Page 6 of A Guard and a Gardener

Ah, I hadn’t had any excitement since Mac had tried to tear my hair out by the roots a couple of hours ago, so I was overdue a little more risk of bodily evisceration before lunchtime.

“Wait here,” I said, yanking my shirt over my head and letting it drop to the grass. The thin fabric would give me no protection from the thorns, and I didn’t want it ruined.

I dropped to my stomach and crawled carefully into the shrubbery, keeping my head lowered and eyes mostly closed to protect them. My fingertips impatiently brushed the surface of the inflated bladder but I couldn’t properly grab the ball from this position. So I wriggled deeper, moving with the lines of the stalks instead of against them, and keeping my movements slow.

Plants can sense your intentions just like animals can, Zovisasha liked to tell us junior gardeners in that northern accent of hers, and while I wasn’t sure Ientirelybelieved that, I did know that rushing got you nowhere with flora. Flowers, weeds, grasses and trees alike all responded best to thoughtful tenderness: careful pruning, precise watering, and in this case, a gentle ushering to the side so I could sneak my arm between the threatening thorns and flick the ball out from its dank resting place.

Two excited shrieks told me I’d batted it clear of the bushes, and although my instincts encouraged wrenching myself free, I ignored loud, excitable Wyatt for the version of me that wouldescape unscathed. It took an age to crawl backwards, but when my palms transitioned from cool dirt to soft grass, I allowed myself to raise my head, not surprised to find I was alone. The two children were long gone.

I reached for my shirt, and paused.

Not entirely alone.

A tabby cat was curled up in the discarded fabric, paws tucked away and tail wrapped around its body. Perhaps sensing I’d been attempting to steal its impromptu bed, one eye opened to a warning slit.

I held up my hands in surrender for the second time in five minutes. “Hey, if you’re comfortable there...”

The cat yawned in contented satisfaction, tucking its head back in and settling down for a snooze.

I shrugged. Many of the male gardeners went shirtless while working, and even if it did mean I was down to only one shirt that I’d have preferred to keep clean for Sunday mass, so what? That little creature deserved somewhere warm and soft to nestle up, starved and abandoned as it was...okay, it was extremely well-fed from the look of its clean fur and copious fat rolls, but all the same.

That same watchful eye opened again.

“I’m going!” I promised, and received a half-hearted swipe at my boot with its paw as I stepped past.

The cat turned to watch me go, the colour of its eye drawing me in. Deep amber; a dark orange glow that held a quiet vigilance. Exactly like those of a certain someone – human-shaped, this time – who tended to occupy my thoughts ever so often these days. He had a powerfully muscular body, a calm serenity, and apresence so reassuring that everything felt right in his company, even from the very first time we’d met.

I’d been at work. Pruning the hedge maze only a few feet away from me now, in fact, and so busy apologising to the perfectly healthy evergreen that I’d been ordered to cut just because some royal or noble thought it would looksophisticated– despite nature holding sophistication over humans to a degree our minds couldn’t even fathom – that I’d almost tripped over the giant of a man sitting cross-legged on the ground inside the maze with his naked sword laid across his lap, his head bowed to his chest.

“Sorry, sir,” I said, recognising his guard uniform. “I...wouldn’t you prefer to sit on the bench?” I gestured to the seat a few feet away and then let my arm fall back to my side when he didn’t even lift his head.

“No,” the man said softly, and that single syllable held so much pain, so muchanguish, that it cracked my heart open.

I’d dropped the pruning shears and was seated on the ground next to him before I could think, holding out a tentative hand to pat his shoulder.

The guard immediately tensed and I jerked away.

“Sorry,” I muttered again, trying to scramble back to my feet and leave the poor soul alone like heclearly wanted, Wyatt, but froze in place when he finally raised his head and his eyes locked onto mine.

Amber. Practically jewels with the way they shone with an inner light: the colour of fire and treasure and the heart of molten steel.

“It’s fine,” he whispered. “I just...it’s fine. Don’t go.”

I eased back down onto the gravelly soil we were sitting on, but didn’t try to touch him again. “I’m Wyatt.”

“Jiron.”

It sounded soft and hard all at once.Here-on.The name suited him.

“You’re one of the king’s own guards?” I asked, having noticed the three gold bands on his collar. One denoted general palace security, two were for the guards of any princes or princesses – not that we had any of those left, Dios save their immortal souls – but three stripes represented the highest honour. The personal retinue of King Renato Aratorre and his consort.

“I am,” the man said, and although he didn’t sound as lost as earlier, the words still held enough emotion to steal my breath. Pride, so much pride, but there was also something of great sadness in them, too.

“Then you must be good with that thing,” I ventured, nodding at the sword balanced across his folded legs. And it was only upon realising how massive the blade was that it dawned on me how Blessed huge Jiron himself was, each of his hands the size of my whole head and his muscular thighs thicker than my waist. I hurriedly averted my eyes, feeling heat flush run down my neck.

“Not good enough,” he said bitterly, discarding the sword to the opposite side of where I sat, although he still handled it carefully despite his evident anger. “I should have been better.”

“What happened?” I asked, my voice low. I sensed it was all related: this surprising fury, the reason he was sitting all alone in the middle of the garden maze, why he’d flinched from my touch.

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