Page 7 of A Touch of Spring Magic (Southern Love Spells #2)

L ater that night, as the wind picked up from a whisper to a shout around the roof and windows of the two-story farmhouse, Jessica relaxed in the large claw-foot tub. She loved a good storm—no pun intended, as she tried to push the picture of Storm squatting next to her as she had meticulously uncovered a section of deep blue mosaic tiles. Because the power lines were underground since the Cramer Mountain neighborhood was relatively new by Belmont and Cramerton standards, she wasn’t as worried about losing power.

The candles and the bath balm were more for atmosphere and self-care.

She felt a little bruised from the day—physically, but also her confidence and sense of self.

Later in the afternoon, she and Storm had been discussing the approach to uncovering the mosaic. He felt that was a priority because they had to know if it was workable to be the anchoring centerpiece of this part of the garden, and for the first time that she could remember, Jessica had felt paralyzed.

“I’m just realizing that I don’t have all the answers,” she confessed.

His smile held amusement, irony, and a hint of sorrow that lanced through her.

“Yet,” he finished her sentence. “Welcome to being the boss.”

And as she submerged her aches and let her mind drift to the mystery of the mosaic and the possibility of a past maze—and what she might want to do with that information—another message flooped in.

Jessica, eyes closed, sighed.

She and her sisters often texted each other at night—group texts and individuals ones, which made reading in the bath or letting her mind free-range near impossible.

But still…

Smiling she picked up her phone. Storm. She yipped and jerked to sitting, water sluicing off, and she looked around wildly as if he could see her.

He’d sent a series of pictures of various historic and rehabbed gardens—Irish, English, French, Greek and Italian. Storm had been doing some research, and then he’d typed two words.

Botanical garden?

“Ambitious much?” Jessica muttered scrolling through the pictures, torn between telling him that she was thinking about taking that direction, thus risking his derision that she was far out of her league, or shutting down his enthusiasm.

But having been shut down in many meetings over the years, she cringed away from that method. She needed to find a way to be comfortable with Storm sharing ideas without her feeling like she’d lose her way in her own vision of her nursery, garden and career. It was a little eerie that he’d hit upon her not yet fully expressed desire to create a small botanical garden that would serve not only as a place of beauty for customers and visitors to stroll, but also an education center where she or others could host classes for garden enthusiasts. They could even have holiday- or craft-themed events like wreath building, terrarium gardens, succulent arrangements, kitchen herb gardens. In the bath surrounded by fragrant warmth and candles and soft music, anything seemed possible.

Are you trying to read my mind?

She was joking, but it sounded personal, so she went to delete, but her wet soapy finger pushed send. Her pulse jumped, and she was going to cancel the text but instead she let it ride. She and Storm were working together—it was totally transactional. He was getting paid something and would have a résumé boost and pictures for his website and local exposure. She was getting an extra set of hands and his knowledge to create the garden space for Chloe’s engagement party.

They weren’t flirting but working together.

Would I be scared by what’s in there?

“Ha, ha,” Jessica mumbled, then she smiled.

My scary mind is my superpower.

Thanks for the warning. Bossing is mine.

Don’t even try it.

Jessica smiled, held her breath as she waited for the dots. This felt like flirting. Bad idea. She knew it was; still, they were adults. Both focused on their new careers.

“Get over yourself,” Jessica murmured, embarrassed that at a happily unmarried thirty-one, unemployed and living rent free at Grandma Millie’s family farmhouse, she still had flashes of feeling she was all that.

She was most definitely a work in progress.

She stared at her phone like she was still a teenager, and just as she forced herself to set it aside, a message from Chloe popped in about food for the party. They could definitely save on costs by catering it themselves, but Jessica was going to draw the line—she wouldn’t use the Southern Love Spells book. If Meghan or Sarah wanted to dance with romance, she’d happily host a future bridal shower or wedding for them too.

Jessica heard a huge crack and a thump that reverberated through the house. She quickly stood up and grabbed her pink chenille robe and wrapped it around her body.

How’s the storm up there? You have a lot of trees on the property.

Storm. She clutched her phone. Jessica didn’t even think to pretend she wasn’t worried.

I just heard something crash.

The house? Want me to come over?

Storm to the rescue. She wanted to roll her eyes at herself and his heroics, and yet her heartbeat calmed. She didn’t feel so alone.

Yes.

Too dangerous.

Her phone rang and Jessica didn’t bother to check the ID.

“I’m fine. I was in the bath. I’ll check for damage at first light if the storm’s blown out.”

