Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Dear Drew,
I’ve decided upon your punishment: An enormous hat decorated with my finest pink Pompons and an explosion of my dangling blue ribbons.
Everyone who sees you will know whose crown you wear.
As ever, your most devoted nemesis,
Cecelia.
Dear Cecelia,
Great minds do think alike. Please find enclosed the cross-body sash I commissioned especially for you.
Be certain the embroidered PROUD SUTTON SUPPORTER remains visible to all who come to admire our entries—and, naturally, your excellent taste in gardeners.
Yours,
Drew.
August 18, 1909
10 days until Cactus Dahlia Day
What was the harm in daydreaming about three little words?
Cecelia adjusted the unwieldy bouquet of French collarettes in her arms, the brown paper crackling softly as she strode toward the Children’s Fresh Air Cottage. The sound provided a pleasant accompaniment to the refrain that had occupied her mind for the better part of a week.
I meant it. I meant it. I meant it.
Analysis, after all, was hardly a crime.
She analyzed plants every day. Branching habits, stem lengths, seedling variations.
Why should language be any different? Surely every woman, at one time or another, had taken an intriguing remark and held it beneath the microscope until every conceivable interpretation had been cataloged. That seemed perfectly reasonable.
The trouble, perhaps, lay in the conclusion she'd reached.
After exhaustive study—if one considered replaying the same three words every other waking hour a legitimate form of research—she'd arrived at a startling certainty. Drew Sutton had reaffirmed himself her sole admirer, which meant, by the laws she had invented over the past week…
He was now hers.
The notion was preposterous, entirely unsupported by science or common sense, yet her mind was perversely unwilling to relinquish the conclusion.
Now all she had to do was figure out how to let him know—if she should at all.
She rounded the bend, and there was the Cottage, a house or two ahead, its front path cutting through a tumble of shrubs. A man emerged from the front door and started down the path. She knew those shoulders at once, that lazy, unmistakable swing to his step.
“Calm down,” she whispered to her leaping midriff. “We were bound to see him sooner or later.”
True, her belly whispered as it performed a few heel kicks, but that’s before he was ours.
Good Lord, she’d lost her mind over a man.
An infuriatingly virile man who accompanied his elderly grandfather to the fair on his day off.
One who got under her skin and did his best to help her win a rowboat race they hadn’t even signed up for.
Ugh. He was so unpretentious and steady and thoughtful and good and—
So not alone.
A petite nurse emerged from the Cottage and fell into step beside him, tipping her lovely face toward the sunshine as she smiled up at Drew.
Cecelia’s midriff promptly excused itself from the dance and plopped down with all the other disappointed spinsters.
Nurse Mary was the sweetest, most selfless, most intelligent nurse at the Cottage.
Everyone loved Nurse Mary, including Cecelia.
A sudden rush of rich, peppery fragrance made her nose twitch violently.
She glanced down and gasped. Her poor collarettes were crushed against her chest. Easing her grip at once, she scanned the broad, oxblood-red petals for signs of damage.
Not only did she refuse to deliver any flower that was less than perfect, but Head Nurse Thelma would cluck her tongue with disapproval.
Rather funny, considering the weekly bouquet was a gift, but Cecelia had to respect her standards.
By the time she had finished her inspection, the pair had moved down the sidewalk. Drew had shortened his stride to match Nurse Mary’s. Of course he had, the considerate jackass. She took one step after them, then stopped.
She was a successful, independent woman.
She was not about to follow a gentleman through town simply because they’d had the smallest heart-to-heart in a rowboat.
Turning smartly on her heel, she marched inside the Cottage.
The instant Drew disappeared from view, however, her midriff emitted a mournful wail.
“All right,” she muttered to it.
Hustling to the empty sideboard, she deposited the dahlias into the empty vase with much less ceremony than normal. Head Nurse Thelma poked her head from the children’s playroom, eyebrows climbing as Cecelia sailed past.
“Sorry about the Maurice Rivoire,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll replace it tomorrow!”
Then she was back outside, hustling down the sidewalk. Where had they gone? She turned one way, then the other, before finally spotting them farther down the road. Still together. Still walking close together as if they were the closest of friends…or more.
She took a step in their direction, then another.
Strictly speaking, she wasn’t following them.
