15. Fran
— ? —
Fran
I wake to sunlight streaming through my window and the smell of tea.
For a disoriented moment, I think I’m back in Marigold, in Bree’s guest room with her fancy kettle humming away downstairs.
Then I register the familiar creak of my own floorboards, the particular slant of morning light through curtains I picked out myself, and everything comes rushing back.
The storm. The farmhouse. Logan on my couch.
Logan making tea in my kitchen.
I lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out how I feel about this.
Three months ago, I walked out of a hospital and swore I’d never let him back into my life.
Now he’s in my kitchen, making tea, and I’m nineteen weeks pregnant with his child, and nothing about this situation resembles the clean break I imagined.
My stomach growls. The baby, apparently, has opinions about breakfast.
I haul myself out of bed, splash water on my face, and pull on the cleanest clothes I can find, yoga pants that still fit, a loose sweater that hides the bump without making me feel like a tent.
When I open the bedroom door, Logan is standing at my tiny stove with a spatula in one hand and a look of intense concentration on his face.
“You’re cooking,” I say flatly.
He startles, nearly dropping the spatula. “I found eggs in the fridge. They’re probably old, but I figured-” He stops, takes in my expression. “I can stop. I just thought you might be hungry.”
I am hungry. I’m always hungry these days, thanks to the small human currently using my body as a construction project. But the sight of him so comfortable in my space, so naturally domestic, makes something twist in my chest.
“The eggs are three months old,” I say. “I wouldn’t eat those unless you want food poisoning.”
He looks at the pan, then back at me. “Oh.”
“There might be oatmeal in the cabinet. That doesn’t expire as fast.”
We end up eating oatmeal at my tiny kitchen table, Gertrude stationed between us like a feathered chaperone. The tea is good, better than good, actually. I watch him glance at my mug, then back at his own, like he’s cataloging some piece of information for later.
“You’re still here,” I say when the silence stretches too long.
“The storm didn’t clear until after midnight.” He wraps his hands around his mug, and I notice again that his left arm is covered, the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt pulled down to his wrist despite the warm kitchen. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I set down my spoon. “You drove me here. I saw the farm. The storm passed. Why are you still here?”
He’s quiet for a moment, and I watch him consider his words, actually consider them, which is new. The Logan I married would have deflected or changed the subject. This one meets my eyes and says, carefully, “Because I’m not ready to leave you yet. But I will, if that’s what you want.”
“What I want is to understand why you think you should stay.”
“I don’t think I should anything.” He sets down his mug. “I’m asking. That’s what I came here to do - ask if there’s any chance for us, and then respect whatever answer you give me. If you want me gone, I’ll go. Right now, no argument.”
I study his face, looking for the catch. There’s always a catch with the Davises, conditions, expectations, strings attached to every offer. But all I see is exhaustion and hope and a kind of vulnerability I’ve never seen from him before.
“What would you do?” I ask. “If you stayed. What’s the plan?”
“Whatever you need.” No hesitation. “The farmhouse has been sitting empty for three months - Junie kept the operation running, but the house needs work. Repairs, maintenance, whatever. I can help with that.”
“I don’t need help.”
“I know you don’t.” His voice is soft. “You’ve never needed anyone, Fran. You built this whole place from nothing, by yourself. I’m not suggesting you can’t do it alone. I’m asking if you’d let me be useful while I’m here.”
It’s such a careful distinction, not you need me but let me be useful. I hate that it matters. I hate that his words feel different now, like he’s actually thought about how to say them.
“Fine,” I say, and his whole face changes. I hold up one finger. “But you follow my rules. This is my farm, my operation. I say what gets done and how.”
“Understood.” He says it fast, like a man afraid I’ll change my mind.
I hold up a second finger. “And you sleep on the couch. No expectations. No assumptions.”
“Of course.” No argument. That throws me more than an argument would have.
“And you stay away from my goose.”
He glances at Gertrude, who is watching him with beady-eyed malevolence. “That might be difficult, given that she seems to live inside the house.”
“She goes where she wants. You work around her.”
“Right.” He takes a breath. “Anything else?”
A dozen things, probably. But the baby is kicking, and my oatmeal is getting cold, and I can hear a truck coming up the drive, which means Junie is here, which means the real work is about to begin.
