Love in Bloom

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Y ou two are too adorable.” Erica shot me a sly grin while we were blowing up balloons for the archway at the entrance to the festival.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I shrugged and my eyes instinctively fell on Dan, who was across the street helping to build one of the four stages. He looked at me in that same moment, and his face spread into a wide grin.

“Hmm… okay.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why you’re trying to keep it a secret. The way this town works, I’ll bet the last people to know that you and Dan are dating are you and Dan.” I chuckled at Erica’s recycled joke. “And, Emma”—she put her hand on my shoulder—“you deserve to be happy. You and Dan both deserve to be happy. I know I was skeptical of you and your intentions when you first showed up, but you’ve been good for this place… and the people.” Her eyes flicked to Dan.

“He is pretty great, isn’t he?” I confessed, an elated smile spreading on my face.

“I’ve known that man for almost three years and could have counted on one hand the number of times I’d seen him smile. Over the last few months, he never seems to stop smiling.”

“I can’t ever remember feeling like this with Teddy. Don’t get me wrong, we were happy, but it was like our happiness came from our successes. With Dan, it just feels so natural. I’ve never really felt like I could be myself around anyone. Everyone had such high expectations of me before. It was like every single person in my life got the Emma that I thought they needed. Dan is the only person I feel like I can be myself with.”

“Well, that sounds exhausting.”

“It is,” I admitted.

“Well, I hope you stop because the real Emma, the one that I’ve gotten to know, is pretty amazing when she’s not trying to be perfect all the time.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Excuse you.” I gasped, mock-scandalized. “Trying to be perfect? I am already perfect. Look at this perfectly inflated balloon.” I gestured to the balloon attached to the nozzle of the helium tank, which was clearly overinflated.

“The one with too much air that’s twice as big as it’s supposed to be?” she said with a laugh.

“Hold on…” I removed the balloon from the tank and popped the opening into my mouth and inhaled deeply. “See,” I squeaked. “Problem fixed.”

Erica laughed so hard she let go of the balloon she was inflating and it went flying into the air, making a loud noise before it landed at the stilettoed feet of Belinda Cole.

“Well, aren’t you ladies having a good time?” She let out a giggle. “Emma, I just wanted to come find you and tell you how wonderful everything looks for this weekend.” I pasted on a humble smile and gave her a small nod, praying to God that I wouldn’t have to speak to her before the effects of the helium wore off. “Everyone has simply been singing your praises these last few weeks. I think this might be the best Harvest Festival I’ve ever seen.” I smiled and nodded again. Glancing at Erica was a mistake. If she’d been trying any harder not to laugh, she might have fainted.

“Well, I’m sure you have a lot to finish, and the good Lord knows the work of the first lady is never finished.” She let out a beleaguered sigh and shook her head. “I’ll let you ladies get back to work. And, Emma”—she placed a gloved hand on my shoulder—“thank you again.”

I nodded and smiled again. She shot me a momentary look of confusion before she strode confidently across the street to talk to someone else working on a float for the parade.

When she was out of earshot, I glared at Erica, who burst out laughing.

“I can’t stand you,” I hissed in an involuntary cartoon-chipmunk impression.

“You love me,” she said between fits of laughter, before she shouted, “Alvin!”

“Hey, Max,” I whispered into my phone when I sat on the curb later in the afternoon to take a much-needed break. “What do you have for me?”

“Well, I have a few outlets that are interested.”

“Only a few?” I said, feeling deflated.

“Boo.” She sighed. “I’m trying, but we’re talking about a three-year-old story about flowers; but don’t worry, I have a plan.”

“You always do.”

“Are you happy, Em? Does this dude make you happy?”

“Yeah, Max. He does. I’m really happy.”

“Well, you know I’m happy for you.” There was heavy silence before she spoke again. “Okay, well, let me go get to work. I’m gonna have to call in a lot of favors for this one. You’re lucky I love you.”

“Yes, I am.” I grinned and ended the call as I saw Dan approaching me from across the street.

