“And the flowers?” she asks. Her thin auburn brow tilts upward. There’s a hint of humor in her face, almost as if she’s teasing me.
“Purely for show.” I sweep an elaborate gesture in front of me. “It’s just to get a rough idea.”
“Well, there are a few ideas I could at least get you started with,” she says and makes her way down one of the aisles. I follow behind her, trying not to notice how the drawstring on the lower back of her apron draws the eyes downward. “Depending on the type of community you’re building for, you may have a lot of working families. Which means the less maintenance the better.”
She stops before a small partition and reaches for a packet of seeds. “If you want to start a family off with a vegetable garden, leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, are going to be the best ones to start off with. You can do peppers or green beans, but then you start getting into things like trellises and fertilizer. It just depends on what you want.”
What I want. A dangerous thought to linger over.
I open my mouth to speak, but she takes back off down the aisle. “If you want flowers, you have to be careful about what we plant here in California. The heat, you know?”
She bends down before a bundle of delicate pink flowers. The color illuminates the lovely undertones in her cheeks, and I have to remind myself to breathe.
Damn, she’s beautiful.
Her fiery red hair tumbles down her back in soft waves. Like bands of fire streaming across the midnight blue of her sweater. She has it up in some messy ponytail configuration that starts at the base of her crown. I follow the length of it, trying to imagine where it actually falls when it’s down, what it might look like splayed across the pillows in my bed.
I fight back a groan. This is torture, being so close to her.
“Do you have any preferences?” she asks, rising up from the bundle of flowers that started all of this.
I shake my head.
My throat is suddenly too dry to form words. She flitters from flower to flower like some high-energy hummingbird, stopping periodically to tell me some obscure history about each one and the best reasons to plant them. I’m once again overcome by her sense of passion. Clearly, her love of community is not the only thing she cherishes, and I have an incessant desire to understand why.
“How do you know all this stuff?” I ask.
Her smile drops, and the light in her soft blue eyes dim to a dying glow. I’m almost sorry I asked.
She peers up at the large flower bush behind her. Gardenias, like the ones my mother plants. The softness in her features returns when she looks at them, a semblance of pure innocence and admiration that touches my soul.
“My father,” she says finally. “He loved gardening. It was always something we did together.”
Her fingertips caress the petals, cupping one large white flower in her palms. “It reminds me of him.”
Don’t ask.
I tell myself. This isn’t the conversation of acquaintances. But every instinct urges me to reach for her, to soothe the shadow of sadness wriggling beneath the surface. I can’t sit here and just watch her. I can’t pretend to be unmoved by the raw emotions she’s displaying for me now, and then casually move onto the next patch of flowers. My feet take a step toward her. My hands pin themselves to my sides.
“What happened?” I hear the question cross my lips. At least I’m not touching her.
She hesitates. Though her smile quickly returns, every sentence is choked on a shaky breath. “He died. Six years ago. Of cancer.”
Again, there comes that ache. Telling me to comfort her with every last shred of compassion I have. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok.” She shakes her head, waving off the flood of emotions warming her cheeks. “It’s been six years, so...I’m used to it by now.”
I know better. I’ve done enough counseling for teenagers and adults alike to know it never gets better. Not when you lose a parent that young.
“So.” She perks up. “About those flowers. I have one last section to show you, and you can make your selection based on that.”
I smile. Business as usual, I suppose. She’s a tough little nut, I’ll give her that.
She continues her spiel about the best flowers for the various conditions, leading me down an aisle with yard equipment. We cross by a section of rakes and carelessly placed stepping stones when she loses her footing.
Instinctively, I catch her arm, yanking her back before she can collide with the stone floor beneath our feet. She slams into my chest, the force of her body against mine propelling the air from my lungs. I’m not entirely sure what just happened. All I know is the woman I have been fantasizing about for the last three days is suddenly in my arms. And she is giving no indication of wanting me to let her go.
Instead, she presses her forehead against my chest. Her slim fingers form fists around my shirt as she tugs me closer. I lean against the large shelving unit behind us, propping myself up with one hand and holding her to me with the other.