Gretchen listened while Dixie and Drew managed to piece together a story about a wishing well—which apparently Drew’s father had built before he’d died—and “the best horses on the planet, Mom,” and the fact that Drew’s step-father needed help with harvesting the lavender.

“I have a job,” Gretchen said. She’d checked her schedule that afternoon after the x-rays, and she had an anniversary party on Saturday night she was providing centerpieces for. And she didn’t have a wedding on the day of the Safety Fair, but the evening before.

She’d closed her calendar app at that point, because her foot ached and her brain couldn’t handle more than the minimal things she’d done that day. She wasn’t sure how in the world she was going to put in a ten-hour day in only a week.

“You could still run The Painted Daisy,” Drew said. “But you’d be closer to your flowers out at the farm, and my mother would love to help with that. She’s always saying how much she admires those gardens you maintain.” He didn’t seem to be lying, though Gretchen couldn’t tell just by looking. She was a mom though, and her fibbing radar wasn’t going off.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” he said.

But Dixie pouted and said, “I don’t want to be home alone, Mom. If we stay out there for a week or two, Joel and Donna will be around, so if you need to rest, you can. And I can feed the chickens, and play with Drew’s dogs—”

“My dogs live with me,” he said quickly, his gaze even on Dixie.

“But you come out to the farm a lot, don’t you?” She looked up at him, almost a pout on her face.

“Not a lot,” he hedged and that dishonesty alarm sounded in Gretchen’s head. She both liked and disliked the idea of having help with Dixie. Needed but didn’t need the compassion of Drew and his family. Wanted and didn’t want to spend more time with him.

Her feelings felt like she’d stuffed them into a small roller coaster car and set them down a twisty track with multiple loops. She couldn’t make decisions with so much wind in her face, without knowing which way the coaster was about to throw her. So she said nothing.

“You won’t be able to drive,” Drew said, almost securing her decision right then.

“My foot is only broken in one spot,” she said. “It doesn’t need surgery.”

“It’s in a full cast,” he said, his eyes sliding down to where her foot lay. She wanted to move it but she couldn’t hide it. “You can’t drive with your right foot in a cast. How are you going to get to the shop and back?”

“Or out to the flowerbeds?” Dixie challenged.

Gretchen had never felt so ganged up on before, even when Aaron and Dixie wanted to go to skip school and work and hop on a ferry to Whidbey Island. In the end, she’d relented, called and excused Dixie, and they’d spent a great day on the beach together. She’d wished Aaron was more spontaneous more often, but he operated like clockwork. In the shower at six-thirty, out the door by seven-thirty. He’d worked long hours, and Gretchen hadn’t minded until that last year before his death.

“I’ll think about it,” she said, her standard mom-answer that bought her time to think about what she should do. Time to get off this roller coaster of confusing emotions she hadn’t felt in fifteen long years.

“Can I tell you in the morning?” She stroked Dixie’s hair, her insides softening at the pleading look on her daughter’s face. She didn’t dare look at Drew, because her attraction to him flowed through her the same way her blood did. Surely he’d see it, and she didn’t want him to see it yet.

“C’mon, Dix,” he said, extending his arm toward her. “I’ll take you back to Janey’s.”

“I don’t want to go to Janey’s,” she complained, but she moved to Drew’s side. He put his arm around her and it looked so natural. Gretchen’s heart banged against her ribs as she watched the two of them interact. He seemed to have already forged a relationship with her after just one day, and Gretchen experienced a rush of jealousy that tightened her throat. Since Aaron’s death—and even before it—the two of them had been inseparable. But Gretchen had sensed some distance between them the past few months. She’d eased up on the asthma nagging, letting Dixie manage her inhaler on days she had PE and not asking her about how things had gone during gym class.

“Say good-bye to your mother.”

Dixie turned back and ran over to the bed. “Love you, Mom.”