“What are you grinning about?” He lowered himself onto the curb next to me and handed me a sandwich before kissing the side of my head. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“I have a lot of reasons to smile these days.” I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Mostly because the festival is almost here, and when it’s over, I’m gonna sleep for two days straight.”

“Well, you’re gonna need your rest for the wedding. I can’t wait to get you onto the dance floor.”

“You dance?” I picked up my head and looked at him skeptically.

“Hell, yeah,” he replied and demonstrated with a little head shake, shoulder shimmy combo, making me almost choke on my sandwich.

“Well, now I’m even more excited.”

“Good.” He planted another kiss on the side of my head, making me sigh.

“Your grandparents would have loved this,” a woman’s voice called from in front of us. I looked up to see Erica’s mother and another older woman whose name I couldn’t remember, but who’d attended most of the committee meetings. “The way you’ve decided to keep the farm, the way you pulled this festival together”—she clasped her hands—“you two getting cozy. It’s almost like they’re up there in heaven moving everybody around like chess pieces. You know how much your grandfather loved his chess games.” She chuckled and I gazed at Dan, who chose that moment to gaze right back at me before tightening his arm around my waist. “We’re all so very proud of you, Emmaline. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

“Thank you.” I nodded at her. It was the first time I didn’t bristle at being called Emmaline. My life had been spent trying to craft a persona that took me away from being associated with my family’s more humble roots. My great-grandmother Emmaline Butler had been a woman who fought hard for those she loved. She’d kept the farm and town going during a war. Her strength and resilience were the reasons I was sitting on this curb, wrapped in the arms of the man I loved. She laid the foundation for the life I was growing to love.

“All right, Emma?” Dan asked, breaking my chain of thought. His thick, dark eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“I’m perfect.” I leaned forward to press our lips together. “And that’s Emmaline to you.”

My morning had been too perfect.

I woke up the morning of the festival to breakfast in bed, right before I became breakfast in bed. There were no last-minute fires to extinguish, no problems or cancelations. Even the weather was cooperating. The sky was a gorgeous robin’s-egg blue with a smattering of bright white puffy clouds. Most of all, I was happy. I was blissfully happy, so I should have known it was too good to last.

I had to do a double take when I saw Teddy marching toward me in the lobby of the town hall, where I was setting up the welcome center for the festival. It was the feeling you get when you spot a bird in the airport. Before I could draw in a breath to ask him what the hell he was doing in my town, he wrapped an arm around my waist and guided me into a nearly deserted corner of the hall.

Over my shoulder, I caught Dan’s eye. His expression was a mixture of concern and possibly anger. I smiled at him and mouthed the words It’s fine . His eyes narrowed but he didn’t move.

When Teddy stopped walking and finally turned to face me, I found my voice.

“Teddy!” I whisper-shouted. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He scoffed and gave me an incredulous look.

“What the hell am I doing here?” He put his hands on his hips. “Emma, what the hell are you doing here?”

“You know my grandparents left me the farm. I had to come here.”

“Then what the hell are you still doing here? It’s been four fucking months since your grandparents died. You been neglecting your life in Atlanta with me to do what?” He gestured around the hall. “Plan a hoedown or whatever the fuck this is?”

“First of all”—I put my hand on my hips, mirroring his posture—“lower your voice and remember who the hell you’re talking to.” He tilted his head to the side and pursed his lips. “And second of all, it’s the annual Harvest Festival, and it’s a big damn deal and was a lot of work to put together. These types of events don’t magically appear out of thin fucking air. It takes time and effort, just like fundraisers, mixers, anniversary parties…”

“Listen, Em, I—”

“And third of all, we don’t have a life together. We broke up, Teddy, remember?”

“And I told you that I’m not gonna let you throw away over ten fucking years of my life because you’re bored.”

I felt my cheeks flush with anger. “Teddy, I don’t know what you want to hear before you can finally move on.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you are.” He furrowed his brow in confusion and shook his head. He reached up and took one of my corkscrew curls between his fingers before pulling it straight and watching it spring back into place. “You look different. You dress different. You act different. Where’s my Emma, the woman who was gonna help me conquer the world?”

