Page 42 of The Headmaster’s Rule

My brows draw together. “What?”

“Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

Guilt nudges me, and I turn to face her properly. I want to tell her now is not the time, that I have other things to worry about, but I can’t bring myself to say the words.

I don’t want to be a jerk to her. I won’t let myself crush her enthusiasm.

Five minutes, I tell myself. I’ll give her five minutes to talk about the damn garden, then I’ll get back to securing the school grounds.

Get back to staying as far away from her as possible.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, motioning to the overgrown patch of weeds that was once a garden, beside the dilapidated greenhouse with broken panes. “Please go on.”

Her eyes map my face for a moment, as if trying to decipher my distant tone, to read between the lines for the words I’m not saying, then she sighs.

“I was saying that there’s something grounding in working with plants, with the earth. That students will get a sense of accomplishment by planting seeds and watching them grow.”

I nod, slipping my hands into my pockets.

“Growing something new takes time,” she continues, looking wistfully at the garden bed. “Patience. You have to trust it will come.”

Her words lodge unexpectedly in my chest. Patience. Trust. Not everyone has the luxury of these things.

“But it’s worth it when the end result is something wonderful,” she murmurs, smiling softly. “Something that nourishes you.”

My heart twists. Out of nowhere, emotion wells up inside me. I quickly tamp it down, gesturing to the tangle of plants that choke the existing garden patch, trying to be pragmatic.

“You’ll have to clear all this out.” My voice comes out hoarse, but if Eleanor notices, she doesn’t let it show.

“Not necessarily.” She kneels beside an overgrown bush of lavender, brushing it back to reveal a tiny sprout, barely clinging to life. “It’s still alive, see?”

I watch her fingers, the way she treats even the weeds with care, and my chest cracks. She’s so positive, always seeing the good. So damn earnest, sharing her true self without holding back.

And I have no idea what to do with that. With her. With the way she makes me feel so unmoored.

She looks up at me, the final rays of sun burnishing her caramel hair, her face flushed, eyes sparkling. She’s saying something about letting the kids take ownership of this space, but I’m hypnotized by her beauty, by her kind heart.

By everything she is.

“Don’t you think?” she asks, rising and brushing her hands clean.

“Sorry,” I say, voice thick around the unexpected lump in my throat. “What did you say?”

“You weren’t listening again,” she teases, but she’s not annoyed. If anything, she seems amused. She’s different out here, away from the stuffy confines of the conference room, and my office. She’s in her element talking about this project—her project. Her lips twitch as she gazes at me, and I chuff a sheepish laugh, looking down at my shoes.

How does she keep doing this? Keep knocking down the walls I put between us?

“There’s something healing about being out here,” Eleanor murmurs thoughtfully. “We all need that. A place to let go of what weighs us down. To breathe again.”

I swallow hard, bringing my gaze back to hers. I know she’s talking about the students, but there’s something in her tone, in the careful way she’s looking at me, that suggests she isn’t talking about them at all. That suggests she knows how badly I need that.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her, to explain the burden weighing on me after last year’s fundraiser, the pressure I feel to protect the school, but I bite back the words, curling my hands in my pockets.

I can’t make that her burden too.

“Kids need a place to learn from trial and error,” Eleanor continues, snapping off a stalk of rosemary and bringing it to her nose. “They need to know they’re allowed to make mistakes. That they can fail and still be safe.”

Her words land like a punch to my chest. I stare at the flower bed, breath fast and shallow. It’s easy to tell kids to learn from their mistakes. Harder when your own mistakes cost a school its reputation.