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“Chloe, pop the cork.”

Meghan brought the four flutes she’d chilled in the fridge to the table. “To victory and a huge financial payout for you to shut up and back down.”

Jessica opened her mouth to protest, but if Meghan could help her gain a small settlement that might be close to what her bonus would have been, she could use that toward starting the nursery. But the thought of a legal battle squashed her greed.

Chloe popped the cork but handed the bottle to Sarah to pour the golden, bubbly liquid.

“I want to move on,” Jessica said. She held up her glass, amazed that her voice was so steady. “I’m going to talk to Grandma Millie and see if she’d let me start a small business up here. I want to start a niche nursery and sell tea blends and botanicals that are grown on the property. Cheers.” She tilted her glass toward theirs and then took a deep gulp.

*

The four ofthem, on their second glass of champagne, stood on the large back porch of the farmhouse looking out over the dark garden.

“I’m not being impulsive or overreacting,” Jessica defended. She’d had time to think about the nursery today as the shock of her firing wore off. “I’ve been…treading water…feeling like I’m about to go under for two years.” No need to worry them all her physical complaints.

“But starting a nursery?” Sarah questioned softly.

“Jessica always loved to garden,” Chloe said. “She spent the most time with Grandma Millie in her garden and the greenhouse. She knows how to transplant, graft, nurture—all of it.”

She relaxed a little. Chloe always had her back.

“But what if Grandma Millie doesn’t agree?” Meghan asked, always practical. “Dad’s been salivating to break up this acreage for a while. Twenty plus up here. That’s a lot of money, and three-sixty views at the top when you cut down the trees.”

“You sound just like him,” Chloe said.

“He’s been trying to wrest away this property from Grandma Millie since we were kids,” Meghan said.

“I’m hoping Grandma Millie will let me buy a few acres from her. I’ve been saving for years, and when she said I could move in up here and work on the garden, my dream started to coalesce.”

“What about access?” Meghan demanded. “There’s the back road out, but you’d need to have it regraded probably, and Maye Development owns the apartment building, and commercially zoned area from Cramerton to Cramer Mountain. Dad’s probably got egress rights, and he’s counting on Grandma Millie handing over the farm and land at some point.”

She loved Meghan. She really did. But she always had to point out every hurdle and pitfall before you even started the race—probably why she was a good lawyer.

“I know,” Jessica said. “I’ll have to do a lot of research and have meetings with Grandma Millie, Dad, the HOA and the county and probably town council and planning commission. But it’s a nursery, not a brewery or sawmill, and I was thinking I could restore the gardens and create a public space of beauty.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Sarah said, but her expression was clearly worried.

Meghan looked calculating.

And Chloe was already researching farmers who had goats for sale because they could clear the land so much more quickly and efficiently. She’d even excitedly found a shepherd who rented his goats for brush clearing.

“Listen to this…” Chloe began showing pictures of pygmy goats on her phone.

“Chloe, before we drink the last of the champagne, tell us your news,” Jessica invited, tired of her sisters’ scrutiny of her dream that was not yet a clear plan, which was why she hadn’t said anything to anyone, and the peace and budding sense of rightness and happiness she’d discovered today hard at work had all but evaporated.

As a distraction, it was magic.

“Oh. Oh yes!” Chloe’s mouth O’ed like she was singing an aria. “Guess what? I’m engaged. Rustin asked me to marry him. I said yes—as if there could be any doubt. We’re getting married this summer,” Chloe sang out.

Jessica caught her breath. It was soon. Way too soon, wasn’t it? But from the shimmer in Chloe’s eyes, the hop in her step and the happy glow on her face, her baby sis didn’t think so.

If Jessica thought Sarah or Meghan would be stunned to silence like they’d been with her news, she would have lost that bet, big time. It was a few minutes of happy hugs, exclamations and questions before she could wrap her head around the news.

“Congratulations,” Jessica said for the third or fourth time. She wanted to ask ‘are you sure?’ though it was obvious Chloe was very, very sure.

“You’re not happy for me?”

“I am,” Jessica insisted. “It’s just so fast. You just started dating in December, and—” She broke off because they weren’t even really dating in the traditional sense of the word, because Chloe worked days as a high school teacher and Rustin worked nights as head chef at his restaurant—the Wild Side—that was already a highly reviewed success and destination restaurant. The couple’s time together was mostly Chloe perched on her own bar seating at the chef’s table that overlooked the kitchen, grading papers and chatting with Rustin, the kitchen staff and guests most evenings after she taught her private voice students or conducted choir practice.