Epilogue #2
“Would you like help closing it?” He collects the last empty cups from the table, leaving the samples where I need them.
“I’d like you to myself for a while.” I leave the invitation clear enough that he can enjoy it. “The plants can manage.”
“An hour.” He kisses my cheek, quick and casual, the way he does now when we’re in public. “I’ll be there.”
By the time I return to the greenhouse an hour later, the last guests have gone.
I’ve closed the tasting room and changed into something comfortable. The winter night is cold, but light spills from the greenhouse onto the path.
I enter through the side door beside my reading nook, screened from the growing benches. A seedling tray occupies the little table beside my book. I brought it over to examine earlier and forgot to put it back.
Lorenzo is already there, settled on the bench with his coat folded beside him. He’s taken the blanket from beside my book and spread it over the cushions. When I enter, he looks up with a smile that makes something warm unfurl in my chest.
“You found the blanket.” I close the door behind me and wash my hands at the little sink before joining him.
“It was beside your book.” He moves the novel from the cushion to the table so I can sit down. “I assumed you were intending to use both.”
“I was, before you arrived.” I move toward the nook, shedding my coat as I go. The greenhouse is warm enough that I don’t need it, and I drape it over the back of the bench before settling beside him.
“Am I interrupting?” He folds the blanket over our knees after I sit beside him. It’s a little late to sound concerned about that now.
“I invited you.” I tuck my feet beneath me and lean against his sweater. “The book can wait.”
He settles with his arm along the back of the bench, leaving me room to get comfortable. We have spent plenty of evenings together here. I like this one especially, with the work finished and nothing left to do for the guests.
“The tasting went well.” I rest my head against his shoulder, watching the lamplight play across the glass walls.
Beyond them, the winter garden is invisible in the darkness, but I can picture it perfectly.
The herb beds I rebuilt, the paths I planned, the spaces I’ve made my own. “Better than I expected.”
“The woman with the notebook came back for another sample.” He points toward the tray of empty tins waiting beside the door. “Did you see her take one for her husband too?”
“She wanted to settle an argument about lavender.” I remember how firmly she’d promised to report back. “He thinks he dislikes it in everything. She thinks he just likes disagreeing with her.”
“I hope he enjoys it.” Lorenzo moves the cushion behind my back before I can get up to fetch it. “Otherwise you may have to hear both sides next time.”
“I wouldn’t mind.” I want customers who care enough to come back and tell me what they think. “Though I reserve the right to give them separate blends.”
I put the rest of the day’s work out of my mind and turn toward him, close enough to kiss the corner of his mouth before he can meet me halfway. He responds immediately, his hands finding my waist, pulling me closer until I’m practically in his lap.
“I wanted a longer goodbye this morning.” He holds me close when I start to draw back. “You sent me away with the samples.”
“You offered to carry them.” My fingers catch in the collar of his sweater as I pull him back for a kiss. “I appreciated the help.”
“I’m glad.” He reaches behind me to pull the shade over the window by the bench, then returns his attention to me. “I was hoping you would.”
I kiss him again, deeper this time, and feel his grip tighten at my waist. We shift together on the bench, trying to find a more comfortable position, and my elbow catches the edge of the small table beside us.
Something wobbles. I pull back just in time to see a tray of seedlings sliding toward the edge.
“Careful.” Lorenzo catches it before it can fall, steadying the tray with one hand while keeping the other firmly on my waist. “Your lavender starts.”
“Thank you.” I take the tray from him and return it to the propagation bench, out of range of our elbows. “I meant to put those back earlier.”
“I think we need a little more room.” He moves my book to the shelf while I finish rescuing the plants. “Before you knock anything else over.”
“I was managing perfectly well before you came here.” I return to the bench, laughing when he makes an exaggerated amount of room for me.
“You could sit over there.” He indicates the far end of the bench, and I promptly sit beside him instead.
“I could.” I pull the blanket back over our legs. “But then I’d have to move again to kiss you.”
“Stay there, then.” He leans toward me and saves me the effort.
We settle into a comfortable silence, wrapped together beneath the blanket, the greenhouse humming softly around us. I can feel his heartbeat against my back, steady and calm. Through the unshaded panes above us, I can see stars where the clouds have broken.