“That Emma doesn’t exist anymore.” I sighed. “She hasn’t for a while.”

“I won’t accept that.” He took a step closer, and I backed away from him.

“You don’t have a choice,” I responded.

“Listen, Em.” His voice was earnest. “Preston Smith reached out to me.” I jerked my head up to meet his eyes. My expression must have mirrored my shock because he nodded. “Yeah, he told me all about his offer on the farm and his plans for the town. This is a golden opportunity for us, baby. His firm is willing to raise their offer on the farm. We could use the money to finance my campaign, put a down payment on a house.” My stomach contents churned.

“Plus, Preston’s firm is looking to revitalize rural farmland in Georgia to transform it into lucrative tourist attractions that could generate billions of dollars in revenue for the state. If I spearheaded this initiative during my senate run, I would be assured a win, which would make an even clearer path to the White House, with you by my side. You wouldn’t have to worry about working. You could focus all your time and energy on the campaign… starting our family… C’mon, baby girl. Come home. Whatever’s going on, we can fix, but this can’t be the end. We’re Teddy and Emma. We’re invincible.” His face spread into an eager grin.

“You’re delusional,” I whispered incredulously. All these years, I’d been mistaking Teddy’s narcissism for ambition and had allowed myself to be swallowed by his selfish dreams. Had he ever loved me, or was I simply a tool he would use to continue to elevate himself?

My eyes drifted to Dan, who was still watching Teddy and me. His face was a mask of concern and anger. Teddy’s eyes flicked away from mine and over my shoulder. They narrowed and his lips tightened, letting me know that he must have seen.

“Who is that?” His eyes cut back to mine, and he was seething with anger. My silence must have been speaking volumes, but I was desperate not to cause a scene. “Are you fucking that guy? You ran away from your life to come here and fuck some other man behind my back? Answer me, goddammit.” Teddy grabbed my arm and shook me so hard my teeth rattled.

Before I could react, Dan had rushed between us, severing our contact and blocking Teddy’s access to me with his body. “Get your fucking hands off of her, eh!” he shouted.

“And what the fuck do you plan to do about it, chief?” Teddy squared up, nose to nose with Dan.

“Touch her again and find out… chief ,” Dan gritted out through clenched teeth. The chatter in the hallway quieted. I knew I had to defuse this situation quickly, and the fastest way to do that was to get Teddy away from Dan and out of town. I stepped between them, pressing my palms into their chests to keep them apart. Dan’s heart was beating furiously against my fingertips.

“Stop this. Okay? Just stop it,” I whisper-shouted. “This isn’t the time or the place for this. As a matter of fact, there is no time or place for two grown men to be acting like children.”

“Did you think I was gonna let somebody—” Dan began. His eyes were pleading with mine, but I cut him off.

“I can take care of this. Let me handle this.”

“Yeah, mind your business. This doesn’t have shit to do with you,” Teddy shot back.

“Shut up,” I spat at him before turning back to Dan. “You have to let me handle this.” I grabbed Teddy by the wrist and tugged him away from my boyfriend and the curious onlookers, and out of the town hall. I could feel Dan’s eyes boring into me in anger, but I couldn’t look back at him.

I tugged Teddy down Main Street and didn’t stop until we were seated in a secluded booth in Erica’s diner. Melissa was seated at the counter, holding a pencil in front of a small pile of open schoolbooks. Her mother caught my eye and furrowed her brow, her expression asking me if I needed help. I answered with a quick shake of my head.

“Teddy, you need to leave.”

“I’m not leaving without you. Don’t you get that, Emma? I took time off from work. I drove all the way out to the middle of nowhere to get you back and bring you home.”

