Chapter 3
Shay
Students will be able to handle marriage proposals with the grace of a squawking goose.
Noah Barden rolled up two days later with a trailer full of goats and a six-year-old waving her sword out of the truck’s back seat window.
I spotted them from my spot on the floor of the left parlor—two of everything in this house—where I was enjoying a pudding cup for breakfast. The floor because there wasn’t much furniture, and the pudding because I was done with dieting for the dress. Or any other reason.
I went in search of shoes and grabbed my water bottle before meeting Noah and Gennie outside.
I was proud to report there was water in that bottle.
I’d debated spicing it up with something stronger but day drinking alone in an empty house felt like an altogether different level of drunkenness. It was a plateau I didn’t want to hit.
I’d polished off a bottle of wine and a block of cheese last night but that was different. Totally different.
From the shelter of the porch, I watched Noah release the goats while Gennie used his leg for sparring practice. If he noticed her attack, it didn’t show on his face.
Kinda like how all memory of our friendship didn’t show on his face.
Of all the people I’d guessed I’d run across here in Friendship, Noah Barden hadn’t even made the list. That boy’s singular mission had been getting the fuck out of this town.
He’d hated farming and farm life and the entirety of this place—and I’d shared a lot of those sentiments with him.
We’d been united in our desire to hit the road and never look back.
Funny how that worked out for us.
But the part I really couldn’t reconcile was that my old friend seemed angry with me. Not only was he not happy to see me, I had the distinct impression he didn’t want to see me at all.
That was strange, right?
And yet here he was, leading a dozen goats into my poison ivy patch.
Also strange.
Then again, people changed. This sleepy town had changed in hundreds of little ways.
It was still sleepy, farmland and ancient windmills dotting the landscape with old stone walls slowly sinking into the earth, but now there were quaint shopping centers, coffee shops with strung-light patios, and signs announcing high school football games and upcoming festivals.
My memories of this place weren’t cozy. I’d managed through the years my mother and stepfather had left me in Lollie’s care and some of that time had been happy though I barely remembered who I was in high school.
Hell, I couldn’t remember who I was before falling down the wedding rabbit hole to hell.
Shit happened and it made people different in the process.
If Noah was a grouchy, glarey man now, who was I to judge? Not me. That was not in my job description.
“Shay!” Gennie yelled. She abandoned Noah’s leg and ran toward the porch, her dark, tangled hair flying behind her and the sword scraping along the brick walkway. “We brought all the good goats. We left the naughty ones in the pen.”
“You have naughty goats?”
She barreled into me, her little arms locking around my waist and her face pressed to the squish of my belly.
“Two of them,” she mumbled into my shirt.
“They learned how to get out and they went to the dog run and made all the dogs angry. And they did it at four-fucking-thirty in the morning. That’s what Noah said.
He said the bad word. Not me. I didn’t say fucking. He did.”
“And you’ve repeated it fifteen times since then,” he said from the walkway. He didn’t come any closer, instead shoving his hands into his jean pockets and watching the goats.
Maybe he didn’t like people. He’d always been far on the introverted side.
I still couldn’t get over his physical transformation.
It was like he’d traded in his body for a much taller, more muscular version.
His hair was still dark, and his eyes—when not hidden behind sunglasses and under the shadow of caps—were still hazel, but I had to go looking for those familiar pieces of him.
His skin was tanned and freckled from his time outdoors, and confidence blared from the sharp cut of his scruffy jaw and those broad shoulders.
This was no self-conscious kid. He was in control and he knew it.
“You’re welcome to stop saying it any time,” Noah explained.
“I said fuck because I was telling the story,” she replied.
He sighed. “You could say something else. Like fudge.”
“Why fudge? That’s dumb.”
I smiled at Gennie. “Have you ever seen the fairy garden?” I pointed toward the barn. “It’s around that way. Follow the stones painted red with white dots, like toadstools.”
She gave me a serious stare. “Are there real fairies there?”
“You’ll have to look for yourself.”
She considered this for a second before handing her sword to Noah. “I don’t want to scare them,” she explained. “They might think I’m trying to conquer their land if I’m armed.”
“Smart thinking,” I said.
Gennie ran off, leaving me and Noah alone.
