Page 9 of One Merciful Moment

"She knows plants." Boone nodded once. "Knows how to work them."

Finn looked at Ashley again, this time with interest instead of suspicion. "You know how to make the plants grow more food?"

Boone studied Ashley. Everstill needed every scrap of knowledge it could get. Seeing her in the garden, he had no doubt she knew more than any of them about growing plants.

A slight smile brightened her face, and she wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, marking her skin with another patch of dirt. She wasn't afraid in the garden. She wasn't lost. She wasn't fighting him.

She was... herself.

He'd never seen a more beautiful woman in all his years.

"I can help." She brushed her palms together. "If you want me to."

Having lived with her for the last week, he recognized the thread of hope in her voice.

"I'll talk to Copper and run the idea past him. He'll want to know what you can do." Finn looked out at the field. "All it takes is a couple of crops not producing, and we'll all suffer."

Ashley's shoulders straightened. He took in the way she held on to the hope the garden had given her.

For some reason, Finn made her happy about the possibility of working in the garden, away from him, and it put him in a bad mood. He grabbed her upper arm and pulled her away from the rows.

Soon, the others would arrive to work in the garden, and he needed to figure out how to siphon a few more drops of gasoline from the empty pumps so he could mow the courthouse lawn.

Chapter 6

Ashley

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With Copper's approval, Ashley spent the morning planting seeds in cardboard boxes Moe had dragged over from the nearly empty grocery store. The boxes were soft at the edges, already starting to sag, but they held soil well enough.

She wiped her forehead with her forearm, probably smearing more dirt across her skin. Sweat clung to her hairline. She needed a shower and a dozen other things she'd never had to think twice about before.

Never in her life had she lived without power or running water. She'd taken the necessities she'd always had for granted. Here, everything was stripped down to what could be made, carried, or hauled by hand.

Boone was bringing water to the house later. He did that every other day, filling metal buckets from the spring-fed well at the edge of town. The pump didn't work without electricity, so they siphoned it manually and filled whatever empty container they could find. Slow, exhausting work, but at least Everstill didn't have to fear losing water.

Like everything else here, getting water took labor. The kind that left your arms shaking and your back aching. She appreciated that Boone handled that chore.

Ashley pressed her fingers into the soil again, letting the coolness settle her nerves. The cardboard box rustled as she shifted it closer, planting another row of seeds with careful precision.

The seeds would germinate faster in cardboard than in the ground. And they could produce twice as much.

She didn't know how long she'd be stuck in Everstill. She didn't know if the storms would ever return, or if she'd ever see her truck, her house, or her plants again. But planting these seeds, which was something the town desperately needed, felt like the first solid step she'd taken since arriving.

Ashley brushed soil from her palms and reached for another cardboard box. She was halfway through planting basil when two women approached from the far side of the garden. They instantly caught her attention. Since being here, she had only seen men.

The women were the same height. One was leaner, with a braid down her back. The other had rounded cheeks and a soft smile that didn't quite hide the exhaustion in her eyes.

The one with the braid spoke first. "Hi, Ashley."

She wiped her hands on her jeans. "Hi."

"I'm Kallie," she said. "I belong to Finn."

The other woman stepped forward. "I'm Jillian. Moe's my partner."

Ashley blinked. The phrasing belong to sounded strange, but she didn't question it.