Ah. So that’s what had her skivvies in a knot. Sassy couldn’t say she was surprised. She’d seen something in Colt and Rose’s interactions at dinner last night. “I didn’t know he’d made the final decision.” Her heart sank a little too, but she refused to let Colt’s exciting news upset her.
“But you knew he was thinking about selling?” Anger flashed across her niece’s face again, but Sassy didn’t take her reaction personally. That was the emotion talking. It seemed her niece might have deeper feelings for Colt than she was willing to admit.
“Yes, he did mention wanting an adventure.” Their trip had changed him. Sassy had seen a softening, a sort of wonder bloom in Colt that she’d never witnessed before. He’d become more curious and social—striking up conversations with people on the airplanes and the boats and the excursions they’d found themselves on. He’d tried new foods—squid for one. Which he hadn’t liked at all, but he’d still tried it. And he’d taken pictures of everything—marveling over the different scenery with an enthusiasm he didn’t often show. Instead of being his typical reserved self on their trip, Colt had opened himself up, and she was proud of him.
“I thought he loved it here.” Oh, sweet Rosie. That stubborn lift to her chin hid so much.
“He’s always been happy here,” Sassy said gently. “But I suppose he doesn’t necessarily feel anchored to this place.” Not after losing his father. Colt liked running the store, but she’d never seen it as his passion in life. It made him a good living, but it wasn’t enough to build a life on. He needed more. Adventure. Love. She wanted all of that for him. And for Rose too.
“Why wouldn’t he be anchored to this place?” Rose’s tone had quieted. “You’re here.”
And Rose was here too. That’s what had her niece so upset. She felt like Colt was leaving her behind. “I know he’ll visit often.” That didn’t seem to pry Rose’s frown loose. “If you really don’t want him to go, you should tell him.”
To her knowledge, Colt had never been in a serious relationship before. He’d dated a little in high school, and while he worked on his college degree online, but no one had ever captured his heart. He’d always kept that part of him to himself.
“Oh.” Her niece shook her head and raised her hands between them. “No. I’m not suggesting…I mean, it doesn’t matter to me if he goes or not.”
Mm-hmm. Sassy simply stared at Rose, letting her expression speak for itself.
“It’s just, um, well, he’s part of your family.” Her well-spoken Rosie continued to stumble through the words. “And, uh, he, well, also has part ownership over the resort.”
The dear girl. It might be easier if she would admit she has feelings for the man. It seemed to take an awful lot of effort for her to deny it. “I think you should tell him how you feel.” She gave her niece a hug. “I don’t know what he’ll do. Or if it’ll make a difference. But at least he’ll have all the facts before he makes a big life decision.”
Rose squinted as though she was frustrated, but she didn’t try to deny her obvious emotions again.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment.” Sassy gave her niece’s shoulder a loving squeeze and scooted on by. “I’ll see you at home later this afternoon.”
“See you there,” her niece called before walking in the opposite direction. It seemed Rose was not up for another conversation with Colt. And, unless she missed her guess, Colt had no idea Rose felt anything toward him other than friendly.
But she would have to address that problem another day.
Sassy started off in the direction of the museum again, stopping briefly to coo at a sweet baby in a stroller.
After passing the park, she found herself standing in the shadows of the grand Juniper Springs Geology Museum. Housed in the old Episcopal church, the white limestone structure had always been an impressive sight. It had the traditional architecture, complete with a nonworking bell tower and turrets flanking each end. Graham had been meticulous about keeping up the grounds, she’d give him that, though maybe she should really credit the KEEP OFF THE GRASS and NO TRESPASSING signs he’d posted everywhere.
She let herself in through the small iron gate that surrounded the property and followed the stone path, careful not to scuff her foot into the grass, lest she mess something up. That wouldn’t start this conversation off on the right foot.
“Can I help you?” Graham stood upright in the middle of the large lush rose garden near the museum’s entrance.
