I let the curtain fall, a frustrated sigh escaping me. What I needed more than anything was time in the garden. Not that I had the time to spare. Not with all the work left to do on the house, lesson planning, and classroom prep. But I’d learned to make time for it anyway because being in the garden had become an anchor for me, a therapy I needed. When I sat in the fresh soil, the sharp tang of growing plants tickling my nose, the hum of insects and birdsong in the background, the sun shining down...somehow all of that with the steady rhythm of the day’s work—weeding or harvesting—signaled the most anxious parts of my brain to relax so good ideas could bubble up.
The same thing happened when I showered too. Something about the steady rhythm of the water and my wandering mind always led me to great ideas. It happened so often that I’d begun keeping a dry erase marker in the stall so I could write notes on the tile instead of having the ideas dry up by the time I got myself dry. The garden did the same thing.
I resented more than ever that Ian had shown up with his pretend friendship and his accusations founded on the same scraps of information that had led Rink’s other staffers to believe the worst about me—that I’d seduced him. That it was the only explanation for how I’d “wormed” my way into his inner circle so quickly. They couldn’t accept that it had to do with my brain and my easy grasp of policy. No, to the Ivy League elites I’d worked with, only the tawdriest explanation made sense, and they assumed I’d left because Rink dumped me.
Those rumors would have followed me for the rest of my career in Washington politics. So I’d left. Not just Rink’s office—I’d left DC behind entirely. Its cynicism. Its corruption.
The way it devoured the reputations of good people.
I would have to wait out Ian, let him leave before I reclaimed the garden. And I’d have to hope that he wouldn’t spread his poisonous lies to Miss Lily before he left.
I went back to scraping tile, but I’d only been at it a few minutes when a knock sounded at my door. I pulled out my phone and checked my doorbell app. I didn’t have much fear about living in Creekville, but I’d installed it to ease my dad’s worries about me living alone and “isolated” out in the country. The only thing I’d used it for up to this point was spying on the hummingbirds who came to visit the feeder I’d placed at a perfect angle for the camera to capture. But now, as Ian’s face appeared on my screen, I thanked my dad’s overprotectiveness. I slid my phone into my pocket and went back to work. No need to answer the door.
Ian knocked again, but I only scraped harder. When I didn’t answer a third knock, he rang the doorbell in a series of three quick buzzes.
“Brooke?” His voice was muffled through the heavy wood door. “I know you’re in there. I see your car in the driveway.”
“Go away,” I muttered even though he wouldn’t hear me.
He rang the doorbell again. “Brooke, I’d like to talk to you.”
No, thanks. I pulled out my phone and fiddled with the app for a second. My dad had said...oh, there it was. I pressed the intercom feature. “As long as it’s you knocking, I’m not home. Leave, Ian.”
He jumped at my voice. Very satisfying.
“Brooke, I owe you an apology. Can we talk?”
“No. I have too much to do. Go away.” I wasn’t dumb enough to put any faith into a so-called “apology” by someone who’d ambushed me with ugly accusations on the pretext of a “getting to know you” dinner.
“House stuff? I’ll talk while I help. Open up?”
“No, thank you. Now please leave before I call the sheriff.”
“I really am sorry, I promise. I’d like to explain what went wrong and make it up to you.”
Yeah, right. “If the sheriff doesn’t scare you, maybe your grandmother will. Should I call her?”
He hesitated, leaning his head against the doorframe for a second before turning to meet the doorbell camera eye to ... lens? “No, don’t do that. I need to confess to her myself.” He took a step toward the steps but paused again. “I really am sorry, Brooke. I was wrong about you.”
Then I watched him leave until he was out of camera range.
Well.
He sounded like he meant it. Maybe I should have let him in?
But then I remembered his smooth charm through the first part of dinner last night before he’d sucker punched me.
Nah.
Good riddance, Ian Greene. He’d return to the city on Sunday, and I’d get my garden and Miss Lily back.