Gretchen ignored the way the bandage on her wrist pulled, and the zing of pain radiating through her bruised ribs as she hugged her daughter. “Love you, too, Dix.” She held her tight, never wanting to let go. “Be good for Drew and Janey, okay?”

“I will.” Dixie gave her a fast smile before rejoining Drew in the doorway. He waved and ducked out into the hall, leaving Gretchen to dream about tracing her fingertips along his bearded jaw moments before she kissed him.

The next morning, Dr. Harris arrived at the same time the sun burst through the window. “You can go home today,” she said, scribbling something on Gretchen’s chart. “Who’s coming to pick you up?”

“Drew Herrin.”

Dr. Harris nodded without missing a beat, finished her notes, and hung the clipboard on the end of the bed. “So they’ll bring in breakfast, and I’ll get the nurses going on your discharge papers.” She smiled at Gretchen. “I’m glad you’ve got Drew helping you.”

Gretchen wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but Dr. Harris exited before she could. She wondered what the doctor would think if she knew Drew was just going to drop her off at home to fend for herself and Dixie.

The fear she’d entertained last night—that she couldn’t take care of herself and Dixie on her own—slammed into her with the force of a tsunami. She scooted to the edge of the bed and swung her legs toward the floor. She couldn’t put weight on her foot for six weeks, and she couldn’t reach her crutches either.

So she couldn’t even get out of bed. How was she supposed to get herself from town to her flowers and back? Desperation nearly choked her, and the scent of eggs and orange juice turned her stomach.

Just when she was about to press the button to call the nurse, Drew walked in.

“Morning,” he said easily, his smile filling his face and crinkling his eyes. Gretchen’s tension fled, because Drew could help her. Drew could fix anything. Drew was talented, and strong, and capable—everything she was not.

“I need my crutches,” she said. “Dr. Harris said I could go home this morning.”

“You don’t want to eat?”

She pressed her mouth into a tight line and shook her head. “I wanted to take a quick walk while I wait for the paperwork. Then I just want to go.” Her hatred of hospitals felt suffocating, and she wanted to escape this room she’d been trapped in for two days.

He crossed the room and set a bag on her bed. “Janey put together some clothes for you to wear home.” He picked up her crutches and helped her position them. “How far do you want to go?”

“I’m not sure.” She hated the effort it took to simply move herself a few feet. Hated that she had to do it in front of this man she’d been crushing on and hoping he’d hold her hand again. They moved into the hall, Gretchen’s breath coming quick with the exertion it required to walk.

Her arms hurt, her good leg started to tire quickly, and she only made it around the nurse’s station once before returning to her room, completely spent. Drew slipped out into the hall while Gretchen changed, and it took her several long minutes to maneuver the cast on her foot and inflict the least amount of pain on her ribs, wrist, and head.

She wiped the sweat from her hairline just as someone knocked. “Yeah,” she said.

Dr. Harris walked in. “I sent a prescription for a painkiller over to Swanson’s. You should pick it up on the way home and take it religiously for the first few days.” She paused and fixed Gretchen with a stern, doctorly look. “Drew’s just told me that you’re going back home. With Dixie.”

“I—”

“I can’t release you if that’s your plan,” Dr. Harris said. “You can’t be alone on these painkillers, and it’s not a ten-year-old’s job to watch over you. You can’t drive. You shouldn’t be doing anything but getting up to use the bathroom for about a week.”

Gretchen kept her mouth shut about the anniversary flowers she needed to do. She could sit on a barstool if she could get someone to harvest the flowers and drive her to her shop.

Making a snap decision, she said, “I’m not going home,” as Drew pushed the door open and leaned against the frame. He was so handsome her breath caught in her throat.

“Where are you going?” Dr. Harris challenged.

“Drew’s family farm.” Gretchen switched her gaze to his. “If that’s still okay.”

“Of course it’s okay.”

“His step-father needs help with the lavender, and I know every inch of my granddad’s farm.”

