“Because I like you.”
“Take someone younger, someone your own age.”
“No.”
She lets out an exasperated huff. How do I sweeten this for her? I’ve gotta lock her in.
“There will be great music, dancing, a plated dinner, and champagne. Oh, by the way, my brother is marrying two people. I should probably mention that.”
Her eyebrows raise up because, yeah, I get it. How often do you get to attend the wedding of a throuple?
She crosses her arms. “And it’s local?”
“Yes!” I suddenly remember where the wedding will be and know this will be the thing that will lock her in. “You’re going to love the venue. It’s at the Fairmount Park Horticulture Center.”
Her eyes go wide. “I’ve never been there for a wedding. Oh, it’s so beautiful,” she says, her voice a mix of wistfulness and hesitation.
“So you’ll come with me?”
“If you can promise me there will be nothing moreafterthe reception,” she breathes, and I catch her meaning. “We will leave the venue and come right back to our respective homes.”
I place my hand over my heart. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I lie.
She looks like she barely believes me, but when she sighs, I know I’ve got her. “Fine.”
I take her reluctant, defeated acceptance and bathe in it. Mark my word: I’m gonna wear her down to her panties soon enough.
She plucks her phone from her purse. “When is it?”
“Oh, um... I don’t remember. I’ll text you about it.”
“You’ll tell me right now.”
I wanted to have an excuse to text her, but her eyes tell me to obey and—whoa Nelly—do I want to. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I nod. “Yes, ma’am. Wedding is at 3:00 p.m.”
After taking a few moments to type, she tucks her phone back in her purse. “I’ll see you then,” she says curtly. “C’mon, girls.” She lifts Lo from the saddle, and Rugger gets up from his lounging position to make sure Lo is safely put down. “We have to put the groceries away.”
“Bye, Jonah!” Delta hollers, before running back to their car and opening the hatch.
“Bye!”
Lo takes her mom’s hand and waves to me with the other as they walk away, too.
Rugger rubs his head against my thigh like some kind of post-game handshake, and I lift all one hundred eighty pounds of him into my arms. “We got her!” I whisper. “We got her, boy! C’mon, let’s go.” He leaps from my arms and runs toward the barn with Ginger and me trailing behind him.
Time to call a landscaper, because I’m about to have the most beautiful garden in the state of Pennsylvania.
Chapter 10
Planting Seeds
Renée
He had ten garden beds installed. Big ones. I stood there stunned, watching the landscaping crew tear out everything that used to be there. Then, one by one, they built ten large raised beds in a neat five-by-two grid. Despite being set into a hill, every single bed was perfectly level.
Oh, but it didn’t stop there. The next morning, the crew arrived again and put up a beautiful fence around the entire garden—tall enough to keep the deer out. Then came the dump truck, rumbling up the drive, and it unloaded a mountain of pea gravel. They spread it carefully between the beds, raked it smooth until it looked like something out of a magazine.
The whole thing looks like Martha Stewart herself designed it.
