at me, and something shifted in his expression. Interest. Recognition.

"Yes. Exactly that."

He fixed the breaker in five minutes, explaining each step as he went. His hands moved with careful precision, the same way they'd probably move across ancient pages. When he reached past me to flip the last switch, his scent hit me: old books, cedar, something darker I couldn't name. His shoulder brushed mine, and I felt that strange warmth again, that hum at the edges of my awareness.

My fingertips tingled where they’d grazed the panel’s old iron casing, and for half a second, the shadow my hand cast on the wall seemed to stretch longer than it should have—reaching, almost, before the lights flickered on and it snapped back to normal.

The power came back with a flicker and a hum.

I thought that would be it. That he'd nod politely and disappear into the main house, interaction complete.

He didn't.

"The storm's still bad," he said, glancing at the sky. "You could wait it out here. Or on the porch."

I should have said I needed to get back to work. The Morrison project was waiting. I had deadlines, responsibilities, a life I was supposed to be building.

Instead, I said: "The porch sounds good."

We ended up on the steps, under the overhang where the rain couldn't reach, watching the storm spend itself against the landscape. The lightning had moved east, flickering on the horizon. The thunder came softer now, delayed, counting the distance.

He asked about my work. Not polite surface questions, but precise ones. He wanted to understand something, and he waited for the answer like it mattered.

"You're a designer," he said. "What kind?"

"Graphic design. Branding, mostly. Logos, visual identity systems."