“What are you watching?” I asked.
“Lucy reruns,” she said with a smile. “She still makes me laugh.”
“I was hoping you might be able to help me.”
“Of course, what do you need?”
I felt slightly ridiculous now that I was standing before her with my list. “I was wondering if there were any of these flowers on the property.”
I handed it to her, and her eyes went wide. She turned off the TV, dropped her knitting, and stood. “Let me call Marsha. She maintains the list of all the different varieties, where they grow on-site, the whole shebang.”
“Shebang?”
She laughed at herself. She made a call and then said Marsha would meet us at the greenhouses.
“You don’t have to go,” I told her as we stepped out into the wind. The weather had gotten colder each day we’d been there. Like summer was a distant memory.
“Nonsense. I want to go. It’s been a long time since I helped anyone pick out a bouquet that sent a message.”
When we met up with Marsha—a small woman dressed in jeans and a Wellsley Place polo shirt—she smiled as I told her what I was doing. The three of us spent an hour together until I had the perfect bouquet.
When we got back to the house, Maribelle loaned me a beautiful blue vase I was sure had been part of the household for at least a century. The glass was imperfect, hand-blown, and completely delightful, and it made the reds, blues, purples, and whites of the bouquet stand out.
I retreated to Nash’s room. After our third night together, I’d abandoned the green room because it had been ridiculous for me to continue carting my things back and forth. He hadn’t objected to my invasion.
I put the vase on Nash’s side of the bed. The fact I considered it his side at all spoke to how far gone I was. Lost. I was hopelessly lost in a world of Nash. With each day we spent together, the closer I came to letting the words spill out of me.
The flowers would do it better than I could.
I stepped into the shower to rinse away the dirt and pollen of the greenhouses. I was just about finished when the shower door opened, giving me a little start before I smiled up into his face. It wasn’t smiling in return. It was back to the glower he hadn’t worn in almost a week. I turned off the nozzle, and Nash wrapped me in the towel I’d had hanging on the hook. He wrapped me so tight I could barely move my arms before picking me up and carrying me to the bed.
I laughed. “There’s no reason to imprison me.”
He sat down on the mattress with me on his lap.
I worked my hands free and put them on his cheeks. “What’s wrong?”
“You weren’t in the gym,” he started.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot to send you a text. I was busy―”
“I see,” he interrupted, and his gaze traveled to the beautiful flowers I’d left for him.
The striking, long-stemmed gladioli were blue blooms, symbolizing generosity, strength of character, faithfulness, and honor. The honor part had hit me particularly hard. I’d added anemones in red and white for the pure love I felt for him. There were also peonies for luck and good fortune as well as white daffodils for new beginnings. Nash and I were starting something new with this relationship. Red was always a dubious color because it could be a harsh angry tone as much as it could be the color of love. But with the blue and white flowers tinted with hints of yellow so bright they could be gold, the whole bouquet was not only filled with meaning, but it mirrored the colors in his room and in his life as a SEAL: service, honor, love. I was incredibly grateful to Maribelle and Marsha for helping me make it for him.
“No one has made me a bouquet since…” He drifted away, and I was immediately chagrinned, but he kissed me tenderly, and I realized he wasn’t upset as much as thoughtful. “She gave me flowers the day she died.”
I turned so I could wrap both my arms around him, straddling his waist like a bear cub, with my towel drifting apart at the back and not caring. I kissed his forehead and his cheeks and finally placed a soft kiss on his lips which he returned with a gentle one of his own.
“She’d been telling me goodbye, and I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know she was the one who had sent me to military school. I’ve held it against Carson all these years, thinking he sent me away after she was buried. I thought he didn’t want me here. I was angry that I hadn’t had time to grieve for her, but now, looking back, I can see she’d planned it all. The school. The goodbyes. The pond… I wasn’t enough to keep her here.”
I squeezed him as hard as I could, burying my face in his neck.
“Mine was definitely not a goodbye bouquet,” I said.
He nodded, placing a kiss on the back of my neck, trailing hands along my bare skin. “No, I can see that. It’s beautiful. It’s full of honor and love and new beginnings.”
I lifted my face to look into his eyes.
“I wasn’t sure I had the strength to say it to your face. But I do…I love you,” I said quietly, waiting to see what his reaction would be, and instead of words, I got hard, passionate kisses. Ones that melted my skin into his. Ones that led to my towel disappearing, and his clothes falling away, and our bodies riding out the wave of emotion until we fell asleep tangled together as one.
Nash
AMAZING
“It's amazing,
With the blink of an eye,
