In Book One, Body, Sam was able to persuade Geoff to actively explore his Dominant tendencies and allow her to embrace her submission to him. While she doesn't yet know if or how Chris fits into a Dom/sub relationship, she has no doubt she's in love with both men. In Book Two, Heart, she convinced Chris that there is no choice to be made--she wants a relationship with the two of them. Only one obstacle remains: Geoff and Chris's relationship with one another.
Geoff and Chris have been best friends for years, and Sam has always sensed a deep well of feeling between them, something beyond friendship. She doesn't want to simply be a bridge between the two men. In her heart, she believes their trio is meant to be a true threesome, with endless options to explore together. Geoff has told her she can't interfere, that this is for him and Chris to figure out. She agrees in theory--but she's more than ready to help move things along if the opportunity presents itself!
Chris fished through the box of resin figurines and pulled out a squirrel sitting on gray haunches and holding a nut. No bigger than his thumbnail, the creature had a steel pin in the base, which he pushed into the earth next to a fairy. Her pale skin and slim face reminded him of Sam. The fairy's slim legs dangled over the edge of the bowl-sized pool he'd created. Her dress looked like it was made out of petunia petals and her long straight hair was in a high ponytail, the way Sam wore it when she went to yoga.
Okay, he had enough pieces in place to test the stability of the channel he'd created. The water was supposed to meander from the fountain at the top of the berm down through the fairy world, and then funnel into an irrigation system for the vegetable garden. "This is either going to be great or set off a mudslide," he muttered. Hearing a clack-clack sound from Ron, watching him from the aviary, he shot the bird a warning look. "No laughing," he told him.
He started up the hose, then opened the valve. Sitting back on his haunches, he watched the rock fountain fill with water. As it spilled over the spout, it chuckled its way into the gully he'd created, becoming a sparkling creek. A couple of turns and it emptied into the small pool, where the fairy and her squirrel waited. The water made it up to her feet as he'd intended, so she could enjoy a dip of her toes.
He'd covered the liner of the pool with flat stone and outlined the interior of the rim with a variety of multicolored polished round stones that matched the style of the fountain. The water made them shiny, bringing out the array of colors. Before it could get higher than that, the water filtered into an exit pipe that emptied into another channel, which zigzagged down the remainder of the berm. He watched it find its way around several rock structures and a garden of small concrete mushrooms. A stone turtle with a fairy perched on his back watched the water go by. Just below them were three frog houses with a few pansies planted around them, which served as both shade cover and "trees" for the tiny Fae figures and the frogs that would come check out the lodgings.
Rising, he moved over to the garden, nodding in satisfaction as he saw the drip hoses begin to water the soil around the growing vegetables. It all seemed to be working. He'd add some phlox and other ground covers to fill in the dirt areas. He came back to the berm, dropping back to his heels to adjust one of the frog houses.
"She'll love it."
He'd heard the screen door clap against the frame, had known Geoff was making his way toward him. The cast of his shadow said he was standing behind Chris, a little to the left. There was less than a foot between them. Chris didn't have to turn to verify it. Since Sam had left for her bank conference in Asheville yesterday, Chris had been like a GPS on Geoff's location.
"Here. Do you think she'd like this?" A paper bag rattled and then Geoff dropped to a knee next to him. He'd gone by the Fairy Cottage, which specialized in fairy gardens. Chris tended to hit less pricey places, but he and Sam liked wandering through that one, her to chatter ideas at Chris, him to watch her enjoy the miniatures and share garden ideas.
Geoff was careful with his money, but he seemed to know the right moments to spend more. He'd bought a pair of cats, just little bits of clay that had been hand-pressed by someone's fingers, toothpicks used to mark eyes and mouth. An artist knew how to do a lot with a little. They were the size of postage stamps, one curled up in a ball sleeping, the other curled up but head lifted.
