Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
JACK
I hate visiting this godforsaken bog. Not only because the Langfords own it, but because during the spring, Copper Hollow is all foggy and marshy. You’re essentially one wrong step from having your boot swallowed whole.
Let’s just say, swamp exposure is not my idea of a good time.
Though having Isla here beside me is a good buffer. She’s in the passenger seat of my truck, hands tucked carefully in her lap. Her fingers tap once, twice, then still. By now, she’s fully reached freak-out mode.
Roland didn’t directly threaten her at the market, but his presence was enough to rattle her confidence. He shouldn’t be able to do that. To wander into our town and try to stake his claim.
I’m fully fed up with the motherfucker, which is why it was my idea to text Beau this time. To my surprise, he asked us to meet him out here on his property.
“Less noise, more privacy.”
He was right, which is deeply annoying.
We turn off the main road onto the long dirt drive. The bog spreads out on either side. In the fall, this place goes bloodred, and people drive hundreds of miles just to take pictures. It’s beautiful then, even I can admit it.
But right now, we’re only surrounded by gray water and brown vines. It’s a whole lot of mud waiting to wake up.
“Weird that people will consume something grown in this mess,” I say.
Isla glances out the window. “You know my fruit sits and rots in a barrel for months.”
“Yeah, but the wine you make is magic,” I say. “This is marsh soup.”
Most of the magic in Blue Willow gives something back. The inn holds people up. Achehoney takes the sting out of old hurts. Plum salve knits skin back together. Even when the magic gets strange, it usually feels generous.
The bog doesn’t. The bog feels hungry.
People say it eats memories and uses them to keep the water thick and the vines happy. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds weird enough for a place like this.
Beau’s house comes into view a minute later. It’s weathered cedar with a wraparound porch. There’s a long, low building beyond it that used to be a packing shed and now looks like equal parts office and event space.
I pull up on the other side of it. Isla unclicks her seat belt, then stays where she is for a long moment, hands flat on her thighs, staring through the windshield.
“You sure you’re up for this?” I ask.
“No, but we’re here. I’m not gonna be forced into hiding.”
“Good,” I say. “I’ll protect you from the bog monster.”
It’s been a week since Roland accosted her in the market. A week since I had to hear about it after the fact instead of being there to step in. That won’t be happening again.
Beau’s lawyer was able to push the committee to review the contract faster. They have a response in hand, which is why we all need to sit down and talk through it now. Dirty bog water be damned.
Isla squeezes my knee. The touch runs straight up my spine, carrying a flash of her on the blanket by the river. Her hands on my shoulders. Her mouth on mine. The sound she made when she came apart on my fingers.
Focus, Rhodes.
We head inside. The packing shed has been gutted and rebuilt. One half is storage and equipment; the other half looks like a tasting room that someone dressed in “rustic modern.” There’s a long bar, a row of high tables, and a smaller side office with a glass door.
Beau’s in there with his back to us, talking to someone on speakerphone. He waves us in without turning, holds up a finger, then finishes his call with a smooth closer about shipment timelines.
“Sorry,” he says, finally facing us. “Bog business waits for no one. But thank you for coming out. Evelyn is on her way in from Hartford. There was an accident on 84.”
His lawyer, Evelyn, is impressively competent, which only makes it more baffling that she willingly works with Beau. We’ve spoken to her twice on the phone in the last couple of days, and every time she’s sounded calm, sharp, and kind.
I still can’t figure out how she tolerates him for more than ten consecutive minutes.
Beau stands. “Coffee? Tea? Cranberry juice if we want to get on theme.”
“I’m good,” Isla says.
“I’ll take coffee, if it’s going.”
Beau heads out to the bar area to grab a carafe and mugs. Isla and I sit at the little round meeting table in the corner. Contract copies are already stacked there, paper clipped and tabbed.
Isla shifts her chair a few inches closer, thigh brushing mine under the table. It feels deliberate, somehow. A small declaration that says we’re here together. The two of us are a unit.
I let my hand drop to my leg so our fingers can meet along the edge of the seat. She turns so the side of her pinky can rest against mine.
“Want to run?”
“From Copper Hollow or from this whole grant?” she whispers back.
“Dealer’s choice.”
She takes a slow breath. “Ask me again when we’re done here.”
