Wildflowers from Winter (24 page)

She decided to try Robin, who didn’t answer. Then the Realtor, who didn’t answer. Then her mother, who didn’t answer. The scream in her chest came out. The Universe was against her. Bethany sank down in the
driver’s seat, the door open, her dirty knees facing a random field, and considered her options. Walking was out, unless she wanted to grow a dozen blisters on each toe. Nobody was answering their stupid phone. And Evan was a couple of miles away—his number typed out in Times New Roman on the paperwork Drew McCarty had given her.

What other option did she have?

Letting out a shaky breath, she dialed his number, half hoping he wouldn’t answer. The phone rang three times. After the fourth, her shoulders relaxed as she prepared to get a voice recording, but the gruff sound of his hello propelled her heart into a series of irregular beats. Her thumb flew to the End button. For a brief second, she considered hanging up. But then what? She couldn’t hang out on the side of the road and wait until somebody drove past. That might be hours.

“Hello?” he said again.

“Evan? It’s Bethany Quinn.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Why did she say her last name? He knew who she was. “I’m sorry to call. But I have a flat tire, and I’m stuck on the side of the road about two miles away from the farm.” Her cheeks grew hotter with every word that poured from her mouth. Why had she never learned to change a tire?

“Out of town or toward town?”

“Out.”

“I’ll be there in just a bit.”

And that was that. No other questions. He was more than willing to pause from his day to help her out. She doubted he’d be so willing if he knew where she was headed.

Ten minutes later, she spotted his Bronco cresting the hill. He pulled up behind her, stepped out of his car, and clomped over in a pair of muddied work boots laced beneath dirt-stained Wranglers. His once-white shirt revealed two strong forearms, slightly tanned from the indecisive sun. She eyed his windblown hair and caught the smile spreading across his face. He obviously found this amusing. She pretended to study her flat tire.

“So what seems to be the problem, little miss?”

Bethany put her hands into the pockets of her down vest. Maybe he could prance around in fifty-degree weather wearing short sleeves. She, however, was cold. And messy. And annoyed. She kicked the tire as he approached.

His eyes lingered on her dirty knees. She shifted, careful to hide her wet backside. During her ten-minute wait, she’d put the spare tire and the tool thingy back in the trunk, but she left the jack, hiding her incompetence and highlighting her accomplishment.

He crouched over his knees and surveyed the damage. His hand found the lever of the jack, and he started bringing the car down. She stepped forward. “What are you doing?” Why was he undoing her only successful foray into tire changing?

“You have your car jacked wrong.” He moved to his belly, unconcerned about the wet gravel, and tapped the underside of her vehicle. “You want to put it here, beneath the jack flange, so you don’t damage your car.”

Bethany faked indifference but watched from the corner of her eye. Next time her tire went flat, she would be prepared to fix it herself.

Once the car was back to its original position, he propped himself onto his toes and messed with the bolt things, like he had the strength to undo them with his bare hands. Wanting to provide at least the appearance of self-sufficiency, she retrieved the metal tool from her trunk.

“Don’t you need this?” she asked, bringing it into view.

“Do you have the key for these lug nuts?”

Lug nuts. So that’s what they were called. “I didn’t realize lug nuts needed a key.”

“These ones do. They’re locking lug nuts. They protect your wheels from getting stolen. I’m sure it comes in handy in Chicago. Don’t need ’em in Peaks.”

It took a bit for Evan’s words to sink in. Her tire needed to be changed if she was going to get anywhere. The lug nuts needed to be removed before
any tire changing happened. The lug nuts wouldn’t budge without a key. “What happens if I don’t have a key?”

Evan nodded at the metal tool dangling at her side. “Then that tire iron won’t do us any good.” He stood up and swiped at his pants. “We can drive into Peaks and see if they have what we need at the hardware store. If not, we’ll have to find the nearest car dealer.”

She blanched. She was supposed to be heading in the opposite direction. She glanced at her watch. Thirty minutes late. While waiting for Evan to arrive, she’d tried calling the Realtor again to inform her of the delay, but she got voice mail.

“Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

Her lips pressed together. If only he knew.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and cocked an eyebrow. “It’s about the farm, isn’t it?”

She watched the muscles clench in his jaw, his carefree mood vanishing as he waited for her to answer. She refused to wither beneath his stare. “I was going to meet with another Realtor.”

He turned his face away and surveyed the tire. “I guess that plan didn’t work so well, did it?”

She looked at her watch again. Thirty-five minutes late.

“How are you planning on getting there now? Because I’ll help you fix your tire, but I am not driving you
there
.”

Bethany fisted her hand and placed it on her hip. “Would you stop taking this so personally?”

He took a step closer.

She held her ground.

“You don’t think Dan meant this to be personal?” He took another step toward her and brought his hand to his chest. “You’re planning on selling
my
farm.”

“Do you need to see the paperwork again?”

“Did you take it personally when your boss fired you from your job?”

“How is that the same thing?”

“It’s the exact same thing. You’re tossing the farm around like it means nothing.” He was very close now. Too close. Her feet begged to step back, to put some distance between them so the building tension could have some room to breathe. But she wasn’t going to back down. She lifted her chin.

“Farming is what I do. And you’re so eager to pull that from underneath me.”

Bethany swung her hand around, motioning to their surroundings. “You can get another farm.” That’s all this place was. An eternity of corn and cattle. “I can’t imagine one is very much different from the next.”

“How in the world am I supposed to
get
another farm?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “And anyway, I love
that
farm.”

She gritted her teeth. “And I love architecture. I’m just trying to get that back. It’s the same thing you would do.”

“Not at the expense of somebody else’s dreams.”

“Keeping the farm is expending
my
dreams.”

“It doesn’t have to.” Evan’s face softened. “Let me rent the land. You can make some money without even lifting a finger.”

She let a frustrated breath push past her lips. He was impossible. Unreasonable. Stubborn. He was pitting her dreams against his, and nothing she could say or do would convince him that hers had equal value. They could stand there all day, and neither one of them would give in. What a waste of time. She picked up her phone lying on the driver’s seat and dialed the Realtor’s number. No answer. The scream in her chest came back, but instead of letting it loose, she threw her phone on the seat and gave him a stony look.

“Can we please go get whatever key we need to get?”

“Fine.” He walked to the car, his big boots clomping against the graveled shoulder. Before she could stop him, he had the passenger door open. Why did he have to do that? Even she could tell he didn’t want to. He gave
her an “are you coming or what” look. She followed. The sooner they finished this, the sooner she could get away from him.

They drove to town in unyielding silence until about halfway, when Evan decided to turn on his radio. She cringed at the twang emitting from the speakers. He turned up the music, as if goading her, and tapped his thumb against the steering wheel to the beat of a redneck song. She gritted her teeth and refused to take the bait.

It wasn’t until Evan slowed his Bronco and they passed the pharmacy on the outskirts of town that she let out her breath. She could get the stupid key, get back to her stupid car, and catalog this stupid day away with every other disaster she’d encountered since returning to Peaks. She brought her fingertips to her temples. It seemed to be the hub of her growing headache, and if she could get the throbbing under control there, the pain shooting to the base of her skull would lose its power. She rubbed soothing circles into the spot and looked out the window.

Evan turned down his music, which abated some of the pounding, and she spotted a For Sale sign perched in the window of Sunshine Daisies—a former flower shop. It was next to the antique store she and Robin used to poke around in when they were younger.

The slightly run-down shop exhibited the usual wear and tear of an old building with few updates over the years. But the yard outside enchanted her, with a quaint gravel walk through what could be a lovely garden in a month or two. The shop sat back from the road, nestled on top of a small hill.

“Can you stop?”

“The hardware store is up this way.”

“I’m not interested in the hardware store right now. I want to check something out.”

He hesitated, then pulled the car over to the curb. She unbuckled her seat belt and stepped out of the vehicle before it had completely stopped.
She walked up the steps leading to the shop and smiled. It truly was a perfect spot. Especially with the park across the street, which would bring in customers. She ran her hand over the rusticated brick facade and studied the fenestration of the windows. There was even a second story. She tried the door, but it was locked. So she brought her face to the darkened window pane and peered through the dingy glass.

