Page 73 of Where You're Planted

She didn’t want to laugh. She wanted to hug him. But he clearly wished keep it light, so she said, “Andhikingboots, no less.”

“The monitor is the real gift. These were just so fucking cute.”

She did laugh at that. “So fucking cute,” she confirmed.

Jack jerked his head toward a hallway, and she followed him to the back of the house. He switched on a lamp to reveal a spacious bedroom with two entirely glassed-in walls opposite the door. An additional three or four feet of the sloping ceiling were also glassed in.

It felt like agreenhouse.

Tansy loved it immediately, both for howJackit was and for how open it made the space.

Although he’d claimed before that he didn’t like to read, he had a big, comfy chair tucked into the perfect reading nook, facing out into the dark woods. She could see the moon above the black mass of trees, big and bright and nearly full.

“You have a real bed,” she said, cocking an impressed eyebrow. It was neatly made, too, with pillows that didn’t look a decade old. “Not that I’m one to talk,” she admitted. “Justanother thing on a long list of stuff I need. After a bed for Briar, of course. When I get her room finished.”

She didn’t know how to sit in the quiet like Jack clearly did. She felt her cheeks heat and pointed at two more doors to divert his attention from her.

“Closet and bathroom,” he said, gesturing for her to go ahead.

“Sometimes I look at houses for sale online even though I can’t afford to move. It’s weirdly addictive. But I check first to see if they flooded. The ones that didn’t flood always explicitly say so. I assume the ones thatdon’tsay anything definitely did.” Babbling. She offered it over her shoulder as she turned on the lights in his bathroom but cut herself off with a gasp at the massive bathtub and the separate walk-in shower.

Jack cleared his throat, right behind her now, and she jumped.

“Had to see what that sound was for,” he murmured, hands slipping around her waist, chin pressing into the top of her head.

“I haven’t had a bath in forever. Not a real one, anyway.” Her tub was a replacement of the basic, shallow prefab shell that had come with the house, and she could submerge only her legs or her upper body with her neck at a painful angle, but not both at the same time. Before the hurricane, she hadn’t bothered, opting to shower exclusively. But until she could replace the water heater, she was stuck with quick, freezing showers or the lukewarm baths she made for Briar by heating pots of water on the hot plate to add to the cold tap water. Looking at Jack’s multiple shower heads and that deep soaker tub, Tansy felt genuinely torn about which she wanted more.

“Take a bath,” he said, nudging her forward. “I’ll make dinner.”

She turned around. “No, that’s weird.”

He didn’t back up, his face close above hers. His beard was short and neat, and she wanted to rake her nails up into the coarse hairs. He licked his lips, seeming to see that thought right on her face. “What’s weird about it?” he asked softly.

“I can help cook.”

“I don’t need help cooking.”

“I’d just be sitting in here feeling guilty about not helping then.”

“Let someone else do something for you for a change, huh?” He slipped past her, turned on the faucet, and then opened a cabinet. “I think I have some bubble bath around here, some fancy stuff that Greta had made from lavender in the gardens a few years ago.”

“Jack,” she laughed.

He waved a bottle of something that looked artisanal and added a heavy pour to the water. “Be a shame to waste it.”

And that was how Tansy found herself naked in Jack’s bathtub, a heaping cloud of lavender-scented bubbles piled high on the water’s surface. The fresh smell slowly mixed with the savory scent of chicken and warm bread from the kitchen. Her stomach rumbled. Contrary to his claim about the cats not looking for conversation, he kept up a running monologue, punctuated with occasional admonishments that she assumed were directed at them, his low, velvety voice reaching her dreamily through the walls.

Tansy closed her eyes and dropped her head back against the lip of the tub. Then she sank down lower, letting the water lap at her neck. It was so nice to be fully enveloped, her body held a little lighter by the water. She wanted total immersion, a cleansing of the earlier part of this day and all the stress she carried, so she held her breath and slipped all the way under.There was a loud quiet, a seashell shush in her ears, a long stretch of…almost nothing.

Untilsomethingwrapped around her calf. She gasped in a mouthful of bathwater and bolted upright, sputtering and coughing.

“Shit, sorry,” Jack said, smothering her face with a towel.

She batted away the towel, coughing violently, her sinuses burning, and her eyes leaking tears. “What are you—doing—in here?”

“I knocked first. I— Sorry.”

She coughed again, and little puffs of bubbles went flying.

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