Page 42 of Where You're Planted

Kai, on their way to running a program for teens, snapped their fingers. “You should ask Ian. He likes kids.”

But Briar didn’t know Ian, and Tansy’s call was in five minutes, which was not enough time to track down the guy in the park somewhere, beg him to babysit, and gauge Briar’s distress level.

“What do you need Ian for?” Jack asked, emerging around the side of the shed.

“Where did you come from?” Tansy replied.

Briar beelined to his side, grabbing his hand. “I could stay with Jack.”

“He can’t watch you,” Tansy said gently, bending down to Briar’s level and slipping her hand from Jack’s. “You’ll just stay here. I’ll only be thirty minutes.”

“I can’t?” Jack pushed his sleeves up his strong, hairy, weirdly beautiful forearms. “Why can’t I?”

“Because,” she sputtered. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you don’t have a to-do list a mile long right now.”

He shrugged. “Nothing she can’t tag along for.”

Tansy squinted at him, trying to figure him out. He didn’t like kids in the gardens. He wasn’t a patient person.

But Briar seemed strangely comfortable with him.

And she needed to leaveright nowto make her meeting.

“Please, Mom?” Briar begged.

“Okay. Fine. But be careful,” she told her daughter, shooting Jack a threatening glare to be sure he knew that instruction applied to him as well.

—

She was going to killhim. She was going to murder Jack and dump his body in the creek.

Twenty minutes ago she’d returned from her meeting—Sheila wasn’t outwardly enthusiastic about her festival plans buthadapproved her request to fund a pipe-cleaner antennae craft—and instead of finding Jack making Briar pull weeds in the herb garden or doing whatever he did in his defunct greenhouse, the man andher childwere nowhere to be found. Marianne was no help, claiming she’d been inundated with calls so she hadn’t seen which direction they’d gone. So now, after completing the inner loopandthe outer loop of the park, Tansy was bypassing caution tape and forging into the trees.

She’d worn sandals today, and little rocks and grit kept slipping into them as she crunched along the sandy path. Just when she stopped to shake them out, a sound pierced the air—a shriek.

Briar.

Tansy didn’t think, just raced up the slope toward the break in the trees. She stumbled into the clearing, slowing before the edge of the ravine, and looked down into the shallow creek where Briar wasin the water. She shrieked again, hopping from one foot to the other and twisting her shoulders to avoid each splash. Jack was on the opposite bank, a good ten feet away—too far to help her.

“Hey!” Tansy bellowed from her vantage point well above them.

Jack lifted a hand to shade his eyes and pantomimed a big shrug, not understanding her.

From the middle of the creek, Briar turned and waved.

“I’m coming, honey!” To Tansy’s left was a narrow foot-worn path that went down a few yards to another lookout point, but when she reached that ledge, there was nowhere else to go. She returned to her original spot, and by then Jack had waded back across. The water hit about mid-shin on him and just below the knees on Briar, but adrenaline pumped through Tansy’s veins nonetheless.

“Over there!” Jack called up to her, pointing to her right.

She wanted to scream at him that this was the exact opposite of being careful, but she didn’t want to alarm Briar. She fought overgrown shrubs, hissing when a thorn snagged her wrist, and finally discovered a set of wooden steps installed right into the side of the ravine. She made her way down, and when Briar came running across the narrow, sandy beach, she fully expected tears.

“Mom! Come look!” Briar exclaimed instead, snatching Tansy’s hand and dragging her across the sand.

Tansy planted her feet and turned Briar by the shoulders, smoothed her wild hair back from her flushed face. “I heard you. Are you okay?”

Jack was standing a few feet back, his khaki work pants rolled up to his knees, scratching his beard.

“The water’s really, really cold,” Briar said, eyes bright and excited. “But you get used to it. Come on, come on.”

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