“Why are you telling me you’re naked? Are you on one of those online dating sites?”

“Chloe.”

“Who else?” Chloe asked, laughing. “Were you sexting with Storm?”

“Of course not.” Jessica struggled for dignity. “He texted about the storm. He’s worried about the trees.”

“The trees?” How did her little sister put so much skepticism and laugher in two syllables. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what Storm Stevens is inquiring about at ten on a Tuesday night with you naked and glistening in the bath.”

“I am out of the bath and am not glistening. And I’m hanging up, now.” But before Jessica pushed the red button she remembered Chloe’s ask. “Yes to us creating some party food favorites so that Rustin and his crew can enjoy the party.”

“Yeah,” Chloe cheered, and Jessica could picture her sister happily hopping around. “I marked some of the recipes in the book that I think would be fun,” Chloe added.

“Not that book,” Jessica groaned. “I’m sure between me, Meghan and Sarah we have enough experience and googling ability that we can come up with a tricked-out modern menu. We don’t need to dig through some old, random book.”

“I don’t think it’s so random,” Chloe said softly, and a chill slithered down Jessica’s spine just as she heard another crash that made her jump.

Two more texts came in from Storm, and she vacillated between wanting to resolve the issue of the book with Chloe and reassuring Storm. She didn’t want him to get it in his head to play hero by driving over to Cramer Mountain during a storm. Between the Catawba and South Fork Rivers, the narrow country road often flooded.

“It is random,” she said with a certainty she didn’t feel. “Grandma Millie would never ever give away a family heirloom.”

“She didn’t exactly give it away,” Chloe said slowly. “It was in her library one night, when we were all at the house, and I think she meant one of us to find it.”

Another text from Storm. And then he called.

“Chloe, let’s talk about that crazy theory another time.” It had to be crazy right? “Storm’s worried, and I don’t want him to drive over in the middle of this to check on me.”

“Because he’s worried about…the trees.” Chloe’s laughter burbled.

“You’re not funny.”

“Rustin says I am, and he’s almost impossible to make laugh, but maybe Storm should come. Do you think you’re in danger?”

“This farmhouse has stood for over one hundred and fifty years, and it’s been updated and retrofitted so I think it can stand hopefully the last winter storm tantruming.”

“I still think you should invite him over considering you are smelling so nice, and you’re wet, naked and glistening.” Chloe didn’t bother to try to hide her snickers.

Jessica hung up on her sister too late to catch Storm’s call so she quickly texted him. She didn’t need a man to rush in playing hero.

*

Perversely, the next morning dawned clear with a hint of spring and wet grass teasing the air when Jessica pushed back the shutters and opened the dormer-style windows. She scanned for damage, and it took her a moment to realize what was wrong. She could see a hint of the brick golf clubhouse in the distance. Jessica’s breath caught. That meant… Censoring a curse, she hopped out of bed, tugged a long-sleeve T over her head and fed her arms into a flannel shirt. She tugged on some work pants and, not even stopping to brew coffee, she stuck her stocking feet into her work boots and charged out of the mudroom door at a dead run toward her four long greenhouses.

“Oh no.” She could barely comprehend the destruction. She felt dizzy and even swayed as she blinked again and again, trying to see something different instead of the two tall loblolly pines crashed through two of her greenhouses.

Six months of work, more than a few thousand dollars, and who knew how many plants were destroyed?

“Oh no,” she whispered again. What to do? Where to begin? She’d need to take pictures. Document the damage for insurance. But she’d have to get the greenhouses repaired quickly or she could lose all of her plants, especially if there was another cold snap.

But Chloe’s party split her focus on what else had to be done.

Jessica’s eyes stung, and she blinked furiously to keep the tears at bay. She didn’t need her father loftily telling her that tears solved nothing.

“Hold it together. Think, Jess. Think.”

She began to take pictures of the damage, ignoring Chloe’s checking-in text, followed closely by Sarah’s and then Meghan’s.

“I was afraid of this.”

Storm.

She bit her lip and kept her phone partially shielding her face and her back to him until she was sure she had full control of her rioting emotions.

“Have a care, Jay, there’s glass.”

She didn’t answer as the damage from the storm overwhelmed her.

“I put an order to hold two dumpsters last night just in case, and I’ve already texted to have both of them delivered,” he said, voice and expression calm—the direct opposite of her feelings.

