Always Be Mine: Sweetbriar Cove: Book Nine

by Melody Grace

  6

  The garden at Rose Cottage was coming along.

  Griffin had spent the week planning and clearing, and now, finally, he could imagine the vision of what was to come. The sunny paved patio area . . . a wall of climbing clematis . . . the cool reading spot under the elm tree . . .

  “Let me guess, another client?”

  Griffin looked up from his notebook to find his mother gazing at him across her breakfast table—with a disapproving look. “I thought you moved back to the Cape to slow down,” she said, whisking his empty plate away. “Honestly, with your blood pressure, one of these days you’ll keel over in the rose bushes.”

  “I hope not,” he said, getting up to help her clear the table. “The nasturtiums would make a much softer landing.”

  “Hush, you,” she scolded, but she was smiling. “Don’t even joke about it. Remember I told you to get a checkup? Your dad just went, and his cholesterol is high. It runs in the family, you know.”

  “I know,” Griffin said agreeably. He’d learned a long time ago it was easier for everyone if he just smiled and nodded.

  Unfortunately, his mother was on to his tricks.

  “Don’t treat me like an interfering old lady,” she said. “You’ll miss me when I’m gone.”

  “Mom, you’re 62 and do water aerobics every Thursday,” Griffin protested, laughing. “You’re in better shape than me.”

  “It’s all this stress of yours,” his mom replied, steering things back, of course, to where she’d started. “I do wish you’d slow down now. Take on fewer clients. Put your time to enjoying life, dating . . .”

  There it was.

  “I thought we had a rule about that,” he told her, rinsing their breakfast plates. “You don’t ask about my romantic life, and I won’t think about what you and Dad did on that trip to a nudist beach in Mexico.”

  “Griffin!” His mom flushed. “I didn’t know they would all be naked!”

  “She loved it,” his father said, ambling in with the newspaper. “You should have seen her checking out the talent.”

  “Stop it, both of you!” His mom swiped him with a tea towel, and Griffin chuckled.

  It was good to be close to home again. After living far from home for years in New York, he enjoyed being able to drop by for breakfast—and then leave again, before his mother’s well-intentioned questions went too far. His father had retired from the Coast Guard, years ago, and now spent most of his time tinkering with various tools in his shed, while his mom worked the occasional shift in the front office at the local school and gossiped full time.

  Now, she filled him in with the latest news from her knitting circle—and, surprise, their eligible daughters. “ . . . she just finished at nursing school,” she chatted, “isn’t that impressive? Pretty, too. And Margie says she’s ready to settle down.”

  “That makes one of us,” Griffin quipped. He gave his father a “rescue me” look, but Clive just smirked and turned back to his newspaper.

  So much for male solidarity.

  “You’re just saying that because of what happened with her.” His mom pursed her lips tightly. “When you meet the right girl, you’ll change your tune.”

  Griffin could hum the “Star-Spangled Banner” without altering his opinion, but that was another story. “Those are lovely flowers,” he said, changing the subject. “I didn’t know the florist was stocking tulips yet.”

  “Jordy sent them,” Louise said proudly. “Delivered from a special store in Boston. Aren’t they something?”

  Griffin’s jaw clenched at the mention of his younger brother. “What does he want this time?”

  Louise clucked. “Can’t a son send his mother flowers without an ulterior motive? Honestly, Griffin. You shouldn’t be so hard on him. He’s doing well, has a big new client at work, that new apartment,” she said, sounding proud. “Except, the landlord is a real piece of work. Told him it came with a fridge and dishwasher, and then switched them out before he arrived. I sent him a little something to cover new ones, I said he can’t be without a fridge, not this time of year.”

  And there it was.

  Griffin could set his clock by it. Somehow, no matter how well Jordy was doing, there was always some mix-up with the landlord, or problem at the bank with his rent, or a client stiffing him on his last paycheck. And their parents only knew the half of it. Griffin had bailed him out of jail three times now and paid off his debts to some shady Ukrainians after Jordy spent a lost weekend losing at roulette in some back-alley basement club.

