Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
The days bled into one another. Emmy split her time between researching in the library and working on the exterior design of Will’s house.
His two weeks’ notice was almost up, and she was no closer to an answer about how to get out of the damn book.
With each fruitless visit to the library, she became more certain that she was pursuing the wrong course.
Meanwhile, if time was passing normally in the real world, she’d missed her sister’s wedding and then some.
It hurt to think about her family, to wonder how they were handling her disappearance.
The only way she could stop fretting about it was to convince herself that time had stopped when she’d been pulled into the book.
Or maybe she was only a projection of herself.
Maybe her real body was lying comatose in her bed.
Her family would still be worrying about her—likely while watching over her in a hospital bed—but at least they wouldn’t think she’d been kidnapped.
Or worse. The problem with the coma theory was that it meant there was no way to pull Will out of the book with her.
Her brain started to throb whenever she had too much downtime.
Fortunately, she never felt lost or overwhelmed when she was working on the landscaping outside Will’s house.
She had a pile of new supplies thanks to a trip to the hardware store Will had insisted on a few days prior.
As she finished filling a window box with potting soil, she thought again about the conversation they’d had at the hardware store in town.
She couldn’t help but smile a little at the memory.
“Fresh herbs in the window box would be good,” she’d said, more to herself than to him, as she perused a shelf of small green plants in their flimsy, disposable pots. “You cook enough where they’d actually get used, and they’d smell really good, too.”
“I don’t know if I can identify enough herbs to make it worthwhile. I mostly use the dried stuff in the conveniently labeled shakers.”
Emmy cast him a withering look. “You want flowers, you can have flowers. I’m just saying, a lot of people are using homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs these days.
It’s efficient and organic and cottage-core and it saves you from having to go to the grocery store every time you want a tomato for a sandwich. ”
“Or I could make a sandwich without tomatoes on it.”
Emmy whirled on him, brandishing a tiny pot of basil. “Look, buster, you’re the one who insisted on bringing me here, so stop sassing me.”
“Sassing?”
“Yes. You’re being sassy. Stop it. You’re going to have a window box herb garden and you’re going to like it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Will said, valiantly trying to hide his grin.
“That’s better.” Emmy added the basil to the cart and tossed in an assortment of seed packets for good measure, vowing to sort through them later.
She didn’t know if she’d be at Will’s place long enough to watch seedlings grow into flowers—in fact, she hoped she wouldn’t be—but she enjoyed the process of planting enough to make the purchase worth it.
Then they’d moved on to a display of perennials, already blooming and giving off an assortment of fragrances.
“You can arrange taller flowers along the edge of the house,” Emmy told Will.
“A lot of these plants thrive in partial shade, which is perfect for your house because it faces south. Then you get some mossy rocks to break up the pattern a little, throw in something unexpected. Oh! Maybe a fountain. No… a birdbath. An old one to match the style of your grandfather’s watering can.
Is there an antique shop around here?” She turned to look at him and caught him smiling at her. “What?”
“Just a hobby?”
Emmy felt her cheeks get warm. “A hobby that isn’t worth doing unless you do it right.”
“Emmy, you’re talking about antique birdbaths. Maybe it’s time to consider turning your hobby into a career.”
“Not this again,” she grumbled, wheeling the cart away.
“What’s stopping you? You have the skills and the passion. You’re obsessed with herbs, and you can spend twenty minutes staring at one packet of seeds. It sounds like a no-brainer.”
“Yeah, until I find out that I’m competing with people who have been landscaping all their lives.
People who studied it, got certifications, won prizes.
People who have crews of dozens of people working for them.
And I’ll be sitting there hoping some grandma who lives in my neighborhood takes pity on me and asks me to prune her rose bushes. ”
“Or… you could do up grandma’s garden real nice and she could tell all her grandma friends. Then, after you’ve done up all their yards, their worthless kids can come for a visit, see what you’ve done, and then you’ve got more customers.”
Emmy raised an eyebrow. “What makes them worthless?”
“Because they never call, and they only visit on major holidays.”
“Oh, sure. Obviously.”
