Page 5 of A Touch of Spring Magic (Southern Love Spells #2)

J essica lingered in the shower. Why wouldn’t she? She was cold. Filthy. Stinky. Total yuck. But she was also avoiding Storm. Brent. Why couldn’t she just think of him as Brent? A professional landscape architect she didn’t want to work with. She knew she had to face him.

She admitted it. She’d crossed into coward territory.

They had a history. Not with a capital H, but they’d been competitors. Frenemies. Flirts. And she’d crossed the line a few times as had he, and then she’d used him. Regret burned in her chest. Funny how she felt worse about it twelve years later than she had at the time.

She shut off the water. Grabbed a towel and stared at her drenched reflection. All her life she’d followed the rules. The path set before her. Goals clear. Today, everything felt a little muddied.

Like the pond water.

She considered blowing her hair dry so the waves and curls would be tamed, but she’d only be back out in the pond later today or tomorrow, cleaning it out so she could repair or replace the pump and filtration system. A garden should have a water feature, and it would be a lovely backdrop for Chloe and Rustin’s party.

She dressed, imagining her flared, body-hugging jeans and light blue cashmere sweater were armor. She pulled her hair back in a low ponytail, smoothed on moisturizer and a slick of tinted lip gloss. She reached for mascara but resisted. Already the cashmere sweater was wildly out of place and overkill. Dormant plants and weeds weren’t impressed by makeup. And she didn’t care what Brent Stevens thought of her appearance.

That’s progress.

Her new confidence lasted until she went downstairs and saw Storm standing in her kitchen in front of the large window that looked out over the garden. When did he get so dang tall? And were his shoulders even broader than his athletic high school peak? Storm leafed through a book. That better not be some garden book he’d brought to show her how the trained pros did it. She stepped forward, and when he turned, she saw that he had the Southern Love Spells book in his hand.

“Where did you get that?” she demanded and swiped the book out of his hands and quickly stuffed it in a low cabinet next to the stove where she kept her pots.

“Sorry. Is it a family heirloom? I was just curious. You always liked to bake, and Miss Millie’s meat loaf, mashed potatoes and collard greens at her diner were always a favorite from my childhood. I confess,” he said smiling far too appealingly. “I wanted to spy.”

She’d tucked the book in Chloe’s tote last night. How did it get back here? “Did Chloe tell you to bring it back?”

Storm leaned against her marble countertop and looked far too comfortable and not even a little remorseful for prowling. She hadn’t even invited him to come into the house, which was rude, but…it might be dumb, but today she was feeling that history.

“What’s up with the book?” he asked, surprising her. “The Mayes are all about their history and ancestry. I didn’t think tossing an heirloom cookbook in the cupboard was how the Mayes operated.”

Jessica winced. She’d been insufferable as a child. Daddy’s girl. Maye to her toenails. Convinced of her place in the world, which had consisted of Belmont, North Carolina, at the time.

So cringe.

“It’s not a family heirloom,” she said quickly.

“Seems like,” he noted. “Lots of different handwriting. Notes. Advice. Seems like something you’d keep on hand. Some stuff’s in a foreign language.”

“You really looked through it,” she accused, not sure why that made her feel so vulnerable. She hadn’t had the nerve to look at it again after baking cookies for Rustin in December.

A slight flush stained his cheekbones. And she should not find that attractive.

“Chloe found it in Grandma Millie’s outdoor library.” She aimed for casual, knowing that Brent—there, she could think of him by his adult name, not his high school nickname—as a former high school newspaper editor knew how to pick at scabs for details. “She left it here one night, thinking I might want to borrow, but I don’t.”

“Funny name for a cookbook. Should I warn any Belmont bachelors?”

Of course he noticed the title.

“Ha, ha.” She crossed her arms. “Storm, I mean Brent—” She gulped in a breath and then chickened out. “I told Chloe she could keep the book last night. You didn’t need to bring it back.”

“I didn’t. It was propped up by the stove, open to a recipe that looked interesting.”

“I don’t want to hear about it. Not one word.” She pressed a finger against his lips. His pupils flared. She’d forgotten the power of his spectacular eyes—honey warm, showing every thought and emotion like a film projector.

“Not like Miss Millie to ditch a family heirloom.”

“No, Grandma Millie was…I mean she still is…” A chill ran down her spine, shivered through her blood. Why had she used past tense? “Grandma Millie is exacting. She has high expectations of herself and others, and she is the most generous person there is, but I don’t need help in the garden. I know she asked you to help me because of your degree and experience, but I don’t need help.”

