“I’ve got gloves in the house,” I said. “Do you want a pair?”
“Sure.” Tanner stood, pulled his hair away from his face and threaded it through an elastic twice. “I’m going to walk around, get a feel for what’s underneath the grass and moss, especially those overgrown areas.” He pointed vaguely to the swath between the bigger shed and the section between my garden and the woods.
I’d moved my office to my bedroom so Christoph could have a room of his own, and had finished re-setting up my work space. I had to fiddle with the surge protector to free up a plug for my printer, let the machine warm up, and try to remember where I kept my stash of paper. Once I had everything in place, I carefully opened the Good Housesweeping volume and unfolded the map.
With a lot of bent elbows, dextrous maneuvering and swearing, I was able to copy the entire map on four separate tries. I taped the sheets together and trimmed the overlap until I had a reasonable facsimile of the original. Sticking a couple of pens in my back pocket, I grabbed the bag of gloves from the closet by the front door, and went out to garden with my druid.
And caught myself teetering on the unfamiliar verge of normal.
Tanner had rolled up his pant legs, shed his T-shirt, and was stomping on the big gardening fork. Stray hairs waved over his face as he gripped the long handle fist over fist and moved it back and forth like he was trying to dislodge a rock.
A hot guy—my hot guy—was helping me with lawn work at the start of a kid-free weekend. It wasn’t even noon and I was ready to pop the lids on a couple bottles of local brew, pull up a lawn chair, and watch him sweat. For me.
“You going to help or just stand there and gawk?” Tanner asked, swiping his hair away with his forearm.
“Both,” I said. I waved the taped together pages at him. “I even got us a treasure map.”
Steel hitting rock clanged as Tanner tapped at whatever had him sweating. “I might have found something.”
I dropped the gloves and spread the map between us. Pointing to the corresponding area, I said, “Whatever is here could be the border of one of these gardens. See this design? I can’t tell if it’s a wall or a pathway.” I repositioned the map so the drawing lined up exactly with where we were in relation to the house.
Tanner picked out an edging tool. “Start poking around with this.”
“Can’t I just use my feet?” I asked, pulling on a pair of heavy canvas gloves.
He squinted at me. “Would you like to?”
“I’d like to get sweaty first.”
“I can help with that.”
“Vertical sweaty, Tanner. Out of doors sweaty.”
“I can help with the vertical sweaty and the out of doors sweaty and whatever other variation of sweaty you’d like, Calliope.”
“Work first,” I said, hefting the edging tool and pretending I would spear him if he stepped any closer. “Naked later.”
Zippers and buttons remained intact. Tanner redid his ponytail and returned to uncovering the broad rock he’d found. I put about eight feet between us and tapped at the ground until the curved metal edge hit another rock. Angling the tool so I could use it as a scraper, I worked to loosen the matted grass.
I found the work meditative, even the scraping of metal against rock whenever I nudged the edge of my tool under sod and moss. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I straightened, stretched a kink out of my back, and searched for Tanner.
He’d been working away from me, and together we’d uncovered fully half a rough circle, the same one I’d pointed out on the map. Wedging my tool between two rocks, I pinched the fingertips of one sweaty glove, tugged it off, and stuck it atop the tool’s handle. I dropped the other glove on the ground.
“D’you want something to drink?” I asked. He’d removed his shirt and tucked it into the back of his jeans. His tanned, sweaty shoulders presented a mighty distraction, and his waving arm and wide grin told me I missed whatever he said. I stepped into the half circle of lumpy grass stretching between us.
Tanner rested the handle of the garden fork against his outer thigh and swiped his forehead. “I said, got any lemonade?”
I trailed my fingertips across the waistband of his jeans. Damp with sweat, the denim rode low on his hips. I splayed one palm across his belly, thumbing teasing the line of black hairs arrowing downward. “I got lemonade. How much do you want?”
He bent from the waist, rubbed his scruffy cheek against mine. “As much as you can pour.”
I laughed, swatted him away, and stepped over the nearest rock. “I think I better hose you off first.”
Tanner tugged at the back of my T-shirt as a bright pink Volkswagon Bug paused at the end of the driveway, rolled forward, then reversed. A horn tooted.
“What’s Maritza doing here?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Do you think if we ignore her she’ll go away?”
“Not likely.” Tanner released my shirt. “If she’s here without calling first, might be important.”
I jogged over the yard, up the drive, and called, “Maritza!” She rolled down her window when I passed through the wards.
“Calliope. I’m not one to visit unannounced, but I felt it imperative that we use this equinox to create an essential tool for your magic.” She put the car in park and lowered her black-rimmed sunglasses. Elongated ovals of Prussian blue twinkled from the end of each finger. “I brought everything we need and we should be done in under an hour.”
I was intrigued enough not to hesitate. “The driveway’s right here,” I said, waving her in.
