Arthur’s eyebrows shot up.
“Dad used to hike here every summer to collect a rare blue flower he dried into tea,” Eva went on, desperate to lay her theory out so he could see all the pieces. “He hasn’t been since the… accident.”
“A blue flower?” Arthur murmured. “Like the tea blend Lenny had back at the cottage?”
Eva’s thoughts slammed to a halt. “What?”
Arthur’s gaze jumped to hers. “I found him in the kitchen with one of your jars.”
The words brought an instant wash of unease. Eva hadn’t known anything about that.
“Sorry,” Arthur said when the silence between them went on a beat too long.
“It’s fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. Eva hated that Lenny Walker still had the power to catch her off-guard in the worst of ways. She hated that he’d come into her home and rifled through her family’s things. She hated that she was finding out only now, with Arthur glancing worriedly over at her as he drove.
Eva plucked the envelope she’d brought to the holding cellfrom her pocket and unfolded it, trying to pull his attention off her face. “I never knew what those flowers were called, before this letter.”
To her relief, Arthur let her guide them back to the topic at hand. “Oh?”
Eva nodded, transported for a moment to her kitchen as her father’s words unraveled inside her again.I named it after her, you know.She bit her lip. It felt like giving away a piece of her father she’d only just found, and wanted to keep for herself.
But the secret wasn’t hers alone to inherit.
“He called them Little Lotties,” Eva said.
Arthur sucked in a breath, surprised. “For my mom?”
“Yeah.”
Her father had kept the details of his friendship with Charlotte Connoway largely to himself, and before now, Eva hadn’t cared. She bore no love for the woman who’d made Arthur feel so disposable.
“He wrote that the flowers there have healing properties. That’s why he hoards the tea,” Eva went on. She twisted a loose thread at the waist of her overalls around her little finger, pulling it taut. “What you said, before, about the honey? About it helping him…” Eva trailed off, feeling suddenly foolish.
This was just superstitious folklore.
But it was also the only shot she had.
“You think the honey I saw him eat that night came from those fields?” Arthur guessed.
Eva nodded. “He’s never planted those flowers at the cottage. He must have established a hive up there.” The pain the sapling caused could have prevented him from making the trip again, cutting off his access to the healing honey.
The possibility made something in Eva’s chest go tight. How much of Dad’s pain had he buried over the years? How much better might it have been if he’d had this honey all along, if he’d trusted her to help him? She wasn’t fragile! She could handle knowing he was in pain, even if she was the reason—
Stop.
Eva corked the thought before it could play out. She’d show him just how strong she could be.
“I’m going to the meadow he wrote about,” she said in determination. “And I’m going to bring more honey back.”
She expected Arthur to scoff or to laugh at her. Instead, he fell silent. A storm had gathered overhead, heavy dark clouds lower in the night sky now. At the first drop of rain, Arthur leaned over, popping open the glove box between her knees. He fished out a honey stick and stuck it in his teeth, then handed her another. “Want one?”
“You just have these on hand?”
A flush peeked from beneath the collar at his neck. “Just take it. I know you get snacky.”
In minutes, the sky unzipped, raindrops pelting the windshield. They drove slowly through the pounding storm. Soon the road changed to a rough and unpaved surface, making Eva’s already too-full bladder more unbearable. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, Arthur pulled off to the side of the road. Eva dashed into the trees to relieve herself, and by the time she returned, her clothes were utterly soaked.
