Page 87 of Tender Heart
“You wanted to help with the garden, so I made you one of your own.”
I stop in my tracks. “Wait, what?” A grin splits my face. First, the orgasm of my life, now, my very own garden. This man is?—
“Cal!” I jump onto his waist, hugging him before hunting for his mouth with my own. He kisses me hard but sets me back to my feet.
“You can seed, tend, and harvest this season’s tomatoes.”
My mouth gapes. “Really?”
He chuckles. “Absolutely.”
I squeak out a sound I’m sure any mouse would recognize as he grabs my hand and leads me into the greenhouse. A new bed, soiled and raked level, waits. A packet of tomato seeds, a trowel, and a pink watering can all sit on the ground by it.
“They’re easy enough to grow, and you get the best bang for your buck with tomatoes.” He squats down, passing the packet of seeds up to me. “Dig three-inch-deep furrows and scatter the seeds sparsely through each. Fill the furrows in and level it out. Water each day,” he says as he rises to his feet, “making sure they’re always moist, and you should see some green poke through in a few weeks. Then, in around ten more weeks, you have a harvest. Think you can oversee all that?”
“Of course!”
I bend down and pick up the trowel, eyeing the bed as I make a plan. The handheld radio at Cal’s hip squawks.
“Trinity to Fire Island Lighthouse, do you copy?”
Cal plucks the radio up in one hand. “Fire Island Lighthouse, read you loud and clear. Over.”
“Trinity to lighthouse, we are in need of assistance. Our nav system’s gone down. Over.”
“Lighthouse to Trinity, what’s your position? Over.”
“Ten miles due east. Over.”
Cal looks to me. “I gotta go, baby girl. You be alright here with your gardening?”
I lay a hand on his chest and push up on my toes, dotting a kiss on his lips. “I sure will. Thank you for the garden.”
“Gotta earn your keep somehow,” he says with a chuckle, slapping my ass as he walks away. “Be back before sunset. Keep the house radio turned up.”
“Okay, I will. Be careful!” I call out to his retreating back.
His hand waves over his head as if in salute to the sentiment between us.
Twenty-Four
EVIE
My hands tremble. Cal’s are tight around my wrists. His blue eyes pin me to the spot like a butterfly on a square of cork. Unlike the very alive yellow insect in my palms, flapping its vibrant presence all over my fingers. Yellow dust brushes over my skin, sticking.
I breathe through the panic burning up my chest.
It’s just a bug.
It’s just a flappy, sweet, tiny bug . . .
Tell that to my insides. My thundering heart.
“He won’t hurt you, baby girl. I promise.”
For a moment, I believe him. That this time, with Cal, T won’t stand a chance.
The bug flaps about, teetering on the edge of my pointer finger, and Cal guides it back to the center.
