Chapter 1 #2
Audrey was also in college, but she’s the smartest of us all, and education was much more important to her. Natalie was only sixteen.
The only sister left to help was me.
I’m the oldest. I’m responsible, and everyone was relying on me.
So I came home, helped all I could with my younger sisters, and took care of the day-to-day running of the business.
I have no skill with money, but even when he was living in DC, Wes was willing to do the accounting.
Aunt Grace filled in the gaps, and Wes’s dad, Jake, managed the grounds as he’s been doing for decades.
We kept things going. Even thrived. So much so that I had the idea to open a real coffee shop on the grounds to encourage more local visitors.
I still believe it was a good idea. A reasonable one and a natural next step in growing Blossom Park. Yes, we had to take out a large loan to cover the up-front expenses since the staff we’d have to hire to run the coffee shop would eat into our regular monthly earnings.
But it should have paid off quickly. Every night, I make a case for my decision, playing it out over and over again in my mind.
I couldn’t help that the pandemic hit two months later, canceling all the scheduled events, killing all plans for the coffee shop, gutting our business for almost a year.
We never recovered.
Maybe we could have somehow managed to survive with whatever help we could get from the government, recovered our customers, and eventually made a profit again, but the debt has been a monthly burden forever dragging us into a black hole.
We’re not the only ones struggling in the aftermath, and lavish weddings at expensive venues are one of the easy things to cross off spending lists.
We’ve tried every available option for refinancing, and our last hope just died in that office.
There’s nothing left now.
Just me. Not clever. Not competent. Bumbling her way into the end of my family’s legacy.
“He gave us an idea,” Wes goes on in a gravelly murmur. He’s standing close to me with much less than the space for a seat between us right now. “If we sell the wildflower parcels, we could—”
“No!” I’m talking softly, just like him. This is a private conversation we’re having in a quiet lobby. “They’ve been part of the gardens from the beginning. We’d be cutting the heart right out of Blossom Park. My mom loved them.”
Shit.
Oh shit.
Tears blur my vision, on the verge of pooling before I manage to blink them away.
“I know—”
“Your parents got married in the wildflower fields! What would Jake say if we announced we’re selling them off?”
“Ella, stop it.” It’s that cool, clipped tone I hate the worst. He’s put his hand on the window, half trapping me in place. “Dad would feel the loss, but he’d understand. Stop catastrophizing.”
If he were emotional like me—upset and angry and frustrated about our current situation—then I could understand his obstinacy and not resent it.
But I’m on the verge of losing it, losing everything, and he’s standing there as cool and hard as a granite slab.
“I’m not catastrophizing. This is a catastrophe! To me at least. Do you understand that Blossom Park has been part of my family for two hundred years? It’s part of the soul of who we are. We can’t cut it up to sell as parts. We can’t shrug it off because it’s gotten hard.”
“I’m not asking you to shrug it off.” He’s gotten tenser.
Maybe he is upset after all. There’s a bite in his words as he continues.
“I grew up at Blossom Park too. My folks loved the place like their own. I know this is bad. But we can’t fix it if we fall apart.
We need to make good decisions. So stop approaching them with all that emotion. ”
“Sto—” I believe I was planning to repeat the words he just said, but the first one breaks in my throat. I make a weird gaspy sound and turn my head with a jerk so I’m not looking at his stony face.
In a random observation, I see Hipster Girl is still waiting. Her appointment must be running a lot later than ours. She’s on her phone like before, lifting it up toward her face, but she’s moved seats so she’s facing me again.
Maybe she meets my eyes. I can’t focus enough to tell. I stare at empty air as I try to contain the waves of despair and fury bombarding me in turn.
I’m not by nature an angry or resentful person. I like people to like me, and I was always the peacemaker among my sisters.
But I’m not sure I’ve ever hated anyone as much as I hate Wes right now.
That he said that to me. To stop approaching this nightmare with all that emotion.
When I’ve stuffed enough of the feeling down to breathe again, I snap my eyes back toward him. “I know this is foreign territory to you, but some of us have hearts. And those hearts are part of our decision-making.”
He makes a gruff sound, clearly as exasperated with me as I am with him. “I know that. But we’re at an impasse here. You can’t keep Blossom Park open and keep it intact. A miracle isn’t going to fall out of the sky because you love the place so much.”
In a different world, if I were a different person, I’d be able to form clever, coherent words that put him sharply in his place.
But I’m the Jane Bennet of every story with no available Mr. Bingley moving into the neighborhood to save us all.
If I were a fiery person, I might have slapped him. If I were stronger, I might have at least kept the tear from sliding down one of my cheeks.
I’m only me though. And I can’t even come out ahead in an argument with Wesley Kennedy.
But what I’m not going to do is burst into sobs in the middle of an office building, surrounded by strangers.
So I don’t say anything at all.
I turn on my heel and walk away.
Blossom Park is located in eastern Maryland on the outskirts of a small, historic town about an hour from Baltimore and less than two hours from DC.
It’s always been a good location for weddings and events since there’re such large population centers within an easy drive.
Unfortunately, an hour and forty-five minutes is far too long to ride home in the passenger seat of Wes’s midsized SUV.
He’s stiff and silent as he drives, and I try to numb myself to everything that’s happened by listening to music through my earbuds.
The trip is endless, and I’ve come up with no brainstorms or brilliant revelations for dealing with this mess by the time we drive through the main gates of the property.
Blossom Park is made up of more than a hundred acres, including twenty separate landscaped gardens as well as wooded areas, the fields of wildflowers, and green lawns surrounding the original colonial mansion.