Beau returns with the coffee, then drops into his chair across from us. “Evelyn should be here any minute. She sent me the committee response. It’s not perfect, but it’s not the disaster it could’ve been.”
“That’s a ringing endorsement,” I say.
He gives me a long look. “You’re welcome.”
The glass door opens behind us, and Evelyn steps in without any wasted motion. She has a tablet tucked under one arm and a leather bag slung over the other. Beautiful in a severe, expensive sort of way.
“Hi,” she says, smiling as she crosses the room. “You must be Isla and Jack. I’m Evelyn Mercer. It’s nice to meet you in person.”
Isla stands to shake her hand. “We appreciate you helping us.”
“Any friend of Beau’s is a friend of mine,” Evelyn says.
I rearrange my face so I don’t visibly gag. I know he’s helping, but I can’t seem to forget what he’s done in the past. He fucked Greer over. He constantly needles Wells. We’ve even fought with our fists a time or two outside the Harbor Light.
He’s a smarmy little asshole despite his sudden need to prove he can be useful.
Evelyn taps her tablet awake. “I’m going to start with the good part because there actually is one. The committee accepted most of our changes to the sampling and propagation language. They agreed that the original was overly broad.”
“So, they’re not allowed to treat the orchard like a free cuttings buffet?” Isla asks.
“Correct.” Evelyn flips to a marked page and turns it so it faces us. Blue ink underlines a paragraph. “Here.”
Isla and I both lean in, and our shoulders touch. I can feel the heat of her through the thin fabric of her jacket.
Evelyn reads aloud, “Any grafting, cloning, or propagation trials must be conducted on the Mirabelle Orchard property under joint supervision of the grant recipient and the Preservation Initiative. No viable plant material may be transported, licensed, or otherwise removed from the property for commercial propagation without the written consent of the grant recipient.”
“So, they can try grafting,” Isla says, “but only on my land. And they can’t take anything alive out of it without my signature.”
“That’s the gist,” Evelyn says. “We tightened the fence around what they can do.”
“Is that standard?” I ask.
“For an outlier case like yours, yes,” Evelyn says. “You have unusually high yields on relatively small acreage, excellent disease resistance, and strong seasonal consistency. That kind of profile makes committees curious. They want to see if what you’re doing can be replicated.”
Isla’s jaw clenches. “Like I said, we’re a family orchard, not a lab.”
Moreover, the magic here isn’t theirs to catalog. We still don’t know how much Roland understands about what Blue Willow really is or if he’s just circling because the numbers look too good to be accidental.
Either way, I don’t want him anywhere near the beating heart of our town.
“I understand,” Evelyn says. “I’m not saying I like their impulse. I’m just explaining it.”
“What’s the catch?” I ask.
Evelyn taps the page just below the underlined section.
“The grafting language is tied to this. Pending a formal site visit to evaluate yield, disease resistance, and long-term viability of the Mirabelle operation. In plain English, they want to come see it for themselves. Walk the rows. Take notes. Ask questions.”
“Of course they do,” Isla says quietly.
Beau leans forward, elbows on the table. “Look, this was always going to happen in some form. High-profile awards come with eyes attached.”
I slide my hand a little higher on Isla’s thigh.
“Who’s actually coming on this visit?” she asks. “Is Roland Stein on the list?”
Evelyn scrolls on her tablet. “The site visit team will be made up of members of the agricultural assessment subcommittee, plus at least one donor representative. R. Stein is their chosen representative. Though he did vote with the majority to accept the revised language. Is that the donor you’re having trouble with? ”
“Same one.”
Isla looks like she might either laugh or throw something.
“Right now,” Evelyn says carefully, “no one on that committee is talking about Mirabelle as anything other than an impressive set of numbers. High yield, low loss, good soil management. They think you’re an outlier because you work hard and got lucky with the land, not because anything supernatural is happening.
Stein included. The documents I’ve seen are all about metrics. No mention of miracles.”
Isla stares at Beau, wide-eyed. Evelyn obviously knows about Blue Willow’s magic, which means Beau has shared the ins and outs of Mirabelle, too.
“Evelyn knows enough to take this seriously,” Beau says by way of explanation. “She handles some of Copper Hollow’s stranger paperwork. I can’t have her advising me if she isn’t clued in to the inner workings of this town.”
