Chapter 17 Ryder
RYDER
“Ikissed the sunflower girl.”
My grandmother’s face lights up. “You what?”
“I kissed the sunflower girl and now she won’t talk to me.”
Gam rears back, resting her drink on the table between us. Her brow is furrowed. “Did the sunflower girl want you to kiss her?”
“She kissed me first! I mean, not on my mouth—”
“Ryder,” Gam warns.
“Here!” I say, pointing to the spot on my face her lips grazed me.
Gam shakes her head. “It’s like you’re trying to give me a heart attack.”
I reach for my whiskey, swirling it in the glass before taking a sip.
I think I’m the one close to having a heart attack.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since our lips touched. Since I felt her body in her arms and her hands against my chest. I’ve been distracted, every moment of every day since that kiss. Consumed by her.
And it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
“So you kissed the sunflower girl and now she won’t talk to you. What are you not telling me? I can only assume there’s a reason behind her silence. Judging from the number of girlfriends you had in high school, we can assume you’re not a bad kisser.”
I cringe. “I regret starting this conversation.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t give you much of a choice.” She smiles. After screwing up my own order for the same drink I get every time I come to visit her and then promptly forgetting what I had planned on getting for dinner, Gam poked me until I finally blurted out my reason for being so flustered.
I should have figured out some way to pull myself together and brush past it because I do not need to have a kissing conversation with my grandmother. As close as we are, some subjects are best left untouched.
Like the sunflower girl, apparently.
Gam raises her eyebrows, waiting for me to continue.
“I got one of my guys to upgrade some bad wiring in her barn, and when she offered to help clean up my property, I suggested that she consider signing an easement instead.”
Gam crinkles her nose. “And this happened after the kiss?”
“Before.”
She cocks her head to the side. “So she was already angry with you and you decided that was the moment to kiss her?”
“She kissed me first!”
The server drops off our dinners, and my grandmother has the decency to pause our conversation while he gets our plates situated on the table. We thank him when he checks in to make sure all the food looks right, and once he steps away to greet another table, Gam turns her attention back to me.
“Are you worried about the easement or are you worried about her?”
I reach for my whiskey instead of answering.
She raises an eyebrow. “Either you know the right answer is her and you’re too embarrassed to say it, or you’re not the grandson I thought you were.”
“Gam,” I say, my voice flat.
She gives me a harsh look, daring me to say it.
I roll my eyes. “I’m worried about my relationship with her.”
“Your relationship?”
“As in friendship. Neighbor-ship. Acquaintance-ship. I just got her to like me, you know?”
She nods quietly, the smile on her face slowly blooming into a grin.
“What?”
She rubs her hands together, laughing lightly to herself. “Oh, I can just smell the great-grandbabies.”
I shake my head. “Gam, there are absolutely no great-grandbabies on the table right now.”
“Well of course not, you have to get back in her good graces first.”
I tilt my face to the ceiling, mentally kicking myself for not being stronger when she poked and prodded and insisted I tell her what was wrong.
Gam has always been my confidante. The best parental figure I had when I was young and my father cared only about the next big property and my mom had checked out of parenthood, choosing alcohol and an array of pills over being there for me.
I don’t blame her though, considering who she was married to.
I always felt like Gam saw through to the truth of a situation. My dad inherited her sharp eye and keen judgment and squandered it all building an empire for one that ultimately tore his own family apart.
Meanwhile, Gam was my backbone. The person I always knew I could turn to.
Unless she smells great-grandbabies, apparently.
“Take me to her.”
My attention snaps back to her. She’s sitting tall, as always, and she has that resolute look on her face that she gets any time she thinks she’ll be facing opposition.
I snort. “No.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Ryder Christopher Blackwell.”
I sit up straighter, instantly transported back to my pre-teen self, caught sneaking into Gam’s house at midnight because it was closer to my friends’ houses than my own.
As a teenager, her thumb tugging on my collar to reveal the hickey I had been so desperate to cover up.
As a less-than-legal adult, being caught red-handed with a pounder in my hand.
“What?” I ask, because I’m pretty sure I’m not actually doing anything wrong.
But man does Gam have a way of making me feel like I’ve started another world war.
“I would like you to please take me to the sunflower farm.”
I purse my lips, trying to figure out how I’m going to get out of this.
