Page 4 of Matthew
That earned the tiniest twitch at the corner of her mouth. Not a smile, more like her face considered the idea and rejected it on principle.
His kind of woman.
This was fun.
He stepped forward, unthreatening, casual. “Matthew Walker. I work at ESI, but I’m currently on garden patrol.”
She studied him as if deciding whether or not to spray him with a hose.
“Callie Morgan,” she said at last.
As he’d assumed. The name fit her. Clear, grounded, no fluff.
He noticed things, because that’s what his brain was trained to do. The small scab on her knuckle. The faint tan line from where her watch usually sat. The natural curve of her mouth that looked as if it didn’t smile often, but when it did, it probably made grown men forget their names.
And the eyes.
They were a warm brown that didn’t quite match her clipped tone. Quiet fire in them. She didn’t just own this land, shebelongedto it.
During his appraisal, she was sizing him up with the precision of someone who didn’t trust easily, and the thought that maybe she had good reason not to didn’t sit well with him.
His gut twinged. Had someone burned her in the past?
Idiot.
“I’ve got the order in the back greenhouse,” she said finally. “Follow me, and don’t touch anything.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, falling into step behind her.
In truth, he couldn’t stop watching her. Not because of the way she moved—though, okay, that didn’t hurt—but because something about her set off the same part of his brain that used to wake up when things felt slightly out of sync.
He shoved the thought away.
He was here for herbs.
That was all.
And if the woman leading him through the greenhouse smelled of honeysuckle and trouble, well…he’d been in worse situations.
Usually with more explosions.
Chapter Two
Callie Morgan could handle plants, people, and pressure. She could even handle chaos, so long as it came with roots and wasn’t wearing aviators and a crooked grin.
The man behind her was too tall, too easygoing, way too handsome, and entirely too observant. Callie could feel his gaze trailing behind her as if he were taking notes, and not the casual kind. No, this was trained awareness. The kind that once saved lives and now, apparently, tracked Thai basil with tactical precision.
She kept her pace brisk and her expression neutral. The layout of Morgan Creek Nursery wasn’t fancy, but it worked.
The small retail shop sat at the front, painted a cheerful sage-green with a white tin roof and a bell over the door that jingled with every customer. Behind it stretched a series of greenhouses, two large, one smaller, connected by gravel paths and shaded by hanging ferns and trellises. On the side patio, a teenage intern was answering phones between sips of lemonade while Tammy, her part-time cashier, helped a couple choose hanging baskets. Further back, two field hands—Luis and Jasper—used the skid steer to load mulch into the bed of a waiting pickup. A wide patio off the back of the shop offered room for displays, repotting benches, and the occasional private break spot. Beyond that, a weathered split-rail fence marked the edge of the nursery and the start of the old ranch house where she and Maggie had grown up.
As she pushed open the door to the back greenhouse, warm, humid air greeted them, thick with the scent of earth, tomatovines, and marigolds. Rows of raised planting tables stretched across the space, organized in her personal system of chaos that made perfect sense to her…and almost no one else.
“Back row,” she said over her shoulder, weaving around a crate of irrigation fittings and a tray of sunflowers waiting for transplant. “The Thai basil’s next to the lemon verbena.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he muttered, ducking under a hanging fern. “Place smells like the inside of a salad bar.”
She hid a smile. “Glad you didn’t say compost heap. That’s usually what the rookies go with.”