“I’ve been out there, walked it.”

She bristled. “I didn’t invite you.”

“Ready fire aim, Jay.” His smile was both rueful and amused.

She’d forgotten he used to call her that. It had irritated her then and it did now.

“You can’t give me advice,” she objected. “You don’t even know my vision.”

“Do you?”

“It’s my property. My business. Or it will be, and I share ownership with my sisters of course, and I won’t do anything without Grandma Millie’s approval,” she qualified, practically rolling her eyes at herself. For someone intent on being the boss of their own life, there sure was an impressive line of people she had to check with.

“That’s why I’m here.”

“And you can walk right out the door again,” she sniped, making a walking motions with her fingers.

He caught her hand. “If we’re going to go a few rounds, can I at least have some coffee?”

“We are not going to go any rounds,” she said, tugging her hand free and heading to her espresso machine. “Latte or drip?”

“Fancy.” He walked over to check out the machine, terminating the brief reprieve she’d had from his energy and the scent of cedar and something dark and spicy. It would be bergamot if this was one of those historical romances that Chloe loved so much. “Looks commercial grade.”

“Housewarming gift from Meghan when I moved back in here about eight months ago. She’s a coffee fiend, but the company was one of her clients, so I’m hoping that she got a discount, but that might be a conflict of interest. I don’t want to think about how much it cost.”

“Know how to use it?” He looked at her, one dark brow raised, and it might have been fifteen years ago squaring off about one thing or another at school.

She proceeded to show him, even as she acknowledged that she’d fallen into his effortlessly laid trap.

“I’m onto you,” she said handing him a vanilla latte with a dash of cinnamon, and because she could, a frowny face with the foam art.

Storm laughed before he took a sip.

The laugh did something unacceptable to her tummy. It was like she was in high school all over again and the popular boy was paying attention to her.

Stop. You’re being ridiculous.

Storm had always gotten under her guard.

“This would never work.”

“Define this.” He looked curious rather than put out, and then he sipped his drink again, his eyes drifting shut as if he were savoring the flavors.

“This. Us. Working together.”

“Define working.”

“You are still not funny. I don’t need help to build my business.”

“You don’t need help, or you don’t want my help?”

Her gaze jerked to his. A muscle twitched in his angular jaw. She’d thought his intensity was so hot when she’d been a senior in high school.

Grow up.

She couldn’t expect him to understand if she didn’t explain herself. To give herself time to think, she made herself a latte, and then plattered some sugar and spice star-shaped cookies with a dap of apricot jam in the middle. She walked out to her sun porch that overlooked part of the garden she hoped to rehab and also turn into a display for the plants she wanted to sell in her nursery. She sat at a bistro-style table and indicated the other chair. She pushed the cookies toward him.

“Your bach days are safe.” She smiled. “I did not use that book for this recipe. I modified this from something off the internet.”

“Good.” He palmed a couple of cookies. “Because I was worried. Not.”

“My aversion to the book is silly, I admit,” she said, after stifling the unexpected urge to confess to Storm, no Brent, what she had done at Christmas. “My sisters are curious about the origins. Meg’s in detective mode.”

“Sounds like a lawyer.” He took a bite, chewed, and she found herself holding her breath. Dumb. She didn’t care what he thought, except she thought she might like to offer some cookies at her nursery—not for sale, but for a treat along with a sample of the teas she blended using the plants she grew.

“Delicious, Jay.”

And she had to hide her pleasure at his praise.

“Thanks,” she said. “And thank you for coming,” she said. After all, it may be as difficult for him to let go of some of their rocky…maybe bumpy was more like it…past as it was for her.

“I’m not trying to be stubborn or the B word,” she began, “but I like to do things my own way.”

“Not a news flash, Jay.”

“My independence and desire to do everything my own way has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me and what I want.”

“We breakin’ up again, Jay?” he deadpanned.

Shock at his audacity quickly turned to annoyance. She was trying to be nice. Explain.

“We were never really together to break up,” she reminded him coolly. “I am going to start a niche nursery up here. And I’d like to start rehabbing the garden. My schedule’s been pushed up a bit,” she admitted in a massive understatement, “as my sisters and I are going to throw a garden bridal shower for Chloe and Rustin in May…”

“May?” he said incredulously.

Her annoyance began to veer to panic as he likely had a better idea of the scope of work she was taking on, but she was smart. Determined. Hardworking.

