End Of The Road: (A Clean Romance Novella) (Women's Adventure in Alaska Romance Book 3)

by Renee Hart

  He made a fist, his jaw taking on a determined set. “I think something's wrong with my tomatoes!”

  Chapter 6

  While they took the elevator downstairs, Tessa asked Terry about what was going on.

  “So, you ate a bad tomato, and that's what got you sick?” She frowned, though she was glad at least that it had nothing to do with her job.

  “Bad tomatoes? Heck no!” Terry laughed and slapped his knee. “Tessa, girl, you get some funny ideas. No, I think it was the sushi I ate the other night that set me off. Didn't mean to put a scare in you.”

  “I'm confused,” Samson said. “So, what do the tomatoes have to do with anything?”

  “That's what I called Tessa for,” Terry said. “What, did you think I called you because I was getting sick? Why would I call you instead of a doctor?”

  Tessa rubbed her hand across her face. She silently reminded herself to stop jumping to conclusions, and to actually get all the information before she started panicking next time.

  They got off the elevator and headed outside to the car. “Terry,” Tessa said, “why don't you just explain what's going on? Then maybe we can see if we can help.”

  “Well, I don't know if you've looked at my crops lately, but my tomatoes are looking really sad. I happened to take a look at yours, and they're having the same problem. But I took a walk around the gardens, and it looks like almost everyone else is doing just fine. But yours and mine, they're almost right next to each other. So, I figured we've got the same problem.”

  They got into Tessa's car. “Well,” she said, letting out a sigh of relief, “I'm glad all you were calling me about was gardening tips. I was going to do some research this weekend, see if I can find out what the trouble might be.”

  “I've already got a theory on that,” Terry said. “You know everyone talks about Topher, about his fancy, award-winning veggies.”

  Samson snorted. “Yeah, I've never much liked him. He always looks like he's up to something.”

  “But do you have anything more than suspicions?” Tessa asked as she drove out of the parking lot.

  “I've seen him spraying something around his plot,” Terry said. His jaw set in a righteous scowl. “Don't know what it is. He says it's all organic. But you know the way the wind gets funneled between the apartment buildings? Well, your plot and mine, we're usually downwind of Topher. Whatever he's spraying, I think it's getting carried onto our tomatoes.”

  “But if he's spraying something harmful,” Tessa said, “how come his crops are doing fine?”

  “Whatever he uses, he sprays it down on the weeds. Makes sure not to get anything on his plants. But then the wind picks it up, carries it over to our tomatoes.” Terry shook his head, rapping a fist against his knee. “Just gets my goat, it does. He knows the rules, same as everyone else. But he gets so smug.”

  When Tessa pulled the car up to a traffic light, she turned around in her seat to look at Terry. “So, what do you think we should do?”

  “Do you want to get the crops tested?” Samson suggested.

  “Wouldn't matter if we got them tested,” Terry said. “We'd have to be able to prove it was him that did it. And even then, what could we do? He's not breaking any laws. Not really. Just our community rules.”

  Tessa turned back around, lost in thought. The light turned green and she started driving, trying to sort through the thoughts in her head. Terry was right. Technically speaking, using chemical pesticides and weed killers wasn't illegal. If they tried to bring Topher to court—assuming he was even the one responsible, since all they had were suspicions—they'd have to somehow prove willful negligence, showing that his use of chemicals was harming their plots. And since the combined value of Tessa and Terry's garden plots was negligible, at least on a monetary scale, they'd be hard pressed to prove they were owed anything. It wouldn't be worth the time and effort to get the courts involved to replace the value of a few tomato plants.

  No, pursuing this matter legally would be a waste of time. This was a community matter. The only thing Topher might be guilty of was breaking the community rules and lying to them all. And while that irritated Tessa quite a bit, it wouldn't be anything more than a personal grudge.

  “The first thing we need to do,” she said, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, “is find out if Topher is even the one responsible. Chemical contamination could have come from anywhere. If we can prove that it's him, then we can see what to do about it.”

