Chapter 3
Tori ordered herself not to stare even though her neighbor was a lot more attractive in person than in her dreams. But it wasn’t just that. No, it was his eyes. Those same green pools of mystery with a hint of yellow flecks around the irises.
They were exactly the same as her dream. Held hers in exactly the same way.
Fighting back a chill, she led them to the gate on the side of the house. Morgan trailed behind her dad, but Tori considered it progress that she’d at least spoken to her about the ball.
New towns could be scary, Tori knew. Just as old ones could be. There were as many things to fear about not knowing people as there were about people knowing too much about you. Garden Creek knew far too much about the Birch’s and chose daily to embellish whatever details suited them.
But Cole and Morgan were new, and had no clue about her history here, about her mother, or about the dreams that had told her they were coming.
“You can go back anytime you need to get your ball.” She pressed the latch at the gate and then grabbed the side of the wooden planks before the whole thing fell. “Sorry, the hinge is broken. I can just leave it open a little.”
She’d meant to fix it, but there was always something else that needed to be done. She wrestled with the gate a moment before Cole stepped in and grabbed it smoothly, inching it open the rest of the way.
“Sorry,” she said. “I keep meaning to fix it.”
“I can do it for you.” Cole’s eyes squinted against the glare of the sun as he pocketed his hands, the muscles in his forearms standing out. “It’s the least I can do for the warning about the casserole.”
She laughed. “Payment for advice. I like it.”
“Payment for saving us a trip to the doctor. I’d say we’re even.”
Tori gestured to the backyard. “Morgan?”
The little girl flashed a timid smile before racing into the backyard. Tori and Cole followed her inside. The gate might have needed some attention, but the rest of the yard was her sanctuary and she treated it as such. On warm days, she’d do her morning stretches and yoga out on the lawn. The emerald blades were thick and had just been mowed over the weekend.
“Flowers!” Morgan said, scooping up her ball as she ran to the garden.
“It’s a hobby.”
Cole glanced at her. “You do all this yourself?”
“With my own two hands. Vegetables on the left. I used some of the tomatoes in your lasagna. I’ll have pumpkins there in the fall, too, Morgan,” she called.
Cole’s eyes squinted with a smile. “She’s always wanted a garden. We didn’t have any outdoor space at our old apartment.”
“You’ve got more than enough now. I bet Morgan would love to get out there and plant something.”
“I don’t have much of a Green Thumb.”
“I’d be happy to show her,” Tori said, the words slipping out before she could help it.
That’s what they did around here. They helped each other. And Morgan was a cutie. But Cole…he made her stomach tighten for more than one reason.
Morgan turned, squeezing her ball in her arms. “I want roses.”
Tori smiled at her. She could do roses. She could do a lot more than roses, but it wasn’t her place. She didn’t know their history. All she knew was that dreaming more than once about the same thing meant something.
But in this case, she wasn’t sure what.
Tori felt a tickle in her throat. She put a hand to her neck, absently rubbing at the skin there. Morgan walked back to her dad and the tickling turned into an ache. She cleared her throat.
“Like I said,” Tori began, then coughed. “Sorry, my…”
Morgan’s eyes met hers, and the future danced in them. Tori saw a clear picture of Morgan in bed, her father hovering at her side with a thermometer while she complained of a sore throat.
“Tori?”
She blinked. Cole’s hand gripped her arm.
“You okay?” he asked.
Shit. She hadn’t meant to have a vision right then. Right in front of her new neighbor, the only person in town who had no idea of her history. Who probably thought she was normal.
“Just a minute,” she said, turning to the house. “There was one more thing I was supposed to give you with the lasagna.”
She didn’t wait for an answer, just let herself in the back door, and then leaned against the counter for a moment. She rubbed her throat.
Morgan was going to come down with something, poor thing.
Just like Tori did with the customers at the tea shop, she went through her mental inventory. Peppermint and licorice root should do the trick. She opened the pantry and drew down a metal box with a few samples of everything. She took out what she needed, then added peppermint to the mix before putting the tea in a container and adding an infuser ball for the loose leaves.
Then she snagged the bottle of wine she’d meant to pair with the lasagna but hadn’t grabbed because she’d remembered tuna/cat casserole and didn’t want to waste any time.
When she returned to the backyard, Morgan had her head bowed over the tea roses, breathing in deep.