Chapter Eleven
Ian
Gran watched me walk into the parlor without a word, her cocked eyebrow telling me she was waiting.
“Brooke doesn’t want to talk to me,” I told her. “I don’t think she’ll come out to the garden again until I’m gone.”
“You want to tell me what all this is about? You take a phone call in the middle of our conversation, disappear next door, and come back looking like a kicked puppy. And Brooke Spencer wouldn’t kick a puppy even to save her life. So what’s going on?”
“I’ve been kind of an idiot,” I admitted, collapsing to the sofa next to her. “A big one. I was worried she was trying to prey on you because you’re ol...” I trailed off when her eyebrow rose even higher. “Because I saw some red flags,” I amended. “So I started digging into her background, and on the surface, what I found confirmed my suspicions.”
Gran’s look shifted to incredulity. “You investigated my neighbor? What is wrong with you?”
“It didn’t look right,” I said, feeling both sheepish and grumpy. “Sweet woman shows up next door and suddenly you’re talking about leaving her your very valuable property? I wanted to make sure she was legit.”
“And what did you find?”
“All the right pieces. I just...” I sighed and rubbed my hand over my face. “I put them together completely wrong.”
“So you’re saying you’ve discovered that my neighbor is a sweet young woman and nothing more?” Gran’s tone was dryer than the Sahara.
“Not exactly.” Brooke had more layers to her than I’d expected, an integrity I hadn’t seen in...years. “But she’s not a con artist. Anyway, I made some accusations last night that I needed to apologize for. Since she wouldn’t answer, I tried shouting them at her through the door. That was not super effective.” I rubbed my face again. Had I forgotten how normal people behaved? That genuinely good people existed?
Apparently. I felt more idiotic by the minute.
Gran sat next to me and patted my back. “I suppose it’s time for a confession of my own.”
I dropped my hands enough to give her a sideways glance. “Come again?”
“This is only about eighty percent your fault.” She looked thoughtful for a second. “No, eighty-five. But the rest is probably me.”
I straightened and scooted into the sofa corner so I could study her more closely. “This should be interesting.”
“You know you don’t come around here often enough.”
Leave it to Gran to keep me humble with a scolding even as she led into some kind of “confession.” “Stipulated,” I said.
“And you also date women who are totally wrong for you.”
“Gran...” But she held her hand up for silence and I subsided with a small sigh.
“You do.”
“You haven’t met any of them.”
“That’s how I know,” she said, unruffled. “If any of them were something special, you’d be bringing them around. What’s more, if they were truly right for you, they’d make you bring them around because they’d want to know where you come from. How you became you.”
I nodded. Fair enough. I’d never had the slightest interest in bringing any of my girlfriends out to meet the family.
“But Brooke is perfect for you.”
“Gran...” This time there was a note of warning in my tone.
“Hush. I knew you wouldn’t believe me when I told you. And it didn’t work to flat out ask you to come and visit me so I could casu
ally introduce you. So I’m the one who was up to no good in this whole scenario, not Brooke. I lied about considering changing my will because I figured it was the fastest way to lure you here.”
“Gran!” That one was pure shock.
“I know.” She had the decency to look guilty for a split second. “But to be fair, I expected you to be a good enough judge of character to sense her natural goodness the second you met her. Isn’t it your instincts that make you such a good investigator? How was I supposed to know this would be the first time they’d fail you completely?” She crossed her arms over her chest, her expression defiant and a touch cranky.
It was such an unusual expression from her that a laugh escaped me. “I’m sorry, Gran, but you look like Izzie did when she broke your lamp that one time.” Izzie was my younger sister.
The corner of her mouth twitched. “I do not.”
I copied her expression and posture, crossing my arms.
Her twitch turned into a reluctant grin. “You look ridiculous.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“Oh, fine,” she said, uncrossing her arms. “I’m sorry, Ian. I shouldn’t have lured you down here. Next time, I’ll nag you relentlessly until you come to visit, then I’ll force you to get to know my pretty, single neighbor. Will you forgive me?”
