The Chocolate Garden (Dare River Book 2)

by Ava Miles

  He’d been kicking at a small hole in his yard that she would need to fill, but he stopped to give her his full attention. “A what?”

  Even to her it sounded delicious and decadent. “You heard me. A chocolate garden. It’s a really hot concept right now in gardening. They’ve developed incredible varieties. New plants that are chocolate in color, sometimes alone or with other colors woven in, like pink or chartreuse. Some of the plants even smell like chocolate.”

  She could already see Chocolate Sundae dahlias and Hot Chocolate calla lilies standing tall in the breeze, their elegant, glossy blossoms and foliage accented by Chocolate Ruffles coral bells. The chocolate vine would trail along the pergola in the center where she planned to install a seating area with a fountain and two Adirondack chairs. The air would be lightly scented with irresistible fragrance, accented by the cocoa bean mulch she was going to cart in by the truckful.

  He grabbed her shoulders and spun her around, making her laugh. “Imagine that! Chocolate plants. That’s the most incredible thing I think I’ve ever heard, and I know diddly about plants. I’m going to have to tell my mama and sisters. They’re gonna love it.”

  She wanted to raise her hands to the heavens and turn in a circle. “I’m glad you like it. I thought you would.”

  “Tammy, you have a gift, and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. A chocolate garden!” He grabbed her hand then and raised it to his lips. “I’m overwhelmed, Tammy.”

  Her hand jerked when his lips pressed against her skin. Before she could process the fire and heat spreading up her arm, he stepped back and dropped his grip on her.

  She turned away to give herself time to force the trembling aside. No one had ever touched her quite like that. “I’m glad you’re pleased, John Parker. I love doing it. And I hope you’ll recommend me to others, if you’re happy with the final product, and let me take some pictures to use on the website I’ve commissioned for Visionary Gardening.” Oh, how she loved saying the name of her business. It made everything feel so official.

  “Once everyone sees what you created here, you’ll have more clients than you can handle. How about I hold a barbecue and invite all the tony people in Dare River and Nashville to show off my new digs? You’ll have to come, of course.”

  “That would be just lovely of you.” And she wanted to bake him cookies on the spot.

  John Parker leaned down and pulled a sunshine-yellow dandelion from his otherwise immaculate lawn. “It’ll be fun. We’ll have to do it when Rye and Tory are on a break in the tour.”

  “Yes, and maybe my daddy could drive up as well if that would be all right.” How exciting it would be to share more of her work with her family.

  “Growing your own business must be exciting,” he said. And oh, there was his dimple.

  “Yes, I can’t wait. With Annabelle headed to kindergarten in the fall, I’ll have more time to dedicate to it without needing a sitter.”

  “You’re going to be fine.”

  She nudged the ground with her sandal, reminding herself to gather a soil sample so she could take a pH reading.

  “I’m hoping Visionary Gardening will soon be financially established enough that I can rent a place for me and the kids. I think it’s time now that Rye’s married.” It was something she’d thought about a lot, though she hadn’t verbalized it to anyone yet. The kids wouldn’t like moving, but it was the right thing to do.

  “I’m sure they don’t expect you to do that, honey.”

  Of course she knew that, but it didn’t change what she knew she had to do, for herself and for the kids. Her plan was to find a few houses she liked and could afford with her own money—that was important to her—and then show them to the kids. Once they settled on one, she would tell her brother. Otherwise, she feared he would try and talk her out of it, and she might backslide into agreeing to let another man take care of her, even if he was family.

  Turning away again, she watched a turkey vulture fly overhead. “I need to do this, John Parker.”

  He dusted off his hands by rubbing them on his tan shorts. “Do you ever think of remarrying?”

  His words had her back going ramrod straight. “Marry? I…ah, no…I don’t know.” The idea terrified her as much as the thought of dying alone. “My first marriage…”

  John Parker edged closer, shielding her from the hot sun. “What?” he said softly.

  “Well…I’m not sure I’m cut out for marriage.”

  The glow inside her dulled and faded. A vulnerable feeling took root, angering her. Even now, she had to wonder if there was something she’d done wrong to make Sterling treat her the way he had.

  “From what Rye says, your ex is a first-class bastard who didn’t deserve you or the kids. I don’t want you thinking that you’re not cut out for marriage.” He gestured widely. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re a wonderful woman. You’d make an excellent wife. God knows, you’re an excellent mother.”

  Praise hadn’t been doled out to her much while she was growing up, and she soaked it up like parched earth during a rain shower. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  “Say thank you.”

  The glow rose again, but for a different reason now. “Thank you, John Parker.” Starting back to the house, she wondered why he wasn’t married yet and decided to just ask. “What about you? How is it that you’re still unattached?” Of course, she swatted a mosquito away as she asked to make it seem as though she wasn’t that interested.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve gotten close twice, but when it came down to buying a ring, I realized they weren’t the one for the long haul.”

  God how she wished she would have realized that about her and Sterling, but then she wouldn’t have Rory and Annabelle. Even in the desert a few flowers bloomed.

  “How did you know?”

