“You’re not going to tell me where we’re going?” Aiden asks, frowning and tugging at the silk tie wrapped around his eyes.
“You do this to me all the time, Aiden, so don’t pretend to be upset.”
Yasmine makes a gagging sound in the back of her throat. “Please, I really don’t want to know what kinky shit you two get up to. Catriona, I swear to God, I will leave you both on the side of the road. Putting up with your friends for dinner every Sunday is bad enough.”
I gasp, cheeks burning, and shoot her a glare from the driver’s seat. “Jesus, that’s not what I meant. I just mean he?—”
She holds up a hand. “Nope, no. I’m only here because I want to see him?—”
“Don’t ruin it!” I shriek.
“There go my eardrums,” Aiden says drolly.
“You’re fine,” I say and pat his shoulder. “Now be a good husband and don’t peek.”
“I’m the best husband. Anyone else would have bailed twenty minutes ago. One of you has been shrieking since we got into the car.”
“We have not,” we protest at the same time.
“My point exactly.”
“We’re here!” I singsong, trying to cover my nerves. He’s either going to love this or hate it. He’d never tell me to my face because he doesn’t like disappointing me, but I’d know.
I pull the tie away from Aiden’s eyes. He looks at me first, gaze flitting over me to check to see if I’m okay, then he peers at our surroundings through the windows. “We’re at City Park? That’s the big surprise? Darlin’, I would have come here with you any time. You didn’t have to kidnap me.”
“Nooo, we’re going somewhereinCity Park,” I announce, barely able to contain the mixture of nerves and excitement. Aiden seems dubious, but as always, he’s willing to follow me wherever I want to go. “And I didn’t kidnap you.”
Yasmine climbs out of the car. Her expression is guarded, but I know she’s just as excited as I am. Between moments at the hospital, she’s been here right alongside me. I tried to tell her not to waste her precious free moments, but when she learned what happened to us in Ireland, she threatened to move in with us to keep an eye on me. This little project has soothed both of our nerves.
“You can’t kidnap someone who's willing,” Yasmine mutters as she tosses her hair and winds a scarf around her neck.
I narrow my eyes at both of them as I scramble out of the car and tug at the neck of my peach turtleneck. “You two are both going to be demoted. Aiden, smile and get out of the car. I promise you’re going to love it.”
Aiden’s smile is more confused than anything, but I’m practically bouncing for joy. It’s been an exhausting, grueling week at my internship. Aiden hadn’t been lying when he said he could get me another—better—opportunity. Not that I asked how he accomplished it. The woman I’d been before him and my mother, one who fought tooth and nail for everything, would have turned it down when he offered it to me because I didn’t “earn it.” But a clerkship at the US Court of International Trade is an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.
I’m sure the fact that the connections I’ll make there will be lucrative to Aiden’s interests had nothing to do with his recommendation at all, I think wryly as we move through the pathways. Aiden is no longer tied to the Irish arm of the former Lynch Crime Family, but that may not always be the case. There may be a time when he chooses to go back, wrest back control from Niall, and when he does, I’ll do anything it takes to be there to support him. Part of me still doesn’t quite believe he’s given it up to stay here, to be with me.
The moment we got back from Ireland, this idea has been percolating in my brain. I didn’t waste any time reaching out to my mother’s various acquaintances in the charity circuit to find the right contacts. It didn’t take much convincing—or money, really—to be granted a space in the park for my purposes. Besides, Aiden is always telling me that his money is my money, and I knew this was something he’d want. After everything he’s done for me, I wanted to do something in return.
“Are you going to tell me what the surprise is now?” Aiden asks.
“It’s just up here, I think. Yes, here it is.” I find the placard and hold my hands together at my chest. My stomach is jumping like I’ve had several shots of espresso. I barely blink as I wait for him to read the plaque and put two and two together.
The patient, indulgent look on his face persists for a few minutes as he looks around, not really getting it. Studying the plaque, he mouths the words at the same time. Then his eyes bounce around the plants around him, seeing their little identification cards. The ones I remembered from his mother’s garden that I could cultivate here.
He spins to me, brushing a hand over his forehead. “What did…” He swallows hard. “Did you do this?”
“You haven’t really had time to mourn her, and you don’t have a place to visit her here. I know we had the funeral, and she has a gravestone in Ireland, but I thought it might help if you had something here to remember her by that you can visit. Mourn. I know it’s hard for you, not being in Ireland as much as possible. We’ll go as soon as you want. Whenever you want. But your memories with her are there, and I just thought?—”
He crosses the space between us in two long-legged strides. His hands thread through my hair, and he crushes his lips to mine in a deep, emotional kiss that has tears burning at the back of my eyes.
“You did this for her? These roses—they’re the same as the ones from her garden?”
I’m nodding, clearing my throat. “Yes, or as close as I could get. Not all of them, of course. And I spent quite a bit of your money to get everything perfect. The New Orleans Botanical Society has never been so thrilled.”
“I can’t believe you did this,” he says, his voice hoarse. Then he’s turning again, shoving his hands in his pockets, his shoulders lifting at the effort to breathe deeply enough to calm his emotions. He keeps his back to me as he walks through the aisles, stopping to read each little metal sign with the flower’s name and a brief description. They’re all roses. None of the poisonous plants she’d used to end her life. Only the ones that had brought her such joy when she’d described them.
Under each, it says,Donated by the family of Mary O’Connor.