  Stable, his little brother was not.

  But for some reason, his mom could only see the best in her baby boy.

  “I better get going,” Griffin said, cutting her story short. His mother’s face fell.

  “So soon?” she asked plaintively, as if Griffin came by once a year and not every week.

  “It’s this new client,” he answered, grabbing his things. “She won’t like it if I’m late.”

  He realized his mistake immediately.

  “She?” His mom perked up. “Is she single? Pretty?”

  The answer to both those questions was yes. Unfortunately.

  “I’ll see you next week.” Griffin kissed her on the cheek. “Dad.”

  Clive nodded vaguely as Griffin headed for the door. “Don’t forget a jacket,” Louise called after him. “It looks like rain!”

  * * *

  Griffin drove over to Rose Cottage, glad he’d escaped before his mom could discover just who his new client was. He could only imagine her determined matchmaking once she knew that Lila wasn’t just single and pretty, but famous to boot. Not that glitz and glamour impressed Louise Forrester; she’d been suspicious of Ruby from the start. “She’s very . . . well-dressed,” was all she would say the first time Griffin had introduced them, over dinner in the city. But Griffin hadn’t read between the lines, of course. He’d been dazzled—by Ruby’s sharp wit and brilliant smile, and the way she turned heads whenever they walked into a room. He’d barreled head-long into marriage, not asking if that hunger for success matched his own, more laid-back ambitions. Or whether nights out on the town—at another hot club, the newest cocktail bar, a soiree at someone’s warehouse loft—would get old, and fast, watching his new wife tell the same jokes at somebody else’s expense.

  The kindest thing his mom had ever done was not say, “I told you so.”

  Now, that city buzz felt like a lifetime ago. Griffin drove the clouded, empty highway up the Cape with the windows down, listening to the gulls call. He remembered suggesting the move to Ruby once —and the laugh of disbelief she’d sounded in reply. “But New York is the center of the world, babe,” she’d said, sitting up beside him in bed. “You know I lose my powers if we even leave the Tri-state area. Besides, what would my manicurist do without me?”

  She’d been joking, of course. But only just.

  What had he been thinking? Griffin asked himself that often in the wake of the divorce. The truth was, a part of him had figured she’d slow down, eventually tire of the nightlife and all her fashion friends. Get older and more comfortable—like him. Trade those VIP events for evenings at home; maybe they’d buy a place upstate, have some kids, get a dog . . .

  He should have known from the start some people never changed.

  Well, he’d paid for it, alright. In legal fees, alimony, and that high blood pressure of his. And Griffin had no intention of making the same mistakes again.

  No matter how many eligible “daughters of” his mother pushed in his direction.

  Or how beautiful Lila looked, greeting him in the front yard with her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee, her blonde hair still damp in a low braid, wearing jeans and a loose linen shirt.

  “What’s the plan today?” she smiled, and for a moment, Griffin felt as if he’d stared directly into the sun.

  He cleared his throat and looked away. It was her job to be beautiful, he reminded himself. She sold movie tickets and DVDs and f
ace creams off a smile like that.

  “Nothing in the yard,” he replied gruffly. “I’m heading up to a garden supply place up in Weymouth. Just need to know what colors you want, for the planters.”

  “I’ll get my jacket,” she said immediately, and Griffin’s head jerked up.

  “I wasn’t inviting you.”

  “Yes, but I need to pick them out,” Lila said.

  “Just tell me the color you want,” he argued. “I’ll send photos. You like blue, right? That’s simple enough.”

  “Is it?” Lila countered stubbornly. “There are all kinds of blue. Cerulean. Sky blue. Periwinkle.”

  Griffin was already getting a headache, and that was before the two-hour road trip. But Lila wasn’t to be ignored.

  “I’m coming. And I’ll bring snacks. I just baked some scones. See, it won’t be so bad.”

  She flashed a smile and disappeared inside. Griffin was half tempted to jump in the Jeep and throttle it before she could join him, but knowing Lila, she would chase him through town on that bicycle of hers, just to catch up.

