Page 8 of Star-Crossed
“I’ll need to make a map of whereallthe roots are,” Cy interrupted. Experience had taught him just how little the average person knew about what arborists actually did.
The old industry joke about customers thinking that all you needed for a tree company was two guys, a truck, and a chainsaw had proven irritatingly accurate. The irony that this was how his father’s business had actually started notwithstanding.
“And how do you plan to do that, exactly?” she asked.
Whether she was asking just to be polite—doubtful—or to determine how extensive this process might prove to be—much more likely—Cy found himself answering at a length that made him cringe when he recognized the reason.
He wanted to impress her.
He wanted to show her that even though he’d washed out of college and ended up back in the town she’d very successfully blown, he’d made something of himself.
“…and after I capture enough visuals with the drone to make a 3D model, I can use ground-penetrating radar to create a complete map of the root system so I can determine the best course of action.”
Lyra blinked at him, and Cy felt the tips of his ears grow hot. In the years since Cy had joined the family business full time, he’d become embarrassingly immersed in the tech, despite his father’s abject resistance.
At least he’d stopped himself before he got to directional felling and sectional dismantling.
Fucking nerd.
“So, I ask again, how long do you think that will take?”
“About an hour.”
He tried not to be insulted by how relieved she looked.
“Fine,” she said. “Just…do whatever you need.”
Turning on her heel, she marched back into the shop and slammed the door behind her.
What Cyneededwas for the series of unfortunate and uncanny events, like the one that had interrupted his feverish back-of-the-bus make-out session with Lyra McKendrick, to fuck off.
He’d heard of seven years bad luck for breaking a mirror, but…a cow? Hitting deer and elk in that pass was far from an unusual occurrence. Racoons, maybe.
But—again—a cow?
Closet role-playing gamer that he was, Cy had entertained the idea that the livestock roadblock was actually some kind of shapeshifter. Whatever it was, it had been packing some serious hit points. Or so the fellow nerds in his online Dungeons & Dragons group might have said.
The entire football team and half the marching band had piled out of the bus to see the carnage while they waited for another vehicle to come ferry them back to Townsend Harbor. Lyra had stayed on the bus.
Then, as now, the sight of her looking at him through a window felt like an omen.
A sign that his entire life was about to change.
* * *
“How’s it going out here?”Gemma breezed across the lawn, her smile bright and a tray bearing two tall glasses of an amber substance clutched in her hands.
Not because she planned to enjoy a refreshing beverage with him, but because Guillermo the plumber refused to leave. Or to shut the fuck up.
A combination that was making Cy twitchy and tense.
Even through the over-ear noise-blocking headset he’d put on, despite having no intention of using a chainsaw, the man’s questions had peppered him like buckshot all afternoon.
A stark reminder of why, on the whole, Cy preferred the company of trees to people.
“Going great,” Guillermo said, helping himself to one of the glasses. “I think we’re pretty close to putting together a plan.”
We.