Dr. Harris stabbed a pen in her direction. “No lavender harvesting.” She turned back to Drew. “She shouldn’t be doing anything but resting.”

He raised both hands in acquiescence. “No lavender harvesting. Got it.” His winning smile could charm anyone, even doctors apparently, as Dr. Harris turned back to Gretchen with a satisfied smile.

“Then I can let you go.”

Embarrassment warmed Gretchen’s face. She positioned her crutches under her arms and hobbled out of the room, Drew carrying her purse and personal belongings behind her. It seemed like a mile to his truck, but she made it. He put her crutches in the back and set her bags on the floor between them.

“So.” He exhaled. “I didn’t eat breakfast either, and Duality has these amazing burritos with potatoes and eggs and sausage…”

Gretchen produced a small, shy smile. “I like the ones with jalapenos in them.”

“Really?” Drew started the truck and laughed. “I would not have guessed that about you.”

“No?” She hadn’t flirted with a man in many long years, but it almost felt like riding a bike. “What else wouldn’t you guess about me?”

He pulled out of the hospital parking lot before giving her a sideways look. “I wouldn’t have put you and Janey together as best friends.”

“Oh, well, we’re more alike than you think.”

“Why’s that?” He looked both ways at a stop sign before proceeding. “Because you both have kids? The single mom thing?”

“Yeah.” Gretchen giggled. “The single mom thing. It’s a pretty strong binder.” Anyone who’d raised a child—or attempted to raise a child—on their own would understand. Anyone who hadn’t…well, in Gretchen’s experience, they didn’t understand the challenges as easily.

“I suppose it is.”

“So let me play,” she said, wanting to tuck her left leg under her body and turn toward him. She couldn’t, because she couldn’t lift her right leg without help, and she didn’t want to make a fool of herself any more than necessary.

“Let’s see…you’ve lived in Hawthorn Harbor your whole life…”

“False,” he said.

Surprise shot through her. “Really? You left?”

“For a couple of years.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Medina Fire Department.”

“Wow, so you’re—you’re a firefighter too?”

“Not in Hawthorn Harbor. But yes, I did the training, and I could be a firefighter if I wanted to.”

“But you don’t want to.” She wasn’t really asking. Her curiosity seemed never-ending.

“Do you like being a paramedic more?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “There’s too much…devastation in firefighting. All you see is ash and destruction. With emergency medicine, I see the problems and I can fix them. Or at least stabilize them long enough for someone else to fix them.”

Gretchen wanted to touch him, reach over and squeeze his fingers so he’d know his words were safe with her. But he was too far away, and he pulled into Duality in the next moment anyway.

He didn’t get out right away, though. “Thank you for accepting my mom’s offer to stay at the farm.”

“Dr. Harris wasn’t really giving me a choice.” Why couldn’t she just tell him she’d have chosen the farm?

“I didn’t mention anything to her, I swear,” Drew said. “She overheard me talking to Roxy. That’s all.”

“Mm-hm.” Gretchen gave him what she hoped was a flirty smile. “Maybe you’ll have to convince me by buying my breakfast burrito.”

He returned her grin, and his dark eyes sparkled with fun and desire when he said, “Done.”

She thrilled when he touched her arm to help her from the truck, and she knew in that moment with his skin on hers that this attraction between them was definitely dual-sided. “So I checked my schedule,” she said as he held the door open for her so she could maneuver with her crutches. “And I’m free next weekend for the Safety Fair.”

Drew brushed her hair back off her face, gazed into her eyes, and said, “That’s great, Gretchen.”

And it was great. Going out to the lavender farms sounded great. Not having to shoulder every responsibility for a few weeks was going to be absolutely great. And when she bit into the spicy breakfast burrito Drew had purchased for her, that was pretty great too.

But not as wonderful and calming as the man sitting next to her, eating his milder version of the best breakfast burrito in the state of Washington.