Page 21 of Where the Roses Bloom

It didn’t take longfor me to realize inviting Willow to live here had been a mistake.

Not because she was messy or loud—she wasn’t. Not because she hovered or made demands—God, she was the opposite. Grateful. Helpful. Gentle.

No. The mistake was thinking I could live alongside her like she was just some girl renting a room and not the walking embodiment of every damn thing I’d ever wanted and told myself I couldn’t have.

She came down the back steps that morning wearing a tank top that clung to her in places I couldn’t stop looking and a pair of cutoff shorts that made it real hard to remember how to speak. Her hair was piled up in one of those messy buns that wasn’t actually messy at all—little wisps curling down to stick to her neck with sweat—and she was barefoot, toes digging into the grass like she’d lived here her whole life.

“Where do you want me?” she asked.

Dangerous question.

Over the porch railing?

On the kitchen table?

Clinging to my headboard?

I coughed and gestured toward the raised beds near the edge of the yard. “Start there. We’ll see what’s still got roots.”

She smiled. Bent to work.

And I watched her like a goddamn fool.

Every time she leaned over, her shorts rode up higher, giving me a front row seat to the shape of her ass, the curve of her thighs. Her skin glowed in the heat, slick with sweat and sunlight, and I could see the outline of her bra through the fabric of her tank when she arched her back and stretched. She hummed under her breath—nothing I recognized, just a tune—and wiped the sweat from her neck with the hem of her shirt like she didn’t know what that would do to me.

We didn’t talk much. Just worked side by side, cutting through the weeds, digging our hands into the dry, cracked soil.

“Feels like something’s sleeping out here,” she said after a while, brushing a strand of hair from her face with the back of her wrist. “Not dead. Just waiting.”

I nodded, too thirsty to answer.

She moved to the far edge of the garden, where the weeds grew thickest—tangled with creeping vines and long-forgotten mulch. I followed, hauling the spade over my shoulder.

She crouched low to the ground, tugging at something half-buried in the soil. It looked like stone, rough and moss-covered, with ivy curled around the base like it had been holding it hostage.

“It’s a sundial,” she said, brushing her fingers over the top. “Did you know this was here?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Hazel used to say it kept time better than the clocks. Said it ran on something truer than minutes and hours.”

Willow looked up at me, brow furrowed in thatthoughtful way she had. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Still intact. The gnomon’s straight.”

She tilted her head. “But…that shadow’s not right.”

I glanced down. She was right. It was past noon, but the shadow fell toward morning.

Like time had stopped—and decided not to start again.

She pressed her palm flat to the face of it, eyes half-closed. “It feels like a spell,” she murmured. “Like this whole place is casting one.”

And before I could stop myself, I said it—low, and too honest.

“I think maybe you’re the one who’s casting a spell.”

She looked over her shoulder at me, and I thought I might combust right there among the creeping thyme.

But she didn’t tease. Didn’t laugh or look away.

She just smiled, soft and a little shy. “You don’t even know me.”