Chapter 11 #2
“I was talking to Maris and turned around and there was a Stonehaven-shaped hole in the room.”
“There is no such thing.”
“Seven feet tall. Wings. It’s a very distinctive shape.”
“I wanted air.”
“So I hear.” Her gaze flicked towards Aidan.
“Traitor,” Garrick said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Aidan protested.
“You didn’t have to.”
Flora hopped down onto the porch, patted Aidan’s arm as she passed him, gave Sam a little wave, then planted herself directly in front of Garrick.
“Sit down, boy. You’re giving me a crick.”
“I’m not sitting down.”
“Then I’ll make this quick.” Her black eyes traveled over him. “You look terrible.”
“I looked exactly like this an hour ago.”
“No. An hour ago you looked constipated. Now you look tragic.”
Sam made a suspicious choking noise from the river, and Garrick ignored him. “Did you need something?”
“I needed air, just like you.” She inhaled elaborately through her nose. “Ah. Lovely.”
“Flora.”
“All right. I wanted to see if you’d gone home.”
“Why?”
“Curiosity.”
“No.”
“Nosiness?”
“Closer.”
Her teeth flashed, and he looked at her for a long moment. “You arranged the appointment.”
Flora’s eyebrows rose.
“At the start,” he said. “You set it up before either of us agreed to it.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Your gardens were a disgrace, and she needed a large contract.”
“That isn’t why.”
“My, you’re suspicious tonight.”
He waited, and Flora rocked once on her heels, hands tucked into the pockets of the pink sweatshirt. “You needed a landscaper. She’s a landscaper. You share a wall. It wasn’t exactly the Labors of Hercules.”
“You could have sent anyone.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Why?”
She smiled, and he immediately regretted asking.
“Because,” Flora said, “you’ve spent almost two years making that house beautiful enough for people who aren’t there.”
His jaw tightened.
“And Maris,” Flora continued blithely, “has spent the last eight months making a home out of a place everyone else had forgotten.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“Hm.” She considered him. “Then perhaps you’re not as clever as everyone says.”
Aidan coughed into his beer, and Garrick ignored that too. “You interfered.”
“Of course I interfered. Have we met?”
“You had no way of knowing we’d even like each other.”
“Didn’t I?” Flora’s smile sharpened. “Do you?”
He stared down at her, and she stared back.
“Like her, I mean,” she added helpfully.
“I know what you meant.”
“Well?”
“This conversation is over.”
“Ah.” Flora nodded wisely. “So yes.”
He closed his eyes, and Sam laughed outright.
“And the boy likes you too,” Flora added, and his eyes opened. There was no reason those six words should hit differently from the rest of her words, but they did, and she saw it happen. Of course she did.
“Toby likes everyone,” he said. “He’s very polite.”
“He’s polite to everyone. He doesn’t invite everyone to the tavern because he’s worried they’ll be lonely.”
So he’s not by himself.
“Leave the boy out of this,” he snapped, and Flora went quiet. He knew immediately that he’d made a mistake. Flora wasn’t offended. Flora was almost impossible to offend. This was worse.
“Oh,” she said.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was thinking.”
“Do it somewhere else.”
Flora’s eyes positively gleamed. “You’re fond of him.” He refused to respond. “Aren’t you?”
“He’s five.”
“Most five-year-olds are.”
“He’s a good kid. He asks good questions.”
“Mm-hm.”
“He notices things.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t need half this town discussing him because you’ve all decided his mother and I—”
He stopped abruptly, and Flora raised an eyebrow. Aidan took a sudden, intense interest in the label on his beer, and Sam disappeared beneath the water.
Coward.
“His mother and you what?” Flora asked innocently.
“Nothing.”
“Of course.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Whatever this is.”
Flora beamed up at him. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”
He had known this female most of his life, and he knew better than to continue the argument. Unfortunately, she wasn’t done with him yet.
“You know,” she said conversationally, “your mother used to make that exact face.”
His hand closed on the rail. Flora’s expression didn’t soften, and if anything the mischief sharpened.
“Usually when your father was being an ass.”
Aidan choked on his beer, and Garrick stared at her.
