“Why not?” Diane whined. “You’re the only lesbian in the village. You’re attractive enough. You come from a local family. Sure, you’ve got a history of flighty women, but they obviously like whatever you do with them well enough to make them want to spend time with a small-town bartender and whatnot.”
Diane’s lukewarm description of her didn’t exactly bolster her confidence. Emma was pretty, talented, and rich, while Brogan’s most outstanding feature was being the only out lesbian in a five-mile radius.
“Come on,” Tom prodded. “You can woo the woman. It’s not like you’ve got anything better going on.”
“Thanks for the ringing endorsement,” Brogan mumbled, then shaking off the sting that always accompanied such backhanded compliments, she added more clearly, “I’m not in the market for a serious relationship, and I’m pretty sure Emma Volant isn’t either.”
Everyone laughed, and Tom let out a low whistle.
“What?”
“Famous last words,” Diane said with a shake of her head. “Famous last words.”
£ £ £
Emma’s laptop was open. That was something. She hadn’t written in months. She wasn’t writing now, either, but at least she’d had the intention of doing so, which constituted a step forward in some sense. She’d gone as far as opening a blank document so she could write something immediately if an idea struck her, and just because it hadn’t happened immediately didn’t mean it never would. Or that’s what she told herself to try to hold the panic at bay as she walked through her yard.
“Garden.” She corrected her thoughts aloud. Like the sunroom was a conservatory, the “yard” should now be called a “garden.” And in the case at hand, the new vocabulary shouldn’t be hard, because her garden was unlike any yard she’d ever had. A little stone path led from her back door to a small patio decked out with a wrought-iron table and chairs. From there the stones skimmed along some low ground cover and toward a set of paver-topped stairs that ran down the center of three terraced levels until it formed a T at a long row of high hedges constituting a bushy privacy barrier.
As she stepped down onto the lowest level, a throaty little click and croak sounded to her right, nearly startling her out of her skin. She clutched her chest and bit her lip to hold back a scream as a huge pheasant took flight. Its large wings flapped close enough for the breeze they created to rustle her hair, and the bird came to rest atop a small maroon shed Emma had barely taken note of before. The pheasant was bigger than any bird she’d ever seen in the wild, its body as big around as a bowling ball, and its brown and black mottled wings probably two feet across when fully spread. The camouflage and the serious glint in the bird’s eye made Emma suspect she’d disturbed a female in a nest.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she whispered. “It’s only, you’re on top of my shed. And now that I’ve seen it, I sort of want to peek inside.”
The hen cocked her head to the side but didn’t shift on her perch as Emma inched closer. Opening the door slowly, she glanced in, then back up at the bird. “See, there’s room for both of us.”
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could make out a few, mostly barren, shelves along the rough-hewn walls. The shed was barely tall enough for her to stand upright in, and if she positioned herself in the exact center, she’d be able to touch each wall. There were a few cans of paint stacked on the floor, and a handful of garden tools in one corner. She moved the shovel and a rake aside to grab a set of hedge clippers, then exited the shed to the great displeasure of the pheasant, who took one look at the long blades in her hand and croaked loudly as it flew off in a huff.
“These weren’t for you. I only wanted to trim the hedges,” Emma called fruitlessly, then shook her head. Why was she trying to convince a bird of her banal intentions? Probably because that was the longest conversation she’d had in nearly a week? Sighing heavily at what her life had become, she set to work snipping errant branches off the tall hedges at the back of her property.
It started with small clips, but the more she cleared away, the deeper the branches went. She found something therapeutic in slowly peeling back layers of twigs to reveal their source. Along the way, she scooped aside some clumps of dead leaves with her hand, and at one point she cut away a particularly stubborn branch to find it completely wrapped in a withered vine. She tugged and pulled like a magician emptying his pocket of never-ending handkerchiefs until finally the last of the vine broke free, bringing with it a ball of sticks and leaves that must have been acting as a kind of plug, because once she popped it loose, a great beam of sun came streaming through the hedge and illuminated her feet.
