The Douglas Fir (3 page)

Chapter Five

Bit by bit did it—just a centimeter a day, something that wouldn’t be noticeable
.

The fir was thirty centimeters—five
more than it had been at Noah’s birthday last week.

Noah tugged my sleeve as he sat on the grass before the bark and the fir. “Sit, I haven’t seen you all week. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

I looked down at him, to the space he was patting, and I dropped to his side and loosely hugged my legs. “What have I been up to?” I repeated, staring at the fir before glancing at him. “Just busy gardening and getting myself all grubby, as you can see.”

Noah took in my soil-stained T-shirt and work pants. “You know,” he said, and then
, as if he thought better of it, zipped up.

“What?”

He looked away from me to the fir. “The tree looks healthy.” He peered at it some more as he plucked at the grass between us. The side of his hand accidentally brushed mine and I jerked, breaking the contact—and immediately wished I hadn’t. Noah didn’t appear to care, or even notice. “But it doesn’t look like it’s grown much,” he finished.

I forced myself to look away from his hand as he rubbed his jeans at the knee
, and I tried to think of something to say.

Actually, if the shivers would stop running rampant around my gut—and lower—I might actually be smiling right now. Noah not noticing the growing fir was exactly what I wanted. The transplantations had to be so gradual that he didn’t notice the tree was growing so quickly, until, come Christmas, he’d be staring at a fully matured fir and marveling how it was ever possible.

“Just keep telling it truths,” I said, “and come Christmas, she’ll be ready.”

He smirked and leaned forward. “Okay fine, how about this: my neighbor’s a pain in the a
rse.”

“Is that what I am? Only a neighbor?” I feign
ed being kicked in the stomach and laughed.

“When you annoy me, yes.” He picked himself
up off the ground and extended an arm to me. I stared at it blankly, and just as Noah looked ready to drop the offer, I snapped to my wits and clapped his hand as I pulled myself up. “Lucky for you, you rarely annoy me.”

“And when I don’t annoy you, what am I?”

His turquoise gaze sparked as he shrugged.  “Then,” he said, “you are my friend.”

“Well damn, that’s much better than neighbor. So what did I do to annoy you?”

He turned back to me and then to the fir, and the fun left his voice. “I just wish you’d listen to me. Learning to swim—well, it’s a great way to clean off the dirt after a hard day’s work.”

So
that
’s what he’d been about to say before. I rubbed at the dirt on my arms. “It’s not about not hearing you,” I said.

“Then what is it?”

I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. It was embarrassing that I couldn’t do something most people could do by seven. It would be more embarrassing to have him see me thrash about like an idiot. And . . . and I was nervous. Panicky nervous. I was not the world’s most hardened man, and the last thing I wanted was to make a fool of myself. In front of
Noah
. “Maybe I will think about getting lessons,” I forced myself to say, and his face brightened.

I shook my head. “But I
 . . . I can’t take them from you. Or your friends.”

He stilled. “Why not?
I’d do a decent job of it. Though admittedly Dave would be a hell of a lot better. Still . . . ”

“I just can’t, okay?”
What if I freaked out in front of him or his charming ‘close friend?’ Dave surely wouldn’t hesitate to laugh about me to his friend, thereby scoring him higher points than me in Noah’s eyes . . .

Noah frowned, and he didn’t look too happy, but he nodded. “All right. But if you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

* * *

Two weeks after Noah’s birthday, I transplanted the tenth fir. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and my neighbor was at work. I’d gotten very familiar with his timetable so I knew when I could safely make the swaps. Sometimes the dead of night worked best, but I was no machine, and I needed to sleep as well.

I poured some bark around the base of the tree as Mr. Cole shook his head and rubbed Tool’s
ears. He’d driven over with Douglas Fir number ten in his trailer.

“Now why is it
I
have to keep all fifty-plus trees?”

I smirked at him as I packed up my duffel bag and
placed the old fir in the bucket. “You have all those acres of land. Besides, it would be too obvious if I had them stocked in my garage.”

He shook his head. “And you do know the best time to transplant firs is in winter, right?”

I nodded. I knew the basics about transplanting. “Most of the next firs are set in plastic pots. Until the very end, I’m planting them with their pots. I’ll be moving them regularly enough, it shouldn’t hurt them.”

“You youth,” Mr. Cole laughed.
“The crazy things you do for love.”

“Do I have to remind you that you flew all the way to Australia last weekend to be with Lila?”

He stopped patting the dog and stroked his beard. “That wasn’t love. Just a booty call.”

I slung the duffel bag over my shoulder. “Still crazy.”

“Well, son, I hope this fella is worth it. That, or he has an arse that glows in the dark.”

I gaped at him. My boss truly was something else. “Say what?” Then I shook my head. “No, don’t repeat it.”

“I’m an arse man myself, you know. On a woman, that is. The best ones always glow in the dark.”

This was officially the strangest conversation I’d ever had. With anyone. I shook off thoughts of green glowing bums and shoved the bucket for Mr. Cole to carry. “Let’s have no more talk of glow-in-the-dark anythings.”

Mr. Cole laughed and followed me back to my truck, the bucket at his hip. “Look,” he said, resting against the side of the deck as I dropped in my duffel bag, “about that job that kid offered you—”

I twisted sharply. “
Dave?” I suddenly knew what Mr. Cole was going to say, and I wished I’d never told him—ranted, perhaps?—about my ‘competition.’

“Yeah, look, I have a couple of smaller stints I’ll be working on over the next couple of months but not much.” He shrugged. “Tough economy. Maybe you should get yourself that job to tide you over until I have something bigger for the both of us.”

