CHAPTER 5 Ava
Ava stepped out of her greenhouse and walked past the half whiskey barrels that lined the parking lot. During the spring and summer months, big trucks arrived to pick up flats of herbs and flowers for various grocery and garden stores. Then, the dirt-filled barrels would be filled with a colorful array of flowers and would provide a much-needed protective barrier—more than one was cracked from being hit by an inattentive driver. But for now, the barrels stood silent and colorless, which matched her mood perfectly. She reached into her truck bed and fished out an empty box, then started back to the greenhouse.
Her steps slowed as she got closer. Things were going so, so wrong. After a nearly sleepless week searching for an answer to Erma’s misfiring tea, and haunted by the mad thumping of the box under her bed, this morning Ava had discovered that two more of her teas had gone crazy.
Two more. Oh God.
Her head aching, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She’d had lunch with Sarah and had tried to keep her worries to herself. There was no sense in worrying her sister. Once lunch was over, Ava had immediately come here, to the greenhouses, where she and Sofia Rodriguez-Kaine, her greenhouse manager, had pored over the tea-making records, looking for clues.
What they’d discovered had given Ava a faint glimmer of hope—all three messed-up teas had been made at the exact same time. Even better, they were the only teas she’d made that night. The next step was to look at the common ingredients, but she’d had to leave that to Sofia, as Ava had been interrupted all afternoon by people calling to cancel their specialty tea orders. Ava had managed to talk most of them into waiting while she investigated the situation, but a few people had refused to be so patient. Her chest tightened. I have to figure this out. I have to.
She set the box by the door, too distressed to go back inside just yet. Sofia was there now with Kristen, moving all the plants Ava had used to make the wonky teas to one place so they could examine them. Thank goodness for Sofia. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
When Sofia and her son, Noah, had first moved to Dove Pond, they’d rented the small farmhouse that sat at the bottom of the hill in front of the greenhouses. While living there, Noah had made friends with their next-door neighbor, Jake Kaine, a brilliant if odd game developer. One thing had led to another, and over time Jake and Sofia had started dating. They’d recently married, which meant that Ava’s farmhouse was once again empty.
She wondered if Rick Donovan, whom she’d promoted from crew chief to manager of her landscaping business, might be interested in the rental. He was currently commuting from Bryson, which was quite a distance, so the little house might be just the thing for him. She made a mental note to ask him the next time she spoke to him.
Her shoulders tight, Ava stretched her arms over her head. She really should be inside helping Sofia and Kristen. And yet she lingered where she was, enjoying the afternoon sun as it dispelled the usual January chill. A row of Zéphirine Drouhin roses, thornless climbers she’d planted along a trellis that stood along the walkway to the supply shed, sat flowerless in the late-January sun. The climbers had all been put to bed months ago, but come summer they’d bloom with pink, deliciously fragrant roses. She stooped beside one now and ran a finger over a branch. Instantly, her mind was filled with the tranquility of the healthy plant’s deep slumber, which soothed her own troubled thoughts.
Her gaze moved from the branch to her hands, which always seemed faintly green, as if her skin had been stained from touching plants so often. She had discovered her gift on her seventh birthday, as all her sisters had. In the Dove household, the birthday girl always got her favorite meal, and at the time, Ava’s happened to be hot dogs and baked beans. While waiting for her mother to finish the birthday feast, Ava had pushed Sarah in a stroller up and down their long driveway, a delightfully big and rambling if somewhat decrepit Queen Anne–style house. After their father’s death, the house had grown more ramshackle each year and was now surrounded by thick overgrowth, the shrubbery out of control.
That day, the tenacious Floribunda rosebush at the corner of the front walk kept getting tangled around the stroller’s wheels. At first, Ava had tried to steer out of the way, but the rosebush seemed determined to capture them as they passed. The fourth time it happened, Ava had gotten irritated, and without thinking, she’d snapped, “Stop that!”
For a startled moment she and the plant had stared at each other; then, after a stilted minute, the plant had rustled as if offering an apology. Slowly, leaf by leaf, it had curled back from the stroller and out of the way. The next time Ava walked past the bush, there was plenty of room for Sarah’s stroller.
After that day, Ava would walk around the yard, trailing her fingertips over every leaf, every petal, every fresh bud. Plants didn’t talk to her the way books talked to Sarah, as plants didn’t use words so much as feelings. But Ava became an expert in reading those feelings. She started tending to the plants in their yard, knowing when they needed more water or sun, when they longed for shade, or just wanted some company. Later, she would grow flowers, shrubs, and herbs in the chipped pots she found in the old shed behind the house and then replant them in their yard until their house stood in the center of a lush, beguiling, fragrant garden.
The neighbors, enchanted by Ava’s results, had hired her to work in their yards, too. Growing busier by the year, Ava had started her own landscaping business at the young age of sixteen. She’d been wildly successful, later branching into her specialty gourmet teas, which had done well, too. And soon, the Pink Magnolia Tearoom would be up and running, yet another notch in her business belt.
Or it would be another notch, if her misbehaving teas didn’t derail her whole plan.
Ava collected the empty box she’d left beside the door. Before she’d faced this tea emergency, her biggest worry had been the secret she’d been keeping under her bed. Now she wasn’t sure which she dreaded more. Either one could be disastrous.
Her shoulders aching under the weight of her thoughts, she had just swung the door open when a car pulled into the parking lot, the tires crunching on the gravel. She turned to see Sarah getting out of Kat’s Audi.
Sarah hurried forward while Kat climbed out of the driver’s seat. “Oh, Ava, I heard about the other two teas. Have you figured anything out?”
Ava looked past Sarah at Kat. “Chatty thing, aren’t you?”
Kat closed her car door, looking sheepish. “If she hadn’t heard it from me, she’d have found out from someone else. People in town have started talking.”
“I know. I’ve had some cancellations.”
Kat winced. “Oh no.”
“We’re here to help,” Sarah announced, as if that made all the difference in the world.
Ava supposed a few more hands wouldn’t hurt. “Come on in. Sofia, Kristen, and I have been—”
A familiar red pickup pulled into the lot and parked beside Kat’s Audi. Dylan Fraser jumped out, flashing them an infectious smile. He was tall, Dylan was, close to six foot three. His hair was a deep auburn brown, an unusual color that was made all the more noticeable by how much it contrasted with his red beard. “I brought you all a visitor,” he announced as he went to open his passenger door.