  Road trip it was.

  A few minutes later, Lila bounded out of the house and threw her bags in the backseat.

  Her many bags.

  “You know we’re not staying the month,” Griffin said, eyeing the haul. Lila hopped up into the passenger seat and flashed him an exasperated look.

  “Yes, but we’ll be gone all morning. We could get hungry. And what if the weather changes? I’ll need a sweater, and—”

  “OK, OK,” Griffin spoke over her. He put the Jeep in drive and backed out. “Just don’t touch anything. And try not to annoy me.”

  “I thought my breathing annoyed you,” Lila said sweetly.

  “Yes, but trying to dispose of your body would be a real hassle,” he agreed, smiling despite himself. “So you’re allowed to do that. But only that.”

  She laughed. “You’re funny, does anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Frequently,” he replied dryly. “It was either landscape design or stand-up comedy.”

  “Not music?” she asked, a meaningful note in her voice. “Say . . . heavy metal?”

  Griffin looked over, suspicious. “Why would you say that?”

  “No reason.” She gave a sunny smile. “Just something Alice mentioned . . . about you, in high school.”

  He finally put two and two together and came up with a whole lot of betrayal. “I’m going to kill her,” he muttered. “Slowly.”

  Lila laughed. “I’m sure you were very badass,” she reassured him, smirking. “I can change the radio if you want. Linkin Park? Papa Roach? I remember the metal kids in school,” she added, “sulking around with your dyed black hair and baggy jeans.”

  Griffin cracked a grin. “Actually, I dyed my hair blue,” he said, remembering. “My poor mother nearly had a fit.”

  “Which was probably the appeal.”

  “Probably,” Griffin agreed. “What about you? No, let me guess,” he answered for her. “Prom queen. Cheerleader. Most likely to succeed?”

  “I wish.” Lila gave a rueful snort. “No, I was a nerdy drama kid. I was pretty much invisible.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  Griffin said it without thinking, but Lila didn’t seem to notice the sincere note in his voice. She laughed. “You’d be surprised. Of course, now everyone swears I was the most popular girl in school and they knew all along I was destined for greatness. The same people who turned around and tried to sell photos of me to the tabloids.”

  “Anything as wild as blue hair?” Griffin asked, teasing.

  “Thankfully, no.” Lila sighed. “Can you imagine if there was? No, you probably can’t,” she added. “Just think of your metal days on the front cover of every magazine in town.”

  Griffin gave her a sideways glance. The wistfulness in her voice was the same as when they’d talked before, after those assholes had followed her through town. He was beginning to see life as a star wasn’t all sunshine and roses for Lila.

  Which was probably the reason she was sitting up in his dusty front seat, heading to an exciting day at the garden supply store.

  “What would you be doing, back in LA?” he found himself asking as they turned onto the main highway, heading down the Cape.

  Lila turned. “Right now? Hmm . . .” She settled back, thinking. “Working out, maybe. Or getting a facial. Or doing a fitting with my style team.”

  “Not working?” Griffin asked, raising an eyebrow. “Sounds pretty cushy to me.”

  Lila made another wry snort. “That is my work. I did maybe two or three movies a year. And the rest of the time . . . Well, I had to make sure people wanted to cast me in those movies.”

  Griffin shook his head. “The more you tell me about the place, the less sense it makes,” he said, and Lila gave a laugh.

  “You and me both. It’s like killing a lobster.”

  “What?” Griffin exclaimed.

  “You know, if you put it in a pot of boiling water, it would jump right out,” Lila explained. “But if you turn the heat up slowly . . . it doesn’t even know it’s boiling alive.”

  “Now there’s a cheerful thought,” Griffin said with a smirk.

  “Maybe I’ll give you a run for that career in comedy,” Lila cracked. “No, I just mean . . . It all seems normal when you’re out there in Hollywood. I didn’t even realize how crazy my life had become until . . . Well, until it all fell apart.”

