I chuckled. Wade’s terror of raccoons was pretty hilarious, given how nonplussed he was about so many other things.
We were all quiet for a moment before East glanced toward the stairs. “Did your daughter like her new bedroom? How’s she handling things?”
Frowning, I thought about the answer and how to explain it. “She and her mother had a complicated relationship, even at their best. Opal misses her nanny more than she misses Catherine. She’s relieved, which is a kick in the pants. I should have done all of this sooner, but she’s doing good. She misses her school, but she’s already talking about starting somewhere new. Opal is…” I paused, trying to find the right words to describe my daughter. “The best.”
“It’s normal for her to be nervous about starting a new school,” Wade offered.
“But she’s not. She’s excited about it even as she’s missing what she lost; she’s embracing what she’ll find. You’ll meet her and understand what I mean. Today she wanted to know if Catherine would ever come here.” The question had caught me a little off guard, even though I should have known Opal would wonder. It was natural for kids to want to know things when their whole world was changing. “She hadn’t been upset that her mother was leaving, just curious.”
“And what’d you tell her?” Kipp asked.
“I told her that she might. I’m not going to make Catherine the villain. That’s not going to be the parent I’m going to play. She’ll always be Opal’s mother. Biologically anyway. That won’t change. I don’t think Opal wants her to come, though.”
Kipp’s jaw flexed. “She kind of is the villain. She did cheat on you. And she won’t be a mother.” The words were venomous.
I understood, though, because for Kipp at least, that was an egregious sin. His own childhood experiences before the Holts had been traumatic. Talking about being unwanted was a trigger.
I met his eyes. “Opal doesn’t need to carry that load, andIwant her.”
East nodded slowly. “That’s fair. You’re a bigger man than Kipp, giving Catherine an out.” Kipp shot him a dark look while we all laughed awkwardly and changed the subject. “Literally.”
The Holts were cool that way, with their banter and camaraderie. It was like the military in a sense—a real family vibe. That was part of why I came. A small town, a sense of family for Opal, and somewhere steady. Somewhere that wasn’t convenient for Catherine to just pop by. Not that she’d do it to see her daughter, but she’d sure come by to ask for cash or to say something cutting that would eat at me for days. She’d never turned her words on Opal, but that was only a matter of time with a woman like her, and I wasn’t going to put Opal in those situations. I was going to keep that woman away from us.
The porch light flickered once outside, briefly catching my eye on the dark outline of the greenhouses in the distance. Even in shadow, I could see their jagged rooflines and how the glass reflected faint light from the house.
“Your sister is something. You know she barged up here today all mad about those greenhouses.”
“Sage? Yeah, she’s always loved this place.” East snorted. “Anything with plants and dirt.”
“She offered Opal a plant,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Of course she did,” Kipp replied. “Sage probably has a fern with your kid’s name on it already.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said.
Wade arched a brow. “You worried about plant-related espionage?”
“I don’t want Opal getting attached to something that might not survive,” I answered, more sharply than intended.
East’s expression softened. “That’s life, man. Sometimes shit just gets attached. You can’t help how it gets tangled up.” He slapped my shoulder. “Loosen up.”
Sage
This morning, I’d spent time double-checking moisture levels on our sale plants and rotating transplants. Wild Bloom was part florist, part plant shop. When I was little, I loved plants more than anything, but it was hard to just sell those. It was the flowers that drove my customer base most of the time, although the craft side of my business did really well.
I was still a little thrown by the arrangement that had been left, so today I was doing a little extra fussing with the stock. There was just this tingling at the back of my spine that weirded me out and made me wonder if Cedric had forgotten about it or if we had a vendor in the shop. Neither option seemed plausible, but both were better than the alternative.
What I should do is talk to Wade, but that didn’t hold much appeal. My brothers would lecture me, and I wasn’t eager to hear it.
The bell over the door gave a cheerful jingle, and I had just enough time to shove my hands deeper into the pockets of my apron before my sister Delphina breezed in with a paperbox tucked against her hip and flour dusting the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
Phiny kicked the door shut with the heel of her tennis shoe and blew out a breath. “Lila sold out of lemon scones before nine, but I managed to snag a couple.” She lifted the box and waggled it. “I had to fight Lila for them.”
“I doubt that very much,” I said, tugging a strand of red hair from my mouth as the fan kicked on and sent a warm gust through the shop.
My shop was less boutique and more organized chaos. Old thrifted bottles lined the shelves above the counter, some that I’d hunted for specifically for their colored glass. Pressed flowers were framed and hung in clusters on the wall near the register, petals flattened between the pages of my press before being carefully mounted with a strip of washi tape. Those seemed to sell super well, so I kept making them. There were baskets of dried lavender, crocks filled with wooden-handled shears, and a ladder on wheels that groaned whenever I climbed it in my rubber boots.
“You moved the monstera,” she said.