She peeked inside tentatively, as if spying on her neighbors, but instead of other houses and gardens, she saw only a small clearing, bordered on every side by hedgerows as tall as her own. And there in the center sat a child, frozen and startled, holding an open book in her lap.
“Reggie?”
The girl nodded slowly, then swallowed hard before saying, “I’m sorry.”
Emma frowned. “Why?”
“For being in your garden.”
“Is that my garden?”
“I don’t know.” Reggie shrugged and stood. “You’re the only other person who I’ve ever seen here.”
“Oh, well . . .” Emma didn’t think the land belonged to her, but she hadn’t paid much attention to the property survey she got when she bought the house. “I’m not sure it’s mine, but if it is, I’m glad someone’s put it to good use.”
“Really?” Reggie asked suspiciously.
“Of course. What would be better than a secret reading garden?”
The girl finally smiled. “I bet you read a lot.”
“Not as much as I used to as a kid,” she admitted almost wistfully. “But maybe now that I know I have such a wonderful place to hide, I’ll make more of an effort.”
“Why would you want to hide?”
Emma shifted her feet awkwardly while keeping her face steady enough to maintain eye contact through the hedge. “I suppose I didn’t mean hide in the physical sense as much as in the . . .” What was she supposed to say to a child to explain the concepts of hiding in an emotional sense? “Well, possibly for the same reasons you do.”
“You have too many brothers and sisters?”
She laughed, then caught herself at the look of confusion on the girl’s face. “No, maybe not the exact same reason.”
“The little kids bug me all the time,” Reggie offered, “and the bigger boys like Liam and Callum don’t want to let me play rugby with them because I’m too small to hit hard. And the girls never want to play in the estuary or climb the big hills.”
Emma nodded. She understood. She may not have had the same experiences while growing up, but she did know how it felt to feel out of place and isolated, even in a crowd.
“And if I lie around at the house, my mum always gives me chores.”
“That’s more along the lines of what I’d hide from,” Emma said honestly. “I have lots of work I’m supposed to do, but I can’t seem to make myself do it, and if I stay inside, I feel guilty for not doing it.”
“Then you should come outside and read sometime,” Reggie said excitedly. “No one even knows where you are, so they can’t tell you to do something else.”
The thought appealed to her more than it probably should have. “And what should I read?”
“There are so many good books!” Reggie beamed. “Have you read Harry Potter?”
“Absolutely,” Emma enthused. “Hermione is my favorite.”
“I like Ron,” Reg said. “Sometimes when people are trying to be mean they call my family the Weasleys, you know, ’cause of our red hair and there are a lot of us, but I don’t mind. I like the Weasleys.”
Emma’s heart gave a little jump of affection for a child’s ability to find strength in something others tried to treat as a weakness.
“But if you like Hermione, you have to like Annabeth Chase. She’s in the Percy Jackso
n books. Did you read those?”
“No. I think they might have been after my time.”
“You should catch up on them. They are exciting, and there are demigods, which is sort of like magic. Hey, do you have any magic in your books?”
“Hmm, not magic, exactly,” Emma explained, “but I do have a series with some time travel.”
“Like Dr. Who?”
She smiled. “With women, and without the TARDIS, but they aren’t really for kids.”
“Yeah, that’s what my mum said. I mean, I know a lot of big words, though.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Emma agreed. “You’d probably just be a little bored. They have a lot of history and a lot of mushy love parts.”
Reg wrinkled her nose as if she found the idea distasteful, and at this point in her life, Emma had to agree, which was probably why she was out here talking to a child rather than writing her next book.
“I like adventure stories,” Reggie continued. “Aunt Brogan got me this one. It’s called Hatchet, and it’s about a boy who gets plane-wrecked in the woods and has to learn how to survive. Aunt Brogan could do that, and she said she could teach me.”
