Chapter 16
Morgan
If I could leave this house now, I honestly would.
I would leave Sawyer and his spooky studio and his nightmare garden and his dysfunctional water heater and his ghost fiancée and his uncomfortably perceptive observations right damn now.
I would grab my one suitcase, which I still haven’t unpacked, and abandon Sawyer to the miserable life to which he’s so eager to return.
Unfortunately, I can’t. I promised him I would clear his front yard. The stubborn need to defy his sharp words—afraid of commitment, huh?—won’t let me abandon my horticultural undertaking.
This stubbornness pulls me out of bed early in the morning. I need to put in hours on Sawyer’s dead yard if I’m going to leave here as soon as possible. Which I very much intend to.
With morning light invading my guesthouse windows—which Sawyer would have never cleaned without me, so really he should be thanking me instead of calling me commitment-phobic or whatever—I pull on my leggings and gardening boots.
I put my hair up. Time to garden like I’ve never goddamn gardened before.
Determined, I march under the bougainvillea, down the dirt path, and reach for the shovel I left there yesterday.
The tool drops out of my hands when I glimpse the yard.
The dead plants have been cleared. Instead of shrouding Sawyer’s home in messy hedges, they sit clipped and organized in impeccable piles in front of the house.
I gape. There’s…no way Sawyer did this. Not to mention in one night. The job was weeks of painstaking work. Nobody could do this in one night.
Or…nobody living.
Zach materializes next to me, sunlight passing through him while he rubs his stubbled chin.
“Did…you do this?” I murmur, even though from his expression, I know he didn’t.
“I think it was Kennedy,” he replies.
He wanders into the front yard, examining the plant piles with visible fascination. I watch him. Zach is, of course, my expert on what ghosts can and cannot do.
“Didn’t Sawyer mention he hasn’t seen Kennedy in days?” he asks. “I wondered if she was…fading or something. But if she’s able to manifest strongly enough to do this…I mean, I couldn’t do this,” he elaborates.
“Hey,” I say. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
Zach smiles graciously. “No, seriously. If Kennedy is making short work of her own yard, then why hasn’t she appeared to Sawyer in days? And,” he says, “why didn’t she do the yard herself sooner?”
I have no answers for my ghost’s questions.
The front door opens. I see Sawyer coming downstairs in gray sweatpants, his hair mussed.
“You two didn’t do this, did you?” he inquires.
I notice dark circles under his eyes. He slept even worse than I did. Good, I remind myself, except my own vindictiveness doesn’t quite convince me.
Zach shakes his head, silent.
“No,” Sawyer agrees, overlooking the yard like he’s realizing what we have. “I feel her. She was here.”
Then his sleep-deprived gaze moves to me.
“I was…worried you’d be leaving this morning,” he muscles out.
I raise my eyebrows. “I’m not,” I say. “Are you kicking me out?”
“I’m not,” Sawyer says.
I nod, hiding my unexpected relief. We’re not apologizing for the regrettable things we said about each other. Or I assume Sawyer regrets them. I’m not happy with him, and I know he’s not happy with me.
Still, it’s something. The start of something, instead of another ending. Like soil, cleared of dead weeds, where something, maybe, one day, could grow.
“Well, since the dead plants are gone,” I say. “It’s time to plant new ones. I have a couple hours before work. I could go to the nursery to pick some out for you, or you could tell me what you want. You’ll just have to reimburse me for the purchases.”
Sawyer pauses. “Can I…” He clears his throat like he’s clearing out old resentments. “Can I come with you?”
I don’t smile. I kind of want to, though. “I think I can commit to a car ride with you,” I say pointedly. “Think you can drag yourself out of your depressing house for a couple hours?”
Sawyer cracks half a grin. “Only one way to find out,” he replies.