As she crossed the yard, she spotted Andrew down on one knee in front of the greenhouse, rooting through his toolbox. He lifted his head. Their eyes met briefly. Lizzy looked away, quickening her pace on the way to what remained of Althea’s wildflower garden. She’d spotted a few blooms among the weeds and thought it might be nice to bring a few inside.
The pickings were slim, not enough for a full arrangement, but they would do for a few small jars on the kitchen sill. She foraged through the overgrowth, gathering speedwell and crane’s-bill, wild clary and musk mallow, dropping the blooms into her basket. She would have liked a few cornflowers—the deep blue would be a nice contrast to the pinks and fuchsias—but there were none to be had.
It made her sad to see this particular garden so neglected. Althea had always had a particular affinity for wildflowers, perhaps because they gave so much and asked so little. For those on the Path—often dubbed pagans by the uninitiated—everything was sentient, fully aware of its role in the divine circle of birth, growth, life, and death. Althea had taken comfort in that, in the tides and seasons that made up their year, the belief that nothing was wasted or useless, that everything had a time and a purpose, and when that time was over, that purpose fulfilled, their essence lived on, and embraced some new purpose.
It was why the Moons chose to scatter their ashes on their own land, so that a part of them would always live on in the soil. Lizzy had never given much thought to the custom but took comfort in the knowledge that Althea had become an enduring part of the ground beneath her feet. Still, she deserved better than a dismal patch of weed-choked earth. She ran an eye around the garden. It wouldn’t take much, a few hours and a handful of tools. Maybe it was silly—like Andrew repairing the greenhouse—but it felt right somehow, a labor of love for the woman who had raised her when her mother couldn’t be bothered.
Before Lizzy could talk herself out of it, she was crossing the field toward the drying barn, where Althea kept an assortment of rakes and spades. She dragged the crossbar from its bracket and yanked at the door. It gave finally, with a rusty groan. She stepped inside, inhaling the ghosts of a thousand harvested flowers. They were gone now, the drying racks and screen frames all empty, but their memories remained, hovering like spirits in the cool, dry air.
It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust, but eventually she was able to make out shapes in the gloom. The tools she had come for hung just inside the door, but she ignored them, moving instead to the long wooden counter along the back wall, where she used to make her perfumes.
It was an amateur’s work space, a dusty collection of borrowed supplies and makeshift equipment, but seeing it again made her strangely nostalgic. The truth was she missed those early days of trial and error, the delicious serendipity of discovering something new and utterly unexpected. There weren’t many surprises at Chenier. In fact, she rarely set foot in a lab these days, spending the bulk of her time on conference calls or in meetings, collaborating with people who didn’t know a floral from an oriental.
Lizzy pushed the thought aside. She’d been incredibly lucky to catch the eye of Jaqueline Chenier straight out of school, and land a job most thought her too young and inexperienced to handle. She should be grateful—and she was. She absolutely was. But she’d be lying if she said there wasn’t a certain wistfulness to being back in the barn.
Tools, she reminded herself sternly as she stepped away from the counter. She’d come for tools, not a walk down memory lane. She grabbed a pitchfork and was reaching for a hoe when a shadow darkened the doorway. She turned, startled to find Andrew silhouetted in the opening.
“You shouldn’t be in here.”
She stared at him, pulse skittering. “That’s the second time you’ve snuck up on me today.”
“I didn’t sneak up on you—then or now. And I’d appreciate it if you’d put that thing down. You’re making me nervous.”
Lizzy glanced down at the pitchfork she was holding, dismayed to find it pointing straight at Andrew, as if she were preparing to run him through. She lowered it slowly, annoyed with herself for being so skittish. “Did you need something?”
“Yes, I need you to come out of there, please. It isn’t safe.”
Lizzy performed a quick scan of the barn, finding nothing that looked remotely hazardous. “What do you mean, it’s not safe? It looks fine.”
“Well, for starters, this door is about to come off its hinges. You’re lucky it didn’t flatten you when you opened it. And there”—he paused, pointing to the apex of the roof, where a slice of sunlight was visible through a chink in the boards—“we had a storm back in April, pulled up part of the roof, and damaged several trusses. Plus, the loft and stairs are ready to give. That’s not from the storm, just good old-fashioned dry rot. New England barns are built to last, but not forever. Also, we had a colony of bats last summer, and they tend to come back.”
Lizzy eyed him as she edged toward the door. He smelled of amber and sandalwood, of crisp fall days with the hint of smoke underneath. The combination caught her off guard—not flagrant, but subtly masculine, nudging at memories she preferred to keep buried. He had always smelled like that. Always.
She tipped her head back, noting the smear of caulk in his hair as she sidled past. “Bats don’t scare me. In fact, I find them rather cute. But I draw the line at collapsing roofs.”
Andrew followed her out, easing the door closed behind him. “It’s on the list.”
“The list?”
“Things I promised your grandmother I’d do. I wanted to get them done before . . .” He looked away, shoulders hunched. “I ran out of time.”
Lizzy swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Me too.”
“She was quite a lady, your grandmother. I had just started working when my father was diagnosed. I was new to the firm and had just landed this big project, so he kept it to himself. Didn’t say a word about being sick until the very end. But your grandmother knew—or guessed. She cooked for him and kept the house clean, drove him to treatments, and made him this special tea to ease the nausea. Stubborn old goat. I didn’t find out until the doctors pulled the plug on his chemo. But Althea was there for all of it. I owe her for that.”
Lizzy managed a fleeting smile, a mix of pride and grief. “Althea didn’t tell me she was sick either. I didn’t find out until she was gone.”
“I wondered why you didn’t come to see her. I’m sorry. I know it’s hard. I was furious with my father for not telling me, but he honestly thought keeping me in the dark was the right thing to do. Your grandmother must have thought so too.”
Lizzy pretended to study the barn door, eager to change the subject. “It’s nice of you to want to help, but the new owners will probably have their own ideas about what to fix.”
Andrew stiffened. “You sold the farm?”
“Not yet, but eventually.”
His shoulders seemed to relax, though not completely. “Yeah. About that. There are a few things you should know.”
“Such as?”
“The place is going to need work before a bank will think twice about financing, and I’m not talking about a coat of paint and some tulips in the window boxes. The house wiring’s tricky on a good day, and the plumbing isn’t much better. The furnace is hanging by a thread, and every roof on the property needs replacing.”