Love in Bloom

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

I’ d been driving for four hours when my tires crunched over the gravel of my grandparents’—well, I guess, my—driveway. I fished the front door key out of the large manila envelope, where it had sat since the lawyer handed it to me over a week ago.

The door let out a faint creak as I slipped into the large living room. I couldn’t find a light switch, but the curtains were open and the moonlight pouring through the windows illuminated the shelves lined with picture frames. My bag fell to the floor at my feet with a loud thud as I crept closer. The same eerie feeling engulfed me like the last time I was here. A small voice inside my head was whispering that I didn’t belong here, that I was trespassing. I stared at the photos of George and Harriet King, the grandparents I barely knew, who trusted me enough to leave me this farm. They wanted me to carry on a family legacy that spanned three generations but was a complete mystery to me. I reached out to wipe the dust off the picture frame holding my grandparents’ wedding photo. The side of my hand slammed into a nearby vase, causing it to teeter.

“Shit!” Reaching out to steady it, I only succeeded in knocking it off the shelf. Luckily, I managed to catch it before it hit the ground.

Before I could congratulate myself on my catlike reflexes, light flooded the living room and a deep voice shouted, “Oi! What the hell are you doing here?”

The scream I let out was punctuated by the sound of glass breaking. I looked down to see the vase that I’d just rescued from certain death now shattered at my feet. I looked up to see Dan Pednekar standing in the doorway to the living room, holding a thick wooden stick over his head and wearing nothing but a pair of black, skintight boxer briefs.

My eyes scanned his body. He stood in front of me dripping wet like he’d just gotten out of the shower. Why was he showering in my grandparents’ house? Why was he in his underwear?

“Dan?” I shrieked.

“Emma?” he said at nearly the same moment before our voices called out in unison:

“What are you doing here?”

“This is my house, remember?” I dropped to my knees and began picking up the large shards of broken glass. He tossed his stick onto the couch and knelt beside me. He smelled like soap and sweat and skin. The muscles in his arms flexed and contracted as he reached for the pieces of shattered vase. I forced myself to focus on the floor. “What the hell are you doing here? And why aren’t you dressed?”

“You may have inherited this house a week ago, but I’ve lived here for nearly two years.” He stood with two handfuls of glass pieces and walked to the kitchen to toss them in the trash. When he returned, he was holding a broom and dustpan.

“I didn’t know you actually lived in the house,” I said after he shooed me away from the remaining splinters so he could sweep them up. “I thought you were like… a caretaker or something.” I grabbed the dustpan to steady it while he swept in the last of the broken shards, and within moments it was like the broken vase had never existed.

“Thank you. And you’re right on both counts, and if you would have simply asked me, I would have told you.” He walked to the living room, retrieved his stick from the couch, and held it loosely at his side.

“So the night I stayed here. You were sleeping here, too?” I had turned my back to him in order to focus and scanned the many picture frames displayed in the room. It didn’t matter that Dan wasn’t in my direct line of sight. The memory of his lean, chiseled physique was burned into my memory.

“Yeah, that’s how living at a place works,” he responded.

“Why didn’t I see your room when I walked through the house? I must have opened every door.” I shot a quick glance over my shoulder to find him smirking at me with his arms crossed and turned back to the picture frames again.

“I live in the attic. George and Harriet had it renovated for me. So you wouldn’t have seen it while you were walking through the house.” He mimicked my voice again. I turned to look at him and narrowed my eyes. “Now, answer my question,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

My stomach tightened at his question. I wasn’t entirely sure I knew the answer myself, but since I now owned the farm, I couldn’t avoid it forever.

“Would you mind putting on some clothes first? It’s a little… distracting.” My eyes flicked to his chest, then to the ceiling.

He let out a sigh before turning toward the stairs, but I could have sworn he was smiling.

“Is that seriously how you always make tea?” I asked from my seat at the kitchen table. He’d just finished spooning the loose leaves into the pot and pouring in the first half of the boiling water before turning to face me.

“Are you always this critical of people doing something nice for you?” A smile I couldn’t suppress crept across my face and Dan responded in kind.

“Thank you for the tea. It just seems like a lot of extra work.” I shrugged and sipped again.

“So you drove four hours in the middle of the night for a properly prepared cup of tea?” He raised an eyebrow before dropping a sugar cube into his tea.

I let out a mirthless chuckle and sighed.

“I’m not really sure why I’m here,” I whispered. I avoided his penetrating gaze, instead staring into my mug, fixated on the steam rising from the surface of the dark liquid. If I thought Dan would be less distracting fully clothed, I was sadly mistaken. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the farm since the will reading. And a few days ago, I met with a real estate developer named Preston Smith. Have you heard of him?” I glanced at him, and his expression told me the answer before he spoke.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I’ve met him.”