  “So how do we do that?” Samson asked.

  “I've been keeping an eye on him for awhile now,” Terry said. “Problem is, everything he uses is a homemade mixture. Not like we can look through his garbage for a can of RoundUp.”

  “So, we get our hands on some of his herbicides,” Tessa said. “Find out what's in it.”

  “And then?” Samson asked.

  “One step at a time,” Tessa said. “I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We find out the truth, first thing, and worry about the rest later.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Terry said. “Only question is, how are you going to get some of his herbicide? You'll need to get some before he sprays it. If we just test the soil, we wouldn't know anything. Like you said, contamination could come from anywhere.”

  “Easy,” Tessa said, grinning. “We'll just pull ourselves a little heist.”

  Chapter 7

  They discussed the plan that night in Terry's apartment, over tea and biscuits. The next day was Sunday, one of the biggest gardening days in the community. Most of their neighbors were off work, and other than a few of them that went to church in the morning, they mostly spent their mornings outdoors, tending to their gardens and enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.

  Tessa and Samson were out early Sunday morning, tending to their gardens. Samson was watering the herbs he kept in a line of little clay pots, while Tessa was trimming the withered leaves from her tomato plants, hoping to somehow salvage what was left of them. She tossed the clippings in a plastic bucket, while keeping an eye out for Terry to make his move.

  Around mid-morning, Topher came out, carrying his gardening tools and a bucket of herbicide with a spray nozzle attached. When he bragged to the neighborhood about his award-winning crops, he always claimed that he used a fertilizer made from a mixture of ground kelp and water, and an all-natural herbicide made from a mixture of ground oranges in citrus oil. Tessa watched from her plot as he set the sprayer down and started trimming some dead leaves. He glanced over his shoulder constantly while he worked, and he didn't talk to anyone. He even turned down Mrs. Mackenzie when she came over to offer him a glass of lemonade.

  Terry glanced over at Tessa and she nodded, giving him the signal to go. He grabbed his bucket of clippings and started heading for the compost heap. Part way there, he tripped and spilled his bucket, spreading leaves and crud all over some of Topher's plants.

  “Aww, man! Come on, Mr. Jones, I just weeded that!” Topher ran his fingers through his hair, grumbling under his breath.

  “Sorry, son,” Terry said. He straightened up and stretched out his back, putting on a good show of looking like a tired old man. “It's just so hard to keep a good grip on things these days. I don't suppose you could lend an old fella a hand?”

  Topher glanced around, and saw that Tessa was watching him. She quickly lowered her head, acting like she was minding her own business. Topher turned back to Terry, still grumbling. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” he said. He knelt down and started scooping the spilled clippings back into the bucket, then carried it off to the compost heap.

  As soon as he was out of sight around the corner, Tessa and Samson made their move. Keeping an eye out to make sure none of their neighbors was watching, they hurried over to Topher's plot. Tessa unscrewed the top of the sprayer while Samson held out a plastic cup. They poured some of the liquid herbicide in, then Tessa struggled to get the cap back on the sprayer.

  She glanced over and saw Topher and Terry returning. Her heart started t
o race. She fumbled with the cap of the sprayer, but it wouldn't quite go on.

  Samson came to the rescue by hurrying over to Topher and distracting him. “Hey, Topher, man. Lemme ask you something.”

  He stepped in the other direction so that Topher had to turn his back on Tessa in order to talk to him. They chatted for a brief moment, giving Tessa time to screw the cap back on the sprayer. She grabbed the cup with the sample and headed back to her plot, hiding the cup in with her gardening supplies.

  “Dude, I'm busy, okay?” Topher said, turning away from Samson. He headed back to his plot and knelt down, grumbling and sorting through his tools.

  Tessa glanced back and caught Samson's eye. He winked at her. They went about their business until enough time had passed that they wouldn't seem suspicious, then they headed inside, bringing the ill-gotten sample with them.

