“Can you do all of these, or do I need to find someone else?”
“You didn’t have to bring them down,” Gretchen said as she pulled her calendar out from under the desk. “I could’ve come up to the Mansion.”
“Yes,” Mabel said, glancing around. “Seems rather slow today.”
“It’s Tuesday,” Gretchen said defensively. She began checking the dates, writing in the weddings on the appropriate boxes. “I can do all of these,” she said.
“Fabulous.” Mabel set an envelope on the counter. “Here’s the money for the first half of each then.” She turned to leave the shop but twisted back. Gretchen had just started to reach for the money—noting how thick the envelope was—when Mabel said, “I’m so glad you weren’t permanently injured earlier this year.”
Gretchen switched her attention to the older woman, who so rarely showed such a human side of herself. “Thank you, Mabel.”
“You’re the best florist we’ve had in Hawthorn Harbor.” She put a rickety smile on her wrinkled face. “How’s that boyfriend of yours? His ice cream was so delicious. He deserved to win Lavender King.”
“Oh, Drew? He’s…” Gretchen lifted her chin. “We broke up.”
Mabel came back to the front desk. “You did? Why?”
And Gretchen hadn’t even been able to tell him congratulations for winning Lavender King. Everything had happened so fast once his name was called, and their celebration had been cut short by that silly kiss of Yvonne’s.
Gretchen didn’t want to explain it to Mabel. “Something silly.” She waved her hand as if swatting a fly, putting it on the envelope and sliding it toward her.
Mabel’s hand landed on top of hers. “Gretchen.” She spoke with such grandmotherly kindness that a punch of emotion landed in Gretchen’s chest. She hadn’t spoken to her mother in years, and her grandma had died when she was a teen. She really needed someone older and wiser right now, and the way Mabel was looking at her with such tenderness made Gretchen stand a little straighter and pay more attention.
“Don’t let him get away over something silly,” she said. “If that’s really true, if it really is something silly, fix it.”
“I don’t know how,” she said. Every day for the past month, she’d tried to think of a way she could call him and have it be normal. “I think there’s something broken inside me.”
“Nonsense.” Mabel waved her hand. “So life has handed you a few thorns. You know what to do with those.”
Did she? Gretchen tilted her head, trying to hear what Mabel was saying.
“Just take it from someone who wishes they would’ve fixed that silly thing all those years ago.” Sadness filled her face, and Gretchen watched her walk out of The Painted Daisy, the chime on the door the only sound.
Gretchen held great respect for Mabel, but now she also knew more about the woman. And she didn’t want to be seventy years old, still selling flowers for weddings, when she’d never gotten her own happily-ever-after.
She spun toward the back, fully intending to grab her purse and get herself on Lavender Highway as fast as possible. Her eye caught the red and gold arrangements she’d done for the funeral, and her adrenaline faded.
“Later,” she promised herself. She’d wait until the Hammonds picked up their flowers, and then she’d close the shop and go.
Two hours later, Gretchen was about to load up the flowers herself and deliver them to the mortuary. The funeral started in an hour anyway, and she wanted to go out to the lavender farm. Why she thought Drew would be there, she wasn’t sure. His days off were random, and he didn’t seem to have a schedule for when he worked the morning shift versus the night shift.
She’d thought about and dismissed calling Donna at least a dozen times. The need to go, though, had her stomach clenching and her lungs in knots. Sliding open the refrigeration unit, she retrieved the largest flower arrangement, the one that went over the casket, just as the bell sounded on the door.
“Just a sec,” she said, trying not to drop the heavy arrangement as she twisted to see who had come in.
“Oh, that’s lovely,” a woman said. “That must be my mother’s. Let me help you.” Another pair of hands supported the weeping blooms in the splay, and Gretchen looked up into the face of Yvonne Hammond.
“I was—uh, I was just going to deliver them,” she said. “The funeral is coming up quick.”
