Page 172 of Lady and the Hitman

I missed him.

And I knew, with something fierce and full in my chest, that I wanted him back.

Not despite who he was.

But because of it.

I didn’t just miss him.

I needed him.

And I was ready to admit it.

I arrived back in Charleston three days before my parents were due to return.

The plan was for me to get the house ready. Clean. Stock the fridge. Maybe call the mortgage company and beg for more time. I was prepared to walk into a foreclosure notice, unpaid utility bills, and a lawn grown wild with guilt. I braced myself for decay.

I’d already rehearsed the script in my head—twice on the plane and once again in the car. I’d start with something humble, something desperate:We’ve had a medical emergency … My father’s just had surgery … Please, just a few more weeks.

I hated those calls. The ones where you had to shrink yourself down to fit into someone’s spreadsheet. Where some faceless representative clicked through your pain like it was a menu.

But this was different.

This was my parents.

If I had to beg, I’d beg. If I had to get mean, I’d get mean. If I had to walk into a bank branch and refuse to leave until someone listened—I’d do that, too. I was ready to fight for every day of breathing room they needed. I was ready to become the most persistent, stubborn, unrelenting daughter the state of South Carolina had ever seen.

Because after everything they’d done for me, after everything I now understood—they deserved to come home to something more than failure.

They deserved to heal in peace.

Not in panic.

I gripped the steering wheel tighter as I turned onto the familiar road, expecting the worst. Expecting brown grass. A dying garden. Mailboxes stuffed with notices and threats. That sick, metallic scent of stress hanging in the air.

Instead—I pulled into paradise.

The house looked … new.

The shutters had been painted. The porch scrubbed. The driveway swept clean. The garden beds that had been patchy and choked with weeds just a week ago were now full of lush, vibrant blooms—zinnias, lantana, creeping rosemary, and something else I didn’t recognize but which smelled like citrus and sunlight.

I blinked at the house, then looked down the gravel drive that led to the nursery.

It was alive.

People were walking the rows. A delivery truck was parked at the far end. Staff members—staff, not just volunteers—were helping customers select pots and pay.A new wooden sign had been hung from the arbor near the entrance:

The Hughes Family Nursery: A Legacy in Bloom

I stepped out of the car, heart hammering.

The second my foot hit the gravel, I knew.

Ronan.

I walked the garden path slowly, taking in every detail. The new flagstone walkway. The subtle uplighting in the crepe myrtles. The fresh mulch, the added benches, the refurbished potting station near the main greenhouse. Even the compost bins had been upgraded.

Inside the main shed, I found a clipboard with a staff schedule. Full-time employees. Benefits included.