  Once they were inside Tessa's apartment, she gave the cup to Samson. “Did you already call your friend at the university?” she asked.

  “Yup.” Samson held the cup up to the light, looking at the way the light shone through the dark liquid. If there's anything in here besides oranges, he should be able to let us know within a couple of days.”

  “Tell him I said thanks,” Tessa said. She pulled off her gardening gloves and stretched her back. “Though I don't know what I'll do if this turns out to be another false alarm. I'm going to feel bad if we keep taking up Gregory's time over nothing.”

  “He doesn't mind.” Samson gave her a wink. “He told me it's more exciting than his usual work. Apparently it's just as boring doing the actual lab work, but it makes him feel like he's part of some secret conspiracy to expose the truth.”

  Tessa laughed, throwing her arms around Samson's neck. “Ha! The secret gardening conspiracy. If only it were something so exciting. I just don't want my tomatoes to wilt.”

  He put his arms around her waist and kissed her. She stared up into his eyes. “Why do you put up with me?” she asked. “I mean, I'm always dragging you into these crazy schemes.”

  “Maybe I like crazy schemes,” he said. “It sure beats going to church on Sunday.”

  “Crazy man.” She pulled him close and kissed him again, and this time, she didn't let go.

  Chapter 8

  The next couple of days were mostly uneventful. Tessa's days at the office were spent following up on the recall. She got reports back from the labs and found out that the contaminated apples had, in fact, been isolated to a single supermarket. While they couldn't be sure how the contamination had happened, it was clear that someone at that supermarket wasn't following proper food safety procedures.

  She sent notifications to all of the other supermarkets and facilities letting them know that the recall was over, and she sent an official notice to the one affected supermarket requiring updated safe food handling procedures and retraining of all personnel.

  Compliance with Dunham's corporate standards was a requirement of doing business with them, so the supermarket would have to either get their procedures up to par, or risk losing Dunham as a supplier.

  She was so overloaded with all the paperwork involved that she almost forgot about the Topher situation. She was stuck late at work one night, finishing up some reports, when she remembered that she'd forgotten to eat again. She was feeling a bit dizzy, and decided she needed to get something to eat before she headed home. Maybe even something a bit greasy, since every once in awhile she got tired of always eating healthy and organic.

  She hit a fast food drive thru on the way home and walked into the apartment building carrying a bag of food and drinking a vanilla milkshake. She'd already eaten the burger in the car, and was looking forward to scarfing down the french fries with a glass of wine, and she didn't care how much those flavors would clash.

  When she got to her apartment, she found a note on the door, written in Samson's handwriting. It said he had a surprise for her at his place.

  She rolled her eyes at his romantic corniness and headed down the hall. She walked in without knocking; they'd both spent so much time at each other's apartments over the past few months that they'd gotten used to having open invitations to each other's homes. When she walked in, she saw Samson sitting on the sofa, reading a book and looking bored. On the other side of the room was a table made up with a dinner for two, complete with a bottle of wine and two candles that were burned most of the way down.

  “Aww,” she said, looking at the scene before her. “Was this for me?”

  “Crap.” Samson quickly got up and set his book aside, then straightened his clothes. He was normally a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy, but he'd gone all out tonight with khakis and a button-down shirt. She even saw a pair of leather loafers sitting by the couch, though Samson was barefoot now.

  “Oh no,” Tessa said, setting her milkshake and bag on the table. “Did I ruin it? If I'd known you had something planned, I wouldn't have stayed at work so late!”

  “Well if you'd known about it,” Samson said, smirking and putting his arms around her, “it wouldn't have been a surprise.”

  “Silly.” She playfully smacked him on the chest, then laid her head against him. “Next time, call me and, I dunno, trick me into coming home early.”

  “I'll fake a heart attack,” he said. “I know then you'll come running.”

  “Don't joke about that.” She smacked his chest again, harder this time. “I'd just about lose it if you wound up in the hospital.”