“I’ve called in a crew I’ve worked with before to help me get the debris cleared. We should be able to do that today and start repairs and move the plants either to the other greenhouses if they weren’t damaged too badly or perhaps the barn.”

“Repair?” It looked like a total loss. And her brain wasn’t functioning well enough to calculate the unexpected costs.

“I repaired most of these myself,” Jessica said clinging to her pride so tears wouldn’t fall. “This is going to be my business. I make the decisions. You should have run those ideas by me so I could calculate the costs.”

“Yeah.” Storm sounded unimpressed. “Not the first time you’ve mentioned that.” He surveyed the smashed glass and twisted framing. She noticed he had a chainsaw. And he looked disgustingly virile and put together while she hadn’t even washed her face or brushed her teeth.

They stood side by side, while different words and phrases skittered around her brain.

She hadn’t wanted help. She’d wanted this to be her business. Her vision. Her baby. She didn’t want to be bossed or criticized again. And she knew— just knew —she was overreacting to her parents’ high standards over the years as well as the years at her firm where she worked hard and kept her head down and emotions under wraps, and now that she’d pushed and pushed and pushed against her own glass ceiling along with ones made by others, she felt like something had finally shattered, only it was within her.

“Is this a sign?” she whispered.

“It’s a storm, Jay. Part of life. Part of doing business. A last gasp of winter, and I am the storm that’s going to clear a path through.”

She opened her mouth to…what? Protest? Who was she kidding? She may not have wanted help, but she definitely needed it.

“I need to text my sisters and tell them everything’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Storm said, “but you’ll want to find somewhere quieter to make your call.”

“Huh?”

He winked. His insouciance firmly back in place, and then he lowered his safety glasses, and tucked his large ear protectors over his ears and pulled the slumbering chainsaw awake.

*

“Stop hovering.”

“I’m not hovering,” she told Storm after she’d dressed, brushed her teeth and brewed a carafe of coffee for them both and the ‘crew’ he hired. More people she didn’t know stomping across her land but taking orders from him—not that she wouldn’t have known what to tell them. She felt overwhelmed.

“It’s not hovering when it’s my business. My life.”

“You hired me to do a job. Let me do my job.”

The second dumpster had arrived. How was she going to be a business leader when she wasn’t leading?

And why am I already thinking of myself as a leader when all the work I’ve done over the past year has just been crushed?

Her heart ached at the thought of the lost starts and plants—had any of them survived? Jessica didn’t know because Storm was keeping her away.

Safe.

Like a well-behaved little Southern woman—though at nearly five nine she wasn’t small.

“Give me five.” Storm issued the order effortlessly to the two men in orange vests who walked toward them, holding shovels and pickaxes, while Jessica’s frustration and anger escalated.

“This could be a weird suburban horror movie.” She was officially babbling.

Storm led her away from the destruction.

“I’m going to get the glass and debris cleared with my team,” Storm said.

“And what am I supposed to do—just stand around and look pretty?”

“That’s an option.”

She’d walked into that one.

“Look, it’s your property. Your business. Your disaster. You want to sweep up glass, at least dress appropriately and glove up,” Storm said. “Or you could get the barn ready for the starts that survived the apocalypse. You could jump online and order some grow lights and new supplies for the greenhouses. Your place. Your decision.”

He made her feel small. Petty.

“Storm.” She reached out and caught his sleeve as he turned. He looked at her. Beautiful eyes. Long lashes. Direct gaze. Confidence oozing from every pore.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly, and then traced the cuff of his long-sleeve henley. “I’m over-reacting. I’m sorry. It’s…been a week.”

“Yeah.” He rolled his shoulders, looked away and then back at her. “I’ve been there. Will be again. Like you said, it’s only a fail if you don’t get up. So let’s get up. Get the mess cleaned up, salvage what we can and see where we are.”

She had to focus on the plants today—save what inventory she could. She had thousands invested not only on the greenhouses but the equipment and plants in them.

“The party means so much to Chloe,” she whispered, her eyes tearing, “and to me. I want to… I need to do this for her. For Rustin. I have to give them my best. They deserve it, especially as I haven’t always shown the best version of myself, but the plants…”

Her throat clogged and the tears lined up on her lashes.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

“None of us are always at our best, Jay,” he said. “And the nursery is your baby. We’ll be careful. We’ll be able to save more than you think.” He smiled. “You’re just now realizing that you’re human, and that’s the magic.”

She laughed a little, not at all feeling magic. A tear escaped and then another.

With his thumb he caught both tears.

“You’re good, Jay.”

