Page 19 of Where the Roses Bloom

I just watched him eat, the flex of his jaw, the way he wiped his mouth with his knuckles like manners didn’t matter when the food was good enough. I refilled his glass of sweet tea, and he reached for the corkscrew instead.

“I was gonna save this for company,” he said, pulling a bottle of red from the counter. “But I guess this counts.”

“Not company,” I said. “Roommate.”

“Huh.” He laughed low in his throat. “Okay…then we’re celebrating.”

I wanted to ask him why he needed a meal for grief…or how he knew that I was grieving, too.

I let it lie.

He poured the wine carefully, then slid the first glass toward me with those big, callused hands.

“To new beginnings?” I offered.

He lifted his own glass. “To second chances.”

We clinked.

The wine was dark and warm, velvety on the tongue witha bite at the back that made me sit up straighter. Rhett didn’t sip so much as savor, eyes half-lidded as he leaned back in his chair, stretching out like a man with nothing to hide.

“So,” he said. “Tell me something about you I wouldn’t know from just seein’ you on a library bulletin board.”

I smiled over the rim of my glass. “I used to think I was going to be a midwife in a commune.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, half-laughing. “Bought the books, learned the herbs, even grew my own raspberry leaf and calendula for teas. Then I realized most of the communes I found online were just pyramid schemes with chickens.”

Rhett choked on his wine and set the glass down, shaking his head. “Jesus. Pyramid schemes with chickens.”

“It’s true. There’s this one in Oregon that’s basically just a kombucha cult.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“Say you’re glad I didn’t join.”

“I’m real glad you didn’t join,” he laughed.

I took another sip, letting the warmth settle behind my ribs. “Okay, your turn. Tell me something I wouldn’t guess.”

Rhett thought for a second, tapping one thick finger against the side of his glass. “I wanted to be a poet.”

That made me blink. “A poet?”

“Back in high school,” he said with a shrug. “Wrote this terrible, overwrought stuff about heartbreak and dirt and stars. Hazel said it sounded like a romance novel fell in love with a tractor catalog.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh my God, please tell me you still have them.”

“I burned them.”

“No!”

“Regret it every day,” he said dryly. “I could’ve made a fortune publishing under a fake name. Rural Erotica Weekly.”

“Don’t tempt me,” I said. “That’s probably a real market.”

“Hell,” he muttered, leaning back with a soft groan. “Could’ve bought new gutters.”