Page 105 of Where You're Planted

“For the record,” she said quietly, “you’re not too much, Jack.” She understood that his bossiness and his moods, the urgency he felt about everything, came at least in part from anxiety. “That’s not what I need to think about.”

He looked like he couldn’t totally receive this from her right now, but he swallowed thickly and squeezed her knee.

Tansy remembered the mug of flowers she’d brought and handed it over. “Will you give these to Amy?”

He huffed a laugh. “Bluebonnets? You know you’re not supposed to pick these?”

“It’s not illegal,” Tansy said quickly. “I looked it up.”

“No, but it is the state flower. It’s protected in spirit, if not by law.”

Tansy laughed. “Well, I didn’t want to come empty-handed, and they were pretty and right there on my way out.”

“Wait, did you steal these frommywildflower garden?”

She covered her face, her smile opening too much inside her. “Yes,” she said, watery. “Yes, I did.”

“You do knowtheftis illegal, right? You reallydon’tread any of the signs in my park, do you?” His words, and even his emphasis, gave off his usual blustery bossiness, but something about his voice was alsososoft. She could hear the ache in his throat around it. It sharpened the ache in hers.

She placed the mug of flowers in his hands.

When she stood, he rose in front of her, his eyes strained from exhaustion and emotion. She wanted to tell him when she’d be ready to talk, but she honestly didn’t know. She felt so confused, at once aching to hold him and desperate to protect herself.

“When you’re here in front of me, I can’t think clearly,” she told him. “I want to—” Her hands lifted to hug him, and she pulled them back because that was exactly her point.

Anguish flickered over his features, lightning quick. “That makes me not want you to go,” he admitted.

Her voice cracked. “I know.”

He came closer and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Please, come find me soon.”

32

Jack

He’d asked Tansy not to respond to his confession at the hospital, and she hadn’t. For four days now.

Jack didn’t want to push too soon. But the silence was killing him. Even though he and Ian spent most of their work hours putting together his grant materials ahead of Friday’s presentation, he managed to hang around shamelessly during her story times just to see her, pretending to fix the gate or distributing leftover seed packets from the Pollinator Festival to the kids’ parents, like that was his normal routine.

The Saturday morning of their first Garden Club meeting, which he was sure was still happening only because Kai and Ian had stepped in to coordinate, Jack was surprised and cautiously hopeful to find Tansy waiting for him at the greenhouse, where he’d been storing the tools they’d acquired in her tool drive. He unlocked the door and led the way in.

“It’s official,” she said to his back as he crossed to the corner where he’d put the tools. “The board is going to vote Monday to close the branch. Sheila gave me a heads-up. I’m not sure of our exact last day. They might let us stay another month or so. I’m telling the others soon, but I think they already know. I haven’t been hiding it very well.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

She winced at that endearment.

He kicked himself for it, turning to put the shovels and spades into a cart. “And then what?”

“Everyone will be offered placements in other branches, so that’s good. I’ll make sure they all land somewhere.”

“And you?”

“Same. Not sure where yet.”

Jack risked a glance at her. She didn’t sound upset, but it didn’t quell the ache he felt for her. Disaffected Tansy was just as alarming as angry or sad Tansy.

And us?he wanted to ask. He held it in.