“We’re running a bit behind, yes.” Yvonne didn’t appear to have been crying. Her makeup sat flawlessly on her face, and every piece of her seemed stitched in perfectly. Gretchen wasn’t sure what Drew had liked about her if this was the woman he’d previously dated.
She felt so self-conscious as Yvonne sized her up. Her features softened, and she said, “You still haven’t made up with Drew.” She wasn’t even asking.
Gretchen pressed her lips together and said, “Let me get the rest of the arrangements.” She glanced at her planner, which lay open next to the cash register, where she’d written the amount due. “It’ll be three hundred and twelve dollars.”
Yvonne didn’t move a muscle. Not to get out a credit card. Not to help Gretchen as she scurried to get boxes to put the arrangements in. Once ready, she stepped behind the desk and looked at Yvonne.
“You should make up with Drew,” she said. “I can’t live with this…this break up on my conscience.”
It seemed she really wanted to have this conversation. “Did you know we were dating when you kissed him?”
Yvonne’s eyes widened. “I swear I didn’t.” She made a little crossing motion over her heart. “I’d seen your picture on the Fire Department’s Facebook page. I thought you were just the woman he’d helped all those years ago.”
“I was,” she whispered.
“He was not happy I’m back in town,” Yvonne said. “Even when we met in the park, he was standoffish, defensive. He accepted my apology, and I tried to go to lunch with him. He disappeared while I was ordering.” She gave a short burst of laughter and looked away. “I should’ve known then.”
“Drew’s very laid back,” Gretchen said. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” Or mine. And she couldn’t believe she was trying to reassure this woman.
Yvonne picked up a box of flowers and bent a little under its weight. “Please promise me you’ll call him. He must be so miserable.”
Did she really care about Drew? Or was this about her having to live with the guilt of breaking them up? Maybe she really hadn’t known about Gretchen’s relationship with Drew.
“I’ll call him,” she heard herself promise. She lifted two more boxes and followed Yvonne out to her car. “You sure you don’t need help with these?”
“My cousins are all in town,” she said. “We’ll get them where they need to go.”
Gretchen lifted her hand in farewell as the other woman slid into the driver’s seat, adjusted her sunglasses, and drove away. Then she sprinted inside the shop, flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED, and dashed back to the workroom to get her purse and keys.
She couldn’t wait to get out to the lavender farm. If Drew wasn’t there, she could wander through her granddad’s wild lavender and steal the peace from it until he showed up. She just had one stop to make, and as Duality came into view, her mouth started to water.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Drew worked as fast as he dared standing on a ladder. It was a miracle Gretchen hadn’t noticed anything going on with the farmhouse. He noticed where she’d been in her flower gardens. He’d slept at his parents one night and stood on the porch at five-thirty in the morning, watching her prowl through the darkness to find what she needed.
He’d really hated that, and the urgency to get the farmhouse finished had doubled. Since he’d quit working for the paramedic service, he’d had more time to pour into the house. He made sure everything was cleaned up at night, but he wouldn’t be able to do that today. Because today, he was giving the exterior of the house a facelift.
It was the
last step he needed to accomplish before he’d be ready to bring Gretchen out to the farm. Joel worked on the opposite side of the front door, cutting in around the windows and gutters, and Janey had dropped off Jess and Dixie with explicit instructions not to get in the way.
Oh, and she’d said, “I can’t keep telling Gretchen I don’t have to work when I do. She knows summer is the busiest time in the park.”
“Has she said anything?” Drew had asked.
“No, but if she does, I’m telling her.” Janey had looked frazzled, and he didn’t want to be the cause of that. So he refilled his sprayer, climbed back on the ladder, and adjusted his face mask before blasting the exposed and repaired wood with the brightest white paint he and Joel had been able to find.
The faster he got this house painted, the sooner he could get Gretchen out here. He worked through the morning, glad to be working on the east side of the house as the sun arced toward the ocean.