She sucked in a calming breath—at least she hoped so. It wasn’t Storm’s fault her family was trying to bail her out as well as Storm. If he was recently moved back home, he was likely trying to drum up business for his own future. He had to eat and might need money to help his grandparents. Her heart pinched in sympathy, but she had to harden it. Her dream was too important, and she’d already gone against her own wishes in college and her career to please her parents.

“Storm.” She shook her head and then shrugged. “Storm still seems to suit even though we’re all grown up. I really need to do this on my own. I do.” She held up a hand as he shifted in his chair to look out on the massive overgrowth and decay. “I studied economics and business in school to please my father,” she admitted. “Took my CPA exam. I was good at numbers, and it pleased Daddy, but it didn’t please me. Now I have a shot at following my dream.”

“I don’t begrudge you your dream, Jay.”

“Good.” She smiled. They had matured. They understood each other.

“So why you so intent on begrudging me mine?”

“How is this about you?” she demanded, standing up and sloshing her latte a little. Making a sound of annoyance she marched back into the kitchen for a tea towel. She didn’t even know he’d moved until she felt the brush of of his arm, as he reached it first.

“I…we could never work together.”

“How do you know if you won’t give it a chance?”

He was close enough for her to see the long curl of his sooty lashes that every girl, including her, had envied.

“I…I don’t have the money to pay you,” she admitted and pushed forward so that he was forced to step back.

“Your sisters and grandmother…”

“I know. I know.” She stood at the window of the glassed-in porch and forced herself to look at the whole scope of the work, not just the pieces she mentally had divided it into. “I know it’s a lot of work, and I know it will take a lot of time. And time is money, and I can’t let my sisters and grandmother take on such a huge burden for me.”

That was an insurmountable obstacle even for Storm, who had been called Mr. Can Do in high school for his ability to pull almost every game into the win column for his teams as well as fix anything that broke for the teachers during class time.

He was quiet. Too quiet. But she could practically hear the whir of his brain. He stood beside her.

“It’s not just for you.”

She pressed her lips together. “You’d try to take over,” she accused.

He rocked back on his feet, crossed his arms and smiled. “And you’d let me, Jay, like you always did in high school.”

“I never let you.” She was stung. “I know how to fight for what I want.”

His smile was so smug she would have slapped him if she’d been that kind of woman, which she most definitely was not.

“Exactly.” He picked up his latte and handed her hers. “So why worry?”

“Let’s go outside. I think better outside.”

She slid back into her vest and gardening boots and followed him. He walked for a bit, and she had a feeling he was taking in the scope of the project, and though she felt protective of her property, she couldn’t deny that it had been neglected. For many years, the caretaker had held back the worst, but he’d aged, and his focus had been on keeping the house snug and secure, and all of the Maye sisters had been busy with school or work or their lives for so many years. Only Chloe had come, adding a few kittens and cats to the property, giving them a home in the barn and feeding them when one of her friends had started volunteering at a cat shelter.

“Cards on the table, Jay.”

Cards. As kids, they’d played war. Black Jack. Hearts. And in middle school things had moved to demure strip poker.

“Always.” She notched up her chin. She liked this new version of herself. Honest. Clear-sighted.

“I want the job.”

“But I…”

“I need the job.”

Again that sexy muscle twitch.

“But I don’t…I’m not shutting you down just because,” she said, her heart pinching, “because of the past or because I’m a control freak or not able to pay you. I’m shutting you down because…because…” She waved her hand a little too frenetically, and embarrassed, tucked her hand in her pocket. “I need to reclaim my life for me. I need to learn to do everything, trust myself. Not rely on others. Not take the easy path to avoid conflict.”

He looked at her as if she’d lost more than a couple more of her marbles. “I need to trust myself,” she insisted. “Separate myself from my past to become what and who I want to me.”

“And I want a pony,” he said dismissively. “The past is always there. It shaped me. Shaped you. Your sisters. Everyone. Learn or don’t, but you have to keep moving forward.”

“Exactly.” She pointed at him. “Exactly.” That was exactly what she was trying to do.

“I’m back in Belmont building a new life too. My grandparents stepped in for me when…when they needed to.”

Jessica felt her heart pinch in sympathy that Storm had been orphaned before middle school.

“I wanted to settle back in Belmont so I can help my grandparents if and when they need it. I’ve inherited my great-grandmother’s house. Having a home helps me to curtail a big expense and, being in town, I can build the business I want. I want to move away from being a contractor and do what I love and what I studied to do.”

She stared at him, dismay blooming. “But…but…wouldn’t there be more business in Charlotte for a landscape architect than in Gaston County?”