“They smell pretty, Daddy.” She noticed Tori and walked back to Cole’s side.
Cole glanced over, then shook his head with a smile. “You people sure do like to make new neighbors feel welcome.”
Tori laughed, her throat already feeling better, and her mood improved as well. Neighborly. That’s all. She was being neighborly, and that’s how he was taking it. Good. Neither of them needed complicated.
“This was supposed to go with the lasagna,” Tori said, passing over the wine.
“I owe you even more now.” He scanned the label briefly.
“And this is for Morgan.” She opened the box. “It’s loose leaf tea. We carry it at the shop. The chamomile to help her sleep just in case she’s too wound up.” She glanced up with a smile. “Or for you if the wine doesn’t do the trick.”
He grinned. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t. And this?” He touched the other satchel of tea.
She shrugged. “Just in case she’s feeling a little under the weather. Sore throat and all that.”
They both looked at Morgan, who squeezed her ball and smiled. She wasn’t hiding behind her dad now, and she looked the picture of health.
But Tori knew better.
“Say ‘thank you’,” Cole told Morgan.
“Thank you,” she whispered. But when she lifted her head, there was a smile in her eyes. “I like your flowers.”
“You’re welcome to come visit them again. They like the company.”
Morgan’s eyes moved the garden, amazement in them. The garden was a little bit of magic to Tori as well, a place to lose her troubles and create something beautiful. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
Definitely a place she’d bring her own child if she ever had one. No, if she ever could have one.
“Thanks for the lasagna and everything.” Cole walked to the gate with Morgan in tow. “We’re going to have to get used to this. The hospitality of a small town.”
Tori grinned at him. “It’s a trade-off. You get the hospitality, and you also get the gossip.”
“And cat food casserole, apparently.”
He waved with the bottle of wine still in hand, and Tori watched as they walked back to their house before she went inside again.
She rubbed her throat absently. The effects lingered sometimes, which wasn’t always the most pleasant. Last year, Mr. Toby had come in for orange spice tea and left with her strong recommendation to head straight to Dr. Westbrook and tell him about the pain he was starting to have in his chest.
Not everyone listened to her, though. In fact, there were still people in town who wouldn’t even come into the tea shop because of the supposed voodoo her and Grams practiced from time to time.
Tori sighed. You couldn’t win them all.
#
Sure enough, Morgan woke with a sore throat. She walked into Cole’s room twenty minutes before the alarm forced him awake and tugged on his covers.
“Daddy.”
He rolled over, almost falling off the cot after being lost in a dream of flowers and tuna casserole. Tori was in the dream, in her mint green shorts and yellow sneakers, her chocolate hair like a layer of silk over her shoulders. Her legs were bronzed from the sun, eyes wide with a come-hither look that made his throat dry…
“Daddy.”
Cole jerked awake, gaze coming to focus on his daughter. Tori’s eyes, her legs, all of her still flashed behind his eyes and he shifted on the cot, pulling the covers up to cover himself. “Uh…what is it? Why are you up?”
“My throat hurts,” she said.
He noticed a definite hoarseness. He reached out automatically to touch her forehead, something that would have shocked his mother. She had told him once she never thought she’d see a domesticated Cole, only the carefree, laidback, and sometimes irresponsible man he’d grown into.
Having Morgan changed him. He thought it might change Deirdre one day, too, but she clearly wasn’t the parenting type. Domestication changed his late nights to early mornings, his weekends drinking to playing dress up, and his pizza habit to…less of a pizza habit.
Maybe only once or twice a week instead of every day.
Progress was progress.
“You don’t feel too warm,” Cole said, pushing aside the covers. “Anything else hurt? Your tummy?”
Morgan blinked sleepy eyes, her lips curving. “No, I didn’t eat the cat food casserole, remember?”
He did. He remembered throwing it in a trash bag last night and making a note to pick up a heavy-duty garbage can this week at the store. He also remembered the lasagna and thinking it was better than his grandmothers, which was saying something.
“Your head?” Cole asked.
“It feels really…big,” Morgan decided, rolling it on her shoulders.
Cole chuckled and picked her up, carrying her in her nightgown to the kitchen where he’d set the tin Tori gave him. If Morgan was joking, she couldn’t feel that bad. Maybe enough to save them a trip to the doctor.
“Let’s try some of this tea,” he suggested, setting her on the counter.