  He grimaced. “Well, my mama would say I listened to my gut. The first one was in college. Neither of us were old enough to know what we wanted. Hell, we didn’t even know who we were yet.”

  Yes, she knew all about that. In the same summer, she had graduated from college and then walked down a different aisle. Funny how it might have been wiser to space those life events out.

  As they walked around the house, two squirrels scampered toward the far trees, chasing each other and hissing.

  “The last one was right after I released my one and only album. She was nice enough, but I realized she was more interested in being with John Parker McGuiness, the budding country music star.”

  So he had been pursued by the same type of women who’d gone after her brother. “I can’t imagine you’d ever have trouble finding women.”

  He made a rude noise. “No, you practically trip over them in those circles, especially with your brother around. But finding the right woman… Well, that’s another matter altogether. I suppose I don’t want to make a mistake.”

  She paused, feeling a bead of sweat trail down her spine. Even though it was scorching hot, she didn’t want to go inside. Somehow it felt like this intimacy between them would break if they left the yard. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know I grew up without a daddy. I don’t want my kids to have to go through that.”

  Tammy swallowed the thickness in her throat. “No one does.”

  John Parker grabbed her hand again, and she felt the thin layer of dust from his hands transfer to hers. “I didn’t say it to make you sad.”

  And yet it had. She’d made a mistake. Her children were better off without Sterling, that she knew, but it didn’t mean she didn’t want them to have a loving daddy. Rye was their uncle, and she was grateful for the role he played in her kids’ lives, but he couldn’t be something he wasn’t.

  “I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

  His blue eyes stared into hers. “Sometimes it’s better to grow up without a daddy. That was my case, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

  She looked down at the warm ha
nd gripping her own. It took effort to give it a final squeeze and let go. “True, but it doesn’t make it any easier on the kids.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” He shuffled his feet. “Sorry to change the subject, but I have to ask you, Tammy. What did you think of my music?”

  The gloom that always came with talk of her marriage faded away. “I thought your songs were wonderful, John Parker. There was so much emotion and real life in them; some of them just about broke my heart.” The one about a single mother struggling to raise her babies and teach them right from wrong had ripped her to shreds, and it was hard to ignore how autobiographic it was.

  “They’re not supposed to break your heart, honey. They’re supposed to heal it.”

  “They did that too. They’re powerful poetry, John Parker.”

  “I’m glad you liked them.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Well, if we’re done here, why don’t we head to your place so I can see the kids and take the dogs off your hands?”

  She wanted to rub the tight space in her chest, but refrained. “That sounds fine.”

  Her hunger for his presence was an addiction she didn’t want to feed.

  Chapter 11

  As the May heat turned to boiling in early June, Visionary Gardening was starting to bloom. Several of Tallulah’s friends had commissioned Tammy to plant containers for them after seeing her work, and she spent several hours a week overseeing the subcontractors at John Parker’s house. Since she’d used the same crew to put in the gardens at Rye’s house, they had a good rapport. While the carpenter Rye had used to help him and John Parker build the kids’ tree house busily hammered nails into the frame of the mill, the others dug out the pond.

  After the pond was ready to be lined with plastic and filled with water, the crew moved on to ripping up the other parts of John Parker’s beloved grass she’d outlined in chalk. Once they were done, there would be two tillings of that rich soil mixed with the horse manure she’d procured from a nearby horse stable.

  The fences and pergola would follow once the beds were ready, and then she would start the planting.

  Between supervising duties, she continued to fuss with what plants she would place where. Each garden was like an earthy patchwork quilt, each plant its own square, fitting into the pattern evolving in her mind’s eye. And she also started to haul in containers to showcase various plants she’d bought at the local nurseries while browsing for ideas. Giving each client’s containers a different style had been fun, and she’d created a spreadsheet to keep track of which containers and plants went with each client.

  For John Parker, she planted ferns in bright red pots to hang from his porch, which spotlit the red door to his house beautifully. And while the crew laid the stone tiles for the new outdoor area off the deck, she planted decorative containers in various shapes and sizes with everything from Black Knight Cannas to Mexican feather grass.

  John Parker had helped her unload Rye’s pickup when she’d brought it over filled to the brim with the potting supplies.

  “My family will think they’ve arrived at the wrong house when they see all this,” he’d joked, his muscles bulging as he hefted out a powder-blue pot that weighed as much as she did.

  She had set up a potting table just off his deck where she could work, but when her back started to bother her, she laid a tarp down so she could plant under an umbrella her carpenter rigged up with some two-by-fours.

  Some days, she agreed to let the kids come over for a while, which she never would have done if John Parker had been a “normal” client. When Rory and Annabelle were around, John Parker always took time away from his work to play with them and show them the progress she and the crew were making.

  As she was putting the finishing touches on her prize container, featuring a massive upright display of Hens and chicks she’d arranged using chicken wire and a heap of moss and dirt, John Parker told her he needed to take a break after working on songs for the last three days solid and wanted to get the kids for some “sprinkler time.” The lyrics were giving him trouble, he said, and he needed to let them cook. He winked at her when he used her phrase.