“Well, he made me a very lucrative offer on the farm, but I don’t know. The idea of selling right now felt wrong.” I looked at him for a response. He nodded, but his face was unreadable.

“Why do you think that is?”

“I didn’t know my grandparents very well because of… family issues…” I glanced away nervously, not sure if I was ready to delve into my family’s dramatic past with a man I barely knew. Although it’s not like there was much for me to tell. For all I knew, Dan might have known more about it than I did. “I just want to learn more about them before I decide whether I want to sell the farm.”

“Fair enough.” He nodded. “What about your job?”

“I took a leave of absence from my job in order to spend some time here,” I said with what I hoped was a convincing smile. He didn’t seem fooled.

“How does your boyfriend feel about you spending time here?” My heart thudded and stopped at his question. Was Dan flirting with me?

“How did you know I had a boyfriend?”

“I didn’t.” He cleared his throat and smiled. “You just told me.”

I narrowed my eyes and shook my head at him, still unable to suppress the smile on my face. I barely knew Dan, but he’d managed to make me smile more in the past week than Teddy had in the past month.

A comfortable silence fell between us in the kitchen. My heart rate was returning to normal as I silently sipped my tea. I wasn’t sure what made it race more, Dan scaring the shit out of me, or Dan in his underwear—probably a combination of both. He was still as handsome as ever, but I noticed his hair was more untamed with curls as opposed to the way it was neatly styled at the will reading. I couldn’t tell which way I preferred before I realized that I shouldn’t be thinking about Dan’s hair or how I best liked it.

My eyes trailed over the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he gulped his tea and the way the veins in his forearms danced as he gripped his mug. To say my curious thoughts about Dan over the past week remained firmly in the realm of my grandparents and the fate of the farm would be a lie. Long after I’d hear Teddy’s soft snores, my thoughts would drift to the way Dan’s fingers grazed my spine when he zipped up my dress, or the weight of his hand on my back when I almost swallowed the tea leaf. Maybe I was building up some insane fantasy because Dan and this farm were so far away—literally and figuratively—from my life in Atlanta, which was imploding.

Isn’t that why I was here in the first place? I could tell myself that I was here to deal with my inheritance and get answers to questions that have plagued me for almost my entire life, but in truth, wasn’t I running away?

“Emma.” His voice broke me out of the daze I was in.

“Yeah?”

“Is everything okay? You were… uh…” The corners of his mouth curled into a small smirk. “… staring at me.”

“What? No, I wasn’t.” I absolutely was. “I’ve just had a long day and I’m exhausted.” I pushed myself up to stand and reached for my empty mug, but Dan grabbed it first.

“I got this,” he said with a slight groan as he stood from the table. I lowered back into my seat to keep myself from watching him walk toward the sink.

“Thank you for the tea… and for not hitting me with that stick.” I heard him chuckle over my shoulder. “What is that thing anyway? Farming equipment?”

“Far from it.” He wiped his hands on a dish towel and left the kitchen. When he returned, he was holding the aforementioned wooden stick. “This is a cricket bat, signed by one of the most famous players in the world.” He placed the bat in front of me and pointed to a black scrawl across the lower left corner of the bat’s sloped surface. “Sachin Tendulkar. I got it for my thirteenth birthday. I mentioned to my dad once that I wished I could get a signed bat from my favorite player. Three months later, I woke up on my birthday, and there it was.” A boyish smile that made my heart squeeze spread over Dan’s face. “It’s one of my most prized possessions and one of the few things I had my mum post from London when I decided to make my stay more permanent.”

“So you weren’t planning to stay in the US?” I asked, still curious about why he left the UK after his strange reaction to my question last week.

“I didn’t have a plan really.” His response was strained, and I got the feeling that I was making him uncomfortable, so I decided to change the subject.

“So what is cricket exactly?” I leaned forward and placed my hand on the bat. My tactic seemed to work because his shoulders relaxed, and his beard and mustache twitched into a smile. “I mean, I’ve heard of it. I know it’s a sport, but that’s about it.” I shrugged.

“Well, maybe I’ll teach you sometime. The games are on pretty early here.”

“That would be nice.” Without fully meaning to, I placed my hand on top of his. “Thank you.” The connection only lasted for an instant before Dan abruptly stood from the table and took a step back.

“Well”—he reached up to scratch the back of his head—“you’re welcome, Emma,” he stammered and took two steps to leave the kitchen before awkwardly walking back to retrieve his cricket bat. “Good night,” he said in a low voice, and I could swear I saw the ghost of a smile on his lips as he turned to climb the stairs.

