Page 16 of Matthew
Maggie:You better still be planning to take a real lunch today. You danced. Don’t ruin it with your usual feral gremlin behavior.
Callie snorted and typed back a reply.
You say that like it’s a choice.
She slipped the phone in her back pocket and glanced toward the staff lot. No sign of Sammy yet, which meant he was still with Nate. The traitor had jumped ship the second her manager had said the wordwalkthis morning.
Callie hadn’t expected to see Nate at the Texas Pub last night. He’d just stopped in for a beer—then spotted her and passed along that the overdue pavers had finally arrived. Of course they had. Right after she left.
A smile tugged her lips as she started toward the front of the nursery, the crunch of gravel under her boots a familiar rhythm. Rosie was chatting with a couple near the native wildflowers, and Les gave her a quick wave as he loaded a flat of tomatoes into a cart.
Then she heard it.
A low hum beneath the birdsong and rustling leaves. An engine. Not one she recognized.
Callie slowed as a white box truck turned off the road and onto their drive. No company logo. No magnetic signage. Only mismatched side panels and a dented bumper that hadn’t seen a collision specialist in years.
That wasn’t one of hers.
The truck crawled up to the delivery shed and stopped. From a distance, she spotted the driver. A man in his late forties, maybe fifties, with a ball cap, mirrored sunglasses. He stepped down and raised a hand in a lazy wave.
“Morning!” he called out. “Got a delivery for Morgan Creek.”
A few of her employees glanced toward the truck, but no one moved to intervene. Deliveries weren’t unusual, and this part of the property was generally her territory anyway.
Callie stayed where she was, arms crossing over her chest. “From whom?”
He tugged a clipboard from the cab and glanced at it. “Filled through a third-party supplier. Some backlogged stuff outta Houston.”
Her brows lifted.
“We don’t use Houston,” she said flatly. “You got a name on that order?”
“Signed off by an assistant,” he replied with a shrug.
Her jaw tightened. “I don’t have an assistant.”
She moved closer, slowly and deliberately. Rosie’s laugh floated faintly behind her, followed by the soft squeak of a hose nozzle shutting off. Normal morning sounds. Normal day.
But her gut said otherwise.
“You got a name?” She moved closer, her boots crunching against the gravel.
He didn’t answer, simply turned toward the back of the truck and rolled open the door with a rusty rattle.
Inside were two large plastic containers. No labels. No packing slip visible.
“Look, I just deliver the stuff. You don’t want it, that’s on you.”
Callie’s fingers curled tighter over her elbows as the chemical scent hit her full force. Sharp. Acrid. Sterile in a way that didn’t belong anywhere near plants. It curled in her nose and tightened her stomach.
Whatever was in those bins, it wasn’t mulch or potting soil or any kind of agricultural supply she’d ever ordered. And someone had gone out of their way to make sure it ended up here.
She took another step forward, boots crunching the gravel, close enough now to really study the containers. Heavy-duty plastic. No brand logos. No shipping labels. Just two industrial-sized bins that practically screamedDon’t touch.
Across the lot, Nate was helping a customer load a trunk with hanging baskets. Rosie was dragging a hose past the greenhouse, singing along under her breath to the country song playing from the overhead speakers.
Business as usual.