I tipped my water bottle in the direction of the goats.
They were penned in with flexible fencing and busy munching everything in sight.
“They get right down to business,” I said, unscrewing the cap on my bottle.
“Do you lease them out? Is that another one of your new ventures, goat landscaping?”
He shrugged, still watching the animals. “Sometimes.”
“When did you come back?”
There was a long, long moment where Noah didn’t respond. Then, “Five years ago.”
“Where were you before that?”
“Manhattan.”
“Oh, really? Where?” New York was my hometown, even though I hadn’t lived there in nearly twenty years, and I loved talking about the city with anyone who knew it well. It was like discovering you had a mutual friend who was always involved in the drama. There was always so much ground to cover.
“Lived in Brooklyn. Worked on Wall Street.”
I marched down the steps. “You worked on Wall Street ?”
“Yeah. Worked on the legal side of mergers and acquisitions.”
I wanted to take a sample of his tone and study it under a microscope because I couldn’t see how someone could be both bored and confrontational inside a handful of words. It was art.
Before I could gamble on another question, he waved at the expanse of Thomas land fanned out before us. “What are you going to do with all this?”
I gave him the best answer I could cobble together. “Not a clue.” I wandered down the path leading toward the huge heart of wildflowers. “I had no idea Twin Tulip would be mine. Lollie never said anything.”
“I’m sorry,” he said from several paces behind me. “About Lollie.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Thank you. She always liked you.”
“You don’t need to bless me with the approval of people no longer living,” he said. “I get too much of that as it is.”
“She always liked you,” I repeated. “You know she liked you.”
After a pause, he said, “She was one of the good ones. I tolerated her.”
We walked in silence for several minutes, circling the wildflowers and starting toward the tulip fields.
“Are you getting bulbs in the ground come November?” he asked.
I stared at the field, now nothing more than topsy-turvy rows of weeds and the occasional patch of wildflowers. “I don’t know. Maybe? I wouldn’t even know where to start with that.”
“I can—” He stopped, scratched the back of his neck. “I can send some guys down here to help you when things slow down for the season.”
Since I couldn’t think more than a few days ahead at a time, I didn’t jump on his offer.
I didn’t say anything at all. We looped back toward the kitchen garden and the yellow barn, silent for several minutes.
I gestured to the gentle hillside leading down to the cove.
“This is the very best spot on the whole farm. Isn’t it beautiful up here? ”
“Yeah,” he murmured.
I glanced over and found him nodding at me, his cap pulled low and his eyes shadowed.
“No, not up here. Not this part. The cove,” I said, pointing again.
“I always told Lollie this would be the perfect spot for weddings. Can’t you see a little arbor here and seats there?
The photos would be amazing.” I took a sip of water.
“You know what would be even better? A space for wedding receptions too. And gardens. More gardens. Three seasons of gardens. Not just five minutes of tulips in the spring. It’s so unique and charming here.
I just know there would be massive demand. ”
“Then you should do that,” he said.
I laughed. “Build a wedding venue? No. I should not be anywhere near weddings right now, and that sort of project takes time, which isn’t something I have. I’m only here until next summer. I can’t keep Twin Tulip after that.”
Even through the shadow of his hat, I could read his scowl. “What?”
I went for my water again, buying myself a second before unloading this story on him. “I have a year to move here permanently and get married. If I don’t do both, the Thomas land is handed over to the town’s historic trust.”
Noah folded his arms over his chest. “Says who?”
“Lollie’s will.”
“That won’t hold up in court,” he said. “I want to see this will. None of that sounds right.”
“That was my reaction too,” I said, “but it’s what Lollie wanted.” I shook my head. “Since I can’t keep Twin Tulip, I’m just taking this year to enjoy it while I can. I’ll go back to Boston next summer.”
“I want to see that will,” he repeated. “I can’t imagine the town has the interest or resources to fight you for the land. If you contested it, they’d probably fold. Litigating a matter like this isn’t in their best interest.”
“So, you’re a real big-time lawyer,” I mused, taking in the man wearing the hell out of jeans and a t-shirt. “Just like you’d always planned.”
“Why don’t you want to fight this?”
“Because what am I going to do with this place?”