“I am home, Teddy. I need you to understand that. Our relationship is over. It’s been over for a while. Our routine was just too ingrained in us to understand before. But coming out here, reconnecting with my past—”

“Fucking another man,” he interjected. The rest of my sentence died on my lips as I looked at Teddy in horror. He quickly changed course. “Look, Em. I’mma cut to the chase. I didn’t just get into town this morning.” I tilted my head in confusion. “I’ve been here for a few days.” My stomach dropped because I knew exactly where this conversation was headed. “I don’t know if you think you all are being discreet, but it didn’t take me long to figure out what the hell is going on here.”

“I don’t know what you’re—” I began, feeling my voice shake.

“Cut the shit, Emma.” He shook his head while wearing a shit-eating, mirthless grin. “Your little farm is an illegal marijuana dispensary, and this whole fucking town is in on it. Four and Twenty Blackbirds? Greenie’s Diner?” He waved a hand dismissively around the restaurant while glaring at me.

“Seriously, Teddy?” I forced myself to laugh, though I had to wrap my hands around a water glass to keep them from shaking. “That’s circumstantial at best. Is this your evidence?”

“Not all of it, but you put together the names with the abundance of tourists that look suspiciously like patients, the brownies that cost twenty dollars each, the fact that the farm you live on doesn’t sell shit… no beef, no pork, no milk. It’s a glorified petting zoo. Where’s the money coming from, huh?” He raised an eyebrow while I remained stoic.

“You’re right, Em. It’s not a lot of evidence, but maybe it’s enough to get a search warrant for the back half of that big-ass greenhouse tucked away on the farm. The part that’s behind the military-grade steel door?”

I felt the blood drain from my face. Teddy obviously noticed my change in expression because he smirked triumphantly. I opened my mouth to protest and then closed it again, still staring at him in disbelief. I can’t believe he snuck onto the farm, into the greenhouse.

Teddy continued. “I’m not planning to let the authorities know what’s going on in the town, if that’s what that look is about.” A tiny bit of relief flooded my chest, but it was short-lived. “It would reflect badly on you, as my future wife and mother of my children, if you were unmasked as a drug dealer. Not to mention my political future and the prospects of turning the farm and its town into even more of a tourist destination than it already is.”

“Teddy, you can’t,” I said in a defeated whisper. Yes, he could. Theodore Aloysius Baker the Third, the man I thought I was in love with for my entire adult life, wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of what he considered his birthright, his destiny—least of all me, the woman he claimed to love.

“It’s too late for that, Em. I’ve already talked to Preston Smith. We’ve set a plan in motion to make things right and put everything back on course. Of course, the success of this plan depends on you.” Yes, as usual, Teddy needed my help to fulfill his delusions of grandeur. This time would be different. I wasn’t the Emma he thought he knew. I was Emmaline Walters, and like my great-grandmother, it was my duty to protect this town and everyone in it.

“No, Teddy,” I replied. “I’m not going to let you destroy this town. You and Preston need to find another town to gentrify and exploit.”

“It’s not that simple, Emma. You seem to think you have a choice, and you don’t. If you don’t do whatever is in your power to make sure that everything goes my way, I’ll have no choice, as an officer of the court, but to report any crimes that I may come across.”

“Teddy—”

“This Narcos , Breaking Bad shit you have going will have to end, but if you do what I say, no one has to go to jail over it. Plus, that shit you have going on with ol’ dude ends now. I’d be willing to forgive you and take you back. You were probably under too much stress and had a nervous breakdown or something. I’m not going to let three months ruin our lives. We’re better than that. We’re Teddy and Emma. Nothing can stop us. This way, everything gets put back the way it ought to have been. In my estimation, everyone wins.” He reached for my hand across the table and placed his warm palm over mine. The contact made me flinch. I never wanted to be touched by this man again. While Teddy waited for my response, I glanced over to the counter. Erica was still eyeing us with keen interest. Melissa was still fixated on her schoolwork. My heart was breaking. This town was perfect before I came here. The demons that haunted my life in Atlanta had followed me here and planned to destroy everything I’d grown not just to love, but to need. Erica’s husband was the sheriff. Mavis and Leonard were two kind, elderly people who loved to bake. Then my thoughts drifted to Dan. Would he be sent to prison, or deported? Both prospects were too difficult to consider. Just as everything seemed so perfect, I’d managed to destroy everything.