“Oh.” Sassy paused at the edge of the sidewalk. She’d thought she would have a few more minutes to get her thoughts together, but it appeared the man had been…gardening? Instead of the starched button-up shirts she’d often seen him wear, he had on a casual navy polo shirt and…khaki shorts?
“Can I help you, Ms. McGrath?” the man asked again. His voice seemed totally indifferent, much like it had at the meeting yesterday.
“Sassy.” She corrected him with a smile meant to offer peace. “Please call me Sassy. No one calls me Ms. McGrath.”
“Okay.” The man removed his gardening gloves and lined them up on an ornate concrete bench nearby. “How can I help you, Sassy?” This time his tone wasn’t quite as formal. That was progress in her book.
Still, she avoided his question. Her father had been an earnest no-nonsense man too, and she’d learned how to ease into important conversations. “This is a beautiful rose garden.” For the first time since she stopped, she admired the variety of roses lining the pathway—bright pink hybrid tea roses and orange grandiflora roses and Cherry Parfait floribunda roses that grew in neat little rows. “I used to grow some of these same varieties at the inn.” It had been a long time since the rosebushes had flourished around her front porch. Eventually the upkeep of the cabins had consumed her time, and she’d let her own personal garden go.
“They’re dying.” Graham plucked one of the Cherry Parfaits and walked to her, holding it out. “The leaves have black spots all over them. And they’re turning yellow.”
Sassy took the stem from him and carefully inspected it. “Rose black spot. It’s a fungal disease.” She’d dealt with it in her own rose garden a time or two. “All you need to do is get some fungicide from Colt down at the hardware store. And you’ll want to prune out all the stem lesions too.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know much about pruning roses.” He did have quite a handsome face when he wasn’t frowning. She’d always thought him to be a few years older than her, but now that she focused on his eyes she could see he had to be quite a bit younger.
“I could help if you’d like.” It had been years since she’d gotten her hands dirty in a garden, but she knew how to bring roses back to life.
“You want to help?” He shaded his eyes from the sun and seemed to regard her.
“Why not?” The budget could wait. Spending an hour here would only further her cause to find some kind of compromise on Ned’s land. She stepped off the path and waded into the rosebushes. “Hand me the gloves.”
“Oh.” The man seemed to freeze. “You want to work on the roses now?”
“Now’s as good a time as any.” Thankfully she had opted for casual Friday attire. Or as she liked to think of it, casual everyday attire.
“I’ll need the shears, too,” she informed him.
Mr. Wright had yet to move, so Sassy walked to the bench and collected the gloves and a small pair of gardening shears herself. “Now, not every stem is going to be affected.” She knelt in the soft dirt next to a particularly mature bunch of the tea roses. “See how this one is still green?” She gently tugged it apart from the others so he could get a glimpse. “We want to save those and snip the ones with the black spots.”
“Right.” Graham nodded, seeming to get his wits back about him. “I have another pair of gloves and shears in the shed. I’ll be right back.” He seemed to walk the same way he talked—purposefully and precisely.
While he was gone, Sassy got to work pruning the affected stems, set
ting them in a neat pile next to her. She’d almost forgotten how therapeutic it was to have her hands in the dirt, to smell the earthy and floral scents wafting around her, to feel the sunshine soaking into her from every angle. Yes, a community garden was exactly what the town needed. More time outside. More time together.
“Where should I start?” Mr. Wright asked from behind her.
“Let’s work together on these.” She patted the ground beside her. “It would appear the tea roses seem to have taken the brunt of the fungus.”
The man murmured an acknowledgment and knelt a good few feet away. They worked in silence, clipping and tossing the stems for a few moments before the man spoke. “I hope I didn’t offend you at the meeting.”
Sassy couldn’t help a grin. “You mean when you implied I wasn’t qualified to be the mayor?” She had to tease him a little. He made it far too easy.