“But she’s not from here,” Isla says, frowning. “No offense, Evelyn.”
“None taken,” Evelyn says. “I grew up in New Haven. I just happen to have a client whose cranberries do things they shouldn’t. You see enough impossible yield charts, you either adjust your worldview or assume you’re bad at math.”
Isla winces. “It’s hard for me to trust an outsider with our town’s secrets.”
“Jacky boy’s not from Blue Willow, either,” Beau adds. “We let him in.”
“He lives here,” Isla says. “That’s different.”
“You’re lucky she believes in all this,” Beau says. “Evelyn wants to help because she thinks what you’re protecting is worth the headache.”
“Fine.” Isla blows out a breath. “So, what happens if the site visit goes badly? If they come out, walk around, decide we’re not worth the trouble.”
“Worst case,” Evelyn says, “they withdraw the grant, and you’re back where you started financially. Best case, they’re impressed, and you get more leverage. They’ll want to hold you up as a model for heritage operations. That puts you in a stronger position in future negotiations.”
“And middle case?” I ask.
“They like you enough to keep the funding but want more say in the trials depending on funder buy-in,” she says. “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”
“I hate this,” Isla says quietly. “I wish Roland wasn’t breathing down our necks.”
“Walking away from the grant is still an option,” Evelyn says. “You can terminate the agreement before signing this version. No site visit. No trials. No funding.”
“And no seasonal crew,” Isla says. “No upgrades. No new equipment. I go back to working a second job five nights a week.”
I want to jump in and tell her she never has to set foot in Luxe again. That I’ll pour concrete and hang drywall and take on every rotten roof in the state if I have to. That we can find another way without any committee at all.
But I don’t want to say that in front of the lawyer fighting our case, and I definitely don’t want to say it in front of Beau. So, I reach for her hand under the table instead.
Her fingers slot between mine. She squeezes hard enough that it almost hurts.
“If we walk away,” I say, “Roland still knows Mirabelle is an outlier. He can come in sideways. Or send somebody else. At least this way, he has to walk through the front gate. Sign a log. Put on a visitor badge.”
Isla looks at me. Her eyes are dark, pupils blown wide. There’s fear and stubbornness painted in her expression. But there’s trust in it, too.
“Do you really think this is the better alternative?” she asks.
I purse my lips. “I’d rather watch him like a hawk when he steps onto your land than spend the next year wondering exactly how much he knows.”
Evelyn shuts off her tablet screen. “To be clear, you’re both willing to accept the revised language, agree to the on-site-only trials and the site visit?”
“Yes,” Isla says.
I nod. “Yes.”
“Good,” Evelyn says. “I’ll send a formal acceptance and add language that reiterates consent as a condition for any off-site licensing. I’ll also request proposed dates for the visit and push for a limited team. Fewer people tromping around your rows is better.”
“How long until they schedule it?” Isla asks.
“They suggested next week in their response,” Evelyn says. “They want to move quickly while everyone is excited about the initiative.”
Next week.
The buds are just starting to swell on the branches. The ground still holds winter in the lowest spots. We have a week to make the orchard look like an ordinary place—enough shine that it reads as thriving, not enough strangeness that anyone starts asking the wrong questions.
“Anything else we should know?” I ask.
Evelyn gathers her things. “Keep your records organized. Yields, spray schedules, any pruning notes. Committees love binders. And if Roland tries to talk to you without counsel present, don’t. Funnel everything through me.”
“Happy to pay you to tell him to go to hell,” Isla says.
“Best part of the job,” Evelyn says with a smile.
Beau walks her out, talking quietly about donors and timelines.
Isla rubs her palms over her face. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“If you’re going to puke, could you wait until Beau gets back? Then try to aim for his fancy boots.”
A choked sound escapes her. “Very petty.”
“Accurate,” I say. “But at least I’m petty and on your side.”
She drops her hands. “We only have a week.”
“We’ll spend it getting ready,” I reply. “We’ll make the rows look good. We’ll get your binders in a line. We’ll remind Mirabelle that she loves you and doesn’t need to show off for strangers.”
“You’re going to talk my trees?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “I’m married to the orchard now, too. It would be rude not to consult with them personally.”
“I appreciate the enthusiasm.”
“Don’t worry, freckles. I always have your back.”