  “Anything you want to talk about?” she offered, unaccustomed to seeing the always even-keel John Parker this frustrated over work.

  “The songs are for Kaylee Styles,” he told her. “Have you heard her music?”

  “Yes, she started singing as a teenager, right?” If memory served, the woman was now in her early twenties.

  “Right. Her producer talked me into writing for her since she’s looking for a new sound, and she’s a big fan of my one and only album.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “Her mama gave it to her,” he said dryly.

  She had to fight back her laughter. “I see. So what’s bothering you?”

  “Usually I can…well…channel what I think a woman would want to say, being raised around four of them and all,” he said, picking up some moss that had dropped on the ground and rubbing it between his fingers. “But with her? I’ve been hearing she’s turned a little wild now that she’s grown older, and my sisters never really went through that. I don’t know what Kaylee is trying to say.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “Sure, we met, but she didn’t say much. Just kept checking her phone.”

  Tammy sat on the ground to give her back a break from bending over. “Maybe she feels trapped in her old image and she’s trying to break free?”

  He scratched his chin and knelt beside her. “Hmmm…kind of like a female version of Rye years back.”

  “Perhaps. Maybe you should ask her some pointed questions about herself. Kind of like I did with you for the gardens.”

  His fingers caressed the delicate red edge of a lime green Hen and chick. “I rather like that idea. And I’ll tell her producer the phone has to go. Thanks, honey.”

  It was nice to help him for a change. “You’re welcome.”

  An easy quiet gathered between them, and they watched as the crew finished up their work and hauled their supplies to their trucks.

  “I’m going to get the kids,” he finally said, standing up. “Do you need anything else?”

  Only more time sitting with him as the garden took shape, she thought, but shook her head. “Not a thing.”

  And she didn’t. Her hands were in the soil, making a plant sculpture come to life, and soon the man she was coming to care for deeply would bring her babies to the house. It was all she needed.

  After he returned with the kids, John Parker transformed his backyard into a water park with the three sprinklers he’d set up. Bullet and Banjo were going crazy as her kids played with them. Annabelle and Rory had told her more than once they missed the dogs, but she’d held firm about them staying at John Parker’s.

  After surveying the five containers on the ground in front of her and matching them with the right plants, she filled the bottoms with white, dusty perlite and loaded in a mixture of potting soil, coffee grounds that she’d gotten from a nearby Starbucks, and dried manure.

  She dusted off her orange gardening gloves, part of a rainbow collection she’d bought while purchasing supplies for her business. Surveying the trio of colorful coleuses in chocolate brown and chartreuse, a nice complement to the chocolate garden, she couldn’t wait to start planting. Annabelle squealed in the distance, piercing her ears, and Tammy turned to her next arrangement—a tan urn with a lion on it for the showy Pampas grass. It would help give structure and height to the outdoor patio area with the smaller containers clustered around it.

  “Annabelle, come back here,” she heard John Parker yell.

  “No, I’m gonna show Mama.”

  Hearing her name, she turned toward the voice and sat back on her thighs. A cold slice of water sprayed across her chest, pelting the coleuses. She emitted a short squeak.

  Annabelle thudded to a halt, brandishing a hot pink water gun, her little body shaking from excitement in her violet and yellow polka-dot swim suit. “See,
Mama. Mr. McGuiness let us have a water fight. We have to get these, Mama. They’re making the dogs go crazy.” Barbie snuggled against her leg, dripping water.

  Tammy looked from Annabelle to the dark splotch on her navy shirt that was wetting her skin. “Honey, you’re not supposed to shoot adults.”

  “But Mr. McGuiness is an adult.”

  Her daughter’s use of logic against her had a headache starting at the base of her skull. “That’s correct, so how about you don’t shoot people who aren’t playing?”

  Annabelle’s face scrunched, thinking. “Okay, but why can’t you come and play with us?”

  She tugged off a glove and pushed damp tendrils out of Annabelle’s eyes. “I’m planting some flowers for Mr. McGuiness. I’ll play later.”

  “I’ll find you a gun.”

  Tammy shook her head. “No, we’ll do something else. I don’t want to get wet.”

  Seeing her daughter’s little finger testing the trigger, Tammy lurched forward and pushed the gun down as more water squirted out. “Do you want to go home?”

  “Mama, it was an accident.”

  Tammy stared her down. When Barbie ran off, Annabelle turned and followed.

  It was only after they were gone that she realized she’d been overreacting. It had just been a little water, after all, and Annabelle had only been trying to involve her in a game. The kids were still adjusting to her working more on her business, no doubt, but they’d find a balance.

  She was scheduling consultations with as many clients as she could right now, lining up projects on her calendar. Many of them were still small, which was okay since she had her hands full with John Parker’s gardens, and a good portion were more referrals from Tallulah. The record producer’s wife was one of the most connected women in Dare River, and she and her husband threw massive parties at their house for their artists, which meant dozens of people were seeing Tammy’s work. Of course, Tallulah loved to tell people Rye Crenshaw’s sister had created the containers on her porch, which was great publicity.