“Good night.”

Once his footsteps faded up the stairs, a third involuntary Dan-induced smile spread across my face.

My duffel bag was missing when I went to retrieve it from the living room. I was pretty sure I’d brought it in from the car, but I decided to check just in case. When I retrieved my keys from the foyer table where I’d dropped them, I noticed that the door to my grandfather’s study was open.

On the chessboard, the black pawn was still face-to-face with the white one I’d moved my first night at the farm. Unlike before, I was ready to make my next move. My smile grew wider, and I barely deliberated before moving my next piece. As I stared at the chessboard, fully confident that I could beat Dan in twelve moves, another curious thought occurred to me. I left the study and went upstairs to my room. My duffel bag, my laptop bag, and my purse were sitting on the bed. It felt like a warm hug.

“What the fuck?!” I bolted upright in my bed and snatched off my sleep mask. I remembered that the farmhouse didn’t have blackout curtains, but had completely forgotten about the goddamn rooster that screamed its head off first thing in the morning. I flopped backward onto the mattress and pulled the quilts over my face.

“What the hell am I doing here?” The question that had been rattling around my head nonstop since I pulled off the highway last night was the same one I screamed into the otherwise empty bedroom.

I grabbed my phone off the bedside table to see that my alarm was due to go off in forty-five minutes, and that I’d missed three calls from Max, six from my mother, and none from Teddy but two from his mother. I rolled my eyes.

I had no job and no boyfriend, though I wasn’t as sad about the latter as I was about the former. The one thing I had was this farm. If I could be successful at this, maybe it would mean that I wasn’t a complete failure. Maybe losing my job at the firm and my breakup with Teddy were leading me somewhere else. Generations of women in my family kept this farm going. George and Harriet King must have known something I didn’t when they left it to me. I owed it to them and to myself to try.

After dismissing all the alerts on my phone without reading them, I decided that if I was going to give this farm life a shot, I was going to do it right.

After getting tired of waiting for the water to heat up, I took a lukewarm shower, wet my hair enough to slick it back into a ponytail, and dressed in the most comfortable clothes I’d packed—black yoga pants, a white T-shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes.

I gave myself one of my famous pep talks—usually reserved for my clients before a press conference—in the bathroom mirror while I brushed my teeth before skipping down the stairs toward the kitchen, ready to conquer the day, after I conquered a cup of coffee. First, I made a quick stop in my grandfather’s study, where I conquered one of Dan’s bishops.

“Good morning?” I nearly jumped when I entered the kitchen to see Dan fully dressed, wide awake, and sipping from a steaming mug. He looked like he’d been awake for hours.

“Morning. Tea?”

“I was actually hoping for some coffee.” I shot him a quick smile before I started rifling through the cupboard.

“Do you need a hand?” Despite our rapport last night, I knew that Dan thought of me as a walking disaster. If I was going to prove that I could cut it on the farm, I would start by making my own coffee without help. How hard could it be? Alicia did it every morning.

“No, I’m fine. I can manage.” I didn’t even bother to turn around when I answered him, continuing to search the kitchen. I hoped to find one of those coffee machines that uses pods, but I was clearly reaching for the stars with that one. I opened another cabinet while feeling Dan’s eyes on me.

“Aha, coffee!” I held the small burlap sack labeled COFFEE triumphantly over my head, raising an eyebrow at him before setting it down. “Okay… filters, filters, filters,” I murmured and began opening drawers.

“They’re in the—” he started, but I cut him off before he could finish. I was determined to do this myself.

“Dan, I’m fine. I don’t want to get in the way of whatever you normally do here.” I turned back to the silverware drawer, slammed it shut, and opened the one underneath it, coming up empty again. “Just pretend I’m not here.” A small part of me hoped that he would leave because my anxiety was increasing, along with the feeling of being put under a microscope. How could I manage a farm if I couldn’t make a cup of coffee?

Focus, Emma.

I glanced over my shoulder. Dan was still in the same exact spot, leaning on the countertop, one leg crossed over the other, watching me flutter around the unfamiliar kitchen like a confused hummingbird.

“Do you have something else you need to do?” I asked, hoping to mask my frustration as I shut a drawer full of pot holders.

“Yeah, I was on my way to the greenhouse,” he said with an amused smile and took another sip of his tea, which was no longer steaming. “But it can wait a few minutes…”

I turned around and glared at him, clearly enjoying himself.

“… while I finish my tea.” He held up the mug for emphasis. I resumed my search.