"I thought these might work on that piece of tree limb you turned into a stump." Geoff pointed to it. Chris had three fairies dancing in a circle around it. "Cats being like cats are, I thought it would look like they were saying, Yeah, big deal, fairies dancing around us. We're still taking our nap." Geoff pulled out a seed packet. "They also sold me these. The lady said they'll pop up into a good mix of wildflowers. Figured that might work as a border between this and the garden. But you're the plant guy. Did I waste my seventy-five cents?"
"No. You want to put the cats in place?"
"Hell no. I'll mess something up. Here."
Chris opened his palm and Geoff transferred the cats to them, his fingers brushing Chris's callused palm. Geoff's gaze rested on his mouth before he rose. He was wearing his office clothes, slacks, tie and dress shirt, but he'd shed the coat. Chris had a sudden urge to tackle him, roll him in the leaves and get him dirty. Tear open his shirt and watch Geoff's chest and arm muscles tighten as he tried to throw Chris off. Hand to hand, Geoff couldn't overpower Chris, but Geoff was fast and smart. He wasn't pinned too often.
Chris turned ba
ck toward the berm, tenting his fingers on the ground by his knees. He let the idea peter out in his mind. Geoff couldn't afford to replace his clothes because Chris had a crazy adolescent impulse. "You remember that time in eighth grade when you were getting the best asshole award?" he asked instead.
"It was the highest grade average, but yes."
Chris pursed his lips. "You said something to piss me off on the way to school and I shoved you into the creek. You were wearing nice clothes, like you do all the time now."
"Yeah. I remember." Geoff's shadow shifted behind him. Chris's gaze stayed trained on the shape of it. Long, because it was late afternoon. "I remember you felt bad about it," Geoff continued. "So you skipped class, jogged home and brought me new clothes. You got into trouble when you interrupted Mrs. Field's class to bring them to me."
"The next period was the awards ceremony."
"I had to cinch up my belt like a hillbilly and the shoulders of the dress shirt were so wide, the cuffs flapped over my fingers. Hadn't hit my growth spurt yet, and you were already built like a fucking tank. They took a picture of me with the Honor Society advisor, Mr. Williams. It's in the yearbook."
"Proof that you weren't always on the cutting edge of fashion. You never did hit that growth spurt," Chris added, lips curving despite his mercurial mood. "But sometimes I still get that urge to knock you into a creek."
"Like now?"
Chris nodded. Things inside him stilled as Geoff moved forward and his knee pressed against Chris's back, Geoff's shin against his hip and the buttock resting on his heel. "You get this shirt dirty," Geoff said quietly, "and I will kick your ass into next week, even if I have to use a two-by-four to do it."
Then he was gone, striding back across the yard, leaving things vibrating around Chris. With deliberate care, he placed the two cats on the stump among the fairies. He pocketed the wildflower seeds, knowing it would be better to wait another couple of weeks on those. Geoff was right, though. They'd make a good-looking border between the garden and the berm. Sam liked random groupings.
When she'd first told him she wanted to make a fairy garden, he'd told her it was a pain to mow around something like that, and the features tended to get disrupted by wind and rain. Mother Nature broke anything man-made into the shape She really wanted, but if a man knew how to work with Her, the results were worth it. Sam had known he wasn't saying no. It was a Let me think about how to do it thing. Sam was good about giving him the space to work things like that out. Up until this thing with him, her and Geoff, that is.
Ironically, it was when he'd been working off his mad about coming home from Mississippi to find Geoff and Sam together that he'd finally figured out the best place for the fairy garden. He'd built the berm near the vegetable garden, where the privacy fence gave it shelter on two sides. In that position, he could easily rig something to put over it when the weather was dicey.
It was a good feeling, thinking how Sam would react to it when she came home. She'd likely go wild, buying little things like Geoff had brought and adding onto the berm with her own competent landscaping skills. Before long, they'd have a fairy enclave across the whole back fence. Talk about a mowing nightmare. She'd want to hang things on the fence, chimes and Green Man faces, things that celebrated the fairy world.