“We’ll figure it out as we go,” I say, and stand to greet my farm manager.
Junie Lopez has worked with me since I first started the flower operation nearly eight years ago. She’s in her forties, built like someone who’s spent her whole life doing physical labor, with a no-nonsense attitude that I’ve always appreciated and a deep suspicion of anything that resembles drama.
When she sees Logan standing behind me on the porch, her expression goes carefully blank.
“Fran.” She climbs out of her truck, eyes flicking between us. “Didn’t know you were bringing company.”
“Neither did I, until yesterday.” I step off the porch to meet her, leaving Logan on the steps. “How bad is it?”
“The farm?” She shrugs. “We kept things running. Lost a few varieties in that cold snap last month, but the core stock is solid. The dahlias are going to be spectacular this year.” She pauses. “How bad is what?”
“Everything else.”
Junie looks at Logan again, then back at me. “That’s a conversation we should have inside. Without an audience.”
“He’s not-” I stop, reconsider. “Give me a minute.”
I walk back to the porch, where Logan is standing very still, clearly aware that he’s being discussed. “Go find something to do,” I tell him. “The east fence has been sagging for a year - there should be tools in the shed.”
“You want me to fix your fence?”
“I want you to stay out of the way while I talk to my manager.” I pause. “But yes, if you’re going to be useful, the fence is a good place to start.”
He nods, and I watch him head toward the shed, his long sleeves incongruous in the morning warmth. Junie watches too, her expression thoughtful.
“That’s the husband?” she asks when he’s out of earshot.
“That’s the husband.”
“The one you ran from?”
“The one I’m figuring out what to do about.” I sigh. “Come inside. I’ll make more tea.”
Junie doesn’t ask for details about what happened, and I don’t offer them. What she wants to know is practical: am I staying, who’s in charge, what’s the plan for the season.
“The Hendersons put in a standing order for the wedding,” she tells me, pulling out a battered notebook. “November fifteenth. They want dahlias, ranunculus, and ‘something romantic.’ I told them you’d call when you got back.”
“When did they think I was getting back?”
“They didn’t know you left.” Junie’s voice is carefully neutral. “I told them you were dealing with a family emergency. Left it vague.”
“Thank you.”
“There’s also the farmers’ market. I’ve been handling it, but the vendors keep asking about you. The tomato lady sends her regards.”
I almost smile. “Anyone else?”
“Some priest named Father Michael has called twice. Something about a flower ministry?” She raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t know you were religious.”
“I’m not. Long story.” I finish my tea and stand. “Let’s walk the fields. I need to see what we’re working with.”
We spend the next hour touring the property, Junie filling me in on everything that’s happened while I was gone. The workers she hired to cover for me. The crops that thrived and the ones that didn’t. The new greenhouse she’s been planning, if we can find the budget for it.
It feels good to be back. Better than good. It feels like coming home in a way that has nothing to do with the farmhouse or the couch or the man currently repairing my fence. This land is mine. These flowers are mine. I grew them from seeds and bulbs and hope, and no one can take that away from me.
When we reach the east field, I see Logan working on the fence line.
He’s shed his overshirt, but underneath he’s wearing a long-sleeved henley that’s dark with sweat, the right sleeve shoved up.
His right arm is visible from the elbow down, the tattoos I remember wrapping around his forearm, geometric patterns, the wood grain design I traced with my fingers in the workshop that night.
He’s working with focused efficiency, his movements sure and practiced, and I watch him drive a post into the ground with an ease that suggests he’s done this a thousand times.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Junie observes.
“He builds furniture. Wood and tools aren’t exactly foreign to him.”
“Huh.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Are you okay, Fran? Really?”
I consider the question. “I don’t know. Ask me again in a month.”
By lunchtime, the fence is half-repaired and I’ve reacquainted myself with every corner of my property.
The workers, three of them, all people I hired and trained before I left, are thrilled to have me back, and I spend an hour answering questions and making decisions and generally remembering what it feels like to be in charge of something that matters.
Logan finds me near the greenhouse, where I’m examining a flat of ranunculus seedlings that Junie started in my absence. He’s sweaty and dirt-streaked, his hair pushed back from his face, and the sight of him does things to my insides that I’m not ready to acknowledge.
“Fence is about two-thirds done,” he says. “Ran out of posts. There’s a hardware store in town?”