He opened the tin and took out the tea ball, considering it for a moment. Put the tea leaves in the ball, he assumed. And dip it in the hot water.
That’s right, he could manage a household.
So he still didn’t have any milk for the cereal in his house and he’d slept on a cot last night. But Morgan had a bed, and he kept her fed, and she was healthy for the most part. He was doing a damn good job if he said so himself.
Better than Deirdre. Better than he had when he was still with Deirdre. It was easy to get caught in her reckless enthusiasm. Let’s go out tonight. Let’s get a drink. Let’s smoke some pot. And it was just as easy to get caught in her depression. I’m too miserable to go out. Let’s have another drink until we can’t think anymore. Let’s forget the bills this month. It’s not fair we have to pay them anyway.
Once Morgan had turned three, he’d had enough. You couldn’t raise a child with that kind of inconsistency. He’d told Deirdre it was over.
He hadn’t expected the fight. Hadn’t expected her to get a lawyer and drag him to court. In the end, she’d never shown up for the custody hearing. She’d packed her stuff one day when he was at the park with Morgan and after that, only showed up when she needed money or someplace to stay.
By the time Morgan turned four, he was a single parent. By the time she’d turned five, he was ready for a new start.
Cole found a mug, filled it with water, and heated it in the microwave. He brought Morgan to the couch and sat her with Cooper, urging her to drink some of the tea. When it cooled enough she wouldn’t burn herself, he left her with it, made sure the front door was locked and grabbed a quick shower.
By the time he stepped out, Morgan had finished her mug and sat on the floor with Cooper. “More tea, please,” she said in a high-pitched voice like it was her dog talking.
“Cooper wants more tea?” he asked, walking to the kitchen.
“Yes.”
“Is he going to share it with you?”
“Of course. He can only have half a cup because he’s allergic to peppermint.”
Cole chuckled.
He made more tea, added a paper cup of Cheerios, and dropped them off for Morgan before snagging his laptop. So much for work today. He needed to get the basics taken care of first. Groceries. Medicine in case Morgan got a fever. Phone numbers in case she needed to go to the doctor.
He glanced out the window in his study, catching sight of one of the colorful windsocks on his neighbor’s porch. Tori would know all these things. He stepped closer and looked for her car in the driveway, but saw it was empty.
Probably at work. She said a shop. Someplace that has tea.
He’d have to figure that out, too. To check the place out. Stop in and say hi and thank her for the tea.
Just being neighborly. That was how it was done around here, as it seemed.
So he’d work to fit in. After all, if things went well, he and Morgan might be here a while.
#
The warm afternoon brought a wave of regulars to the back patio. Many opted for iced tea instead of their usual hot tea and chatted to the sound of the creek behind the shop and the laughter of kids playing on the animals.
Tori brought another round of blackberry tea to the red table, dropping a tray of quiche tartlets along with it. Hannah made breakfast, lunch, and afternoon fare fresh every day. Much better than Grounds, if she had to be honest.
“Whatcha got going next for the zoo?” Layla Morton asked, snatching a quiche tart and popping it in her mouth.
She, her mom, and a cousin from just south of the city owned their own hair and manicure salon at the end of Main Street. It must have been cousin Jess’s turn to man the store.
Tori brushed her hair from her cheek, a dark strand curling in the humidity. “I’m pretty sure I can convince Jack to make a goat.”
Layla’s mom chuckled. “A goat?”
Tori nodded. They already had a pig, a goose, and a pony. More and more families came in the afternoon, so they needed a larger zoo.
“What about a rooster?” Layla asked.
Tori watched a young boy she didn’t recognize scoop up wood chips and pretend to feed them to the pony. “A rooster would fight with the goose.”
“You could do a sheep. Or a dog. That’d be precious,” Mrs. Morton said.
The boy’s mom shouted at him when he left the circle of animals and wandered toward the wooden swing by the creek. “You stay away from that water!”
Which was a hard feat when there were already three other kids wading up to their ankles. One carried a quiche tartlet, and Tori made a mental note to talk to Hannah about adding them to their menu every week.
“I’ll think about the dog,” Tori said. “Anything else I can get you?”
Layla snagged another mini quiche. “Not yet, but we’d love a jar of your Grams’ clotted cream and a bag of scones when we head out.”
Mrs. Morton rolled her eyes. “Got my sister coming into town tonight. I pretend I can actually bake and she pretends she’s not a huge pain in my ass.”
