Page 70 of The Wild Charge

He blamed boredom as the reason he’d agreed when Reese turned to him, utterly guileless, eyes clearwater blue in the morning sun, and said his sister had asked for help in her “garden,” and did he want to come along? Boredom…and, well, he was in love or some such rot.

Which was how he found himself toting bags of potting soil through Kristin’s apartment to what was definitely not a garden, but actually a little terrace with too many terracotta pots cluttering its corners.

“If you could set that one right there – yes, perfect, thank you!” She smiled with too many teeth, expression one of strained gratitude, when Tenny dropped the Miracle Grow onto an ever-growing heap of other bags. It seemed like too much dirt, but what did he know?

Her throat jerked as she swallowed, smile fixed, turning her otherwise pretty face unpleasant, and maintained eye contact in a way he could tell was forced. “Thank you so much for helping Reese – and me! This is for me, after all.” She chuckled through her teeth, a pushed-out, tense sound.

She was a tense woman, in general. She had a right to be, given what Tenny knew about her from Fox: tied-up, kept hostage, used, always leveraged against Reese when his old masters had feared he wouldn’t comply with their orders. Whoever’d gone to great lengths to turn Reese into a walking, breathing machine with only two settings – stay, kill – hadn’t bothered at all with Kristin. She’d been left wholly human…and wholly traumatized.

Tenny knew he made her nervous, but he’d not ever been any good at putting people at ease in his natural state. He could have slipped on a mask, given her a lazy smile and said something charming, disarmed her.

But the moment they’d arrived, and her gaze had widened when it landed on him, he’d thought of Reese poking him in the ribs and pouting, accusing him of pretending. So. Shit. He was trying to be real, whatever that meant.

“You’re welcome.”

Reese arrived – she let out a big breath and jerked her gaze toward her brother, gladly – and dropped another bag. “That’s the last of them.”

“Great,” Kristin said, a little less tense. “Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.”

Tenny was also a man torn because he wasn’t the sort to benice, but, beingin love or some such rot, he figured it was imperative that he at least attempt niceness with the object of said love’s sister.

He scanned the terrace, its profusion of pots, and the flats and flats of pansies they’d brought over from Dartmoor’s nursery and already carried inside. “There won’t even be room to have a smoke out here once you’re done,” he said. Damn. That wasn’t very nice, now, was it?

If it bothered her, she didn’t let on – the King of Bluntness was her brother, after all. She gave a little wave and tugged on a pair of garden gloves. She had a stool, and she sat on it, dragging soil, trowel, and a flat of flowers within reach with the air of someone who’d done this before: probably in spring. Undemanding physical labor was supposed to be therapeutic, and if anyone needed it, it was Kris.

“Oh, I won’t mind. Or, well, Roman won’t.” She chuckled as she bent her head to work – a true chuckle. “I let him smoke inside, even though I shouldn’t. Don’t tell my landlord.”

“Where is Roman?” Reese asked. Then, to Tenny’s shock, he folded himself down to sit cross-legged across from his sister. She handed him a pot of his own and he started filling it with fresh black soil, bare-handed.

They were doing this, then. They wereplanting.

Tenny pushed up his sleeves and sat down beside him.

“He’s over at Bell Bar today,” Kristin said. “The electrician backed out and he’s finishing the wiring for Ghost.”

“He rewired that camper we stayed in, one time,” Reese said, and Kristin beamed at him.

“That’s right.”

Her tone set Tenny’s hackles to bristling. The way she was looking at Reese, and speaking to him – like she was rewarding him, like he was a child who’d done well on a spelling test – rubbed him every wrong direction. He’d thoughtchildbefore, but never in this – this maternal way. Never like Reese wasn’t capable of something as simple as recalling a memory of the past and making connections. Reese was untutored in life, but he wassmart, he wassharp, he was–

Kristin’s gaze shifted toward him, flickered with nerves, and shuttered. She offered him an empty pot. “Um. Did you want to?” Save the premature worry lines, her face was very much like her brother’s; her hair had the same natural wave to it as Reese’s, now that he was growing it out.

Tenny took a breath, and took the pot. “I must admit,” he said, with forced levity, “that planting flowers is not one of my many accrued skills.”

She blinked, and, for some reason, her expression softened a fraction. “It’s really easy,” she said, “and, I dunno, I find it relaxing.”

Reese dragged the bag of soil around in front of himself so Tenny could reach it.

Kristin bent her head to her work again, sunlight turning her tawny hair pale white-blond, like her brother’s. “You were raised like Reese, huh?” she asked, softly. “You didn’t get to…do things like this.”

His flare of anger died down, a little. “No.” He reached into the bag. “I did not.”

Silence reigned heavy a moment, save thepuffof soil landing in pots.

Then Kristin said, “Reese, did I tell you Maggie wants me to work at the restaurant when it’s open?” Her voice ticked up with excitement, and Tenny settled himself to plant fucking flowers in silence, while Kristin chatted at her brother and Reese answered in monotone.

It wasn’tnotrelaxing. He’d give her that.

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