I leaned over and hauled her tiny self into a hug. “On one condition,” I said into the soft, white curls tickling my chin.
“What’s that?” she mumbled into my chest.
“Help me figure out how to apologize to Brooke?”
She slipped out of my hug to stand and hold her hand out to me. “Oh, that’s easy,” she said, pulling me to my feet. “As long as you’re ready to do hours and hours of back-breaking work.”
I grinned down at her. “Is a trip to your place ever complete if I don’t?”
“Come on, you stinker,” she said, keeping her hand in mine as she led me out of the French doors. “We’ve got some repenting to do.”
Chapter Twelve
Brooke
“I will not hide in this house.”
I said it aloud, to no one. I just needed to hear it. It was late Saturday afternoon, and I needed some dinner. Or linner. I needed whatever it was you ate when it was hours past lunch and too early for supper.
I could eat one of my freezer meals. But what I really wanted was the meal I’d almost gotten to eat last night at Caps until Ian opened his big mouth and ruined everything. He was still doing it. Thinking about the dinner he’d deprived me of was ruining me for any dinner I might eat now. Darn that man.
“You don’t get to ruin linner, Ian Jerkface,” I informed the kitchen before calling to place an order for takeout from Caps. Maybe I should stop and get a dog or cat while I was in town too, so I could at least pretend I was talking to another living soul instead of myself.
Maybe a cat? I’d never had an animal growing up. I wasn’t even sure which type of animal person I was. For all I knew, I might be a secret hamster lover. “Maybe I should start with a fish?” I asked the kitchen. It didn’t answer.
I peeked through the front window again. The BMW still sat in Miss Lily’s driveway, but I wasn’t going to hide inside just because I didn’t want to deal with her devil-spawned grandson.
Keys in hand, I marched out to my car but saw no one, and it was a relief to back out of the driveway without having to tell anyone to go away.
When I picked up my dinner from the restaurant and set it on the front seat of my car, the late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windshield. My soul rebelled at the idea of eating it alone in my poorly lit kitchen.
Pendant lights, I decided. The kind that lit everything but washed it in a soft, warm glow that spoke to the kitchen as the soul of a home. I’d have to ask Grace for a good electrician and spend some time with lighting catalogs, but the thought excited me. Replacing Uncle Fred’s outdated dome fixture would be one more way of making his house my home.
But for right now, I wanted to enjoy the outdoor time I’d missed in the garden with Miss Lily. I thought for a minute before putting my little SUV in gear and heading for Folly Creek. There was an informal park beside it, a few picnic tables on a small open patch of bank that locals had set out years before.
I parked and settled myself at the table nearest the babbling water then I tucked into the meal I should have had last night. As with everything else, Miss Lily had been right about the stuffed mushrooms. Well, everything but her grandson, Detective Disrespectful.
There were few things truly delicious food didn’t make right, I decided as I finished up the last bit of risotto. I was gathering up the trash to bring home and toss when the alert went off on my doorbell app, making my stomach flip. I had no doubt who was on my doorstep.
I opened it to find Ian on the porch, Miss Lily next to him. He held a hand-drawn sign that read, “I’m really sorry. I hope you like the flowers,” while Miss Lily waved cheerfully.
Then when I didn’t say anything, Ian looked down at his grandmother and shrugged. She only answered him with a smile and a pat on his arm before leading him from the porch and out of sight.
What was that about? I squinted at the app but couldn’t see any flowers. Puzzled, I drove home, curious against my better instincts to figure out what Ian’s note had meant. Had he left me a vase of flowers?
But no. I was wrong. Very wrong, I saw as I pulled into the driveway. Four large planters fired with a beautiful blue glaze now lined my front walk. I recognized them as the expensive showpieces from Grace’s garden section. Each burst with dahlias, zinnias, and begonias. It was a dazzling display.
I hurried to the front door and found a card tucked inside the frame.
