13
CHLOE
The lavender wasn't cooperating.
Chloe stared at the bundle in her hands, trying to remember what she'd been doing with it. Drying rack. She'd been heading to the drying rack. Except somehow she'd ended up standing in the middle of Freya's workroom, holding dead lavender and thinking about the way Corin's hand had felt wrapped around her wrist.
That had been two days ago. She needed to stop thinking about it.
"You've been holding that lavender for five minutes."
Chloe startled. Freya stood in the doorway, arms crossed, copper hair catching the afternoon light from the window. Her green eyes held the particular gleam that meant she'd noticed something and wasn't planning to let it go.
"I was just... organizing my thoughts."
"While staring at dried flowers?"
"It's a process."
Freya crossed to the worktable and began sorting through the morning's harvest, her movements easy and practiced."You've been distracted all day. Yesterday too. Want to tell me what's going on?"
Chloe set the lavender down, buying herself time. She didn't know how to explain what was going on because she didn't understand it herself.
"It's nothing."
"Try again."
"It's complicated."
"Most interesting things are." Freya glanced up, her expression softening. "Is it the whispers? Because I heard what those women said while over at the Mercantile yesterday, and I want you to know that most people in this town aren't that small-minded."
"It's not the whispers." Chloe hesitated. "Not directly, anyway."
Freya raised an eyebrow and waited.
"It's Corin."
Her eyebrow arched hire and to Chloe it looked as those a small grin had started to tug at the corner of her friend’s mouth. "What about him?"
Chloe moved to the window, studying the gray afternoon. The snow from two days ago had mostly melted, leaving the world slick and frozen in slush. She could see the corner of the herb garden from here, the beds they'd worked so hard to save.
"He's been different lately," she said finally. "Since we started working together on the land problem."
"Different how?"
"I don't have any idea how to describe it." She turned back to face Freya, frustration bleeding into her voice. "He's more... present. Attentive. Like he's actually seeing me instead of just tolerating my help."
"And that's a bad thing?"
"No. That's the problem." Chloe sank onto the stool by the worktable. "It's not bad. It's actually... nice. But it's confusing."
Freya had stopped sorting herbs. Her full attention was on Chloe now, and there was something in her gaze that made Chloe want to squirm.
"Tell me what happened."
"We were at his orchard. There was ice, and I slipped, and he caught me." Chloe's fingers drifted unconsciously to her wrist. "My glove had torn, so when he grabbed me, it was skin to skin."
"And?"
