The Last Garden in England(55)

“I should step in before Captain Hook puts Blackbeard’s eye out.” He let go of her hand and used his good side to push himself up. “We’ll leave you in peace.”

She murmured a goodbye as Captain Hastings rounded up the boys. Robin and Bobby returned her pencils and thanked her before Captain Hastings shooed them out of the garden. She thought he would leave, too, but he stopped on the threshold of the gate and whipped around quickly, returning to her in a few long strides. Her lips parted when he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. His lips felt soft against her skin, and her eyes fluttered closed for a moment. But just as quickly, he was pulling away.

“Right,” he murmured. He pulsed toward her, but at the last moment he seemed to pull himself back. “Right.”

Then, he was gone.

Beth sat there a moment, stunned. She’d never been kissed before. A little laugh of disbelief escaped her lips, and she shook her head before taking up her sketchbook once again and beginning to draw two boys, their heads bent diligently over scraps of paper.





? EMMA ?


MAY 2021

Emma let her head fall against the woven back of the patio chair she’d dragged from the shed in Bow Cottage’s garden.

“You’re going to fall asleep if you sit like that for too long,” said Charlie.

She opened one of her eyes and squinted at him through the late-day sunshine. The days were stretching toward summer now and becoming longer, and when she and Charlie wrapped up an inventory of the plants, she’d invited him over for a drink.

“It’s tempting,” she said.

He laughed. “Now you know why I bought those deck chairs last year.”

“I still don’t understand how you can live on a narrow boat. It’s so…”

“Narrow?” he asked with a grin. “I like it. I don’t have to worry about getting stuck next to neighbors I hate.”

“Free to roam the open waterways?” she asked.

“So long as I can find a mooring space. You should come out again. We’ll take the boat up the Avon through some of the locks,” he said.

“At least you’re mentioning the locks up front. The last time you conned me onto your boat with promises of sun-drenched picnics on the roof and a slow jaunt down the river, you had me working the locks every twenty minutes. And it poured.”

“The risk of an English summer,” he said, tilting his beer bottle toward her before taking a sip. Then he paused. “What are we listening to?”

She picked up her phone and glanced at the home screen. “?‘Ain’t That Terrible’ by Roy Redmond.”

“Not your usual thing,” he said.

“Soul’s kind of growing on me. It’s happy music,” she said.

“I’ve known you for almost ten years and worked for you for five, and in all that time I’ve heard you listen to three things.” He held up his fingers. “Indie rock like the Killers and Razorlight, oldies, and terrible pop music.”

“Lady Gaga is not terrible pop music. And my musical tastes are evolving. You should be happy.”

“You’re usually too stuck in your ways to change. Something’s up,” he declared with all the annoying certainty of a best friend.

She closed her eyes again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, you’re wrong. I change all the time. That’s the beauty of not having a house.”

“Do you hear knocking?”

She sighed and sat up, listening. There was knocking.

“No one knows I live here,” she said.

Charlie snorted. “You’re in a village. Everyone knows where you live.”

She shot him a look, set her beer down, and hauled herself to her feet. The muscles in her legs, back, arms—everywhere really—screamed in protest. She’d helped the crew carry in hundreds of plants from the loading site so that they would be able to start digging and planting tomorrow. She’d also helped set the posts for the gazebo, turned the compost, tied in the clematis and roses in the bridal and lovers’ gardens, and on and on and on. The list never seemed to stop, and now her body was feeling the effects.

Coming in from the patio, she squinted into the dark of the cottage, bumping her shin on a coffee table that seemed to be in the way no matter where she put it. Cursing, she half hopped to the front door, pulling it open just as the person on the other side started to knock again.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, bending to rub her shin.

Henry grinned. “It is me. Are you all right?”

“Sorry. I’m glad you’re here, it’s just that I gave myself a knock on the coffee table,” she said.

“Coffee tables are the most vicious of all the furniture. They have a tendency to leap out at you when you least expect it.”

She gave a little laugh. “Something like that.” She spotted a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. “Are those your grandmother’s sketchbooks?”

He patted the bag. “Guilty as charged. Can I come in for a moment?”

“Sorry. Yes.”

He looked around as he walked into the entryway. “I haven’t been in here since Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan sold Bow Cottage. It’s looking good.”

“It’s just a rental, so I took it as is.” She glanced at his shirt, which read Lou Rawls in Coca-Cola font. “Who is Lou Rawls?”