School started in a couple of weeks, and he’d really like to be back in her life so he could help her with Dixie. With only a quarter of the house left to paint, he started down the ladder to refill his sprayer one last time.
“Drew!” Dixie’s panicked voice made him slip, and his attention went from the ladder to try to find the girl.
He stuttered down the last three rungs, his bones cracking against each other, and his momentum taking him all the way to the ground. Pure adrenaline got him back to his feet. “Dix? What is it?”
She and Jess skidded to a stop only a few feet from him. “My mom is here,” she panted.
Alarms sounded in Drew’s brain, and he spun as if she’d be standing right behind him. What should he do? He couldn’t hide the equipment now—or the house.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“She pulled in at Donna’s,” Jess said. “We saw her and ran straight over here.”
“So maybe my mom will stall her.” And there were several tall trees separating the two houses. Maybe he had a few minutes.
Dixie frowned and stepped closer to him. He brushed his hands down his messy clothes. His jeans were smeared with paint, and his T-shirt had drips in gray and white. “I thought you wanted her to come out to the farmhouse,” Dixie said.
“Yeah, but not yet.” Drew ran his hands through his hair and could barely complete the action because there was so much paint. He needed to shower. And eat. And get the rest of his stuff moved in.
But a powerful, aching need had him looking toward his parents’ farm and commanding him to get over there and tell Gretchen how he felt and then show her what he’d done.
He looked back at the kids. “What have you guys been wishing for this month?”
“We can’t tell you—” Jess started, but Dixie blurted, “That you and my mom would get back together.”
Jess stared at her like she’d just told him Santa Claus wasn’t real. “Dixie,” he hissed.
“You don’t have to tell yours.”
The boy’s face colored. “Good, because I’m not going to.” He folded his arms, and Drew noticed his muscles had started to fill out a little bit with all the work around the farm he’d been doing this summer.
Drew’s nerves felt like someone had dropped them into a wood chipper and switched it on high. He took a slow, deliberate breath and looked at Dixie. He extended his hand toward her. “Should we go talk to your mom?”
Dixie shrieked and cheered before slipping her hand into his and practically pulling him toward the gate that Joel had put in the fence to allow easy access to both properties from the backyard.
Once they passed all the outbuildings and the house came into view, Drew’s feet stalled. “You go on,” he told Dixie. “I need another minute.”
She didn’t ask him any questions, thankfully. She broke into a run and entered the house. Drew heard his mother exclaim, “There’s Miss Dixie!” in a falsely bright voice.
He breathed in and then out. In and out. He could do this. Just go in there and talk to her. Surely she wouldn’t still be mad. And once she saw the house…
But he couldn’t get his feet to move. Then he didn’t have to, because Gretchen practically tore the back door of its hinges as she yanked it open.
She’d taken two stomps outside when she caught sight of him. She froze too. Shock traveled across her face, replaced quickly by that anger he’d just seen. Gretchen’s fists balled and she advanced on him like a panther stalking its prey. “Tell me what my daughter is doing out here when she should be at Janey’s.”
“She and Jess have been helping me with the house.”
“Helping you with the house.” She cocked her hip and folded her arms. She scanned him from head to toe, her features softening.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he said.
“Mom!” Dixie burst out of the back door too, slowing when she saw them. Drew thought she looked a little wheezy. “Don’t be mad at him anymore. Please.”
“Come on, Dix,” his mom said. “Let’s go find your inhaler. You’re not breathing right.”
“Thank you, Donna,” Gretchen said, her voice much more tender when she spoke to his mother.
So maybe she was still mad at him. He hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “You want to go take a look?” He only had one thing left—the house. If that didn’t win her over, Drew didn’t know what would.
He moved away without waiting for her to follow. He wasn’t even sure she would, so when he heard her footsteps on the gravel behind him, relief rushed through him like river rapids.
