CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Asher
The days pass quickly.
I hate to admit that I would do anything possible to slow them down, to eke out more time with Ledger each day, but it’s true. The clock still turns. The hours still fade. The days turn to night.
And as much as it hurts to admit, I know he has a life to get back to in New York City.
He is rarely on the phone when we are together.
In fact, I’m rather positive he makes a point to be unplugged.
But on the off chance he has to take a call he’s waiting for, I’m immediately reminded of his stature and importance in a world so very foreign to me.
Facts and figures roll off his tongue in a no-nonsense tone that has to be intimidating to anyone on the other end of the line, but to me is a turn-on.
There’s nothing sexier than a man who is sure of himself.
But it’s those times when he’s fixing a problem or negotiating with God knows who, that I’m reminded he does have a life that’s real, a penthouse that’s most likely posh, and a social life that’s probably active to get back to.
My chest aches at the thought.
So I find comfort in the rhythm we’ve fallen into. Days spent working on our own. Evenings spent getting to know each other again even though it feels like we’ve never been apart. Late nights enjoying each other’s bodies and learning each other’s pleasures.
But there seems to be an unspoken line we’re both toeing. One that has us taking a step back for a break every day or two, almost as if both of us are afraid to get too close.
I think it’s futile.
Yet I still play the game.
And I still attempt to convince myself this is simply infatuation.
“Oh my God, Ash,” Nita says as she walks toward me, her hands out, her face up to the sky. The look of amazement she gives me when she finishes twirling under the softness of the lights causes goosebumps to chase over my skin. “This. Is. Amazing.”
She keeps moving. Around the clearing where George and the guys finished stringing lights back and forth from tree to tree to the barn in a zigzag pattern.
They are muted and cast a soft glow in the darkening night.
To the various antique and well-worn pots we’ve gathered from garage sales from neighboring communities.
With flowers spilling out of them, they add a touch of color to the patinated barnwood they sit against.
She moves inside the barn. From the ceiling’s rafters hangs row after row of lavender bundles drying amidst several shabby chic chandeliers that lighten the all-wood interior.
She runs her hands over the newly stained railing that leads to the barn’s loft. Over the piles of décor items I’ve yet to put out.
“Do you like it?” I ask, not caring whether she does or doesn’t, because I do.
It’s been so long since I’ve been able to take ownership of something and see it to fruition that I forgot how good it felt to do so.
With every thought and placement, that familiar hum returned to my veins like when I used to sketch.
There’s a creativity to this. A freedom to invent and inspire and bring a vision to life. I never realized how much I was missing this feeling, how happy it made my heart and the calming it did for my soul, until I started this project.
Who knew falling back on what I knew best would mean both the lavender and my sketching?
“I’m stunned. Literally stunned,” she says, her feet continually moving as she takes everything in. “You are going to be booked for weddings and events and . . . so many things.”
“That’s the plan.” Luxury. Decadence. A destination to lose yourself in.
Ledger’s words were the driving force behind the feel of it.
Sarah from the apothecary’s comments were the ones that flipped the switch on in my head.
“And then once we get our feet under us, I’m thinking we create another outbuilding over there,” I say and point in the distance.
“For what?”
“So we can make our own soaps or oils to sell to places like Sarah’s apothecary. So we can have people come out here to be hands-on and make it themselves.” I shrug and smile shyly. “More pipe dreams.”
“This is not a pipe dream. This is you falling back on what you know best. The one constant in your entire life. The lavender.” She grabs me in a quick hug and makes a squealing sound as she turns around and takes it all in again. “You could do weddings over there by the tree.”
“That’s what I was thinking too. Have the ceremony out there and the reception in the barn.”
“It would be so beautiful with the lavender as a backdrop and the breeze blowing through it. Gran and Pop would love this, wouldn’t they?”
My smile is bittersweet. “I already showed Gran some photos. It made her cry happy tears. She couldn’t believe this was our farm. I already talked to the staff about how we can get her here when it’s finished so she can see it.”
“There won’t be a dry eye in the house on that day.”
I nod because I already have it planned in my head. Getting Gran here. Letting her see her beloved lavender again. Sneaking her over to visit Pop on the way back.
Pop. He already knows what it looks like, because he’s been here beside me every step of the way, guiding me.
