Chapter 1
Fallon Nova
Manhattan - August (Present Day)
Icrouch on the edge of my garden plot, fingers combing through the soil, smoothing it once, twice, three times.
The rhythm steadies my breath. Only when the dirt is even, and I’ve made a series of precise parallel shallow depressions, do I dare press the coriander seeds into the rich earth, lining them up by color.
Pale ones first.
Dark ones last.
In perfect rows.
All my pretty perfects.
Okay, the plot doesn’t belong to me. Not really.
Neverland Community Garden belongs to the City of New York.
These neat little squares in a park around the corner from my apartment building are leased to whoever wants to bring beauty to the city after suffering a long waitlist and paying a small fee.
But this eight-by-eight garden tract feels like mine in ways nothing else in Manhattan does.
“You’ll do well here, Cory,” I whisper to the seeds as I cover them. “You’ll get plenty of sun. No pesky sparrows will nibble on your leaves when you sprout in a couple of weeks. Not like back home.”
Back home is Ashbourne, a quiet town north of the city. My father’s estate was professionally manicured, but my nanny talked Daddy into letting me create my first garden. I carved that patch of earth when I was nine.
The neighborhood kids laughed at me. Said I was growing weeds. Called me a dirt freak. I guess I was usually covered in mud, but gardening made me happy. As they hollered, I pressed my hands over my ears and counted to twenty until their voices blurred.
Then my lavender bloomed and bloomed. And bloomed. Next, it took over much of the yard. Nanny Elaine said the whole street smelled better because of me. But the next day I saw bruises on her face, and the day after that, she was gone.
So was my garden.
Now I have this patch of land that no one can take away from me. I run my thumb along the fuzzy green and purple sprout of the lavender I planted. This year’s blooms are finished, but touching the leaves still gives off the sweet scent that is tart and calming all at once.
Beside it, my mint stretches, greedy and unruly, but I don’t mind. The marigolds glow like small beaming suns. They share the decorating duty with the zinnias.
This year, I also planted mint, chamomile, and rosemary.
Along the fence line, sits a row of perfect rose bushes. Those thorny guardians don’t belong to me, but I talk to them anyway.
“Nice color, Thorn,” I murmur to the tallest stem, the shovel handle warm in my grip.
“Does he answer you back?” a voice says from behind me.
I flinch, but when I glance over my shoulder, I see it’s only Mrs. Kaplan, the retired schoolteacher who grows tomatoes two tracts down.
“Your section is the prettiest here,” she says, pointing her trowel at my rows.
Something itches under my skin. Compliments of my gardening always feel wrong. Like someone will get in trouble for it, like Nanny Elaine did.
I shrug, eyes dropping to the dirt. “Just keeping order.”
Order is my life. You can’t just plant anything anywhere. There’s a whole system going on under the dirt. Some roots steal the water, some give off chemicals that starve other plants.
“Your marigolds are straight as soldiers,” she mentions the plants that don’t steal the water. “Makes mine look drunk.”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling heat crawl up my neck. But it is sweltering today.
“You’ve got a gift, dear.” Mrs. Kaplan pats my shoulder, smiling under a sun hat.
“Christ,” a man mutters as he stomps past the iron spires of the garden gate.
My pulse stutters at the voice. I don’t look up. Maybe he’ll keep moving.
He doesn’t. He waltzes inside the garden and gets close to me. Too close.
“Wasting a perfectly good patch of city land on flowers.” His voice pitches louder as a bag of smelly takeout swings from one hand. “They call it a concrete jungle for a reason, you freak show.”
“It’s okay. I’ll handle this,” I whisper to my plants, protecting them.
“Talking to them, too, are you? Probably your only friends.” His words sting, sharp as the bully kids from my childhood.
Dirt freak.
Crazy girl.
I reach down into the dirt. My hands tremble with fists full of soil that I’m ready to fling at this jerk. I’m no longer nine and four-foot-eleven. My last doctor visit clocked me at five-ten. I’m also fairly strong.
“Leave her be,” Mrs. Kaplan defends me, a hand on my shoulder.
Barking a sickening laugh, he sneers, “Just you wait. I’m gonna take over this whole garden for my business. My permits will be approved any day. Anything is better than this loony-tune program. For loonies like you.”
Something hot thrums in my head. Vein pulsing, I stand up and lift the shovel. “What did you call me?”
He smirks, looking down at my dirty knees and the smudges of mud on my cheeks. “Oh, look, the loony gardener’s gonna cry.”
Mrs. Kaplan steps forward. “Permits? For what?”
“Cannabis,” he says, biting into a French fry.
“Pot,” I mutter and look at my beautiful garden.
I’d love to clock him in the head with my shovel. I’m not a violent person, but if I learned anything from the way my father treated me, it’s to fight for myself.
I couldn’t then. But I can now. No one walks all over me.
I just don’t fight Daddy. He pays for my apartment, so I don’t have to live with his ridiculous trophy wife, a step-monster named Roxy. She’s thirty. And I’m only twenty-five. But I don’t care, because now, I have the freedom to not take my medication.
