ZOE
Sunday, March 23rd
By the time they made it back to the farmhouse, her ankle was throbbing. She could feel the pulse of it all the way into her toes, and she knew it was swollen by how tight her boot felt. She tried to play it off, act like it wasn’t that bad, but the moment Jackson helped her down from Xavier and she hissed in pain, he was scooping her up again and driving her straight home.
Mrs. Humphrey was out in front of the Cherry Crush Flower Shop walking her schnauzer in between the afternoon rain showers, leash in one hand, a takeaway cup in the other. She stopped dead at the sight of them, eyes twinkling as Jackson scooped Zoe up in his arms again.
“Well, isn’t that the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen?”
“Evening, Mrs. H.,” Jackson said with a nod as he navigated the puddles while carrying Zoe around the back of her shop.
Mrs. Humphrey clasped her hands to her chest. “Oh, to be young and in love.” She sighed dramatically as they disappeared.
Zoe fished her keys from the bottom of her canvas tote—no easy task when her arms were full of Jackson’s neck.
The back of the Cherry Crush Flower Shop was quiet at this time of day, the air rich with the scent of damp earth, rain, and fresh-cut blooms. Terracotta pots were lined up by the back door, their rims beaded with rain. Beyond the shop, the ground sloped toward a stretch of green where wildflowers grew between the stones of the walkway. Maple trees arched overhead, dripping with rain, their leaves whispering in the breeze, and farther still, the lake shimmered faintly through the mist, silver and still beneath the darkening sky.
Jackson held her with one arm and used the other to unlock the shop door before carrying her through to the back and up the narrow stairs.
“I can probably hop up the stairs.” Zoe tried to wiggle for Jackson to set her down.
“I’ve carried you this far—let me see it through,” Jackson insisted, tightening his grip.
“Since when did you get so bossy?”
“Since you got hurt.”
Inside, Whiskers began meowing the second the keys jingled.
“I’m late for her afternoon snack,” Zoe explained as they entered her apartment.
“I swear this cat is always hungry. How many times a day does she eat?”
Zoe frowned. “Honestly? No idea. But it’s not like I give her a full scoop every time. Just a few kibbles, maybe a piece of cheese. She’s content for…five, ten minutes.”
Whiskers’s meows turned mournful at the delay, as if to prove her point.
Jackson carried Zoe through the door and into the kitchen, careful not to bump her ankle or trip over the florist buckets she’d stacked in the entryway. He could only navigate one way to the living room, seeing as a drying rack stacked with pressed blooms blocked off one side of the island. The rest of the kitchenwas just as cluttered, with a tea pot filled with paint brushes on the counter and Mason jars, ribbons, and wedding magazines spread out on the kitchen table. Somehow, it all smelled like lavender and sugar cookies.
“What else do you need?” Jackson asked, after making the trek to the couch and setting her down gently. He scanned the room for her phone, the remote, anything that might make her comfortable.
“Can you hand me my tote, please? I want to get the Moonlight Kiss cuttings into water.”
“Okay, I can do that,” Jackson said, looking around the kitchen for an open vase.
“Under the kitchen sink,” Zoe said as if reading his mind.
Whiskers jumped up on the back of the couch, padding curiously along until she reached Zoe, sniffing her like she was inspecting the damage herself.
Zoe scratched behind the cat’s ears. “It’s okay, I just took a tumble.”
“Cat food?” Jackson called from the kitchen once he’d found the vase.
That was Whiskers’s cue to abandon Zoe entirely, meowing as she trotted toward the pantry.
“There’s a container on the floor just inside. Scoop’s in it.”
Jackson obliged, and Whiskers wasted no time diving in.
