Page 41 of A Fae’s Guide to Tactical Botany

Well, he hadn’t come here to find romance. He’d come to get his head together, earn tenure, and salvage his job. And Mara was helping with that. The fact that she was unattainable, that her heart was spoken for, was beside the point.

And he’d keep telling himself that any time his hormones started getting ideas again.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said at last. “Did it make you feel better?”

“Somewhat.” She cast him a considering glance, then shook her head. “Well enough for tonight.” She smiled, a smile that was almost happy.

And that did it.

“I saw you,” Ethan breathed.

Mara blinked. “Yes,” she said. “You have said so.”

“No, not the satellite pictures, not the sleeping and the wings.” Ethan struggled to his feet, wincing. “I saw you and him. Tristan.”

Bleak shock crossed Mara’s face. “When?”

“Five years ago. There was music—a festival. And I saw you through the crowd. Your hair, your eyes.” It was the smile that had hidden the memory from him. She had looked so different then. “I saw you across the crowd, and for a moment I thought… There she is.” He gulped back his shock. “I was going to go talk to you, but then there was a man. You smiled at him, and he kissed your cheek and…” And he’d turned away and run right into Sarah, nearly spilling her drink. He’d offered to buy her her next drink, and it had turned into a date. “Holy shit.”

“A music festival…” Mara got a faraway look in her eyes. “Yes, I remember.”

It must have been right before… Ethan didn’t say it. “He looked kind,” he said instead.

“He was,” Mara said, but there was a question in her voice.

“I remember,” Ethan replied. “I remember how happy you both looked. How your eyes lit up when you saw him, how he smiled like you were the sun and the moon.” He could feel a babble coming on, repressed it. “If he’d looked like a jerk, I would have said hi.”

“He was a good man,” Mara said.

“I’m glad.”

She rose to her feet with fey grace. “Come. You must be hungry.” With a kind, sad smile, she stepped closer.

“That’s okay,” Ethan said quickly. “My ankle’s a lot better now. You don’t have to help me.”

He started to walk toward his camp, keeping his pain off his face. When he heard the sibilant hiss of her departure behind him, he sighed with relief.

If he’d known what she was going through…would he have changed anything he’d done? Maybe. He liked to think so. But he couldn’t say for sure. After all, he was just a man. But regardless, he’d trespassed on her kindness enough for one night.

Tomorrow, he’d speed up the research process a bit. Hone in on the most important specimens, get it done and get back on the road. Leave Mara to the peace she deserved. It was the chivalrous thing to do, for certain.

Even if he’d fallen for Mara, the masochist that he was. Taken her mixed signals to mean actual interest instead of interrupted grief.

He’d finish his work, and he’d leave, just like she wanted.

Goddammit.

Sometimes chivalry fucking sucked.

Chapter fifteen

Retreat

Mara frowned at the flower before her.

It was wilting, which didn’t make sense. She’d delved into her grief, poured it out like water upon the cactus before her, begged its bloom to return to its former lush glory. It was not listening to her.

Perhaps she was tired. That must be it. She’d been tending her garden furiously for days, particularly since Ethan had proclaimed he did not need her assistance anymore. She had nothing but time for her memorial, and she’d been laboring from before the dawn until the evening crickets fell silent.