Chapter One

 

Willow stared down at the cup sitting in front of her, her fingertip tracing the delicate edge. Nana tipped the teapot over it, allowing the shimmering amber tea to obliterate the dainty pink flowers and feathery green leaves painted along the nearly translucent white inner wall. This caused her to jump slightly and look up at the older woman, wondering how long she had been in a daze. Nana smiled at her and settled into the chair across the table. As Willow looked at her, she wondered, not for the first time, what this woman’s real name was. For as long as she had known her, everyone had called her Nana and had never questioned it. One day she might ask, but somehow it felt disrespectful to pry, and like if she did she would be breaking the comfortable connection that they had.

Nana reached forward and used tiny silver tongs to pick up a cube of pink-tinted sugar from the matching silver tray in the center of the table and rest it onto Willow’s spoon, then selected two more for herself. Willow stirred the sugar into her tea, watching the crystals disappear into the hot liquid and spread their sweetness and the hint of rose that was Nana’s signature through the drink. They sat in silence for a few moments, each tending to their tea in a way that felt choreographed as if they were trying to use up as much time as they possibly could augmenting their cups and taking their first, cautious sips. This was unusual for them. Their friendship was one built on years of knowing each other and a comfortable rapport that always led them into easy, relaxed conversations that could stretch for hours without either of them noticing the passage of time. Now, though, it felt like they were barely occupying the same space.

Instead, they were two individuals in their own separate bubbles, positioned near each other but not truly with one another. There was something happening, something that had changed in the home that was altering the way that Nana was thinking and acting. Willow took another sip of her tea and looked around herself. In the little more than a month since she had last been in the home visiting with Nana, the environment had shifted in a way that was obvious but not tangible. She could feel that there was something in the space that wasn’t as it had been, but she couldn’t specifically see anything that was amiss or that had been moved or added since her last time sitting at this table. She turned toward Nana and saw that she was holding a plate of pecan cookies out to her. Willow took one of the treats and rested it on the edge of her saucer.

“Something’s different,” she said. “Did I visit at a bad time?”

Nana had taken a bite of her own cookie and shook her head as she worked on chewing and swallowing the bite.

“No,” she finally said. “Now is perfect.”

“You just seem distracted. I don’t want to keep you from anything if there is something that you need to be doing.”

“No,” Nana insisted again, reaching across the table to rest her hand on Willow’s. “I’m happy that you stopped by. It’s good to see you. Things have just been busy the last few weeks. That’s all.”

“Busy?” Willow asked, taking another sip of her tea to help her look casual and not as though images of the gorgeous man she had just met were still flickering through her mind. “Anything exciting?”

Nana looked as though she were thinking as quickly as she could, trying to figure out how to respond. She settled her own teacup into the saucer and picked up another cookie.

“Well, Aubrey is back home…with her new husband.”

Willow was slightly taken aback by the explanation, though it seemed tacked on and not complete. She gave a slow nod.

“Wow,” she said. “I didn’t even know that she had gotten married.”

Though she tried hard not to let the sound of it seep into her voice, Willow was offended by the thought of Aubrey getting married without her even knowing about the impending wedding. She had been close with Nana for many years, and even though she hadn’t ever had a particularly meaningful friendship with Aubrey, Willow would have expected that if Nana’s granddaughter were getting married, she would have been invited, or at least told that the wedding was happening.

“It was very sudden,” Nana said. “I’m honestly still trying to get used to the idea myself. There wasn’t even time to plan a proper wedding. It was just a little ceremony right in the backyard with a few of the groom’s friends. That’s actually how I met Gannon. He is a friend of Jonah’s and is staying here for a bit.”

“Staying here?” Willow asked in surprise. “He’s living with you?”

Nana laughed and leaned back in her chair, looking more like the woman who Willow knew.

“You make it sound so lascivious,” she said. “I could only hope that something that exciting would happen in my life with a man like that. No. He had to move out of his former home pretty unexpectedly and hasn’t quite settled into a new place yet. I’m just rattling around in this big old house all by myself when Aubrey isn’t home, so I figured that I might as well offer him some of the extra space that I have.”

Willow nodded, involuntarily letting out a sigh of relief.

“Oh. That makes sense. That’s nice of you to help him out.”

Nana laughed again and took a last sip of her tea before filling up her cup again. She leaned back in her chair and took a long sip as she evaluated Willow.

“So, what’s making you so curious about Gannon?” she asked.

Willow could feel heat burn over her cheekbones and she looked back down into her teacup at the pink flowers that were starting to appear over the tea again.

“I’m not curious about him,” she said. “I just noticed that things around here seem a little different and so I was curious about that.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Nana said. “It seems to me like you were all too happy to meet him and to ask him to help you out with your plants.”

Willow’s eyes snapped up to her.

“I didn’t mean anything by that!” she said, knowing that her desperation to cover her tracks was incredibly obvious even though she was trying not to let it be. “He has just done such a good job helping you take care of your plants and I’ve been struggling with some of mine, and I thought that if it was alright with him and with you that he might be able to help me fix the problems that I’ve been having with them.”

“And it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s tall, built, and gorgeous?”

“Nana!” Willow gasped.

She knew that the elderly woman tended to be bawdy, and usually she found it delightful, but hearing Nana talk about Gannon like that was shocking. Nana laughed and waved her hand at Willow as if to calm her.

“Alright, alright,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’ll stop.” She took another sip of her tea. “But I did see the way that you were looking at him.”

“Nana!”

“Alright. I’m sorry. I’m done.” She settled her cup onto the table. “So, tell me about these issues that you’re having with your plants.”

Willow drew in a breath and leaned forward on the table, starting to describe the puny strawberry plants that she had been trying to nurture and cajole into bloom. Though she was relieved that Nana was no longer teasing her about Gannon, it didn’t take the thoughts of him out of her mind. The attraction to him had been immediate and powerful, completely unexpected in its intensity, but also simply that it was there at all. It had been so long since she had felt anything like this for anyone, and she wouldn’t have expected to feel it so strongly for someone that she had just met, someone who she had never even seen or heard of until that moment.

There was something about Gannon that made him completely different than any of the men she had ever known or been attracted to. She could sense the shyness in him, but there was also a vague distance that at once made her even more intrigued by him and made her feel nervous. She had asked him to come help her with her plants impulsively, but now she couldn’t decide whether she really wanted him to come so that she could spend more time exploring the feelings that had come on so strong and so insistently, or if it would be better if she didn’t let it happen at all. There was a reason she had done everything that she could to try to avoid any of these types of feelings, and she feared that if she let herself get too far, it would only prove itself even further.