Emma smiled again at the adoration in the child’s voice as she spoke of Brogan.
“She promised when the weather gets warmer she will take me camping on the beach so we can make our own fire, or maybe we can sleep on a sailboat and catch our own fish for dinner. Aunt Brogan has done all that before, ’cause she’s good at, like, everything.”
Emma had no inclination to argue. She’d seen nothing to suggest Brogan wasn’t everything her niece thought her to be. The memories of Julia throwing herself at Brogan hinted at skills Emma only hoped Reggie couldn’t imagine. Then again, as she surveyed the girl’s oversized overalls and canvas cap, she wondered if someday Reg would find even more in common with her aunt. The thought that Reggie would soon find her place in the world, and that when she did she’d have someone like Brogan to show her that was okay, made Emma happy. Her own family had been supportive enough when she’d come out, but they’d all been a little baffled. Even she’d been confused when her newfound community had so many rules and labels and social norms she always tripped over. With someone like Brogan as a role model, hopefully Reggie could be more comfortable in her own skin from an earlier age.
“So, what are you doing out here?” Reggie asked, making Emma suspect she’d zoned out a little bit.
She held up the clippers. “I’m gardening. Or I’m trying to garden anyway, but I don’t seem very good at it. I managed only to chop a hole in my hedge.”
“I can help. I’m good at outdoors stuff.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t even know what most of these plants are, much less what I want to do with them all.”
“I know a lot of them. Brogan used to tend this garden when it was for holiday renters. I came with her a few times. She told me the names of things. I know I can do a good job.”
Emma’s chest tightened uncomfortably. She liked Reggie, she really did, and she understood her loneliness and her eagerness to please. Maybe that’s also why she didn’t want to get too attached. Plus, she’d have to supervise Reggie, and then she’d feel responsible for her, and she wasn’t sure she had the emotional energy for that these days.
As if reading her mind, Reggie’s exuberance faded. “I won’t be a bother.”
Emma sighed at the sadness she heard there and the earnestness she saw in the big green eyes staring up at her. “I suppose you might be able to help with a few of the smaller jobs, like weeding or clearing things out, until I decide what I want to do with the big picture.”
Reggie’s wide smile returned, but her voice remained serious as she pledged, “I promise I won’t mess up.”
“I believe you,” Emma said with equal solemnity. She only wished she could make the same promise.
Chapter Four
Brogan jumped back from the shelves she’d been straightening as a ball of energy wrapped in denim exploded through the front door of the post office. Several rolls of paper towels toppled to the floor. “Whoa.”
“Aunt Brogan!” Reggie exclaimed. “What kind of roses did you plant in Emma Volant’s garden?”
She stared at the child blankly. While she understood all the words individually, she couldn’t manage to put them together in the context of the moment or the speaker. “What?”
“The roses you planted for Emma Volant.”
She shook her head. Had Reggie somehow got pulled into some village plan to play collective matchmaker? “Sorry, kiddo. I never gave that woman any roses. Or any other woman I can recall.”
Reggie rolled her eyes. “I was with you. When I was like, seven, and we planted rosebushes along the little wooden fence things by the shed.”
“The trellises,” Brogan offered. “Geeze, how do you remember things like that?”
“Because I have to,” Reggie said, rummaging through a rucksack. “I’m going to be her gardener now. She said I could. She doesn’t know how, so I got a book from the library on how to take care of plants, but some of them have different rules. I need to know what kind she has.”
For emphasis, Reggie produced a large gardening book and slapped it on the shelf left empty by the cascading paper towels. “You have to show me what you planted in Emma’s garden.”
Brogan bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Of course Reggie had got a book on gardening to help Emma. It wouldn’t even occur to her that doing so was odd for a ten-year-old. She was smart and curious with a strong desire to please. Brogan wanted to affirm her for all those good qualities by telling her she’d do fine, but that kind of enthusiasm could also lead to Emma’s garden getting hacked to bits while the poor woman had to babysit an inquisitive child.