“So Joel put a gate here,” he said, finding his confidence. “So we can go back and forth between the farms without having to go around to the road. That way, Dixie can—” He cleared his throat, the words suddenly gone.
Gretchen didn’t help him out either, but simply watched his with curious eyes. “Dixie can what?”
“Dixie can go over to my mom’s whenever she wants,” he finished.
“Drew.” She shook her head. “We live in town.”
“Come see the house,” he said, a definite note of pleading in his tone. Gates weren’t that impressive, and he wasn’t giving up until he was on one knee and she said no.
“So the deck was pretty unstable,” he said. “But we pulled up the loose planks and found the rotted ones underneath. Joel and I did that in an afternoon. Then we got it all sanded down.” He went up the five steps to the deck. “And Jess and Dixie stained it this color.” He smiled at the honeyed wood they’d worked on for two solid days. “It looks good, don’t you think?”
“Does Janey know you’re doing this?”
“Yes.” He walked across the deck. “You can’t be mad at her. She’s been nervous about it for a month. It’s not her fault.” He tossed Gretchen a look. “It’s mine.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m going to put my gas grill here. I bought a new storm door here, so we can open both the front and the back and get the ocean breeze blowing through in the afternoons.” He stepped into the house, desperate for her to compliment the house. Say something about the efforts he’d taken to make her happy.
“This is the new kitchen. Same cabinets. We just sanded them down and painted them white. I didn’t get new countertops.” He ran his fingertips along the light brown ones that had been there. “I figured maybe you’d like to pick out something for the house.”
She said nothing, and when Drew dared to look at her, he caught her wiping her eyes.
“Gretchen.” He gathered her into his arms, happiness pouring through him when she practically wilted against him. “I love you, Gretchen,” he murmured, his mouth close to her ear. “Please forgive me.”
She straightened and cleared her throat. Drew’s whole body ached to be close to her again. “So let me get this straight.” She looked past the dining room table he’d already moved over from his place and into the empty living room. Everything was new, from the paint on the walls, to the color of the floors, to the light fixtures Adam had picked out and then installed.
r /> “You’ve been fixing up this house, using children, to impress me.”
Drew thought he detected the hint of a tease in her sparkling eyes. “Did it work?”
She giggled as she pushed her palm into his chest. He caught her arm around the wrist and tugged her close to him again. “I love you,” he repeated. “I want you to marry me and bring Dixie out here to live with me.” He gazed down at her, nothing but love flowing through him.
She looked up at him too, a smile gracing her beautiful mouth. “I came to talk to you,” she said. “Because I didn’t want something silly to keep us apart.”
“That kiss meant nothing.”
“I know that.”
“I’d give you this farm,” he said. “And me with it, if you’ll have me.” When she said nothing, he laced his fingers through hers and said, “Let’s go see the bedrooms. Dixie chose the color for hers.”
But Gretchen pulled on his hand, and he turned back to her. “I don’t need to see the bedrooms.”
Drew’s eyebrows lifted. “No?”
She shook her head slowly, her auburn ponytail swinging. “No. I love you, Drew, and I’ll take you with the farm.”
Joy exploded through him, and he laughed as he caught her in a hug and swung her around. He set her on her feet, very aware that Dixie and his mother had just come up the steps and onto the deck. “I’m going to kiss her now,” he called out to them.
And he did, to the chorus of a soft sigh from his mother and a whispered, “Yesss,” from Dixie.
An hour later, he had shown her every improvement in the house and talked her ear off about his plans for the yard and the outbuildings. Now, though, they sat on the swing on his parents’ front porch, gently rocking back and forth.
Drew knew they had more to talk about, but neither of them seemed to want to start the conversation. Finally, he asked, “Why’d you come out here on a Tuesday afternoon?”
“Oh, something someone said to me.”
“Who?”
“Mabel.”
“Magleby?”
Gretchen snuggled further into his side. “Yeah, Mabel Magleby. And then Yvonne came by the shop to get the flowers for her mother’s funeral.”