She merely happened to be walking down McGraw Street in precisely the same direction at a determined pace that may or may not occasionally take advantage of the stealth offered by a mailbox here and a box shrub there.
A dozen sensible reasons told her to turn around, but none could match the devouring need to know.
Why would Drew walk out with another woman scarcely a week after telling her that he meant it?
Had she imagined the whole dreadful, wonderful thing?
Had his declaration been nothing more than kindness, or worse, pity?
Had he meant something entirely unrelated, and she’d simply agreed because she’d wanted it to be what she thought it was?
When the pair turned north onto Fourteenth Street, a growl of disbelief burst from her.
There was only one reason to go to the northwest edge of the hill.
Drew was taking Nurse Mary home with him.
She crept forward, unable to stop watching how Drew took the nurse’s arm and directed her up the short walkway.
And when he laughed softly, Nurse Mary’s perfect tinkling giggle joining his, Cecelia’s midriff sobbed.
It wasn’t fair.
She wanted to be the reason he laughed like that.
She waited until they disappeared inside the modest clapboard house before sneaking up the front path.
She gritted her teeth against the acute knowledge that some may view her actions as trespassing or espionage.
It was not. It was verification. Hypotheses required evidence, and she would have her answer, no matter how painful it turned out to be.
Hugging the side of the house, she carefully stepped between two lush hydrangeas.
The glossy leaves and white lacecaps rustled as she pressed her nose against the nearest window.
Drawn curtains! The coward. She pressed her ear to the pane, but the thick fabric swallowed any conversation within.
Very well. She would just slip around to the back, find one more window, and then she could abandon this whole humiliating endeavor.
Except when she rounded the corner, the back door stood open.
Her gaze swept through the yard, flitting over the cold frames overflowing with colorful swiss chard stalks and ripe red tomatoes, to the wooden greenhouse. Its door, too, was open. She made the connection in time to see the tail of Drew’s coat disappear inside.
A red haze clouded her vision.
Not only had he brought Nurse Mary home, but he’d invited her into his personal greenhouse. The most sacred place a gardener possessed. She stormed down the dirt path and entered the greenhouse with all the delicacy of a charging boar.
Drew whirled around. “Cecelia? What are you…?”
Some distant, sensible corner of Cecelia's mind suggested she pause. Breathe. Assemble a coherent sentence that didn’t paint her as a complete imbecile.
“I thought you meant it,” she hissed instead.
His eyebrows climbed to his hairline. “I did.”
“Then perhaps we should have clarified what, precisely, you meant, because” —her jittery hands took to waving wildly through the air— “at no point did I imagine it included inviting Nurse Mary into your greenhouse when you’ve never invited me!”
Drew stared at her, utterly flummoxed.
Oh Lord, what would Nurse Mary think of her outburst? Cecelia sought her out, only to realize with horror that she wasn’t there.
Her arms fell limp at her sides. No wonder Drew bore that look. It was the one that sprang into place anytime she toed—or merrily hopped over—the lines of propriety. Whenever she spoke too boldly, questioned too freely, or forgot to make herself smaller. Whenever she was simply…herself.
She was on the cusp of accepting defeat when the corners of his mouth twitched. Within seconds, he was grinning so broadly she could nearly count every last one of his teeth. Hope and irritation warred for first place within her.
“You were following me,” he said. “You were worried I was courting someone else.”
“Well, I—”
“You think I'd all but pour my heart out to you one day, then bring another woman home the next.”
“Well, I—”
“You, Cecelia Townsend” —he propped one hip on the edge of a potting bench and folded his arms over his chest with far too much satisfaction— “are feeling a bit jealous.”
“There’s no bit about it,” she flung back. “I am extremely jealous.”
He tipped his head back and laughed, the raw sound echoing off the misty glass panes and sending a damnable shiver down her spine.
“I wouldn’t blame you,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over him. “Nurse Mary is petite and quiet and kind and gentle—”
“She's fifteen years older than I am.”
“You might have unusual tastes! You seemed to like me, after all.”
His laughter softened into a fond chuckle. “And she's married.”
“I’d forgotten that part,” she admitted, heat infusing her cheeks. “It’s just…I saw you leaving the Fresh Air Cottage together. I couldn’t understand why you were there in the first place if it wasn’t to see her.”