“Filters.” I finally dug them out and carefully loaded one into the machine. I hadn’t used an old-school coffee maker since I was an intern, but I remembered the gist. I grabbed the bag of coffee and carefully tipped it up to load the coffee machine. I was prepared to shoot Dan another triumphant smirk when a small avalanche of whole, unground coffee beans filled the filter, overflowed, and spilled onto the countertop; a few bounced off the toe of my shoe and landed at my feet. “What the hell?”

“Emma, please, I don’t mind—” Dan stepped forward and I gave him a look that could melt steel. He resumed his perch on the counter, using his mug to stifle a laugh. This was the time to ask for help. I knew it and he knew it. Unfortunately, Emma Walters doesn’t ask for help, and when someone tells me that I can’t do something, I’m overcome by this primal urge to prove them wrong. It’s served me well in the past, and today would be no different. I was going to make the best fucking cup of coffee that Dan Pednekar had ever seen and wipe the smug smile off his face.

The next order of business was finding a coffee grinder. It was in the cabinet next to the sack of beans, and I managed to grind a decent amount while only covering a quarter of the kitchen in coffee grounds in the process. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for a decent cup of coffee, which was obvious from the pale color of the brown liquid dripping into the coffeepot. I got the sense that Dan knew it, too, but was smart enough not to comment on it. I poured myself a cup of coffee, added milk and sugar, and took a sip.

Holy shit, that was terrible.

I grimaced then added more sugar.

“How is it?” he asked, wearing a shit-eating grin.

I shot him my biggest smile and held up the mug. “It’s perfect.” I took another sip and struggled not to gag.

“So what are your plans for the day?” He lifted his mug to his lips to take a sip.

“Well, after I clean up the kitchen”—I smirked, kicking a small pile of coffee grounds with the toe of my shoe—“I’m gonna try to do some work on the farm.”

Dan was midgulp and almost choked, making me roll my eyes.

“I’m sorry, what?” He cleared his throat. I narrowed my eyes at his reaction.

“I’m going to do some farm work,” I repeated, crossing my arms and glaring at him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to relax today?” he asked in a calm voice with a hint of a condescending tone. “You just got here. It’s very different than the kind of life you’re used to.”

“No offense, but you have no idea what I’m capable of. I came here to learn more about my family and why my grandparents even thought I’d be able to run this farm in the first place. I’m smart. I’m a fast learner, and I’m not afraid of a challenge. So you can either get on board or get out of the way because this is happening.” I raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for his response.

“Okay.” He held up the palm that wasn’t holding his mug in concession and nodded with an impressed look. “What sort of farm work, exactly?”

I relaxed a bit and started scooping coffee grounds from the countertop into my hand.

“I’m not sure exactly . I just figured I’d start by walking around, getting to know where everything is, and just”—I lifted a shoulder and dropped it—“I don’t know, seeing what I can do. Like I said, I don’t mind hard work and I’m a quick learner.”

“If your coffee-making skills are any indication, you may not be quick enough.” His beard twitched. He was teasing me, but at least he understood that I didn’t scare easily.

“Ha. Ha,” I deadpanned. “I figured it out, didn’t I?” I took another sip of my terrible victory coffee and tried not to grimace.

“That you did,” he conceded.

“I think the best way to get an understanding of how this place operates is just to jump in.” I took another long sip of coffee, decided that I’d suffered enough, and dumped the rest in the sink.

“Fair enough.” He placed his empty mug in the sink next to mine before he set himself to the task of washing them. “Is that what you’re wearing?” He pointed to my leggings and tennis shoes. “To do farm work?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?” I smoothed my T-shirt over my waist. “It’s comfortable and it’s gonna be hot outside today. I sweat easily.” Dan greeted me with an uncomfortably long silence, making me self-conscious. He was eyeing me with a bemused look that I suspected didn’t have anything to do with farm work.

“Dan?” I clapped my hands to get his attention. “What’s wrong with my outfit?”

“Nothing. It’s fine. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” He shrugged and wiped his wet hands on a dish towel. “If you want to find stuff to do, you should talk to Ernesto.”

“Are you not going to be working today?”

“I am, but not on the farm. After the greenhouse, I have to go into town and take care of some things.”

“Will you be gone all day?” I asked, hoping my question didn’t sound too needy. He hesitated a moment before he answered.

“Yeah, probably.” He shrugged but he didn’t meet my eye.

“Okay, well”—I shrugged—“I guess this is it, then.”

“Yeah.” He nodded and left the kitchen. “Good luck today,” he called over his shoulder.

