Arlene James - Second Chance Match

Tugging at her sleeve, he cleared his throat. “I need a word with you, please.”

Ellie split an amused look between them. “I promised to spend a few minutes with Grandpa,” she said, pirouetting off in Kent’s direction. “You’d think we were never going to see each other again after I move into Asher’s house.”

“Now, Garrett,” Magnolia began immediately.

“It was very generous of you to give Kent cash out of your own account, but you know I can’t accept your money,” Garrett said.

“I only wanted—”

“I have money,” he went on firmly, “and I would have paid Kent what he needed when we signed the papers.”

“But I have so much more than—”

“It goes back into your account, Magnolia. Every penny.”

“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” she grumbled.

Grinning, he bent and smacked a kiss on her leathery cheek. “Why do you?”

She folded her arms, fighting a smile. Garrett left her there, wondering yet again why he hadn’t just ended the whole debacle earlier by dropping his claim to the Charter Street site. As he hurried back to his duties, Garrett admitted the truth. He didn’t drop his claim because then Jessa Lynn Pagett and her too-quiet son would leave Chatam House for good. Before he knew them better. Before he knew her better. Before he knew the truth about them.

Before he knew why he couldn’t stop thinking about her or looking forward to their next encounter.

Garrett stayed busy that evening. He ignored Magnolia’s summons to the dinner table, knowing that if he let her turn him up sweet now, she’d harass him about accepting her money. Instead, he made a little space in the greenhouse by moving some of the topiaries outside to the patio, something he should have done a week or so earlier. After that, he gathered up all of the containers scattered around the building. After a late supper in the kitchen, he stopped by the family parlor in hopes of arranging to meet with Jessa and Magnolia the next day.

Jessa was nowhere to be seen, however. She and Hunter had declined to join the family for dinner, too. Garrett told himself that they were not avoiding him, just still settling in, but then Hilda reported the next morning that not only had they elected to take dinner in their suite the night before, but also breakfast. Garrett nursed a secret emotional bruise while demolishing a bowl of Hilda’s grits with stewed pears, then headed out to the greenhouse to seek out every purple flower he could find and some ferns he’d had in mind.

The instant he stepped through the door, he knew someone was there. Glancing around, he eased through the front space and into the next, slipping through the heavy plastic curtain. Surprised at whom he found there among the flowers, he took a moment to make certain that his voice remained calm and level.

“Hello.”

The boy whirled away from the rose bush to face Garrett, tension in every line of the small body inside his oversize clothes. “I didn’t touch it,” he said.

“Okay.” Hunter’s hands trembled at his sides, so Garrett casually bent to shift a container and clear the pathway a bit. “It won’t hurt if you touch it, though. Just be careful you don’t get scratched by a thorn. That variety has some big ones.”

“It does?”

He heard the curiosity in the boy’s voice and smiled to himself. “Yeah, it does. Check it out.” Moving closer, Garrett carefully parted the heavy, rust-colored blossoms. “See? That’s a nasty thorn right there.”

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