In the Weeds (Lovelight #2)(95)
A sigh rattles out of me from somewhere deep in my chest. I know the place. “You mean the one with the porch roof he fell through?”
Dane snorts. “That’s the one.”
There had been a lot of confusion that day, wondering who should drive the ambulance when the town paramedic was laying in a heap of broken wood in the front yard.
“All the paperwork was signed a couple of days ago,” Dane adds. “That’s what I hear anyway.”
“From the phone tree?”
“From the phone tree.”
I take another step closer to the exit. “That’s good.”
“Heard the new tenant was moving in today, actually.”
I don’t care. I make my best approximation of a vaguely interested sound and keep walking.
“Maybe you should stop by.” Dane’s voice carries down the aisle. When I turn to look at him, he’s examining a container of cream cheese. His frown deepens and his eyebrows collapse into a straight line across his brow. “What do you think buffalo-style whipped cream cheese tastes like?”
I’m more interested in why he wants me to stop by the little house with daisies in the backyard. “Someone new in town, huh?”
I’m the last person anyone would want on the welcome committee. A flare of hope flickers to life in my chest along with a healthy dose of suspicion. Dane throws the cream cheese in his basket, right next to the not-appropriately-seasoned-seasonal creamer.
“Yep.” He pops the last letter of the word.
“And I should stop by?”
Dane gives me a look. “Are you having trouble hearing, Beckett?” But his eyes are smiling, a twitch at his mouth that is as close to a grin as Sheriff Dane Jones gets. “Yes, I think you should stop by.”
Except there isn’t anyone at the house.
No car in the driveway, no moving truck at the curb. No one answers the door when I knock. I feel ridiculous standing there, listening to the cicadas hum in the trees at my back, my boots shuffling across the new front porch that is … actually really nice. I’m glad Gus didn’t destroy this part of the house in his quest to become a home renovation expert.
I dig the heel of my hand in the base of my neck until I'm the idiot standing on the front porch of a random house in the early afternoon sunshine. I sigh and wander back to my truck, wondering what in the hell Dane was talking about at the grocery store. I drive back to the farm with a tightness in my throat and an open pack of fudge stripe cookies in my lap, the windows all the way down and the ghost of Evie’s laugh slipping along the seats. She had been so beautiful that day, with the wind in her hair, chin tilted up and back. I wanted to kiss every mark on her skin. Every scar, every knick, every line that appeared with her smile.
I’ve perfected a rhythm over the last couple of days. I wake up. I don’t allow myself to linger in bed for more than a couple of minutes. I shuffle into the kitchen for coffee without glancing at a single thing and then I trudge out to the fields and let my body take over for my mind. It’s the only place I can bear missing her—where there’s enough open space for it to come tumbling out of my chest. In the house, I feel stuck. I stare at the empty chair next to me and the longing steals my breath.
I’ve planted more in the past week than I think I have during my entire tenure at Lovelight Farms. We’ll have bell peppers for the next 750 years.
I grab my groceries and stomp my way up the stairs, ignoring the aluminum tray of … something on the top step. I think Layla is convinced a sugar high will see me through this difficult time. I hesitate with my key in the door and then lean back to snatch it up, balancing it on top of everything else. I get a whiff of cinnamon, the bottom of the tray still warm.
She might not be wrong.
Four cats greet me at the door, a chorus of quacking from the small, fenced in area in the kitchen. Otis and the kittens have taken well to each other, Prancer adopting the little guy as one of her own. My evenings are spent watching four cats try to teach a duck how to meow, nudging their little felt mice at his webbed feet and then rubbing their heads against his downy fluff. Maybe I should put that on the stupid video app.
I put my groceries away in a haze. It only takes a few minutes for the silence to feel oppressive instead of comforting, pressing down on my shoulders until it’s a ringing in my ears. I’ve never once had trouble with quiet, but now I feel my jaw clenching in the stillness of the house. I got too used to the sounds of her here with me—whispered fights with Prancer over scarf ownership, the clink of her mug against the countertop.
This whole house is bathed in memories of her and I can’t breathe because of it.
So I slip on my boots and step out the front door, half of my groceries still left in disarray on the countertop. My chest loosens as soon as my feet are on the ground, the tightness slipping away with fresh air and sunlight. I make my way through the tall grass and I watch the trees sway in the breeze. Spring has arrived in earnest after its lengthy delay, the flowers and their bloom with it. Black-eyed Susans with their yellow petals opening to the sun. Bright purple monkshood in thick clusters at the base of the oak trees. Scarlet beebalm and early blue violets.
I’m busy carefully stepping around tiny, bright orange poppies bursting from the ground in licks of color that I almost don’t notice it at first. I categorize it as background noise—a habit of life on a farm where there’s always someone doing something.