I rested my back against the truck and folded my arms. “I said we were busy for the next few months.”

Mr. Cole shrugged. “So tell him you managed to squeeze some time in to help him out.”

“God I hate you right now.”

He laughed and squeezed my shoulder. “I’m not bloody thrilled to be suggesting this either. Look, I could swap you one of my smaller jobs, but it involves clearing the yard after a sewerage leak.”

I made a face. Dave or sewerage? Hard choice.

“Look at it another way,” Mr. Cole said
. “You’ll be earning yourself a few points helping out your true love’s friend, now wouldn’t you?”

I stalked to the driver’s side and open
ed the door. Over the roof, I said, “This is just fan-bloody-tastic. He’d better not be so darn nice this time.”

* * *

What would you know?

He was nice this time
.

The bastard.

And I had another two full days of him ahead of me.
Just keep your head down and focus on the yard. Keep him out of your mind. And Christ, stop imagining the two of them together!

I hacked
with vengeance at the weeds and tossed stringy branches into a heap at the side of the house. Dave had scored himself a beaut of a villa in Miramar that overlooked the bays, and had bedrooms to spare. It was like he’d bought the house expecting that he’d soon have a whole family to fill it—or Noah and all his pets.

Great house, great job, great cook, great friend—

That’s not keeping them out of your mind, dammit!

I breathed in
through my nose and exhaled slowly, as if that would get me into a Dave-and-Noah-free zone—

“Found a pair!”

I stopped hacking and turned to the guy that I was sure would plague my dreams tonight. He waved a pair of gardening gloves at me with a crooked smile. “I can help you out if you like?”

I laid the machete down with my collection of tools and wiped the sweat off my brow with my arm. “Thought you hired me to do the grunt work?”

He shrugged. “I don’t mind helping a bit. I hired you because I haven’t any clue how to tackle this yard.”

“You’ll get all sweaty,” I said, pointedly looking at his
fresh-looking jeans and fitted, locally-printed T-shirt.
So how about you just get on back inside the house, now?

“It’s just a bit of dirt.”
He slipped on the gloves. Two of his fingers caught in one space, and he flicked the glove off as he tried to right it. The glove flipped in the air and hit me smack on the nose before dropping to my boot.

I stared at Dave, who was flushing as he tried more carefully to slip the other glove on. “This one fits better.”

As if the gloves came in different sizes.
I crouched, picked up the offending navy—
winter
—glove. Not gardening gloves. Thorns and splinters would cut through this like it was slightly refrigerated butter.

I tossed the
woolen glove at him. “Take the other one off.” Moving to my duffel bag, I rummaged around until I found a thick pair of gardening gloves. A faded red and yellow, they weren’t pretty, but they’d protect the smooth, gardening-virgin skin of his hands.

I passed him the new pair. “Try these.”

They were a bit big on him, and most definitely didn’t suit the rest of his look, but that worked for me. “So then, you ready to join me working this bit of dirt?”

He straightened and his hazel
eyes stared determinedly at the mess of branches in front of us. He curled his fingers toward him. “Bring it on.”

After forty minutes collecting weeds and
the old bushes I’d torn out, and taking them to my truck for disposal, Dave looked about half an hour past eating his words. His light grey T-shirt was soaked with sweat, and he walked like his jeans were giving him some serious chafing.

“Drink some water,” I said as he came back from a trip to the truck, and
I passed him my bottle.

He took it and guzzled the lot. “Thanks. How the hell do you do this all day?”

“It’s something you get used to, and I love the outdoors. I couldn’t sit in front of a computer the whole day.”

Dave
glanced back longingly at the house, as if getting back to his desk was exactly what he wanted.

“Know what?” I said
, shifting a few loose twigs toward the bigger pile at the fence. “I think I can take over from here. Go on in.”

Dave
looked about ready to snap up the offer, when the doorbell rang and he straightened. “That’ll be Noah!” He took a few steps back toward the house and jiggled my empty drink bottle. “I’ll let him in and fill this up for you. Then I’ll be back to help some more.”

Ah, shite. So much for a
Dave-and-Noah-free zone. And now Dave wanted to show Noah how awesome he was to be helping the poor ol’ gardener. I stood staring at the yard, sinking into the miserable realization that Dave was a good—amazing—guy. One that could swim, as well.

I kicked at some loose scrub. I was one
heck of a bugger for hating the guy. What I really should be feeling is sympathetic. How long had Dave looked at Noah this way without the man realizing it? How much longer would he continue to pine?

How long would I do the very same thing?

“What are you staring at?” Noah’s voice rang as if there were a laugh behind it. He slung an arm around my neck and stared at the yard. The crook of his elbow rested against the sweaty skin at the base of my hair—not something the guy should have to feel. Under the pretense of picking up larger shears, I freed him from my sweat.

“I was just thinking what to take on next.” I glanced from a thorny bush to Noah
, who was frowning now. “Trimming this back seems like a good idea. How was your day?”

Noah stuffed his hands into his pockets and sighed. “A few cats were dropped off today, and one
Jack Russell was picked up.”

“Here you go,”
Dave said, coming toward us, holding out my drink bottle. I choked back a laugh seeing the fresh navy T-shirt he’d changed into. “Filled it up with the cold water from the fridge and squeezed in a bit of fresh lemon.” He gestured toward the large lemon tree close to the back deck. One tree that would definitely be staying put, I’d told him.

I took it and squirted some in my mouth and over the back of my neck.
“Cheers.”