“You can take Betsy. Carson drove the car over to the offices today,” Maribelle said.
“Who’s Betsy?” I couldn’t help asking.
“A glorified golf cart,” Nash responded.
The opening and shutting of the front door echoed down the vacant hall, and to my surprise, it sent Nash into action. He headed for the back door off the kitchen, opening it and looking back at me expectantly. It was the closest to bolting I’d ever seen him do, and it caused me to join him at the door without a second thought.
Once outside, I stopped to take in the scene: a huge swimming pool tucked into a completely manicured garden that would have made the president jealous. But I didn’t have time to devour it before Nash had walked down the veranda steps and out across the yard swiftly. I jogged to catch up to him as he approached what must once have been a carriage house. It was now a multi-car garage.
Nash lifted the door of the first bay, and inside was, literally, a golf cart. Someone had painted it to look like a wagon with the word “Betsy” across the side like an old-fashioned merchant sign. It was as ridiculous as everything else I’d seen since arriving. I was smiling when I got into the passenger seat, and Nash noticed, his lips quirking in response.
As we drove out, a man came from the back door where we’d exited, but I didn’t get much more than a glimpse of him as Nash hit the gas and sped off down a gravel road. Past the pool and the carriage house was a large expanse of lawns and rose bushes of all sorts of varieties and colors, and beyond those, we hit a wall of trees. They had the strangest white flowers grouped similarly to hydrangeas but with an almost furry appearance. The air filled again with the smell of lemon…no… lemonade. It was heady and overpowering. My stomach wasn’t sure how it felt about it, but I knew, on any other day, I would have enjoyed it.
“What are they?” I asked.
“Australian lemon myrtle,” Nash said. “The flowers are edible. Both the flowers and the leaves are used in the manufacturing of essential oils that are sold at the General Store.”
I didn’t know how to respond to any of it. His knowledge of plants. A general store. What more would I find to unravel here?
Beyond the trees, we broke into fields of plants, green shrubs that I didn’t know but still held the scent of lemon. Some had white and purple flowers, but many were just rows and rows of vegetation. Beyond that was a manmade pond so large it was almost a lake. It was surrounded on the far side by weeping willows, their long strands draping into the water’s edge. A light breeze picked up, bringing other scents to me before we were suddenly in the middle of a huge field of lavender. The purple and violet blooms were fading this late in the season, but it was still a beautiful show of color that carried for acres on both sides of the gravel drive.
As we drove, people in the fields or on other carts put their hands to their foreheads, squinting in the sunlight, and then waved. Nash didn’t even see half of them. He was lost in his memories, and I felt the need to bring him back. To somehow comfort the turmoil swirling within him. As we left the lavender behind and came upon what seemed to be acres more of greenhouses, I taunted him playfully, “You’re doing a great job as a tour guide.”
His hands squeezed even tighter on the steering wheel before loosening. “It may have been a mistake coming here. We can leave tomorrow. Get a hotel.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Nash.”
He didn’t even glance in my direction.
“Nash, stop. Just look at me.” I couldn’t keep the beg out of my voice or the pity that came with it. It wasn’t the right thing, because Nash Wellsley, the poster boy for the SEALs, certainly didn’t want my pity, but it caused him to pull over in front of a greenhouse. He turned off the cart, staring at the rows of buildings with his hands still clenched on the wheel. His jaw was ticking, a small tell I was discovering for the first time, maybe because Nash had never had this much history and emotion piled on him at one time with me, or anyone else, around.
“My ancestors failed at cotton. They couldn’t make it profitable in the way their neighbors with enslaved people could.” His voice was deep and steady regardless of the emotions I knew were roaring through him.
“They didn’t own slaves?”
“They did originally, but when Nathaniel Wellsley inherited it all from his father, he freed everyone because he believed in the rights of all human beings. A handful stayed to work the land with him as paid employees, but the South was not a safe or kind place for them, so most left for the North. He hired other locals—white, black, or any other color—willing to work for the low wages he could pay, but even then, it was pretty much impossible for the estate to pay for itself. Nathaniel used far more of the wealth he’d inherited than he ever earned. But he was unique in that he was one of the first landowners to look outside of cotton or tobacco for sustainable growth. Perfumes from France were high on the import list at the time, and Nathaniel decided there was no reason why we couldn’t make them here. He started everything you see now.”
“How very progressive,” I said.
He finally looked at me with a small smile. “We’ve branched out a lot since then. The fields are used for both spices and essential oils. We make a host of personal care items and organic foods. We have a small plant.” He pointed in a western