“It was rude,” Mr. Wright acknowledged, his head down as he clipped a stem. “But I didn’t intend for it to be. Peg had gotten me all worked up with this threatening email she sent me, and I figured you were part of their plot.”
“Ah.” Sassy stopped her cutting and waited until he looked at her. “One thing you need to know about me, Mr. Wright—”
“Graham,” he interrupted. “Call me Graham.”
“Okay, Graham.” She set the stem she’d been working on in the discard pile so she could give him her full attention. “I’m not part of anyone else’s plot. I want what’s best for this town. That’s all that’s on my agenda.”
“And I want to make sure Ned’s wishes are honored.” He went back to avoiding her eyes while he worked. “But I don’t intend to be rude. I’ve never been much of a people person.”
A snort slipped out before she could stop it, but thankfully it didn’t seem to offend the man.
“I know. Some might think I’m in the wrong position, being the face of the museum and all.” He meticulously inspected the stems on another tea rose bush. “I’m much better with studying and handling rocks than I am with people. I would rather analyze nephrite and tourmaline and liebigite.”
Liebi-what? She couldn’t repeat any of those mineral names if her life depended on it. “And I’d much rather deal with people.”
“That’s why everyone likes you.”
Wait just one minute. Was that a smile spreading across his face? Were they experiencing a true miracle right here in the museum’s garden?
“Believe it or not, I used to be better.” He snipped one of those bright pink roses and held it up as though admiring it. “Before my Betsy passed away. She helped me understand people, I suppose. She helped me understand myself.”
Sassy had stopped searching the roses and studied his pensive face instead. “I didn’t realize…” That he’d lost someone close to him, that he’d even been married at all. But then, she didn’t know this man. She knew the little she’d seen. She knew the little she’d heard. But she hadn’t bothered to discover anything about Graham for herself.
“She passed the year before I moved here.” A thread of emotion weaved itself into his tone. “Cancer. She had a good few years after the diagnosis, but eventually it spread.”
Sassy shifted to sit on the ground so she could relieve her aching knees. “You hardly recognize yourself after they’re gone.” That’s how she’d felt when she’d lost Robert. In some ways, she’d lost him twice. First, when he’d been hauled off to prison, and then again when they called to tell her he passed away.
She’d done her best to hold strong for Colt, but after that call she’d lost a significant piece of herself, and that was when everything at the resort had started to fall apart.
Graham sat back too, setting his shears on the ground. “You were married once?”
“Not officially.” Robert hadn’t wanted to marry her when he’d been so afraid his past would eventually catch up. “But our souls were intertwined. That kind of love leaves a hole.”
“That it do—”
“Graham?” Sharon Zabinski came into view on the stone path. “That is you!” The woman stopped a few feet away. “And Sassy, how nice to see you.”
“Nice to see you too.” Her knees creaked and groaned as she pushed off the ground to stand up. Sharon was one of the board members at the museum, and another one of Sassy’s occasional bridge friends. If she was surprised to see Sassy there with Graham, she didn’t let on.
“I know I’m a few minutes early.” She cast an apologetic glance at her watch. “But I thought I’d see if you were ready for our meeting.”
“Oh. That’s right.” Graham scrambled to his feet too. “We have a meeting. Sorry. I lost track of time.”
“That’s no problem.” Sharon held out a folder. “I’ll go ahead inside and set out the ideas for the new pyrite display so we can go through everything. See you in there.” The woman said goodbye to Sassy and disappeared through the museum’s heavy wooden door.
After the interruption, Graham seemed at a loss for words again. He stood there staring at Sassy, but somehow seemed far away too.
“Well I guess our work is done for the day.” Sassy pulled off her gloves and set them on the bench along with the gardening shears.
“Yes.” He stepped closer but then stopped as though he wasn’t quite sure what to do. “Thank you,” he finally said. “I’m sure I never would’ve figured out what was wrong with these roses if you hadn’t come along.” He glanced at the door where Sharon had disappeared. “I’m sure you didn’t come here to help with the roses. Was there something else you wanted to discuss with me?”
