Page 49

E velyn O’Rourke looked at her sons, her heart pained.

James mindlessly flicked through the channels on her television. From the time he’d been a child, when he was unhappy or distressed, he would do activities that made him appear interested while his mind stayed a million miles away.

His soon-to-be ex-wife had done a number on him. Evelyn spared a few unkind thoughts for the woman, but the thought that overrode it all was, I hope he’s only bent, not broken .

Her gaze went to her other son, who sat at her table, deeply involved in his work.

Colin was the polar opposite of James. Whereas James had had natural people skills from the time he was born, Colin had to work hard to cultivate his.

Looking at the man he was now, Evelyn was proud of him.

He’d worked tirelessly for the better part of a decade to prove himself worthy of the Herculean task Brianagh had left for him.

To take a successful company and make it his own was exactly what Colin needed to give his life purpose and direction.

Brianagh had always been perceptive of others’ needs, and Evelyn was grateful Bri had enough foresight to know that Colin would need to step outside of his comfort zone to flourish.

Maybe she knew that he needed to prove to himself that he was capable of great things.

Evelyn knew what was troubling James, and she also knew enough that he wasn’t ready to talk about it. Colin’s source of trouble smelled of relationship issues, and while James’s was relatively straightforward, Colin’s had an entirely different set of problems that came with it.

“Colin, could you help me weed the garden?” she asked, holding up a spare pair of gloves. “It’s so overrun, and with the back spasms your father’s been experiencing, I really don’t want to ask him.”

Colin looked up from his screen. “Can James help this time, Mom? I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to get these e-mails out…”

“James is a bit involved in his troubles,” she said softly, letting her gaze stray to the couch.

Colin sighed, then closed his laptop. “Of course.”

He dutifully followed her out to the backyard, where her vegetables grew in haphazard beds. He dropped to his knees and immediately began pulling the weeds.

“Thanks, love. This can become an overwhelming task when it’s just me doing all the work.”

He grunted.

“How was your trip to Ireland? Reilly all right?”

“He’s great. The trip was pretty uneventful.”

“No extra side trips?” she asked meaningfully.

He glanced up, his dark eyes unreadable. “A bit of one, sure. There usually is.”

Evelyn nodded, though her heart contracted.

She hated that her youngest child was a chosen one of the family tree.

When she’d married Connor O’Rourke years before, her mother-in-law got her rip-roaring drunk and told her everything.

Evelyn had thought her crazy, but she knew now that she’d been giving her a warning.

The duty of being a Protector skipped at least one, but sometimes more generations, depending on how many Protectors were still alive at the time of a candidate’s birth.

At least, that was what Reilly had explained to her when he’d shown up out of the blue one morning, a tiny, dark-haired child in tow.

Being entrusted with the care and raising of her family’s most important member was a joy.

Evelyn loved every moment of being Brianagh’s surrogate mother, but when the time came to let her go, she’d nearly broken from the grief.

The only thing that helped her through it was Colin…

and his ability to take her and James back with him for the birth of each of Brianagh’s beautiful children.

Evelyn was a blessed mother, indeed.

She nonchalantly threw more weeds into the growing pile. “Oh, that must’ve been difficult to explain to Ellie. The poor girl. I wonder what she made of it when you disappeared. Did you have enough warning to hand her off to Candice?”

“It worked out,” was all he said. He plucked a weed a bit too enthusiastically, and a large mound of dirt came up with it. Muttering, he shook it free and tossed it into the pile.

Evelyn nodded, and allowed a moment of silence to pass. “I miss doing this with Dad. I hope that back surgery of his leads to a full recovery.”

“James says it will. Don’t worry so much, Mom.”

“It’s in my nature,” she replied mildly. “Love is like this pumpkin I’ve got growing here.”

Colin raised an eyebrow. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard love compared to a pumpkin before.”

“Well, think about it. A pumpkin takes much more work to thrive than your average fruit.”

“Aren’t pumpkins a vegetable?”

“Technically, they’re a fruit. Don’t question your mother.

” She sniffed with mock seriousness. “First, you have to plant it in a safe place, far away from the cold realities of the outside world. For almost a month, you have to keep it in ideal conditions, where no matter what, it’s protected from extremes.

