“Cyrus?” I called, my voice breaking. But there was no answer.
The brambles crunched under my tennis shoes as I picked my way through the garden. Where the willow once was, there was now a thicket of honeysuckles, flowering yellows and oranges that looked like evening light, and in the middle of those vines was Cyrus Beck.
Rus lay asleep, bright yellow honeysuckles blooming around him in a halo, the vine ends twisting along his limbs. He was on his side, head on one outstretched arm, curls of coppery hair fallen across his face. I called his name again as I sank to my knees, pushing his hair out of his face.
“Rus?” I called, hopeful and hesitant.
He woke up, slowly, like a sunrise. Blearily, he blinked away the drowsiness, disheveled and disoriented. I brushed my fingers across his cheek, and his gaze drifted up to mine. His eyes were the color of storms at sea, a deep and sinking blue. They softened with familiarity. An hour ago, he had looked like a completely different man.
“You found me,” he whispered, voice slurring with sleep, as he reached up and held my cheek.
I clutched his hand holding my face. Savoring how warm his fingers felt. How solid. How real. I’d kept my promise.
I drank him in, drenched in the beginnings of night. I’d never seen him in this light before, and I didn’t believe I could possibly think he was any more handsome than he had been a moment before.
“I found you,” I echoed.
And suddenly he was pushing himself to sit up, sloughing off the vines that had crept around his limbs, golden-yellow petals falling away, and he brought me close, and kissed me like a man who had been wasting his life waiting for this moment. He tasted like honeysuckles, and I imagined that was how sunshine tasted, sweet and warm and comforting.
Despite telling myself not to get too close to anyone, not to dig myself too deep into Lilymoor, I had somehow put down roots anyway. I cared what happened to this place that Harrie and I loved dearly, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t let go of my grief or escape Harrie’s shadow. I loved the gardens in the morning, and I loved drinking burnt coffee with Juliette at the kitchen table, and I loved watching the visitors suffer Damnit, and I loved stumbling on another strange Wykofski installation, and I loved wandering the maze of hedges and the Moon Bridge and the fields of artfully laid flora.
Ilovedit.
And I think I might love this man, too.
When we finally came up for air, he cupped his hands against my face and said, “I should’ve let you lead me to the Willow Grove. I should’ve gone with you then.”
“There’s still time,” I said. “You can try the fondue.”
“I think I’d like that very much.” He reached up and wiped the tears out of the corners of my eyes. “It feels like I’ve slept a lifetime in here.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. It was only an hour,” I teased, sniffing. I glanced around at the garden, and my heart ached remembering how it had looked before. “But all your hard work . . .”
“Time well spent,” he decided after he looked around himself, though in the end his gaze settled back on me. “With you.”
My heart swelled so full; I kissed him again—I never wanted to stop kissing him—but we heard footsteps behind us, and through the door came Oliver. He’d run after me when I left the Willow Grove and now picked his way over the demolition of the wall.
Oliver saw me first, but then his gaze quickly snapped to Rus.
He disentangled himself from me, and with a deep, steadying breath, he pushed himself to his feet. “Look, about what I said earlier—”
“Hold that thought,” Oliver replied, and slammed his fist into Rus’s cheek. He went stumbling to the side. I shrieked.
Rus righted himself, massaging his jaw. He snapped a cold glare at Oliver. “You feel better?”
In reply, Oliver shook out his fist. Then he took a deep breath, and said, “Yeah, actually, I do.” And then he turned on his heels and walked away.
I glanced between Rus and Oliver, and back again. “Aren’t you going to go after him?”
“He just punched me, so no, though he did pull it at the last minute,” he mumbled, still massaging his jaw. Worriedly, I looked after the retreating nephew. Rus took my hand andsqueezed it gently. “He’ll be fine. I’ll talk with him later. I deserved it, anyway.”
“For the amendment in the will?” I asked.
He winced. “Yeah, that.”
I searched his face for any sign that he’d changed his mind about Lilymoor. He knew what I was looking for and brought my hand up to kiss my fingers. “Lead me to the party, sunshine?”
As if on cue, his phone—which had been silent for so, so long—buzzed with a call. With his other hand, he took it out of his suit jacket pocket, and upon reading the caller ID, he bit his bottom lip.
