But I can’t hand them over. Rhys isn’t prepared. His home isn’t ready. I need to fix that.
My laptop fired up, my fingers fly across the keyboard, clicking into Amazon. Letting my impulses do their thing, I fill my cart with a countertop plant stand and a set of blue and white pots that match mine. Because, of course, they should match mine.
I’ll make it look orderly, beautiful, symmetrical.
“This is perfect,” I tell Little Basil, who sprouted nicely.
‘I don’t like this,’Daddy Basil complains.
“He’ll have friends. I’ll bring you over there to visit.”
‘Do we know if he even likes plants?’
I stop and consider that. “Rhys is my boyfriend, and we have a lot in common. So, of course, he’ll like them. I bet he’ll even love them.”
The way he loves his guns. But I don’t voice that. Basil won’t understand.
Order placed, I gasp at the delivery date.
Two days.
Okay, okay, I can do this.
“Little Basil will need friends until Cory is ready,” I whisper. “I’ll fill those pots with love from my garden.”
Tugging on my gloves, I sigh at the pleasant rubber snug against my fingers. The smell of soil clings to them and makes me so damn happy.
I stroke Basil to calm him the way he calms me. One leaf, then again. And again. Three times, always three.
I am expanding our family. Rhys will be happy. That’s my job as his girlfriend. To make him happy.
Chapter 6
Rhys
The first potted plant shows up in late August.
Returning from another annoying night of staking out Ares’s club for a man he wants me to kill, who once again didn’t show up, I’m ready to drop from exhaustion when I see something green sitting dead center on my doormat like a dare.
Daring me to care about it.
I’ve had to steel my heart to any kind of feelings to do this job. Yet, the lass next door has gotten under my skin.
Now this…
A squat blue and white ceramic pot waits on the counter, soil dark and damp, three sprigs jutting from the center, smelling of pine and something sharp. Like menthol. Reminding me I hadn’t had a cigarette in months.
Watching Raina suffer from an asthma attack launched Connor into cold turkey mode, and I quit alongside him in solidarity. And respect for his wife.
There’s a note tucked under the plant’s base. Written in square block letters, it’s neat enough to pass military inspection.
Meet Rosemary. She sharpens the memory. Don’t forget to water her.
Love, Fallon
I stand in front of my door, keys in hand, like an idiot for a full thirty seconds, scanning the immediate area for flaming red hair and to catch a whiff of that earthy scent of hers.
Nothing.