“Definitely, but I never liked the big city like you did.”

She had until she hadn’t.

“I’m just…” Jessica’s legs felt wobbly and she sunk down on one of the chairs, but a quick look at him—tall, vibrant, strong and towering over her—had her jumping to her feet again. “I don’t want help,” she said honestly, understanding what he wanted and why, but it was too much, too soon. “I just need to find my legs. I…I was…” She winced. She’d almost admitted being fired. “The party’s moved my timetable up, and I…I was let go at my company so I have more time now.” Her voice grew in strength. “And Meghan’s going to help me fight for a severance package, and my sisters will help with some manual labor, so I’m sure I will be able to beautify enough of the garden for a small party. I’m not a landscape architect, but I have ideas.”

“Let’s hear them.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re still so pushy.”

“How I get things done. And you’re over your head but won’t admit it.”

“If I did, would you go away?”

“C’mon, Jay. Give me a chance.”

“You want to be your own boss.”

“Don’t you?” he countered. “Doesn’t mean I can’t work well with others.”

True. She’d always been the one in high school trying to run the show—her way, not his.

“Tell me what you’re thinking?”

His voice was encouraging. His smile warm. Jessica nearly stomped her foot in frustration when his smile widened, and his brow rose in challenge. “I dare you. This project is a game changer for both of us.”

She didn’t want to be his game changer. “I haven’t drawn up a budget for the whole project,” she said stiffly.

“The accountant doesn’t have a budget?”

Was he laughing at her?

“My plans are in flux,” she admitted. “But I’ve been paying as I go. I refurbished the greenhouses, and I have started researching the plants I want to carry in the nursery, and last night I started researching gardens around the world looking for things that caught my eye and would work here with what I want to do.”

She sounded like a neophyte, which she was. Jessica was beginning to realize that dreaming as she stood in line for a latte or drove to work listening to gardening and business podcasts was very different from being freed from a job and alone on her rather feral property.

“But before I move too far ahead with the garden project, I will consult my sisters and Grandma Millie as this was her family farm, and I share the property with my sisters,” she admitted stiffly, knowing she sounded like the biggest hypocrite, going on about being her own boss, when she felt obligated to loop in her sisters.

“See, we’re on the same page.”

“We’re in a different book.”

“You need your sisters’ approval, and they approve of me.”

“You are so cocky.”

“Hey now, ease off on the compliments.” Then he laughed. “Jay, you know you’re going to show me so let’s stop dancing and get to work. May you said, yes?”

He opened the French doors wide. The sun slid lower in the sky, filtering through the towering evergreens and deciduous trees lower on the property. Jessica did not remember Storm so rude or stubborn.

“Coming, Jessica Maye?” He walked out, leaving the door open behind him.

It would serve him right if she slapped the doors closed and locked them. But this was her property and her dream, and she wasn’t ceding ground to anyone, even if the backside of Storm Stevens was as masculinely appealing as the front of him.

*

Jessica heard a weird whirring sound. It seemed to advance and retreat, and then circle? Disoriented, she lay in bed, sprawled on her tummy, star-fished. Gray light filtered through her unshuttered bedroom windows. She groaned. Past time to rise. She must have shut off the alarm on her phone.

No.

Wait.

She no longer needed to shower and spend half an hour on her hair and makeup. The dirt and weeds didn’t care. And she didn’t have outdoor lighting yet so she couldn’t work before the sun poked over the horizon anyway.

Sighing with pleasure, Jessica rolled over and stared at the ceiling of the childhood guest bedroom she’d shared with Chloe when they would spend the weekend ‘camping out’ and running wild with Grandma Millie at the farmhouse.

Jessica had loved those rare weekends away—the four of them with Grandma Millie—the freedom and informality. She could get dirty and not face the askance looks from her mother or her father’s disapproval. She and Chloe had painted this room with a warm wash of yellows that created an ombré effect. Over the past year, she’d started adding vines and leaves on the edge of the ceiling around the crown molding she’d installed with Meghan’s help. She loved the added artistic touch, especially since she and Chloe had worked together. But Chloe had wondered why Jessica didn’t take the primary bedroom. That had never occurred to her. She’d always liked the angles of the roofline of the one she’d shared with Chloe, and she had so many memories of them talking late into the night as kids.

“What is that sound?” Awake finally, Jessica hopped to her feet and opened the window and poked her head out.

A drone hovered over the garden and made slow passes over the property between the house, the greenhouses and the barn.

“What the heck?”

