Page 92 of Where You're Planted

“Hey. Jack’s looking for you,” he said as he jogged over to them.

“Good.” She snatched his radio from his hip, thrust it at his chest, and said, “Tell him to meet me in the greenhouse.”

—

It had barely been twoweeks since the day Jack and Tansy had kissed in the greenhouse. So much had changed.

And yet, any progress they’d made had just been brutally cut back, like the crepe myrtles that she now knew most people over-pruned—crepe murder, Jack called it.

Part of her refused to believe it at all.

But when the door creaked open and he scuffed inside, head low, hand already rising to the back of his neck, she knew it was true.

“Hey,” he said, stopping a few feet from her. “Been trying to find you.”

“You found me.”

He licked his lips. There was a minute twitch in his cheek as her chilly tone landed. “I have to tell you something. I should have told you before.”

He cleared his throat and adjusted his cap, and Tansy felt she would burst through her skin if she had to watch him delay this another second. She raised her palm to stop him. “I know you’re a finalist for my grant. Kai just told me. Ian told Kai.”

She heard him swallow. It was stuffier in here than it had been last time. All these windows, but none of them were open, and the too-warm air hung heavy around them.

“I should have told you weeks ago,” he said.

A bitter laugh tripped out of her.

He took a step toward her, and she immediately took one back, bumping against a table. He stayed right where he was, sensing correctly that one wrong move would send her running.

He raised his palms. “If it makes any difference, it was before we became…before our truce.”

“It doesn’t,” she snapped.

“The grant was such a long shot, I didn’t even think there’d be a reason to tell you. I thought we’d get passed over and it wouldn’t matter in the end.”

“Wouldn’t matter,” she echoed. “That you applied for the same grant I needed to save my library?”

He swallowed again. “Tansy, I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because you wanted it, and you deserved it as much as anyone, and it probably seems like I—”

“Like you took it from me?”

He scratched his beard, studying her, probably trying to figure out if she was finishing his sentence or confirming that it was what she believed. “Yeah,” he said. “Something like that. I didn’t expect to make it to the final round.”

“But you still applied. And you didn’t say a word about it all this time.”

“And what if I had said something?” he pressed, although he remained calm and didn’t raise his voice. “Would you have been fine with it? Or would it have been just another thing for us to bicker over? A wrecking ball to a partnership that was barely stable until pretty recently?”

“I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “But let’s not forget thatIwas the one who suggested our truce in the first place. And I kept my word. I didn’t work behind the scenes to sabotage you.”

“That’s what I did here?” He clutched his shirt, and that uncharacteristic restraint he’d had was slipping now. “Isabotagedyou? Christ, Tansy. I applied for a grant I didn’t think I’d get, and I kept it to myself. Just like you didn’t tell a single one of your friendsyouapplied. Because you didn’t want themto be disappointed if you didn’t get it. How is that different than me quietly putting my name in among more than three hundred other applicants?”

“You know why it’s different. I didn’t want to disappoint my friends. You didn’t want to admit that you put your park in direct competition with my library, that you putyourinterests first.”

“The chances that I specifically knocked you out of contention—”

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