No, she hadn’t come to work on the roses, but working on the roses had given her a whole new perspective. “I did come to talk with you more about the land, but it can wait.”
“Until tomorrow?” Graham brushed the dirt off his shorts, reminding Sassy to do the same. “We still have some work to do on these roses if you’re free.” There went that elusive smile again.
“I can be free.” And tomorrow she would come prepared with snacks and some sun-brewed lemon tea. “Same time, same place?”
The man gave her a single firm nod. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Chapter Nine
Rose
Shh. Marigold, quiet.”
Rose peeked out the window of her restored camper to make sure the coast was clear. Colt’s truck sat parked next to Tony’s, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Good. Hopefully Tony had already put him to work in one of the cabins and she wouldn’t have to run into him out on the property somewhere.
She readjusted the curtains she’d made herself and poured another cup of coffee. It had been three days since she’d made a fool out of herself getting all emotional in Colt’s hardware store, and she’d managed to avoid him by spending a few nights in Denver with her mother while they shopped for the last of the accessories she needed to give the cabins that perfect homey feel.
She had no idea what had come over her when she’d seen that FOR SALE sign in the hardware store’s window, but she refused to overanalyze the situation. “I’m sad for Sassy, that’s all,” she told her dog.
Speaking of her aunt, she still hadn’t mustered up the courage to set a meeting between Sassy and Lillian. Besides helping her avoid Colt, going to Denver with her mother had ensured that the sisters wouldn’t run into each other before Rose was ready to construct the perfect circumstances to bring those two back together. She still had no idea what that would look like. Right now, all she could seem to envision was Lillian turning her back and walking away the second she saw Sassy.
Marigold nosed the curtain to the side again and whined.
Yes, yes, she wanted to go outside. “Give me a minute.” Rose took her coffee with her to the tiny bathroom at the back of the camper. It wasn’t much—a miniature sink and toilet, and then a showerhead hanging beyond a curtain—but this was home.
When she and her sisters had reunited at the resort last Christmas, they couldn’t believe Sassy still had the old camping tra
iler they used to play in, stocked with all of their toys and books and dress-up clothes. Needing a project to keep her busy, Rose had renovated the inside—painting the walls, sewing new pillows and curtains, and cleaning up every nook and cranny.
As soon as the weather had warmed late in the spring, she’d decided to move into the camper for the summer, and now she wondered what she ever needed three bedrooms and three bathrooms for back in Savannah.
“Simple. That’s how I like my life now.” She squirted some sunscreen into her hand and smeared it all over her face—a must in the high mountains during the summer. “I don’t need things to get all complicated.” Specifically in regard to Colt. Not when she had so much on her plate.
Tony and his crew had made good progress on the cabins while she’d been in Denver, but she still had to finish the decorating before the Cleary family checked in tomorrow. So now was not the time to be exploring any feelings. “You want simplicity too, right, Mari?”
The dog whined again, nosing at the curtain from where she sat on the seat of the dinette.
“Good. Glad to see we agree.” Rose pulled on a sweatshirt over her tank top and yanked open the door, Marigold leaping up behind her.
Who knew? Maybe Rose would be able to avoid Colt until the store sold, until he left town. Then she wouldn’t have to get all weird and emotional about him leaving.
She took the path through the aspen trees, trying to stay out of sight while she made her way to the cabins around the pond. Tony stood on the porch of the Silver Bells cabin talking to one of his crew members. Perfect.
She had about an hour before Dahlia would arrive to help her start putting the finishing touches on the decor—the fun accent pillows she’d found, little Christmassy trinkets to keep the spirit of the season the whole year. “Let’s see what we can do to help Tony in the meantime.”
Marigold didn’t seem all that interested in helping. The dog took off for the pond, likely ready for her early morning dip. “Don’t terrorize the geese,” Rose called behind her.
The Summer Sisters (Juniper Springs Book 2) Page 9