Hi, Brooke.
I’m sorry. I guess it’s a job hazard for me to see fraud where there is none. I spoke with Ellen Brown. You’re the real deal. It should have been enough for Gran to vouch for you, but I’m very protective of her. I’m sorry I dug into your past. It was none of my business.
I asked Gran what I could do to make it up to you. She said you’ve been too busy with school to put in the flowers you wanted so you were waiting until next year, and she suggested I do it instead. I planted them in these tubs so I can take them away next weekend if you don’t want them. I thought it was safer than digging up your yard and putting them in.
When I asked Gran what your favorite flowers were, she said I should guess based on what I know of you. So this is my best guess. If I’m wrong—and why would I be right at this point?—I will happily replace them with different flowers next week.
With sincere regret,
Ian
I stared out at the flowers again, then walked back down the path, stopping to study each ceramic tub. The flowers were perfectly spaced and arranged with a good eye for color, all except the zinnias which were a riot of color as zinnias should always be. I wondered if Miss Lily had tutored him in all of this. I could sense her fine eye in their display.
But if he had also chosen the types of flowers himself, he’d succeeded in picking all my summer favorites. It must have taken him several hours. The intensity of the project was exactly why I’d put off doing it myself until next year.
I reached the end of the walk and turned to study the effect. It was lovely. All four pots lined one side of the walk, and while I would have staggered them with two on either side, other than that, they immediately brightened the yard and made it more inviting.
Ian’s car was still parked in Miss Lily’s driveway. I considered for a split second going over to say thank you, but the stress of his accusations was still too fresh. I’d endured much of the day with that acidic feeling in my stomach that had characterized my final month in the senator’s office, and I wasn’t ready to deal with the man who’d brought that back after two years.
But Ian had meant his apology. Even if Miss Lily had pressured him into making it—I sensed he wasn’t used to being wrong—I could also sense his sincerity, and DC had taught me to value sin
cerity above everything.
I wandered back up the path and let myself into the house. I would forgive Ian. No question. I just needed time.
Chapter Thirteen
Ian
By Sunday morning, there still wasn’t a peep out of Brooke. She hadn’t texted or come over to Gran’s. But she also hadn’t smashed her new planters or pulled out the flowers, so maybe that was something?
I didn’t want her to feel like she had to hide in her house all day again because of me, so after breakfast on Sunday morning, I packed my bag, dropped a kiss on Gran’s head with a promise to return soon, and drove back to DC.
The whole way I hoped Gran had been able to talk Brooke back out to the garden.
Brooke was still on my mind Monday morning when I sat in on the partner meeting while they discussed strategy on a huge case we’d taken on for a chemical company in trouble for pollution violations. We’d be representing them in the negotiations while working with a lobbying firm to fast-track a Senate bill that would decrease the penalties for their type of pollution, thus lowering their financial exposure in a settlement.
These were the kinds of tactics that often annoyed me about the firm. I preferred to do the work of exposing corrupt politicians and lobbyists, not digging up more ammunition to arm their cause. But that was politics. Everyone spent time on both sides of the ball. It was how things worked.
Except for Brooke, maybe. If Ellen Brown was to be believed—and I did believe her—Brooke was a purist in a sea of cynics. According to Ellen, Brooke had been too good for this world. My world. The world of backroom deals between major players. A world where the fates of entire industries were decided over long, boozy lunches so long as everyone got their back scratched.
On Tuesday, I woke up and reached for my phone, hoping there was a text from Brooke acknowledging my apology and maybe even forgiving me. There wasn’t.
Wednesday, I wondered about her again as I returned to the arboretum for another meeting between the VP and the lobbyist. This time I wore a ball cap and flip-flops as I strolled past them to drop an “empty” soda cup in the trash next to them. It contained a mic so I could pick up their conversation. The quality wouldn’t be great, but it would be enough to confirm or refute my suspicions.
Kiss Me Now: A Romantic Comedy Page 9