She didn’t believe him, but he seemed sincere, and for today, she’d take him at his word.

*

It’s been a strange day.

And it’s not even end of day.

Jessica smiled at Chloe’s answering text. The time hadn’t sprung forward yet, so that even though it wasn’t yet five, the sun’s rays through the open barn door were a pink-tinged gold. Beautiful. She looked around the barn that she’d cleaned out and had set up a collection of round folding tables, hoping to fill them with plants tonight and early tomorrow. She’d checked on the progress several times this afternoon when she’d brought a second carafe of coffee, a jug of sweet tea, sandwiches and oatmeal butterscotch cookies to Storm and his crew of three. They’d all been so busy and focused, working smoothly like a team that she hadn’t wanted to interrupt.

She’d just waved when Storm’s piercing gaze snagged hers. She needed to stop thinking of him as some kind of sexy savior. She glanced down at Chloe’s next text.

I can come over to help with cleanup.

No. We’re good.

All of her sisters were helpful and supportive, but Chloe—not technically a blood relative though Grandma Millie had adopted and raised her when she’d been abandoned on her front porch twenty-six Christmases ago—was the sweetest.

We.

Of course Chloe would jump on that. Jessica’s fault for being careless.

Since my bossy three sisters hired Storm, they forced me into the we.

Cousin.

Jessica glared at the word. It killed her—just made her shrivel inside that Chloe doubted that she was not a full Maye sister, no matter what her beginnings had been.

Sister.

A tear slipped down her cheek and hit her screen. Chloe called. “Do you think I’ll be a good mother?”

“What? Why are you asking that? Are you…?” Jessica trailed off a little shocked she’d asked the question, but Chloe and Rustin had been spending a lot of time together and the engagement was fast. Maybe Rustin was more of a traditionalist than any of them had suspected. And she wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“No, but Rustin and I want a family,” she said in a rush. “He’s worried about his family tree because of his family’s reputation, but I told him he’ll be a fantastic dad. He’s been such a good big brother to Lucas and his sisters. Suzannah has finished college and is a nurse. And Wren is in her last year of her physical therapy program. And he helps his mom out, and she’s doing really well now. Her RA is in remission, and she’s working as a receptionist at a large medical clinic so Rustin can really focus on himself and his dreams for once, and I want to surround him with love but…”

Jessica FaceTimed Chloe.

Chloe looked like she was sitting, curled up in a chair like a cat, on one of the outdoor chairs on Rustin’s Wild Side restaurant’s deck that looked out over the swollen Catawba River. She was bundled up in a long, brightly colored cardigan that she’d probably knit. She knitted a lot of loud sweaters that she would donate instead of torturing friends and family with. Even though the sweaters weren’t her style, Jessica felt sad she’d never received one of Chloe’s projects. Chloe hoped her bright colors and unusual blends would cheer up someone who was struggling in life—‘keep them from being invisible.’

“But what?” Jessica demanded. Rustin had better not be undermining her sister.

“Should I order the Twenty-Three and Me kit?”

Jessica was shocked. Hurt. But she forced herself to take a calming breath. “Are you thinking about doing that?”

Was Rustin asking about Chloe’s parentage? Had Meghan interfered with some legal questions? Had her mother said something again to ‘other’ Chloe? She’d always made it clear that Chloe was Grandma Millie’s oh-so-gracious ‘charity’ project. And she hadn’t stopped saying that until her three daughters had confronted her on the steps of church one summer day when Jessica had been nine and Meghan eleven, Sarah thirteen.

“No. Yes.” Chloe’s sigh tickled her ears. “I don’t know. Rustin being so worried about his genetics had me thinking about mine. I don’t know anything about my parents, only that when I was a few months old someone left me on Grandma Millie’s doorstep like a Christmas fruit basket.”

Jessica closed her eyes and counted to ten. And then again. Still didn’t help. Her mother had said that about Chloe several times when they’d been growing up, reinforcing the ‘not sisters’ over and over, though none of them had treated Chloe differently, and yet, clearly she was still carrying around the baggage.

“So, Jessie, do you? Do you think I’ll be a good mom?”

Jessica’s eyes prickled with tears at the doubt in Chloe’s voice.

“Clo, you’ll be an amazing mother. You’re so full of love and life. You have so much spark and kindness. You take care of your students—love and support them and help them to grow. You collect and care for stray cats. You even tamed Rustin.” She laughed a little, trying to avoid the emotional maelstrom. “You’ll be the best mother.”

