“You did well,” Auntie Zee said. The words sounded as if they hurt her throat.
Calisa wasn’t sure if she was talking to her, Jack, or the lizard. “I did?”
Auntie Zee studied the lizard for a minute more and then turned and marched out of the greenhouse. “Leave the door open so he can come and go. He won’t hurt anything but the local rodent population, and that could do with a little diminishing. If he still seems hungry, he can eat the alligator feed in the closet—don’t look alarmed. That’s just the brand name; it’s made neither from nor for alligators. Keep him out of the inn. He’s exclusively an outside pet. I don’t want to see his little footprints in your morning pancakes.”
Following her out of the greenhouse, Calisa stopped and watched her great-aunt toddle back to the inn and then up the steps into the kitchen. She didn’t look back. Jack stood next to Calisa. She’d gotten a friendly grunt for the lizard, as well as permission to bake a cake tomorrowandtacit approval of her pancakes—did that count as official permission to stay? “Do you think that means I can stay for the summer?” Calisa said to Jack.
With a shrug, he handed her the cookbook.
She looked down at it. Across the gingham cover was ahandwritten title:Jones Family Recipes. Jones…Where had she heard…“That’s your last name. Is this a family recipe book?”
“My dad’s. Found it in his room.”
Jack should be the one allowed to make the recipes inside. “She shouldn’t treat you that way,” Calisa said. “You’re doing everything around here.”
“She used to be kinder. Happier.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged again. “Time, I think. She’s angry that she’s older, that she can’t do it all, that the bed-and-breakfast is not what it was, that she can’t keep everything the same.”
That was very understanding and empathetic of him, but it didn’t excuse Auntie Zee acting that way toward someone who was obviously doing his best. Being mean to Jack was like kicking a puppy. He clearly threw his heart and soul into this place—for his home, for his job, for his father. She didn’t know him well enough to be sure exactly why, but shedidknow he didn’t deserve to be treated like he was some kind of screwup for one mistake. “Auntie Zee has issues,” Calisa said as she cradled the cookbook. “I suppose Kendra does too.” She nodded in the direction of the greenhouse.
“I think Kendra was trying to help, in her own way,” Jack said. “She practically praised you in front of Auntie Zee.”
“Why did she bother to bring a pet if she intended to abandon it?”
He shrugged. “She’s quirky.”
Or she was terrible, in addition to terrifying.Poor lizard.“And I don’t understand why no one has an explanation for why the lizard was in the bathroom closet.”
Yet another shrug. “Maybe he just wanted to go home?”
Calisa raised both her eyebrows at him.
“Or maybe he’s quirky too.”
Chapter Nine
The birds woke her again the next morning, and Calisa found them marginally less annoying now that she knew to expect them. Opening the curtains, she looked outside. The morning sun bathed the forest and mountains with a golden glow as a misty haze rose off everything green. “Wow,” she breathed, transfixed once again.
There was so much green.
Actually, too much green.
She instantly knew what she wanted to tackle today: a task that would solve all her great-aunt-not-liking-her problems and secure her position here…or at least make Auntie Zee give another friendly grunt…aka saving the gardens.
The only flaw was that she didn’t know how.
After making pancakes for the guests and eating her share with Jack—this time she tried the blueberry maple syrup, which was just as delicious as the raspberry—she said, “What do you know about gardening?”
“Um, you know. Groundskeeper’s son. What do you want to know?”
She dunked the last bite of pancake into a pool of blueberry syrup. “I live in an apartment. Our only plant is a spider plant that’s basically indestructible. So assume I know nothing.” While Jack turned toward the sink, his back toward her, she dipped her finger into the last of the syrup.
“Well, it’s pretty much just common sense.” As he talked and cleaned the pancake batter bowl, she eyed her plate and decided it would not be classy to lick it. “You just give the plants what they want—if they like sun, you plant them in the sun. If they need shade, you plant them in the shade. Give them room to grow. Clear out any weeds. Water them if they need it. Don’t…I don’t know…stomp on any plants? Why do you ask?”
Continuing to resist the urge to lick the rest of the maple syrup off her plate, she carried both plates to the sink, handing them to him. He dunked them into the soapy water. “I’m thinking that today we could try to make it look less like the plants are taking over and more like an actual garden,” she said. “Unless you have other plans?”
