Mum is one. I don’t understand how he caught her trying candy as a substitute of evil, however there she is once more, solely now she has flour on her nostril and a rolling pin in hand. That photograph fades, changed by one other that includes a bouquet of flowers she should have picked from her cottage backyard.

“Love-Land Weddings has contacts for each little element,” Marc murmurs. I do know he has leaflets from a number of skilled florists, my mum is barely playacting, however there’s nothing pretend about his market analysis. He’s lined each element. “Whether or not {couples} want bespoke bouquets or easy cottage-garden buttonholes, we will make that occur and so create earnings streams for extra native professionals.”

I’m conscious that for all the simple persuasiveness of his tone, he’s really tight with stress. It’s proper there underneath my palm together with a Jess-like quiver which means he’s primed for motion.

As a result of this issues a lot to him.

It should matter to Mum as nicely as a result of I do know she struggles with hay fever, however there she is winding twine round a buttonhole I discover now rests on high of Marc’s stack of leaflets. It seems somewhat worse for put on in comparison with the freshness of that photograph. I attain previous him to seize it. That brings our heads shut collectively, and he turns on the similar time, his lips brushing stubble I’m glad I didn’t shave off, not when he smiles earlier than leaning within the additional inch so our mouths meet.

It’s a fast kiss, that’s all, fleeting, however my lips tingle as if he’s the unshaven one out of us each.

Perhaps his lips tingle as nicely. He touches them earlier than turning again to his presentation follow, nonetheless smiling, and I scoop up the rose and greenery that my mum tied along with twine for us. I cup it in my palm with no thought why its wilting petals get to me. It’s a prop, not the actual deal—an illustration of what may very well be, not a promise.

I nonetheless need to protect it.

I pop the rose in a teacup and fill it with water, and possibly I do clasp that teacup shut for lengthy sufficient that Marc notices.

“I advised her we each appreciated roses.”

That’s all it takes for me to be again in a walled backyard with him, drenched in a scent that’s a lot fainter coming from this handmade providing, and it seems I don’t want to speak to my brother to shake off a green-eyed emotion I don’t know learn how to deal with. I don’t want his teasing or Mum rolling her eyes at me both. All I would like is Marc speaking as if we’re actually companions.

That’s once I actually cease worrying about Hayden’s arrival.

As a substitute, I maintain the teacup, remembering different petals scattered in Marc’s hair, and I’m higher at shovelling shit than writing love songs however all the pieces that I need feels shut sufficient to seize maintain of.

For us.

I proceed clutching the teacup as a substitute, which is way from heavy, however after a few days of quietly taking extra of the load, that is the second my arm chooses to provide out—to surrender—to wave a white flag of give up, solely I’m unsure I may maintain maintain of a flag both, not when my hand prickles earlier than numbing, my arm by some means boneless.

I can’t really feel it or the teacup.

It falls, however Marc strikes quicker. I don’t understand how he catches it earlier than it shatters on the flagstones.

I simply know that he’s received it, and me.

20

The buttonhole is secure within the teacup between us. I can’t say the identical for the water—my shirt’s moist, however that’s okay, as a result of we’re kissing once more, and this time, we don’t cease. Or at the very least, we don’t till Marc wrenches away from me.

For one heart-sinking second, I believe that’s as a result of Hayden’s arrived early.

Fortunately, I’m mistaken.

Marc heads for the door for a special purpose, opening it and ordering, “Guard, Jess,” and I hadn’t recognized she was underneath the kitchen desk till she follows his instruction, slinking previous together with her tail wagging. The second the door shuts behind her, he comes again, solely it isn’t to select up the place we left off.

“Pay attention, I did a factor this morning.” His eye contact is momentary. It drops to the rose between us, and I hear him swallow earlier than he seems up. “I imply, Emma and I did.”

He did one thing with my mum? “That… that leaves numerous potentialities?” I don’t know what my face should do whereas questioning. No matter Marc sees triggers a rushed rationalization.

“I talked to her about my interview.”

I’m unsure why that’s an issue. “Okay?”

“She received me to make use of her as a follow viewers. I ran by it slide-by-slide together with her.” He lets out a smooth snort, a smile rising. “She gave me a spherical of applause after every one.”

That sounds precisely like one thing she’d do. I’m torn between smiling too, or shaking my head on the psychological picture, till I discover Marc’s fading and he provides, “However there was one slide she didn’t clap after. The one about finance choices.” He searches my face once more, a tooth digging into his lip earlier than saying, “Stef, you didn’t inform her the financial institution turned you down greater than as soon as already? She thought Love-Land Weddings was a brand-new thought, one thing we’d give you collectively, not a plan you’d been engaged on for ages. That you simply’d been struggling—”

“I’m not struggling.” Shit. Is that what she thinks? That I can’t handle what she turned over to me for safekeeping? “The farm’s secure.”

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