“Fingers crossed I get approved for my loan so I have the capital to buy the rest of what I need. Tables and chairs. I want to add a bathroom for guests and a kitchen onto the back of the barn so I can accommodate a caterer. Pave the dirt road coming in here for easier access.” I scrub my hands over my face, having already visualized it a hundred times.
“If I’m denied, this is all for naught.”
That’s my biggest fear. That if I leverage the farm for collateral for this new loan, I’ll not only be risking my family’s blood, sweat, and tears, but also my home.
And then, what if I don’t get the loan? I know from experience that it’s almost crueler to have the dream and get it yanked away from you when you’ve had just a taste of it than to simply dream it and never get a chance to experience it.
“If you don’t get approved, you’ll figure it out somehow. It’s about time you get to reap the good luck around here.” She stops and lifts an eyebrow. “Then again, you did find Ledger so that seems like maybe you’ve cashed some of that in.”
“For the time being, anyway.” I try to joke about it, but Nita knows me well enough to know what I’m doing when I change the topic—avoidance as usual.
“I’ve also been working on a proposal to offer special deals to clients of The Retreat.
Receptions. Parties. Whatever. The resort would get a booking commission, and I’d get more traffic.
Once I’m finished with it, then I’ll present it to the person in charge there. ”
“You mean Ledger?” she says sarcastically as she slides a look my way as if I’m crazy.
“No. Not Ledger. I don’t want him to have anything to do with this.”
“You know that sounds crazy, right? He owns the damn resort, yet you think he’s not going to know?”
“I don’t care if he knows after my proposal has been accepted, but not before. No way. I want to get the partnership on my own merit. Not because he gave me a handout.”
“A handout and a hand are two different things,” she asserts.
“Promise me you won’t say anything to him if you see him.”
“Fine. Whatever. But how are you going to keep all of this from him when he comes here?”
“He’s seen the outside of the barn but not the inside. I’ll say I added the lights because this part of the property is darker, and I wanted to brighten it up.” I shrug. “He’s a man. He doesn’t notice details until you point them out one by one.”
“True.” She laughs. “Where is the man of the hour anyway? Why’s he not here screwing your brains out between the rows of lavender?”
“That was three nights ago,” I say nonchalantly as her grin widens.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” I nod and she sighs. “Jealous with a capital J. So what exactly is going on with him?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve known you for a long damn time, Ash, and this is just different.”
“Different how?” I ask but already know her answer. Because I can’t put my finger on it and neither will she be able to.
“The amount of time you spend with him without feeling smothered. Your want for more than just the damn good sex you’re having.
The fact that you’re taking a chance on this”—she points to the barn and the lights around us—“when you’ve been so willing to just settle.
It’s nothing I can definitely pinpoint, but it’s there and I love it. ”
My smile is soft as I shake my head. “I hate when women say it was a man that gave them confidence and all of that bullshit, so I’m not going to say it, but I don’t know, Nita.
Something in me has changed with Ledger here.
I don’t know if it’s self-assurance or if it’s that I don’t give a crap about anyone in town or what they say about me .
. . I’m just more like the old me I was before I got called back here. ”
She nods. “Hold on tight to it, okay?”
Let’s hope I can.
“It’s so weird to think he and I have lived two completely different lives over the past fifteen years, and we meet up again and . . .”
“And it’s magic.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. It’s just . . .
us.” It’s as though we picked up things from where we left them.
The friendship. The ease of communication.
The laughter. Everything is still there but just .
. . so much more than before. Perhaps that’s the sex, but I don’t think so.
It’s as though there aren’t the same restrictions as there used to be.
No more father and grandparents interfering.
No more me caring what others thought. No more me worrying about everything other than just us.
“Well, I’m happy for you. I truly am. No one deserves someone to treat them like a queen more than you.”
“Does that mean you’ll be here to help me pick up the pieces when he leaves?” I ask off-the-cuff but mean every word of it.
“You know I will be.” She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “But something in me thinks instead of breaking you apart, he’ll have made you whole again.”
I stare at the lights swaying on their thick black cable and take a deep breath. Ledger’s always had such a profound effect on how I see myself. Desirable. Lovable. Leave-able . . . even if that hadn’t been true from his perspective in the end.
But therein lies the problem with Nita’s story.
I know how bad it hurts to lose Ledger.