That’s a shame. I know she loves plants. She filled her classroom, biology lab, and even her office with plants and displayed dead bugs with precision and elegance. There were owls and birds and a bobcat scattered throughout, and I was never sure if they were taxidermied or fake.
Maybe I could give her some space over here for a sizable garden. I’m certainly not using most of my property, and there’s a great big open area between our houses she could have. This area must have been a garden at one point because there’s an empty gardening shed not ten yards away. There’s a slight hill, but we could work around that.
Ginger and I stray dangerously close to her house when she pulls her old Subaru into the driveway. A smile stretches across my face when I catch Delta in the backseat with her hands plastered to the window. I can hear her squealing from all the way over here. I’m not sure if she’s howling for me, the horse, or the dog, but I enjoy being mixed into consideration.
Renée catches my eye and rolls hers before parking.
“Mommy, can we pet the animals?” Delta chirps as soon as her feet hit the ground.
“Yes, but not Jonah.”
Lo catches up with her sister as I dismount. “Well, howdy girls!”
Rugger takes a seat and accepts his fate before Delta’s hands are all over him. “Where’s your cowboy hat?” she asks.
“I don’t have one.”
“But you were riding a horse. You need a cowboy hat if you’re riding a horse.”
Renée saunters toward us and picks Lo up so she can reach more than just Ginger’s legs.
“I suppose I should get a cowboy hat then,” I say. “What do you think, Professor Wilde?”
She sighs. “Just call me Renée.”
My heart skitters at the gigantic door she’s flung open for me.I can call her by her first name? To her face?!
I fight back the strongest grin with valiant effort. “Would you like to see me in a cowboy hat, Renée?”
There is no reply, just a flat look.
That’s not a no.
Lo silently gestures to be lifted into the saddle, and her mother asks, “Can she sit up here?”
“Of course! She won’t go anywhere.”
As the youngest Wilde fixes herself atop my horse, a wave of happiness crashes into me. This is the first time Renée hasn’t fled my presence, so I take it as a sign to shoot my shot.
I clear my throat and nod toward her backyard. “I noticed your garden over there. It’s nice.”
“It’s small,” she sighs, stroking Ginger’s rump without a look back to her yard.
“But it’s really nice.”
She flashes me a look of indignation as her only reply.
“Would you like a bigger garden?”
She lifts a nonchalant shoulder. “Of course.”
“I could give you this space right here,” I gesture around us.
She furrows her red eyebrows. “This is your property.”
“I’m not using it. You could plant whatever you want here.”
A long pause stretches out as she studies me. “Why are you offering this?”
