Page 106 of Where You're Planted

“So I get to meet all these families today and tell them the club won’t continue past May. Seems pointless to even start. They won’t get to see anything grow.”

“I’ll keep it going,” Jack said immediately. “It doesn’t have to end.”

She shrugged. “If that’s what you want. Obviously, you can keep the tools.”

He wanted to keep goingeverythingshe’d started here. The story times. The Movement and Meditation group. The teen artists, tucked into corners of the gardens, sketching flowers. The families shouting that they’d found another scavenger hunt character hidden in the tropical garden.

Although the park wasn’t fully recovered and wouldn’t be for some time, theenergyhere was alive again. In fact, itfelt more alive now than it ever had before the hurricane. It met Jack at the front entrance gate every time he showed up to work—a pulse in the air, like a force field protecting this pocket of paradise. The librarians and the new regulars came and went in patterns as predictable to him now as the camellias unfurling in January, followed by the azaleas and bluebonnets in February, the swallows arriving the last week of March and that pair returning to rebuild their nest above Tansy’s library door, and Harry the heron diving and catching nothing in the creek until the end of time, no matter how high or low the waterline.

“Tansy,” he said, her name a plea.

She waited, still outwardly unmoved.

He chickened out. “I thought Briar was coming today.”

“She is. She’s with Irma in the library.”

“Good. Thought she could be my assistant.”

Tansy’s mouth twisted. It was the first hint of any emotion from her, and he wanted just as badly to take back anything that upset her as he wanted to push harder, to break through the last of her barriers.

“I think it’s probably best if she doesn’t get too attached.”

“No,” he cut in before she could launch into the letdown speech he now knew she’d come armed with.

“No?” she asked.

“She can still come to the club, regardless of where you transfer.”

“I don’t know where that will be. If we’ll have to move across town, it may be too far to drive.”

“That’s an excuse. It’s not even a good one. Come on, Briarlovesthis place. She’s so happy here.”

Tansy crossed her arms. She looked over her shoulder, back to the door. He hated to see her this way. Reined in.Controlled. All logic and caution. He preferred her on the verge of unraveling in every possible way.

“She’sattached,” Jack pointed out, leaving the tools and coming toward her. “Not just to this place, but to me. And so are you.”

She bit her lip, still looking away.

“Something led me toyouin the library and thenyourporch that day. Something made me put my hat on her head. It was like this invisible force, even then, pulling us to each other. It freaked me out before, but this whole thing has changed me, Tansy. What I want. Who I want to be.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want—” She broke off, closed her eyes, and breathed in deeply.

“You want this, too. I know you do.”

“I do,” she admitted, her mask finally coming all the way off. She shook her head helplessly. “For myself. But I don’t get to think only of myself. I can’t just dive headfirst into this thing with you. Briar needs stability. She needs my time and attention. Sometimes that means I have to give up the things I want, but that’s part of being a parent, Jack. It’s especially part of being a single parent.”

“I’m not asking you to choose me over her. You know I’m not.”

“I don’t think you know what you’re asking,” Tansy said.

He laughed harshly. “I do know what I’m asking. But I guess you’re still not ready to hear it.” He raised his eyebrows in a challenge, and she lifted her chin right back, so he went for it. “I meant what I said in the hospital, Tansy. I wanteverythingwith you and Briar. I want to be yours. I want tobelongwith you in every way that matters, and I’m not remotely afraid of what that means. I’m only afraid of losing you. If you quit this, I don’t think I’ll recover, Tansy.”

She laughed harshly. “No pressure.”

“Is it really pressure, or are you just scared because it breaks the rules you’ve set to keep your life safe and controlled, so you never make a mistake?”

“I’ve never brought a man into our lives.”

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