“Gam, you just had both hips replaced and that farm is a minefield of potholes. There’s no pavement and the fields themselves might as well be a death trap.”
She rolls her eyes, waving me off. “My hips are fine. I can deal with a dirt road as long as I can go at my own pace. Lord knows if you weren’t so quick to chastise me, I’d be running all over this town.”
“Gam, I can’t stop you if you really want to take your life in your own hands in that way, but I think we both know that that road is not safe to cross right here.
You can’t see around the bend and people fly around it at nearly fifty miles an hour.
You might have new hips, but we can’t replace the rest of you if you get hit. ”
I see the hint of a smile on her face, despite her flaring nostrils. “So you’ll take me, then?”
I take another sip of my whiskey. “You negotiate dirty.”
Her smile widens to a grin. “Where do you think your father got it from?”
We pull into the sunflower farm early in the day, when the parking lot is only about half capacity and the sun is high in the sky but the air is cool against your face.
I wanted to come during the busiest time of day to obscure our visit, but I couldn’t shake the thought of unruly children bumping into Gam or a crowd just not paying attention to a little old woman who, despite her insistence, is not quite ready to walk on her own yet.
Of course, I don’t think Eve is hankering to talk to me anyway. She’ll probably be just as willing as I am to spot each other from across the farm and keep our respective distance.
Not that I really want to keep the distance, but I don’t need Gam getting in the middle of things. As good as her intentions might be.
I round the car as Gam gets out the other side and hold my elbow out for her to take.
She’s not fazed one bit by the dips and divots in the road, and rather than using my arm to keep her steady, she uses it to walk in a straight line while her attention catches on everything but the road in front of her.
Her hip replacement was not all that long ago, and I try to convince her to at least use the cane, but she insists that all she needs is a companion who doesn't mind taking it slow with her.
So, here we are in the early autumn sun, surrounded by sunflowers and wildflowers and nature and all sorts of intrusive thoughts about where Eve might be right now, what she’s doing and thinking and whether she hates me or not.
And my grandmother, face to the sky and smiling. Whether it’s because she’s happy to be out and about someplace other than the tiny courtyard in her building or it’s because she’s scheming, I’ll never know.
Of course with her, she’s probably thrilled to do both at the same time.
“So,” she says, squeezing my elbow as we walk, “I booked us a tour of the farm and let them know I’m disabled so I won’t be able to do any of the field activities,” she says, eyeing me like she deserves praise for finally taking precautions with herself.
“The girl I spoke to on the phone was very sweet and assured me we can take a break from the tour at any point in time—we should just let our guide know if the terrain is too difficult.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re being careful,” I tell her.
She eyes the road ahead of us, the wildflower fields to our right and Eve’s bungalow straight ahead in the distance.
“They also said there’s a number of benches scattered around the property and a cafe in the gift shop that we’re welcome to hang out in if the sun is too hot or I just need to rest for a few minutes. ”
I nod. None of this is new to me. “Well, you let me know the second you need to get off your feet, alright?”
“I will, Ryder.” She pats my arm. “You sit me down on a bench and continue the tour on your own, okay? I don’t want you to miss out.”
My brow furrows as I glance at her. “You realize I’ve been here a number of times, right? I’ve gotten essentially multiple private tours of this property.”
She shrugs. “But you haven’t gotten the full experience, have you? And it sounds like you were doing more kissing than listening,” she says, knocking me with her elbow.
I shake my head, taking a long breath in, and when I turn back to her, she’s only grinning.
She glances around, spying a sign attached to a vintage bicycle covered in fresh sunflowers that marks this area as the tour starting point, and takes a few slow steps in that direction.
“Looks like we’re here,” she says, giving me a big smile.
“Looks like we are.”
A second later, a voice rings out from behind us. “Welcome to the Sunflower Hill Sunflower Farm and Preserve! You must be Nora.”
My entire body warms.
Gam keeps a strong hand on my elbow as we turn, as if I’m going to take off running in another direction.
And there she is in front of us, sun-kissed hair thrown into a messy bun on the top of her head and her overalls hanging off one shoulder.
Her pocket is overflowing with wildflowers, and I note that she has one sunflower in her hand, held out in front of her like she was planning to give it to my grandmother.
Her eyes go wide when she recognizes me, and I’m sure a similar expression is plastered to my face.
Gam, however, only grins. “Did I forget to mention I booked us a private tour with the owner herself?”