Will fell silent. She thought he was finally ready to drop the subject. She thought wrong.
“You could try it out for however long you’re here. I bet there are tons of people in town who would love to redo their yards, and there wouldn’t be any pressure because none of it is real anyway.”
“It would feel real to me.”
“That would just help motivate you to give it your all.”
“If I agree to try it, will you stop pushing this?” she snapped.
“Yes, because then I’ll have won.”
Emmy opened her mouth to argue, found she couldn’t come up with a good comeback, and snapped her jaw shut. Will just smiled at her in that smug-yet-charming way that only a romance novel protagonist could pull off.
*
With all the elements put together, it did look professional.
Emmy worried her lip with her teeth as she studied her work.
Yeah. Professional. Right? Maybe the plants looked a little haphazard, but she hadn’t wanted neat little rows for Will.
And the antique birdbath did look absolutely perfect tucked in among the foliage.
There were three antique shops in Cobalt to choose from, thank the romance gods.
“Wind chimes,” she whispered to herself. “All it needs now is a good set of wind chimes.”
She checked the time on her phone. Will would be home soon.
She hoped he had enough energy to drive her to Bright Ideas.
She could skip the library for one afternoon.
Before she went in to take a shower, she grabbed the rusty old gardening tools from the shed.
She’d already replaced them with new ones, and she had a great idea how to put these to good use.
*
“Do you think Bright would let me nap on one of her antique couches while you talk to her about trash art?” Will asked later as he drove her toward town.
“First of all, it’s not trash. It’s your grandfather’s old tools, and they deserve your respect.
Second… no. I don’t think she’d mind if you took a nap.
She probably has a back room or something, though.
No need to make yourself part of the display floor.
” He felt Emmy’s gaze on him, studying him.
He knew he looked and sounded fatigued, and she must have noticed, because she added, “I told you we could wait a day if you needed to.”
“I’m fine,” he told her. “I wouldn’t have agreed to go if I didn’t want to. I’m just a little worried about seeing Bright again.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “I had another book scene at the hospital today. It hit me out of nowhere. I don’t think I can handle it if I end up in one today.”
Emmy turned more fully toward him. “What happened?”
Will didn’t want to recount it. More than anything, he wanted to forget it. He wanted to go back to a time when he thought he was a person with a purpose and a life to lead. But that wasn’t in the cards.
“There was this kid who was recovering after surgery. Appendicitis. It went fine, but they’re keeping him overnight just to be sure.
The parents caught it late, and the appendix was severely inflamed.
I was doing my rounds, and I saw he was crying and clutching this stuffed owl his mom had brought him. ”
He remembered it too well. The words had been there, and he’d wanted to fight them.
But how could he when they perfectly aligned with what he wanted to say and do?
This wasn’t a casual conversation with Bright in the waiting room of a mechanic.
A child was suffering. He’d had no choice but to go through with the script.
“Hey, buddy, what’s wrong?”
The kid had looked up at him with big brown eyes. His name was Lamar Booke. He was six years old, and he was spending the night in the hospital.
“It’s my fault,” Lamar said, his voice small and pitiful.
Will heard the words in his head before he spoke them, and he resented them even as he understood the kid needed them.
“What’s your fault?”
“We were supposed to pick up our dog today from the shelter place. My tummy hurt a lot, but I didn’t want to say anything because I wanted to get our dog.
She’s really pretty. My mom has a picture on her phone.
I had to wait because the people had to come and look at our house and stuff. I really wanted a dog for forever.”
“Nothing wrong with that. Dogs are great.”
“Yeah, but my tummy hurt real bad and I didn’t say anything. I heard the doctor talking to my mom. He said it was lucky we got here in time because it was real bad. My mom was crying. I made her cry.”
Will sat on the edge of the bed and took the boy’s hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Lamar. Your mom was probably crying from relief because the doctor was telling her you’re okay.”
At that moment, Lamar’s mother walked back into the room. Her face fell when she saw Will.
“Is everything okay? Did something happen? I just stepped out for a minute to take a call from his dad.” Panic rose in her voice. “The reception in here is so spotty. Is he okay?”