I wiped down the counters and swept the kitchen floor before heading out the back door of the house toward the barn in search of Ernesto, wondering how much luck I was going to need.

Two hundred fifty acres is considered small for a farm, but to me it felt like an entire world. There were sprawling, lush green fields, and in the distance, there was a large red barn where Dan told me I could find Ernesto. There were also mosquitos—lots of fucking mosquitos.

“Ernesto?” I asked as I rapped on the doorframe of the barn. A tall man who looked to be in his fifties with golden-brown skin looked over at me. His body was covered from the neck down, including a thick pair of work gloves. My mind flashed back to Dan scrutinizing my outfit in the kitchen and made a note to wear long sleeves tomorrow.

“Sí, Miss Emmaline!” He greeted me with a wide smile. I have no idea why the fact he knew my name surprised me, but it did. Everyone in town seemed to know me. “What can I do for you?”

“Well”—I puffed out my chest in an attempt to gather confidence that I didn’t feel—“first, call me Emma, and I actually want to know how I can help you?”

He looked at me in confusion.

“Help me?”

“Yes.” I indicated my obvious-to-me farm wear and continued, “I’m planning to stay on the farm for the time being, and I want to do my part.”

“Miss Emma, I don’t think—” He shook his head.

“I learn quickly, and I’m a hard worker. I don’t want any special treatment. I want to learn how the farm works, so where can I start?” I grinned at him. “I won’t take no for an answer.”

“Okay, Miss Emma, if you’re sure.” He shrugged with an expression that was a mixture of skepticism and fear.

“Yes, Ernesto.” I nodded. “I’m sure.”

I’d never been more grateful for a sunset than I was when I stumbled into the house after my first day. My body was caked with mud, dirt, grass, and I didn’t want to know what else. The last thing I ingested voluntarily was a cup of coffee this morning. The smell that clung to me like a second skin made even the thought of eating impossible. Another explanation for my lack of appetite could have been the pound of dust, dead bugs, and other debris floating around the barn I ingested while I was doing one of Ernesto’s easy chores called “cobwebbing.”

A two-month-old calf had kicked me in the thigh during feeding time. All of the work gloves on the farm were so big that I’d lost two pairs in a vat of manure, along with four acrylic nails and my smartwatch. My arms were covered in scratches. My feet were completely wet and sweaty. Plus, for reasons that made no sense to me, my toes were going numb. I barely registered that Dan had answered my chess move from this morning as I passed the study. He’d captured one of my bishops, presumably for revenge. In the process, he’d left both of his rooks vulnerable. Too bad I was too tired and too sore to do anything about it.

The morning had barely begun when I’d realized exactly what Dan was trying to tell me about my outfit. He probably predicted how my first day was going to go. He’d probably hoped that once I got a taste of what life on a farm was really like, I’d give up and go back to Atlanta. God knows the thought crossed my mind during the third and fourth time I slipped and landed flat on my ass while mucking out stalls. The problem was that I didn’t have anything to go back to in Atlanta. I’d lost my job and my boyfriend, and I felt like my life had no direction. I refused to run home with my tail between my legs, but I knew I couldn’t endure another day like today.

Tears blurred my vision as I slowly peeled myself out of the sixty-dollar T-shirt and the one hundred forty–dollar leggings, which I deposited directly into the trash can. I showered until the hot water ran out, which didn’t take long, but the smell still lingered—possibly just in my imagination. I only had the strength to pull on a cotton sports bra and panties before I flopped across the mattress. My tears had given way to sobs when I heard the knock on my bedroom door.

After a cleansing breath, I sniffled and cleared my throat.

“Yeah?” I called to the closed door.

“All right, Emma?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“I made some soup for dinner, if you’re hungry.”

“No, thank you.” My stomach gave a traitorous growl in disagreement. “I ate something earlier. Good night,” I quickly added, hoping he’d get the message.

“All right. It’ll be in the fridge, if you change your mind.”

I didn’t respond.

“Oh, Ernesto was able to find your watch.” I sensed the slightest hint of amusement in his voice. “He said he cleaned it as best he could. You’ll barely even notice the smell.”

“Could you just leave it outside the door?” I shouted.

“Sure.” His response was followed by the faint sound of my watch being placed on the floor. “You sure you’re all right?”

No, I’m not all right. I’m terrible. My life is crashing down around me. I’m lonely, confused, angry, and so fucking sore. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m not in control and I don’t know how to fix it.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I called out, swallowing the giant lump in my throat as my eyes stung with tears again. “Good night, Dan.”

A weighty silence filled the space between us.

“Good night, Emma.” The shadows of feet outside lingered for a few long moments before they disappeared.