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Porter’s hand went back to hers to stop her. “Don’t go in there,” he warned. “Those are mazes. You’d be lost there for hours. It’s quite the lover’s paradise… but…”
They weren’t lovers of any sort. Was this how the Garden of Eden was? She felt like Eve, commanded to tend the garden, but needing very little urging. Even though Lily had denied her offer, Cadence didn’t think she deserved to get paid for such a pleasant pastime anyway. Being out here would be like paradise.
Of course, Porter was never meant to be her Adam. The birds sounded oblivious to the fact and seemed to celebrate their arrival as they chattered maddeningly around them in happy little greetings.
“Of course, I’d come with you,” Porter said after a pause, “if you’re really dying to see it.”
She was, but there were other things to do first. Cadence could see the weeding that needed to be done, and the trimming of these bushes. The immensity of this garden surprised her more than anything. This wasn’t a weeklong job like she’d first supposed. It might take months.
Did she have that?
Her mind was consumed with her worries for Lily. There was so much to do. Would Lily live to see it? She’d noticed her lips earlier as they’d talked—they’d been edged with blue.
Cadence glanced over at Porter, feeling her desperation magnify her other worries—the same ones that Lily had managed to soothe earlier. Her emotions came out in a surge of panic. “How is your mother? Is there anything they can do for her?”
He seemed surprised by her concern, but of course, she was! Anyone who’d met Lily knew that the world was better with her in it. “Yeah,” he said, begrudgingly. Clearly it pained him to talk about his mother’s condition. “She’s on a donor list. We just have to keep her alive until then. My brother got her on there. He’s uh… some bigwig in Nashville, and he pulled some strings by… well, anyway…”
He didn’t want to talk about West? It was one thing to keep her mouth shut about what Porter was up to in Nashville, but she wasn’t about to pretend that there was a major part of him that didn’t exist. “I know about West,” she snapped impatiently.
“You know West?” he asked.
“Of course, I do. He works with Trout.”
“Huh.” He seemed mystified that she knew about that.
“He was at that party, too,” she said. “Anyway, everyone knows about your brother. I’m not stupid!”
His heavy brows drew together in a way that made her feel likeshewas the one who was hiding something. “How do you know West exactly?”
Talk about gas-lighting! She took a deep breath. She wanted to make this garden beautiful for Lily, to match the blueprint of that sweet lady’s imagination and fill the measure of its creation before Lily… before Lily might not see it again, but Cadence had to make sure that she and Porter reached an understanding first.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” she told him.
“Oh, here it is.” He straightened, looking slightly amused. “This had better be good, Angel. You’ve got some grudge against me. I’m dying to know what it is. Out with it.”
She knew that her emotions were out of control. They boiled to the surface more often than she liked nowadays, but her fear that she wouldn’t be able to help Lily, that she would be chased from the Garden of Eden, just like her ancestors, and before she was ready to go, fueled her tongue. “Your mother won’t hear from me what kind of man you are, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know, okay? So, you can drop your act with me.”
Chapter Eleven
“Wait. What?” Porter was more intrigued than angry. This beauty was stunning him in so many ways. She’d stumped him. He’d never considered himself slow, but she was talking circles around him, and he was dying to get into her head. “What kind of man am I exactly?”
Angel’s eyes widened in exasperation. “Are you kidding me? I’m not blind. I saw you hanging all over Emily Mackenzie at that party.”
“Which one?”
“Oh!” She threw her hands against her hips in a fit of temper. “Are you like that everywhere you go? Is that your usual scene? What happens in Nashville stays in Nashville, I bet. Emily and I are really good friends by the way, and so Eva Trout hanging all over you was the last straw. Lily doesn’t need to know, but Iwilltell Emily what a player you are.”
“Eva Trout?” Porter threw up in his mouth a little. West hiring Nash to keep her out of his way was coming back to haunt them all.
“Stop pretending that you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Angel cried. “That’s what I’m saying. If this is going to work, we need to be real with each other.”
Porter was grimly aware that Angel was talking about Nash. The mystery was solved—she thought he was his twin. That’s why she hated him so much. It was Nash’s usual effect on women when they got to know him, but Porter wasn’t about to correct her on the mistaken identity… yet. He was afraid that Nash was up to something nasty in Nashville, and he braced himself to hear every horrible thing that his twin had done… and then he’d have his head.
“And by the way, I’m still angry that you didn’t stop me,” Angel said.
He pushed for more information on what his brother was up to. “From what?”
“From walking in on Lacy! How dense are you? I needed to know what he was up to, sure, but not like that. You laughed at me! Laughed! How could you be so unfeeling? You’d think your momma would’ve taught you differently… and I’m sure she did! You just don’t care.”