  “Really?” he asked, looking down at her with a curious smile on his face.

  She blushed and turned away. “Of course.”

  “I guess I just wasn't sure you felt that strongly for me.”

  “Do I not make that clear?” she asked. She looked up at him, pouting. “You know I care about you, right?”

  “I hope so.” He stroked her hair, looking into her eyes.

  “I must not say it enough, then.” She sighed and pulled him close, her head pressed against his chest. “You're a sweet, kind, caring man. You make me smile. And I haven't been this happy in a very long time.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Well, you're going to give a guy a big head.”

  She giggled, then peeked over Samson's shoulder to look at the table. “Can we still have dinner? Or did I ruin it by having a burger first?”

  He held her chair out for her and poured them each a glass of wine, then fetched dinner from the fridge. He'd made shrimp salad, with some kind of sweet little fruit cakes for dessert. They drank wine and ate, talking and joking about life and all of its ups and downs. They didn't once bring up the issue with Topher and the mysteriously wilting tomatoes, and it felt nice for Tessa to have a night where she had no worries and everything felt carefree.

  After dinner they sat together on the couch, Tessa sitting between Samson's legs and leaning back against his chest. They watched as the candles burned down to almost nothing, content to hold each other in comfortable silence.

  Finally, Tessa said, “You keep this sort of thing up, I might just have to keep you around.”

  “Oh?” Samson chuckled. “And here I thought you only liked me for my herbal teas.”

  She laughed and nuzzled against him. “I mean it.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because I'm not planning on going anywhere.”

  Tessa set down her wine glass and closed her eyes, letting her man hold her while her thoughts started to drift off. She thought about the future, wondering where all of this was headed. She hadn't given it much thought before now, with how busy her life had been. She was just content to have Samson there each day and night. Though maybe, she thought, they were heading down a path that was leading them to something more serious.

  Maybe, she thought. But her thoughts were too scattered now, and all she could focus on was how warm it felt in Samson's arms, and how right at that moment, there was no place else in the world she would rather be.

  Chapter 9

  The next day at work, while she was writing up her final reports
on the results of the product recall, Tessa got a phone call from Samson's professor friend, Gregory.

  “Hey, Gregory,” she said, holding the phone between her ear and her shoulder while she typed. “Did you get those test results back in?”

  She looked around for Yvette to make sure she wouldn't be caught on the phone. Yvette had been in an especially bad mood over the last few days, thanks to dealing with the recall. Not that she had to do any of the work herself. It was all coming across Tessa's desk, and all Yvette had to do was report the results to the people upstairs.

  “Yeah, I've got them right here,” Gregory said. “And I can tell you, this stuff definitely isn't made from oranges.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Gregory started listing off a bunch of terms she didn't understand, but which certainly sounded like artificial chemicals. “Hold on,” she said, interrupting him. “Give me the layperson's version.”

  “The compound is a rather harsh chemical herbicide. If this has been getting on your plants, even indirectly, it would definitely explain the problems you've been having.”

  Tessa sighed and rubbed at her eyes. It was what she'd expected, but now that she knew the truth, she wasn't sure what to do with the information. “Okay, thanks. I really appreciate this. Listen, can you email me a copy of those results.”

  “Sure thing.”

  She gave him her email address, then thanked him again for all of his help. In between working on her reports for the rest of the day, she did some online research, looking up the kinds of chemicals Topher was using in his herbicide. While none of it was necessarily dangerous, it was still far from the all-natural, organic compounds that Tessa and the rest of the gardening community insisted on using. If Topher had his own private garden somewhere, where his chemicals wouldn't affect anyone else's crops, then that would be his own business. But it riled Tessa up to think of him spraying these poisons so close to her little garden, getting them into the soil and letting the wind carry them onto her tomatoes. She didn't even use any kind of herbicide on her own plants. She did everything the old-fashioned way, pulling out weeds by hand and tending to her garden with loving care.