Chapter 4
“It’s a scratch.”
“It’s a puncture wound from fifty-year-old pipe metal. Go wash it with surgical soap.” He didn’t wait for her consent; he took the heavy steel wrench straight out of her grip. His fingers were warm, completely dry, and startlingly rough for a man who spent his life shuffling contracts.
“Sawyer, don’t touch that, it’s under sixty pounds of municipal pressure—if you strip the thread—”
“The compression nut is cross-threaded, not corroded,” he said, not even looking back at her as he stepped onto the ladder. The wood creaked under his weight, but he moved with an unhurried, infuriating balance. “Julian never understood pipe threading. He always forced brass onto iron without Teflon tape.”
Amalia froze at the threshold of the bathroom, the hand soap dispenser in her grip.
The mention of Julian’s name hung between them, suspended in the steam. In eighteen months, Sawyer had never spoken her late husband’s name aloud. He had referred to *the previous management* or *the original leaseholder*, keeping the boundary lines as stark and sterile as legal briefs.
Sawyer’s shoulders went rigid. For a second, the wrench in his hand stilled against the blackened pipe.
“Did you know Julian?” she asked, the question slipping out before she could swallow it. Her voice sounded fragile, tiny against the dripping of the water.
Sawyer didn't look down. He set the jaw of the wrench against the nut. With a single, sharp exhalation, his shoulders flexed through the tight weave of his shirt, and the seized iron gave way with a deep, echoing groan.
“Our paths crossed,” he said, his tone deliberately neutral, the lawyer retreating behind his iron curtain. “Downtown is smaller than it looks. Bring me the roll of blue thread seal from the bottom of your tool chest.”
She fetched the tape without another word.
When she handed it up to him, their fingers brushed again. This time, Sawyer didn't jerk back. His gaze dropped to hers, dark and fathomless, the amber flecks in his eyes catching the amber light of the bulb. He held the tape, but he didn't pull away. He just looked at her—at her bruised knuckle, at the wild strands of hair falling across her temples, at the damp flannel clinging to the hollow of her collarbone.
The corridor smelled of ozone, cedar, and the salt of his skin.
“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered. “You’re an equity partner at Vance & Sterling. You have depositions. You have dinner reservations at places that don’t smell like wet soil.”
“I have two hours before an eight-o’clock conference call with a maritime insurer in London,” he said, his voice dropping into that quiet, gravel-edged register that made the hair on her arms stand up. He wrapped the threads with deft, mechanical precision. “And you were about to flood three thousand dollars of Dutch tubers in your basement. Which would be a waste of my investment.”
“Your investment?”
“I have an order pending for the spring solstice, Amalia. I need you operational.”
The reminder hit her like a bucket of well water.
*The order.* Of course. The standing arrangement. The phantom woman who owned his soul. The unnamed grief that paid her lease.
Amalia stepped back, creating the distance her pride required. “The Dutch ranunculus arrived this morning,” she said stiffly, turning toward the main room. “The stems are thick. They’ll be ready by the twentieth.”
Sawyer climbed down from the ladder, testing the valve with a dry paper towel. The leak had ceased completely. He didn't answer her; he simply reached for his coat, sliding his arms into the silk-lined sleeves with effortless grace. But as he buttoned the wool, his gaze lingered on the narrow kitchen counter by the back door, where an electric kettle was beginning to hum.
“Is that mint?” he asked quietly.
Amalia paused. “Chamomile and lemon verbena. From the rooftop planter.”
Sawyer checked the thin gold watch on his wrist. It was six-fifteen. Outside, the rain had turned into a thick, blue dusk, rattling against the high panes of the conservatory glass.
“The insurer,” he said, looking at the steaming kettle, “can wait until seven.”
***
They sat on two mismatched wooden stools by the wrapping counter, drinking out of thick stoneware mugs that lacked handles.
It was the first time Sawyer had ever stayed past the signing of a check.
The shop around them was asleep. Buckets of pale green hellebores, dark purple anemones, and white lilac branches leaned in the shadows, their fragrance mingling with the dry, grassy scent of the herb tea. Between them lay a battered ledger and Sawyer’s legal pad, filled with neat, terrifyingly structured columns of figures.
“Arthur Geller isn’t your only problem,” Sawyer said, blowing gently across the surface of his mug. He had rolled his cuffs down, but he hadn't put his jacket back on; it hung over the back of the stool, making him look startlingly domestic against her chaotic shelves of ribbon spools and floral shears. “The whole south side of the block is being surveyed.”
Amalia’s fingers tightened around her mug. “Surveyed for what?”
“Apex Urban Capital. They’ve quietly bought the old dry cleaner on the corner and the bakery next door. They want the entire frontage along Market for a mixed-use retail mid-rise. Condos on top, corporate chain coffee on the ground level.”
A cold dread pooled in Amalia’s stomach. “Geller told me he had inquiries. He said if I didn't match the new commercial appraisal by May, he’d exercise his demolition break clause.”
“The clause is unenforceable,” Sawyer said flatly. “The building sits on an 1890 carriage easement. Apex can’t tear it down without a unanimous variance from the municipal historical board. Which I happen to sit on as legal counsel.”
Amalia looked at him over the rim of her tea. In the amber light of the desk lamp, the severity of his jaw was softened by the steam rising between them. “You sit on the board?”
“I do.”
“Did you join the board because of Apex?”
Sawyer’s cup made a soft clinking sound as he set it on the zinc table. He didn't answer immediately. He looked at her fingers, tracing the small porcelain rim of her cup.
“I joined the board because this city has a habit of tearing down things with roots,” he said, his voice quiet. “People think progress means pouring fresh concrete over anything that weathered a storm. It’s lazy. And it’s arrogant.”
“Sometimes people can’t afford to keep the old things,” she said, her thoughts drifting, unbidden, to the medical debts she was still chipping away at, fifty dollars at a time. “Sometimes the maintenance costs more than the thing is worth.”
Sawyer looked up, pinning her with a look so fierce, so intensely focused, that she felt her pulse jump into her throat.
“Then the people holding the deed don't know the value of what they have,” he said.
Amalia couldn't look away. The silence in the shop expanded, thick and heavy with unspoken things. She could hear the hum of the small refrigerator, the distant rumble of the downtown streetcar, the steady, rhythmic sound of Sawyer’s breathing.
He reached across the narrow table.