If I were on my meds, I’d be rocking back and forth, out of it.
“Once I’m approved, I’m pulling out all your crap,” the fry-eating creep snarls.
“Oh, yeah?” I swing my shovel at the jerk, the pointed metal tip just missing his skull.
He stumbles back, swears, and stares at me like I’ve grown fangs. “What the hell?”
“Let that be a warning, pot man.” I smash the blade tip against the ground just inches from his foot. “Talk to me again like that, and my boyfriend will cut you into pieces. He’s an assassin.”
The guy looks at me like I’m nuts. “Is he imaginary like your friends?”
“Oh, he’s very real. Six-foot four, broad shoulders, long hair, and speaks with an accent. He kills people for the Irish mob,” I hiss, my grip white-knuckled. “By all means, test me. Lay a finger on me. You’ll get him swinging something else at you next.”
“Freak,” he mutters, retreating fast through the gate.
I grip the shovel handle, thrilling vibrations traveling up my arm. I don’t relax until I can no longer smell those greasy fries.
Yuck.
Seconds later, all is quiet. My garden is mine again, safe and ordered. The bees are buzzing, and a pigeon coos overhead.
“You see that, Thorn?” I whisper to the rose bush, brushing a leaf with the back of my hand. “I am not useless.”
Mrs. Kaplan goes back to her garden, snickering, “Good one, an Irish assassin boyfriend. I’ll say mine is Italian if that idiot comes back.”
“I really don’t need my boyfriend to fight my battles,” I say, gathering my tools. “See ya, Mrs. K.”
Tired and achy, I walk around the corner to go home. Dirt caked under my nails, mud smears on my cheek, but I don’t care. The shovel’s weight is a comfort against my shoulder.
I reach my building and smile at the doorman who opens the vestibule door for me.
“Good day, Miss Nova.”
“Hi,” I say, forgetting his name.
An elevator car waits as it usually does, and it climbs fifteen stories to my floor. I try to count, but there’s no display indicating the ascending floor numbers. It’s something that annoys me. I count everything.
The elevator door opens on my floor. Walking down the corridor, I let my eyes stray to Rhys Quinlan’s apartment right next to mine. My neighbor’s thick, custom-made door looms heavy, forming the kind of barrier a man like him needs to protect what’s inside.
I pause in front of it, pulse tripping, dirt on my skin, shovel still in my grip.
The elevator dings, and I shake away the buzzing in my head. My heart skitters to a complete stop seeing my tall, muscled, and devastatingly handsome boyfriend step off.
Ah…
Rhys Quinlan towers in the corridor. His blue suit jacket stretches over wide shoulders, his jaw sharp enough to cut stone. His eyes are golden in color, but rimmed with exhaustion.
“There’s my boyfriend,” I say, the words slipping out warm and certain.
Rhys stops dead in his tracks, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Excuse me?”
“You’re back.” I blink. “From work.”
Killing people…
I know he’s an assassin for the Irish Mob, run by his cousins Griffin, Connor, and Shane, because I stole his mail a couple of years ago. And I’ve been listening through the walls.
I have the whole skinny on this guy.
His gaze flicks to the shovel in my hands. “What are you doing with that?”
I clutch it tighter, chin lifting. “Some guy at the community garden harassed me. Called me crazy. I swung the shovel at his head to scare him off. It worked.”
“Someone bothered you?” The spark that ignites in Rhys’s eyes isn’t pity. It’s anger.
Controlled, severe, and aimed at the faceless man I chased away.
See? Proof. He cares about me. I’m sure he wants to protect me. But that’s his job, and he doesn’t want to do it all the time. It would be the same for me if I worked at Connor’s Candy Emporium. I love candy, but don’t want to be around it all day.
“I handled it,” I say quickly, my voice low. “I know how to defend myself.”
“That’s good.” Rhys exhales, long and tired.
We stare for a few more beats. He works a lot, so I don’t see him too much. This has been a treat.
“Well, I need a shower,” he says, his gaze dragging over my dirt-streaked face all the way to my messy hands clinging to the shovel like a weapon. “So do you.”
Was that an…invitation?
Uh oh.
Heat floods my skin. Too much. Too close.
The last time a man got too close to me, he hurt me. In a very bad way. He was too rough, too fast, and it had felt like nothing I’d wanted.
With Rhys, I want to wait. Let it be different. Let it be right.
“Gardening will do that.” I step back, words tangling in my throat. “Make a mess. Have fun,” I add, clutching my doorknob and twisting it.
Once. Twice. Three times.
“I plan to.” He keeps walking toward his apartment, his stride heavy. At his door, he stops and looks at me one more time over his shoulder, his eyes filled with mischief. “Stay out of trouble, lass.”
Then he disappears inside his apartment.
I’ve seen every inch of the place, just not with him inside because I only break in when he’s not home.
Hmmm.
A camera scope to spy on him when he is home will solve that. I’ll add that to my cart right now.
I pause at my door and brush the dirt on my cheek. Once. Twice. Three times.
Only then do I slip inside.