Fear wasn’t part of her equation. This wasn’t the first time she’d caught teenagers trying to sneak onto her property for a little party. Once she’d caught them in the barn making a bonfire and she’d snuffed out the party with her new fire extinguisher and a call to 911 to the sheriff’s, likely earning her a ‘mean crazy doomer lady’ moniker that she owned .

Maybe Chloe was right. She should get a couple of dogs that could patrol the property. Her nose twitched, already imagining the dog hair she’d have to contend with, because even if she imagined they would be outdoor dogs, she knew the dogs would easily worm their way inside through Chloe’s spongy heart, just as the population of feral cats Chloe had rescued and was relentlessly taming continued to grow.

Now that she would be here all the time, did that make her and the property safer or more vulnerable? She hated thinking like prey.

“Dogs,” she huffed running down the stairs. She stuffed her bare feet into her gardening Romeos, flung open the French doors and stomped outside ready to ream out some nerdy kid for trespassing.

Brrrrrr. She ducked back inside, grabbed a chunky knit cardigan to throw over her tank top and leggings and marched out in the garden toward the drone. It zipped away and hovered over the pond for a moment and then lowered, circling and then rising up a bit.

“You’re trespassing,” Jessica called out, and it occurred to her then that: one, drones had cameras, and she was outside in essentially her pajamas yelling at a machine. Two, this encounter could be posted on social media, making her look like a disheveled crazy woman and three, the actual drone operator could be a pervert and up to a mile away if it was a good drone, so she couldn’t tell him off face-to-face.

She looked around for a rock to throw at it. Drones were expensive, right? That would get the pervert or nerd to back off.

She stooped and sorted through the dirt for some suitable stones. Choosing one, she rose and came face-to-face with the drone.

“Hey, Jay, did I wake you?”

She stared at the white object that was the size of a dinner plate.

“You can talk?”

She heard low, amused laughter behind her.

“On my good days.”

She spun around and yipped and clutched the cardigan tightly around herself. She was not wearing makeup. Or a bra. And Storm looked good enough to eat for breakfast. He was also not looking sorry at all to have wakened her or trespassed.

Again.

“Sorry, I didn’t have your number to text you,” Storm said. He looked far too awake and handsome for this early. “But I got to thinking after we did our truncated walkabout last night about what you said about not having a bird’s-eye view to draw up your master plan for the garden.”

Feeling foolish, she tucked the stone in the pocket of her cardigan. “You actually listened to me?”

“It happens on occasion,” he said. “But always with a client.”

“I’m not a client.”

“Miss Millie and your sisters are my clients. You’re the…”

He trailed off as she narrowed her eyes at him, but he continued to grin at her like the mischievous boy he’d once been, convinced he’d be forgiven all. Storm had been the first person she’d heard say that it was ‘better to ask forgiveness than seek permission.’

He probably had that tatted on his body somewhere.

“What?” she challenged and immediately regretted. “No, I don’t want to know.”

“You’re the hard nut to crack,” he said.

“Does that line work on women?”

“Does it?”

She didn’t answer.

“C’mon, Jay, cut me some slack—at least I didn’t say you’re the PIDA, which was the kind way of referring to you in high school.”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to know or need to know because this is my land. My nursery and my garden. I’m the boss.” She slapped her hands on her hips and then abandoned the truculent position to clutch the cardigan tightly around herself once again.

“That you are,” he agreed. “So go get dressed, and we can go over the drone footage.”

“Storm,” she began, abandoning her attempt to distance their history with his proper name, but then her ears caught up with his words. “Drone footage.”

“You can see the whole land. Elevations, swales, erosion issues, soil distress. The acreage can be divided into grids where you can run it through an analysis, get data points that can help you put together a plan—long term but also short term. Get ready for Chloe’s party sooner.”

His voice was suspiciously neutral, but he’d pulled out a large iPad, and was looking at the screen instead of at her, and though what he promised sounded quite technical, something that he likely learned in landscape design college classes, she’d be foolish to not look at the whole property and gain some professional knowledge.

That didn’t mean she had to hire him.

Maybe just a consult.

“This doesn’t mean I’m hiring you.”

He spread his arms wide and smiled. “You don’t have to. I’ve already been hired to listen, follow directions, work, be your muscle.”

“My muscle?” she echoed. “Who said that? Not Grandma Millie.”

He mimed zipping his lips.

“Like that will last,” she said. “I’m still not hiring you, but I do want to see the drone footage and maybe get your opinion on a few data points,” she said, using his language. “But I am and will remain the boss.”

“Yes, boss.”