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He freed his hands and flexed his fingers, then let his arms hang loose at his sides.
“They’re experts at starting over. You have to admire that kind of tenacity.”
His voice was thick. “Ah—admireis a pretty strong word.”
Rowan chuckled. “Open your eyes.”
The haze over his irises had disappeared—now, they shone like drops of mercury, busily surveying her face. A faint remnant of a bruise lingered around his right eye, and the cinnamon stubble on his jaw glimmered in the sun. His body was motionless except for the rise and fall of his chest.
His tone dropped to a lower register. “Experts at starting over, eh?”
“Mm-hmm. Better?”
He swallowed, hesitant. “I’ll survive.”
“Well, that’s perfect. In nature, when you survive, you win.”
A few tiny burrs clung to his shirt. She plucked them off, flinging the sticky little seed pods into the meadow.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Where’d you get the black eye?”
Harrison reached up, fingertips questing along the upper curve of his right cheekbone. “Ah—falling.”
Nowhewas looking athermouth.
Heat shimmered up Rowan’s neck and across her lower jaw. Soon, it would wash her freckled cheeks with red. She vigorously rubbed her nose and backed away.
Then one of the specks clinging to his shirtmoved. She pinched a tiny tick between her fingers and flicked it into the vegetation.
“You had a passenger,” she said. “Ready to get out of here?”
Harrison looked down at his shirt, his face gone gray again, but he nodded.
Rowan turned to lead them out of the meadow. Over her shoulder, she said, “When we get to the greenhouse, we’re going to have to check each other for ticks.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rowan
The lock on the greenhouse door looked new. When Harrison noticed Rowan eyeing the shiny key in his hand, he gave her a sideways smile. “We’ve got problems with trespassers up here.”
“Ha, ha,” she said.
Harrison hung back in the doorway as she entered, allowing the green glory of the place to speak for itself. Motes of dust and pollen floated in beams of filmy midmorning sun. It felt like a place built by eccentric wood elves—a cathedral for the worship of all things botanical. A large terra-cotta pot was filled to the top with dry, crumbly soil gone gray with age. A slim-handled spade was tucked in, like someone had planned to come back to it, first thing in the morning. Rowan’s heart ached for that long-gone gardener.
Roses rambled happily along the loose floorboards, some with roots bursting beyond the boundaries of their plastic containers and into the ground beneath. Rowan cupped a velvety coral blossom and inhaled its vintage perfume, carefully avoiding the thorns.
Rosie,Grandma Edie had called her. She would have loved this place.
She paused a few steps in and smirked over her shoulder. “We’ve got to stop meeting here like this.”
Harrison’s crack of laughter was a resonant, belly-warming sound. Brief levity shimmered between them like a firework.
Something rustled, deeper within. “How does your family feel about cats?” she asked.
“Not sure. We had a dog when I was growing up, but no pets since then.”