Rubbing her chin for dramatic effect, she said, “You know, I’m not sure I remember everything we did over there, but if I saw the plants, I could probably figure it out. Why don’t I walk down there with you to refresh my memory?”
“You won’t do the work, though, will you? I can do it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Reggie nodded, then grabbed her hand. “Then let’s go.”
“Hold up. Aunt Nora’s in the storeroom. Let me tell her I’m heading out.”
“I’ll meet you down there.”
Before Brogan could stop her, Reggie sprinted off again. Laughing, she shook her head and went quickly to inform Nora she’d see her tomorrow, but in the forty seconds it took her to get out the door, Reggie had disappeared down the street and likely into Emma’s garden.
Hopefully the kid wouldn’t be too excited to remember to mention Brogan was joining her. She certainly didn’t want a replay of the last time she’d surprised Emma at her house. Thankfully when she strolled up the front pavement to the Volant cottage, Emma met her at the door. Maybe it was the lack of fright, or perhaps the jet lag had finally faded, but Emma appeared more put-together than Brogan had ever seen her. Which didn’t mean formal, as she leaned up against the door jamb in gray sweatpants and a cream-colored Aran jumper that hung loosely from her frame, but her hands were steady as she cupped a mug of tea, and her blue eyes had lost both their dull sheen and the dark rings encircling them.
“Reggie said you’d be joining us,” Emma stated.
“I don’t want to intrude, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on what she’s doing,” Brogan said. “I promise we’ll keep out of your way.”
“She’s no bother,” Emma said with a hint of hopefulness in her voice that might have been forced. “I’m the one who should stay out of your way. I’ve had only about a handful of plants in my whole life, and none of them lived what anyone could call a long or healthy life.”
Brogan smiled. “Everyone’s got to start somewhere.”
“Brogan!” Reggie called from somewhere behind the house. “We have work to do.”
Emma lifted the tea to her pale lips, but Brogan saw them curl up a little behind the
mug.
“I’d better get to it.”
Emma stepped aside, and Brogan caught the scent of soap— clean, fresh, simple— as she passed, and the idea of someone as rich as Emma forgoing expensive perfumes made her stomach feel warm.
“I brought some paper and a pencil,” Reggie called before Brogan had even made it through the conservatory. “I want to make a map of the garden and write in the names of all the plants so I can know which ones I need to learn about.”
She nodded, once again impressed by the thought Reggie had put into her plan. “Okay then, let’s divide the rectangle into three, to represent the three levels of terrace, then draw a line down the middle for the stairs.”
Reggie leaned on a little wrought-iron table, causing Brogan to notice the open laptop beside her. The screen was dark, but for how long? Was Emma working? Writing? If so, their intrusion seemed even less advisable.
She turned back to the woman standing in the full light of the conservatory now. “We’re not interrupting, are we?”
“Not at all.” Emma gestured dismissively toward the computer. “Sadly, there’s nothing there to interrupt. Go about your map-making. It’ll do me good to hear something other than my own thoughts for a while.”
The statement raised more questions than answers for Brogan, but even if she’d had the inclination to give them voice, she didn’t have the time, as Reggie straightened up, pointed to the nearest ground cover, and said, “That one’s first. What kind of grass is it?”
“Chives,” Brogan said, falling back on something she knew for sure. “Wild chives. They’ve spread a little farther than they were meant to. We could cut them back a bit, and then we’d all smell like sour cream and chive crisps for days.”
Reggie was too studious to appreciate the joke. “And what’s next to it?”
“Lavender,” Brogan said, then cheekily added, “the English variety, which means stronger and heartier than the French kind. I think it smells better, too.”
“Really?” Emma asked, stepping forward, the first hint of genuine interest Brogan had ever heard in her voice.
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