“Jessie, why are you crying?”

“I’m not.” She was. She dashed the tears away and laugh-cried. “It’s been a day—a week, really, but I hate, hate, hate, that you…that you…doubt yourself, or don’t feel like our sister.”

Chloe’s eyes filled with tears too. “I’m sorry.”

If Rustin came out of the Wild Side kitchen and saw his Chloe crying he’d probably jump in his truck and come barreling over, full of fire to curse her out. He was so protective of his ‘Clo Beau.’ He’d been protective of his family as a kid—often getting in fights when someone thought it would be fun to mock his mother or siblings or in-and-out-of-jail family members.

“I’m just so happy,” Chloe said. “But lately all the stuff I tried to pretend didn’t bother me has been burbling up like a backed-up sewer.”

“Lovely image.” Jessica made a face, happy to see the ghost of a smile on Chloe’s face. “You should have seen the pond Storm and I finally murderously cleaned and sanitized.”

“So you’re getting along?”

Jessica laughed. “Hold off on the wedding bells, Clo. And stop bringing that book around.”

“I haven’t.”

“Ha! And don’t worry about your genes unless it’s something a doctor recommends or something you and Rustin want to do together,” Jessica barreled on. “Heck, maybe all of us should do it as a party game for your bridal shower.”

She thought Chloe would laugh; instead her light dimmed again.

“About the party.” She picked at her cardigan. “Do you think we should have one?”

“Of course. This is a big moment, Chloe. Why wouldn’t we have a party to celebrate you and Rustin getting engaged and married?”

“I just…” Chloe nervously fiddled with her jeweled nostril piercing. “I heard Grandma Millie arguing with Elizabeth Katherine about the party. Your mother was refusing to come and said that it was a waste of money and that she and Sean Patrick didn’t want that spectacle,” Chloe whispered, biting her bottom lip, and her eyes welled again.

“Elizabeth Katherine said she didn’t want any more gossip, and that Grandma Millie was pushing her luck too far.”

Jessica stared at Chloe’s shuttered face, stunned to silence by her mother’s cruelty. It was true her parents had often acted as if Chloe didn’t exist. They hadn’t included Chloe in anything, except Grandma Millie had treated all four of ‘her girls’ the same. Jessica remembered once that her mother had pushed back, saying that ‘Chloe had been Grandma Millie’s choice, not hers,’ and later, when Chloe had been three, Jessica’s parents had built a massive home on Cramer Mountain and moved the family out of Belmont’s historic home district, where they’d lived with Grandma Millie in the Maye family mansion, which had housed four generations of Mayes. Grandma Millie and Chloe had lived in the house alone together after that.

Anger flared bright.

“Chloe, we are having a kick-pootie party for you and Rustin. Meghan and Sarah and I will cook whatever party food you want. We’ll choose it together and decorate the garden so that it looks like a fairyland or whatever you want it to look like, but it will be beautiful and magical and an engagement party and bridal shower that will be talked about for years, and Elizabeth Katherine and Sean Patrick can go on a Caribbean cruise for all I care. We’ll have a blast without them.”

“Really?” Chloe smiled and bounced in her chair a little. “Are you sure, Jessie? It’s not too much trouble?”

She saw Storm approaching her and steel straightened her spine. “I’m certain,” Jessica said, her voice ringing out like she was back on the sidelines exhorting her team to victory. “I am committed to launching my niche nursery and the rehabbed garden with the inaugural event of your and Rustin’s party. Storm is on board, and he even has a crew with him today. And you’ve got Meghan and Sarah, so yes, Chloe, the party is on, and it’s going to set a new standard, so dry your tears because I will need all of my sisters to help.”

“Really?”

“Count on it. Now I have to get back to work.”

She hung up just as Storm got close enough so that she didn’t have to yell. She walked toward him.

“Chloe’s excited?” Storm was at her side, smelling of earth and water and fresh air with a spicy, woodsy tang that must just be him as she didn’t imagine he wore a cologne to work all day outside.

“Yes. It’s complicated, but yes.” Jessica tried to shake off how unsettled the call made her. “Are you done for the day?”

“We’re going to finish wheeling over the plants that survived. It will go faster if you tell us where to put what. Not as many grow lights broke as I suspected, so were going to set up a new home base and start bringing over the plants to the barn for a few days, but it looked like most everything survived.”

“Yes.” Jessica pumped her fist in the air and ended up high-fiving a startled Storm. “Things are turning around,” she predicted, willing it to be true. “I can feel it.”