“Emma?” Teddy leaned forward, still gripping my hand. I met his eyes, not believing the loathing I felt for the man I’d actually considered spending the rest of my life with. He was waiting patiently for the only answer I could give him, wearing a smug, triumphant grin.

I was Emmaline Walters, and like my great-grandmother, it was my duty to protect this town and everyone in it.

“Yes,” I whispered, and a tear slipped down my cheek. “I’ll do it.”

The rest of the day was spent meticulously going over every final detail of the festival. I needed it to go perfectly even more than I had before—as if somehow losing myself in the planning would make my conversation with Teddy vanish, and the giant steamroller of his plan speeding toward the town would magically disappear.

The day stretched into night, and I kept finding things to occupy my time in order to avoid going home, going back to the farm. My guilt felt like a heavy, wet blanket engulfing my entire body and threatening to suffocate me.

A pair of large arms wrapped around my waist. A familiar, comforting smell enveloped me as Dan rested his chin on my shoulder and planted a kiss on my neck, startling me.

“Hey, love. It’s okay. It’s me,” he whispered, but he was so wrong. Nothing was okay. It would never be okay again, and it was all my fault.

“Dan, I can’t right now.” I disentangled myself from his grasp and took a few steps away from him to gain some distance. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him because I knew that if I did, I would start crying. “I’m making the final checks. There’s a to-do list a mile long to finish and…” He turned me to face him and, before I could take a breath, he pressed our lips together in a kiss. His embrace felt so warm and good and exactly what I needed in the moment, but I felt too guilty about what I had done to kiss him back. After a few seconds, he broke our embrace.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” he asked. Two betraying tears rolled down my cheeks in response, but I couldn’t speak. “Emma, I love you and you told me that you loved me. I thought we had… I can’t get my heart broken again. I can’t lose you, Emma.”

“Dan.” I placed my hand on his cheek and whispered, “I don’t love him. I’m beginning to wonder if I ever did.”

“If that’s true, then why did you leave the town hall with him? Why have you been avoiding me all day? It’s the middle of the night and I had to go searching through this whole damn place to find you. I know this has nothing to do with the festival because everything on your to-do list”—he pulled the clipboard out of my hands—“has been done. Everything was fine before that git showed up, and now it isn’t.”

He was right. Of course, he was right. Dan was the one person in my life that could really see me. He knew I was in pain, and he knew that Teddy was the cause. The only thing I wanted to do in the world was fly into his arms and confess everything about our conversation at Erica’s, but I was in no emotional shape to do that.

“Are you having second thoughts about us?” He curled his forefinger under my chin and forced me to meet his eyes.

“This isn’t about you, Dan.” I jerked my head out of his grasp. “This is about my responsibilities to the town. I just really, really need this festival to be the best one the town has ever seen, and I don’t have time for this .” I snatched my clipboard out of his hands and continued to walk around the perimeter gate of the petting zoo, inspecting the latches, which both Dan and I knew had already been done. He made no move to follow me.

“I want to take you home, Emma,” he called into the night. “It’s late, and you need to sleep. You also probably haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, have you?”

He was right, but Dan being his loving, thoughtful self only succeeded in making me sink lower into despair. I wouldn’t only be destroying everything my grandparents helped build and ruining the lives of people who depended on me, I would be losing the one person in my life who loved me unconditionally and made me feel whole. My heart broke even more.

“I’m fine,” I called over my shoulder. “I’ll get myself home.”

“No, you won’t,” he yelled as I walked farther away. I stopped and turned to face him. “I’ve taken your car keys and I’m gonna wait in the truck until you’re finished. You’re not gonna stay out here by yourself in the middle of the night.”

I dug my fist into my hip, ready to reply, but Dan had already begun walking back to the truck. After a few minutes, I followed him and climbed into the passenger seat, and we rode home in silence.