Tori grinned. “Sounds like a fair trade.”
“What would be a fair trade is if she’d do the cooking for once. She’s the one who eats it all anyway.”
Before Tori could turn for the shop again, Layla cast her a sly smile. “You talked with that neighbor of yours yet?”
“Brought him lasagna last night, warned him about Mrs. Chutney’s casserole.”
“Bless your heart,” Mrs. Morton said. “You should tell Cass to outlaw Mrs. Chutney’s tuna casserole. Doc Westbrook doesn’t have time for that nonsense, not with this cold that’s been going around.”
“You feel a tickle in your throat, you take some of our peppermint tea home with you tonight and have a cup before bed and one tomorrow morning.” Tori touched her shoulder. “It’s on the house.”
She left over more discussion of Cole, the same kind of gossip she’d warned him of. But it was going around today as she’d expected. Garden Creek didn’t have anything better to do on a Friday afternoon.
They had a new band playing at Stonewalls tonight, but that wouldn’t get going for another four hours yet, and it seemed everyone had taken off work early to gossip out by the zoo of animals.
Grams stood inside at the register, bagging four tins of their lemon tea. “It’s all chatter out there,” she said, shaking her head.
“Which is why you let me man the patio today.” Tori gathered empty mugs from the bin by the register.
“I don’t want to be biased. I want to see for myself.”
“See what for yourself?”
“See him for myself,” Grams said. When the woman by the shelf of tea merchandise stepped back to the register, Grams rang her up and passed over the bag. “Enjoy the tea.”
“You mean my new neighbor,” Tori said.
Grams wiped her hands on her apron and cocked her hip against the counter. “That’s right.”
“What makes you think you’d be biased? He’s just a regular guy. With a cute little girl, and probably no interest in walking around a town that can’t stop talking about him.”
Grams lips curved. “Defensive.”
Tori frowned and carried the mugs to the back, where Hannah was washing up the rest of the pans from lunch. “Those quiche tartlets were a big hit. I think we should make them a Friday regular.”
“And the new blackberry tea,” Grams said, “because I don’t think I’ve sold anything else to our patio customers all day.”
Tori nodded. “Blackberry tea and quiche special. Maybe a scone to go on the side.”
“Or one of those double fudge brownies,” Hannah suggested.
“Too sweet,” both Tori and Grams said at the same time.
Grams followed her back into the shop, carrying a rag to wipe the counter. “So you brought him lasagna?”
“By him, I’m assuming you mean my neighbor. Cole. The one you don’t want to hear any gossip about.”
Grams grinned. “When you tell it, it’s not gossip.”
“It’s conversation?”
“Exactly.”
“He’s nice.”
“And?”
“He’s tall.”
“And?”
And I want to run my hands under his shirt, just to feel how hard his pecs and abs really are under there…
“His daughter has blond hair?” Tori asked, trying to focus. “I’m not sure what you’re looking for here, Grams.”
“Reasons,” she said with a nod.
“What reasons?”
“Why you’re not talking about him like the rest of town. Even Cass was in here earlier. And, sure, she’s not a gossip either, but she didn’t have any trouble mentioning how fine she thought he was.”
Tori couldn’t help but laugh. “Fine?”
“Handsome? Is that better? What you’d expect from an old lady like me?”
Tori wrapped her arm around her Grams’ shoulders. “You’re not old.”
“Sophisticated. Experienced. Whatever.”
“Use all the synonyms you want, I still don’t think you’re old. Now, when I’m pushing you around in a wheelchair and you start cooking like Mrs. Chutney, then I might call you old.”
Grams grimaced. “She brought him the cat food casserole, didn’t she? Oh, Lord, you made it there in time, didn’t you?”
“Just in time to see Natalie sashaying back home, and yes, in time to stop him from making a trip to see Doc Westbrook.”
Grams wiggled her eyebrows. “Now, this is the kind of gossip I’m talking about.”
Tori lifted her hands. “That’s all I’ve got. He seems normal, which is out of the usual for my neighborhood, but what can I do?”
“Turn him to the dark side,” Grams snickered.
With a laugh, Tori stepped to the register and spotted Brooks pulling up in front of the store. Her spine stiffened.
Grams followed her gaze, then her nose wrinkled. “Go on, now. Out the back.”
“We don’t close for another hour.”
“You came in early. Get yourself some wine, take it easy tonight, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”