“What exactly are you doing?” Evan asked.

She brought her face away, disappointed that she couldn’t see anything but curtains. She looked at the For Sale sign, noted the phone number posted below it, and plugged it into her phone before addressing Evan’s question. “Amusing myself.”

He didn’t need to know the particulars. She wasn’t going to divulge Robin’s secret, if that’s what the café was. The excitement that had coursed through her veins earlier in the morning returned.

This was her favorite part. The vision. The potential. Knowing her ideas could become a wonderful, appealing reality. She breathed in the sense of purpose, feeling useful for the first time in months. This project could keep her occupied until she could find a Realtor who answered her phone and was enthusiastic about selling the farm, or until the job offers started rolling in. And she was suddenly very confident they would. Now all she needed to do was convince Robin that Sunshine Daisies was the perfect spot for her and Micah’s café.

TWENTY-FOUR

A
twelve-year-old should not be in love with a dollhouse. But I couldn’t help myself. Robin had the most immaculate dollhouse I’d ever seen in my life. It had five rooms, a gigantic kitchen, arched windows, and a second-story balcony. It sat in the corner of her bedroom, on top of white carpet, in what seemed to be a perpetual stream of sunlight that slanted in from her lace-curtained windows.

We’d sit on her canopy bed, beading necklaces, braiding our hair, talking and laughing, while I snuck glances at that house, no doubt worth more than the entirety of our trailer. Ever since our chance meeting at the Laundromat, I had spent every moment possible in Robin’s home. Unlike my own, everything was beautiful there. Especially Mrs. Delner, who was slim, without being waiflike, and had shiny dark hair and the most vibrant blue eyes. Her laugh sounded like wind chimes, and she showered me with hugs at a time when everybody else treated me like a leper.

I became so infatuated with Robin’s life and Robin’s family—and in awe that I could be a part of it—that my obsession with the farm started to ebb. I would lie awake at night in my creaky old bed listening to David mutter in his sleep, and instead of dreaming about the farmhouse and Grandpa Dan, I imagined living in a life-sized version of Robin’s dollhouse. Of course, I never shared this obsession with Robin. I didn’t want my best friend to know I was an almost-thirteen-year-old coveting a toy she’d probably grown out of years ago.

So at the end of July, on my thirteenth birthday, when Robin blindfolded me and pulled me out to her garage with Mrs. Delner, I had no idea what to expect. I was even more confused when they took the blindfold off and I stood facing sheets of wood and cardboard, a box of tools, paints and paintbrushes, different rolls of wallpaper, and a stack of shingles. I turned around and looked at them, their faces split with identical grins.

“Happy birthday!” Mrs. Delner said.

“What do you think?” Robin’s voice was a bit breathless.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Your future dollhouse.”

My cheeks grew hot.
Robin knew? This whole time she knew?

“We tried to find the same one I have in one of our old catalogs, but they don’t make it anymore. So Mom thought we could do the next best thing. We could build one together.”

I attempted to hide my mortification. Or at least undo the uncertainty creeping into Robin’s eyes. But I couldn’t find the right words.

“Don’t you like it?” she asked.

“I love it. It’s just … I don’t know how to build a dollhouse.” At least not one as beautiful as Robin’s.

“Mom said we can learn together.” Robin stepped forward and picked up a hammer. “I think it’ll be fun.”

And she was right. It was.

For two whole months, we drank Snapple in the garage and listened to Hootie and the Blowfish on Mrs. Delner’s CD player. With our hair tied up in kerchiefs, we trimmed and painted the wood, assembled the walls, glued on the shingles, and chose just the right wallpaper and flooring and finishing touches. In the end, it was nothing like Robin’s dollhouse. But I loved it anyway.

When we finished, we draped a sheet over the roof, eager for our big reveal once Mr. Delner returned from work. As soon as he walked in the door, Robin grabbed his hand and tugged him into the garage. I tore off
the sheet like a regular magician, and Mr. Delner didn’t disappoint. His eyes widened. “Wow, girls. This is impressive.”