“Do you remember Lyon?” He stretches his legs along the bench, as relaxed as he was on our last evening there. “The day it rained while we were waiting for those pastries?”
“The ones from the shop near the river?” I smile at the memory. “We stood under that awning for twenty minutes, and you kept insisting the rain would stop any second.”
“It did stop.” He lifts his shoulder beneath my head as if that settles the matter, and I have to sit up to argue.
“After we were both soaked.” I turn my head to look at him. “You were very optimistic about French weather patterns.”
“I was very motivated by pastries.” He presses a kiss to my hair. “And by impressing my wife with my adventurous spirit.”
That trip was three months ago. I met my old suppliers and showed Lorenzo the streets I’d missed, the market, my former apartment building, the café where I’d planned my first blends. He remembered the way back to the pastry shop without asking me.
“I used to think about leaving.” The words come out before I’ve fully decided to say them. “Not just the estate. Everything. Starting over somewhere anonymous, where no one knew the Marchetti name or cared about valley politics.”
“Somewhere you wouldn’t have to explain?” Lorenzo waits while I find a more comfortable place against him. He knows how tired I was of defending myself.
“Exactly.” I remember how appealing it seemed to stop hearing my own name whispered behind me.
“When everyone believed I was guilty. When I couldn’t walk through town without feeling eyes on me.
I’d lie awake at night imagining what it would be like to disappear.
Just pack a bag and go somewhere no one had ever heard of me. ”
“It was one of the things I liked about going back to Lyon.” I rest my hand on his sweater, feeling him breathe. “People asked what I was making. They remembered me before any of this.”
“You looked happy there.” He draws the blanket around my shoulder where it has slipped. “I liked seeing that.”
“I was.” I remember showing him the streets I knew while he let me choose where we went next. “And I was happy to come back here afterward.”
“I’m glad we made a life I wanted to come back to.” I turn toward him, wanting him to see how plainly I mean it.
“So am I.” He presses his forehead to mine for a moment. I can feel the warmth of him under my hand, and the ease of being here together doesn’t need another promise attached to it.
He kisses me then, slow and deep. I let myself fall into it, enjoying the familiar warmth of him and the way he takes his time with me. When we finally break apart, I’m breathless and flushed and glad we have nowhere else we need to be yet.
“I love you.” I say it before he can kiss me again, my hand still caught in the soft collar of his sweater. “And I would like to stay here a little longer.”
He reaches for the lamp beside us and lowers the light. “Then we will.”
The next kiss starts where the last one ended and does not stay gentle.
I pull him in by the sweater. He answers with a low sound and opens for me, tongue sliding against mine until I moan into his mouth.
His hand finds the back of my neck. Mine finds the warm skin under his sweater.
We kiss like that for a long time: unhurried, then hungrier, breaking only to breathe and come back for more.
When I suck on his lower lip he makes a rougher sound and stands, drawing me up with him.
We stay joined at the mouth while he walks me backward.
My shoulders meet the screen that hides the growing benches.
The wood gives a soft creak. Warm air. Condensation on glass. His thigh presses between mine.
“Look at you.” He kisses the corner of my mouth, then my jaw, then the soft place under my ear. “My wife, pulling me behind a screen like you couldn’t wait for the house.”
“I couldn’t.” I shove both hands under his sweater and drag my palms up his back. “You’ve been looking at me all afternoon like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” I roll my hips against his thigh and feel how hard he already is.
He groans and pins me more firmly to the screen, kissing me filthy now, open-mouthed, while his hand slides under my top and finds my breast bare beneath it.
His thumb circles. I whimper. He does it again, firmer, then pinches lightly until my head tips back against the wood.
“That sound.” He mouths down my throat. “Do that again.”
I do, helpless, when he palms me harder and grinds his thigh up against me at the same time. We stay there long enough that my knees weaken and my trousers feel unbearable. He feels the wet heat of me through the fabric and swears softly against my collarbone.
“So ready already.” Praise, dark and pleased. “I’ve barely touched you.”
“Then touch me properly.”