When you’re taking care of something so new and precious, those first few weeks need to be protected so that something more substantial can grow. ”

“I suppose,” he replied doubtfully.

Evelyn didn’t look up. “Then, after it’s safe to plant it, you have to make sure the outside conditions are right.

What if there’s a cold snap? That can kill the fruit before it even has a chance to develop itself.

Just give it what it needs—water, sunlight, some words of encouragement.

And even though it sounds like it, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. ”

“What does it mean, then?”

“It means that if you’re willing to put in the time and care necessary to foster something that nourishes your soul, then at first you keep it safe, then give it what it needs.”

He blinked. “What happens if, after you give it the water and the sunlight, it still dies? Do you toss it out with the weed pile?”

She gently brushed the dirt off some leaves of a tomato plant.

“Well, of course you could. But it seems counterintuitive. I mean, you’ve already put in the time and effort.

And your seedling has, against all odds, survived to a point.

You should always be certain before you pull up the roots.

Give it a bit of time. With a little more sunlight, a bit more water, and room to grow, love can be quite forgiving. ”

“You mean plants ,” Colin replied. “ Plants can be forgiving.”

“Those, too.”

Colin stood and kissed her on her head. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Any time, dear.” Evelyn sat back on her calves and, pleased, surveyed the neat soil around her small pumpkin.

James pulled out into traffic. “Aren’t you tired of the six hour flight yet? ”

Colin smiled without humor. “So tired of it.”

He slid his younger brother a look. “Then why keep putting yourself through it?”

Colin rubbed his temples. “I’m an idiot, that’s why.” At James’s prolonged silence, he sighed. “I can’t sleep. I don’t eat anything. I’m so damn depressed that I’m beginning to worry for my sanity. God, I don’t even know what I’m going to say when I see her.”

“Have you cried yet?” James asked.

Silently, Colin jerked his head.

“That’s how I knew I didn’t love Hailey,” James said quietly. “Not once did I cry over losing her. And I think that if a man loses something as precious as love, he ought to have an emotion as big as love to release his pain, you know?”

“I do.”

Deftly, he maneuvered them towards the airport. “The question I kept coming back to was, can I live without her in my life? In my case, the resounding answer was yes. If you can’t answer that question with a yes, then you have to question what the hell you’re doing with your life.”

Colin remained silent, though his hands flexed over his knees a time or two. “It’s been weeks since I last saw her, and…I miss her.”

“Of course you do. She’s your soul mate.”

Colin looked over at James. “Yeah. She is.”

James reached over and tousled Colin’s hair. “Maybe it’s about time she heard the truth out of your mouth. The whole truth, no holds barred, and she can make up her own mind.”

“I have no problem jumping through time to fight battles,” Colin replied with a shaky laugh. “But the thought of Ellie holding my fate in her hands is absolutely terrifying.”

James smiled grimly. “Love is a scary thing. Be brave, Col, and trust in her a bit.”

The airport came into view. “I hurt her badly, James. I really messed this one up. ”

He pulled up to the departures door and unsnapped his seat belt. “Then I suggest you spend the rest of your life making it up to her.”

Ellie absentmindedly dusted the book in her hand again, her unfocused gaze on the wall opposite her register.

That morning, a man entered her shop, asked for her by name, and handed her the wrapped parcel.

Bemused, she’d taken it, and the man left before she could tip or thank him.

When she tore the paper open, the bold strokes of red, tinged with deeper red veins, had her curiously peeling back the rest of the wrapping.

It was an enormous painting of a red poppy, tinged with white. The flower was painted in full, exacting detail on a stark white canvas background. And in the center of the flower, in a shade just a touch lighter than the deep black of its slightly imperfect circle, it read, Anything but simple .

Her throat closed, and her eyes blurred. Oh, Colin…

“Nice gallery piece, though the artist message is unnecessarily cryptic,” Norman declared, eyeing it critically. “It’s a poppy flower. It’s a weed, really, but whoever painted this made it look quite interesting.”

He then hoisted it and hung it on the wall opposite the register, claiming it was a good start at redecorating.

Later that afternoon, when the bell over the door tinkled, she suddenly realized she was staring at the painting again and quickly put the book down.

She glanced around. Perhaps Norman was right in that it was time to change things up a bit.

She tried to see what her customers saw when they walked in.