“You’re welcome,” Flora said.
“For what?”
“Changing the subject.”
He almost laughed. Almost.
Flora patted his forearm. “Now, are you planning to stand out here all night glaring at innocent tourists?”
“I wasn’t glaring.”
“The one in the blue shirt asked Robin if you were security.”
“He was bothering Maris.”
“He hadn’t even reached the table.”
“He was going to.”
Flora’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Were you planning to kill him before or after he said hello?”
“I wasn’t planning to kill anyone.”
“Good. Paperwork.”
Sam surfaced again, water streaming from his hair. “That’s what I always say.”
“You throw people in rivers,” Aidan pointed out.
“Less paperwork.”
Flora nodded approvingly. “See? Practical.”
Garrick looked at the three of them and wondered why he’d ever come back to Fairhaven Falls.
From inside came the first low notes of Ben’s next song, and then laughter. Maris. He knew it instantly, and so did Flora. Her gaze slid towards the door and then back to him, and she didn’t say anything at all, which was worse.
“Don’t,” Garrick said.
“I am standing perfectly still.”
“You’re thinking again.”
“I do that sometimes.”
“Flora.”
She sighed. “Fine. Here is the full extent of my wisdom for the evening, since you clearly need some.”
“I don’t.”
“Go inside.”
He frowned at her.
“That’s it.” She spread her hands. “Disappointing, isn’t it?”
“What am I supposed to do inside?”
“I don’t know. Have a beer. Listen to Ben. Speak to another person. Apparently males do all sorts of things in taverns.” Her black eyes glittered. “Maybe tell Maris she looks pretty again.”
He said nothing, and Flora’s eyebrows climbed.
“You have told her she looks pretty?”
He continued saying nothing.
“Garrick Stonehaven.”
“Good night, Flora.”
“You haven’t!”
He turned towards the door.
“She put on a dress!”
He kept walking.
“She did her eyes!”
“I noticed.”
The porch went silent behind him, and he stopped and looked over his shoulder.
Flora’s mouth had fallen open. Aidan had the expression of a male who had just been handed an unexpected gift, and even Sam looked impressed.
He considered his options and found there were none.
Flora’s mouth closed, and then the smile began.
“Not one word,” he said.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Your face is a word.”
“My face is delightful.”
Aidan bent over the rail laughing, and Garrick reached for the door.
“Garrick.”
Flora’s voice had changed. Not much, but enough, and he looked back. For once she wasn’t grinning.
“Just go inside,” she said again.
No explanation, no prophecy, no claim that she knew something he didn’t. Just that.
He looked through the glass in the door. He could see the edge of Maris’s table from here. A flash of green. Robin’s auburn hair. Sylvie gesturing with both hands as she told some story, and Sara laughing.
He still didn’t know what the pull meant.
He didn’t know why his eyes changed around her, or why he’d kissed her in the greenhouse after a whole night of telling himself the first kiss had been a mistake.
He didn’t know what he was doing with a human female who had a five-year-old son who called him Mr. Garrick and worried about him being alone. He didn’t know what came next.
But he knew he didn’t want to stand on the porch. He opened the door.
“Garrick,” Aidan called after him, and he paused. “Try not to do the eye thing at the tourists. They pay Ben’s rent.”
He shot the other male a look and ducked under the doorframe, out of the cool darkness and into the loud warmth of the tavern.
The tourists were still at their table. Maris was still at hers and she turned before he was halfway across the room.
He didn’t know how she knew he was there.
Maybe someone else at the table saw him, or maybe seven-foot gargoyles simply weren’t built for subtle entrances.
But she turned, and her eyes found him in the crowd, and something in her face changed—soft and startled and, unless he was imagining it, glad.
For years he’d entered rooms and found the place where he could stand without becoming part of them.
A wall. A corner. Somewhere he could watch until it was time to leave.
His corner was still there, and it was empty.
She smiled at him, and he crossed the room.
Not towards the corner this time. Towards her.
Behind the bar, in the long mirror, he caught a tiny figure in a hot-pink tracksuit raise a glass, toast no one in particular, and smile with all her teeth.