I hate that she died before she ever got to see her dream all the way through. But Annie made it happen for her. She still uses the same crop our mom planted and she named her shop after her: Charlotte’s Flowers.
A buzz hums under my skin as I get closer to the house because Ifinallyget to be part of this place.
From time to time I imagine standing in front of my parents and telling them life updates. Usually the news makes them frown. But this time they smile from ear to ear.
“Hello! Anyone home?” I shout, Sammy’s cage tucked under my arm as I make my way into the Huxleys’ house. Or no . . . it’s just James’s house now, I guess.
The scent knocks into me like a bear hug from your best friend.It’s a smell unique to this place and the Huxley family. Warm and earthy with sharp citrus undertones that mix perfectly with some of my favorite memories.
As I wheel my suitcase into the house, part of me expects to see Ruth round the corner, wiping her hands on her white ruffled apron. But she and Martin live in Florida now, in a sixty-and-up retirement community. Which is why the Huxley house now belongs solely to James. A concept that’s still strange to me.
In high school, I would come over here from time to time with Noah, but he and James would run off to do something out on the farm, and I would sit at the island, watching Ruth work around the kitchen. She was one of those hospitable ladies who would, when she heard someone walk through her front door, fly off to the kitchen to whip up a cake. Or brownies. Or a meal if you hadn’t eaten yet. You never left her house hungry—and now that I think of it, she’s part of the reason I fell in love with cooking.
The thing about Ruth, though—her hospitality didn’t stop in the kitchen. It extended to making the coziest atmosphere you could imagine. The Huxley house was where you wanted to spend your days because not only did Ruth and Martin love each other, but they saw the best in everyone who walked through their door. And they knew how to laugh. Sitting around their table was never a polite experience. It was a lesson in cackling. It isn’t hard to see why they were my parents’ best friends. And because of that friendship, they always kept us Walker kids close.
That’s why I couldn’t refuse James’s offer to run his restaurant. To live on this farm and be part of the magic I always wanted to live inside.
No one answers when I call out, but that won’t stop me from making myself at home anyway.
This place is a farmhouse through and through. It has a grand entryway that leads to a big kitchen and a living room. A fullwraparound porch, visible from every window. And the bedrooms are all upstairs.
It’s the kind of space that demands for you to kick off your shoes, curl up on the fluffy couch, and spill your deepest, darkest secrets.
“James? Tommy?” I yell out one more time but still don’t get a reply. No signs of life in the living room either.
Oh, the living room. James’s mom left almost all of her previous decor because they moved into a fully furnished retirement home in Florida. And selfishly, I’m glad James kept everything mostly the same after they left, because these are not your average dusty and crusty old furnishings. Picture the female main character’s home in the best Nora Ephron or Nancy Meyers film and then you almost have something as lovely as this place.
After setting Sammy on the kitchen counter and telling him to behave, I go upstairs to see if I can find James. The incredible scent that blankets the house intensifies with each ascending stair, and just as I crest the top of the landing and peek into James’s room, I see why.
His bathroom door opens, releasing a billow of steam, and James walks out in nothing but a white towel. Water droplets cling to his skin, and his hip bones seem to hold the towel up with passive indifference.
I am not shy about the human body—a fact that is more than evident in this moment as I openly stare at James—but as I watch him a hot flush creeps up my neck. Because here’s the thing: Real-life farmers do not live perpetually half-naked like the ones portrayed in movies. They do not bale hay with their shirts off, till crops with glistening sweat beading down their bare backs, or shower off under the hose while giving the horse a bath. Which means I’ve had little opportunity to see James’s unclothed body.
He’s tall with suntanned forearms and crowbar collarbones.His shoulders are thick with muscle and the rest of him . . . yeah, also a muscular masterpiece. There’s proof in fifteen different places that he has a physical job, one he’s been doing most of his life.
Luckily, he hasn’t seen me ogling him, so I quickly duck back down the stairs and take a seat at the dinner table, positioned in the open space between the kitchen and living room, like I’ve been sitting here all along.
I open my bag and pull out my laptop so I can stare at it, but all I can see is James’s body.
What the hell is wrong with me? It’s just James—the responsible town golden boy who has always looked at me like I might strip naked and dance on the bar, embarrassing him to death at any moment. (Which maybe is a fair judgment.)
Point is, he’s as far from my type as a man can be. So why am I flushed from head to toe thinking of him in that towel?
“Oh, hey.” Tommy’s voice makes me jump as he comes in through the side door from the porch. “When did you get here?”
“A few minutes ago,” I say in a rush. “But I’ve been right here the whole time. Reading emails.” I umbrella all ten fingers over the keyboard. “Right here.”
He laughs, and I think there’s something in my tone or the fact that I keep mentioning my location that’s tipping him off. He rounds the table to inspect my laptop, and that’s when we both register the blank, dark screen.
I smile up at him. “It died.”
Tommy plants his hand on the back of my chair, then leans over me to touch a key. My little traitor of a laptop winks to full battery life.
“Hmm. Interesting lie.”
James chooses this moment to walk into the room, hair still damp from his shower that I would like to forget he had beentaking. He pauses briefly when he sees me at the table, and his eyes slide to where Tommy is hovering over me in what I’m sure looks like a suggestive position. I get the urge to shove Tommy’s shoulders and catapult him across the room so James knows I’m not flirting with him. But that’s ridiculous. Who cares what James thinks?Not me.
“That’s strange,” says James, looking away from me. “I’m not used to seeing my kitchen clean after finding you unattended in it.”