  She sounded sad, and Griffin glanced over. “You look pretty put together to me,” he said, and she managed a smile.

  “It’s all just makeup and good acting. But thanks,” she added. “Just for that, you get a scone.”

  Griffin perked up. “There are scones?”

  “And jam, and clotted cream,” she said, turning in her seat and reaching back between them to rummage around. “Lucky for you, I was baking all morning.”

  She emerged, triumphant, with a picnic basket. Griffin watched, amazed, as she unpacked not just plastic plates, but a full set of silver cutlery and little jars of condiments, balancing them all on her lap in the moving Jeep.

  “See?” Lila caught him looking. “Aren’t you glad I came?”

  Griffin hated to admit it, but he was.

  * * *

  They kept up an easy conversation all the way to Weymouth, where Griffin’s favorite garden supply nursery was off an empty back road on the outskirts of town.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” Lila asked, sounding dubious as she stepped down from the Jeep.

  Griffin couldn’t blame her. The place looked halfway between a building supply warehouse and an overgrown wilderness, and with rainclouds looming gray overhead, it didn’t exactly scream “English garden.” “It doesn’t look like much,” he reassured her. “But Mickey stocks the best plants around. The fancier places hot-house them, so the flowers are blooming and pretty in the stores. But that just means they’ll be half-dead by the time you put them in the ground.”

  “You’re the expert.” Lila shrugged, but she pulled on a baseball cap with the brim low over her eyes before they headed through the gates. Griffin kept forgetting she was going incognito.

  “Should I call you by a fake name?” he joked. “Who knows, Mickey might be your biggest fan.”

  He nodded to the large, grizzled guy hoisting compost bags off the back of a truck. Lila smiled. “I think we’re safe today.” She looked around with interest. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Ground cover,” Griffin decided. “Then those cerulean pots of yours.”

  “Lead the way.”

  He grabbed a cart and headed for the back lot, where low beds held all the smaller grasses and plants that would add visual interest to different areas of her garden.

  “So, have you always had a green thumb?” Lila asked, strolling alongside.

  “No, actually,” Griffin confessed. “I didn’t even keep the houseplants alive when I was a kid. My mom tried to make it one of my
chores, but I refused. I must have killed a dozen ferns.”

  “Murderer.” Lila smiled.

  He chuckled. “I guess I found my direction in college. I was training to be an architect,” he explained, “but I was always more interested in designing the outside space. My professor pulled me aside one day and suggested I switch into a landscape design program. After that, everything just fell into place for me. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. Every job is different, you see,” he found himself continuing. “Because every space is different. Sun levels, shade, soil, moisture. I never have to repeat myself, because the canvas is different, every time.”

  “And the clients,” Lila added, and he gave a laugh.

  “They’re more an annoying side effect. Luckily, these days, they know their place.”

  “Gee, thanks.” She smirked.

  “My pleasure.”

  Griffin spied some foxgloves and steered the cart over. “These will be great under those trees in the back,” he said, lifting a couple of flats onto the cart. “They thrive in the shade, so we can dot them around, for that wildflower look. The areas near the house can be more manicured,” he added, reassuring. “But the space you have, it’s really crying out for that English country look, everything tumbling together like it’s grown wild for years.”

  Lila gave a wry laugh. “So you’ve dug up the whole garden just to plant it like it’s grown wild?”

  “Well, yeah.” Griffin realized that it sounded crazy to an outsider. “The things you had there were glorified weeds,” he explained. “They’d take over if I left them, suck all the nutrients away from any new plants. The things I’m putting in now, they’ll have color and fragrance, and cycle in different stages through the year. Imagine looking out and seeing the garden strewn with poppies in summer, and bluebells in spring. I’m not designing just one garden for you, but four, so you see something new in every season.”

  He could picture it: Lila sipping her morning coffee in summer, surrounded by bright wildflowers; bundled up in fall, as the clematis bloomed. Even in winter, she should have a flash of color out the window; the first crocuses of spring peeking through the snow as she curled up reading in front of the fire . . .