1
ORIGAMI MAN
RIPLEY
“You can’t just leave after dropping news like that on me.”
Seriously. My sister can’t take off yet. Not when I need to make the list of all lists. Hands parked on hips, I stare, slack-jawed, as she zips up her peach suitcase, the color matching her personality.
“You’ve got this, Ripley,” she says breezily as she springs up from the plush carpet, pops the handle of the suitcase some luggage company gave her, and nods to the door, a sign she’s heading off to catch her flight.
I briefly consider flinging myself against the hotel room door and forcing her to stay in this suite till we’ve covered every single detail of the things I’ll have to do in less than thirty days, but when my sister wants something, not even a human shield can stop her.
“But there’s not enough time. Can’t we have more time?” I ask since I’m still flabbergasted at the impossible assignment she wants me to make possible, and I need to process my flabbergast with her.
“Who else but you can take care of things this quickly?” Haven says.
“Quickly?” I know time isn’t Haven’s favorite thing, butquicklyis the mother of all euphemisms. She’s asking me to hustle at the speed of a time-lapse video. “I have to get our farm ready to host a film crew in one month? I’m good at doing all the things. Very good, mind you. But I am notthatgood.”
She stops on the way to the door of the suite she’d booked for this sisters’ getaway weekend and gives me adon’t be ridiculouslook. “Yes, you are. This is what you do. All this”—she waves a hand—“kind of stuff.”
“This kind of stuff?” I flick through the memories of, oh, say, my entire life, but nope, not once did I fix up our small-town lavender farm in twenty-eight days for the benefit of a Hollywood film company.
Haven gives me one of those magic smiles that’s impossible to look away from. A smile I can’t even try to mimic when she begs me at get-togethers to do my impression of her—the sweet sister.“You know what I mean,” she says. “Like how you drove me to the audition for that perfume commercial when my car broke down.”
“I didn’t fix your car,” I grumble, remembering that wild day when she said she was so stressed about being late that she was going to pee her pants but at the same time was so excited that she was also going to pee her pants.
Spoiler alert: she did not pee her pants.
But she did get the gig.
She drops her suitcase handle and reaches for my hands. “Youfixedme. I wouldn’t be here without you.” She holds my gaze for a weighty beat, and we’re not talking about the car anymore.
Darker memories flash in my mind, and I blink them back. There’s no time for those today—not when I have a farm to whip into shape. The film financing forSomeone Else’s Ring—a project she’d been waiting to get the green light on—has officially been finalized. Seems our little farm, more than an hour from the big city, is going to be her co-star, so to speak, as long as I can get her into shape.
“You’re leaving me when I need to figure out this whole thing.”
She squeezes me harder. “You’ll make money onthis whole thing, I’m sure. It’ll be exactly what Lavender Bliss Farms needs to show off its rustic charm,” she says, grabbing the handle of her suitcase with a certain finality.
“Oh. It’s definitely rustic. So rustic that I’ll get sued for everything I’m worth if a cameraman’s foot goes through a rotten board.”
“They have, you know, insurance and stuff.”
“Insurance doesn’t prevent you from getting sued. It pays for—” There’s no point in explaining damages. Haven doesn’t need to worry about behind-the-scenes details of running a family flower farm that needs a fork-ton of work.
“It pays for dreams,” Haven says, eyes wide and imploring. “And you know this is a dream come true.”
My hardened heart softens, like it always does for her. “I know. And of course I’ll do it.” We both know I was always going to say yes the second the financing came through. In this case, about, you know, ten minutes ago.
Haven had been biting her nails for weeks, waiting for word on this film, her first big starring role.Someone Else’s Ring, based on the runaway bestseller of the same name, just so happens to be set in a small town, so her agent had pitched the producers on shooting some key scenes on my lavender farm. My little, desperately-in-need-of-a-new-coat-of-paint lavender farm.
But I’ll make it happen. That’s what I do. “Like I can turn you down.”
“Yay! I told my agent a few minutes ago not to worry since you’re the best older sister in the world.”
“I’m hardly older,” I point out, but we both know I might as well be five years older instead of the five minutes that separate us.
“Details,” she says with the brightest smile.
