Love in Bloom (13 page)

Millie's gentle reminder sweetened the bitter waters. Hope wasn't sure about many things, but the fact that she was doing something good with her life was one she was sure of.

“And someone very special waiting in the wings.”

Right
. To want someone with a scarred body and a questionable life span, the guy would have to be way beyond special. Hope shook her head. “I don't know about that.”

“I do,” Millie said, a smile in her voice. “You'll see.”

Hope didn't say anything. Not that she wanted to be rude. She'd simply run out of words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A
FTER A STRING
of soppy days, April bowed out to May, which entered Heart Lake bearing perfect weather. Amber came home from work to find her son antsy, with an overload of energy needing to be burned, and her husband ready for a break. Of course, getting a job would get him a break on a regular basis, but she decided against pointing that out to him. There was no sense in starting a fight on such a pretty day. Instead, she decided to take Seth to the park and check their garden.

They arrived to find Millie already there, kneeling on a bright yellow foam pad, digging away in the damp earth with her garden spade, visiting with her neighbor on the other side of her garden, a scrawny old man with an old fishing hat mashed onto a wiry nest of gray hair, who was busy hoeing.

She smiled and waved at the sight of Amber and Seth. “Happy May. Isn't the sunshine wonderful?” she greeted them.

“Absolutely. I'm ready for some nice weather. How are our gardens?” Amber looked at her plot. Lots of little green things were popping out. “Wow, Sethie, look at all the veggies we've got growing!”

“I'm afraid many of those are weeds,” Millie informed her. “And it looks like the slugs have gotten to some of your crop.”

Amber took a closer look and saw nibbled down greens. All around them lay the shiny slime trail left behind by the Northwest's infamous garden pest. “Gross,” she said in disgust.

“Bring home some of the grounds from all those coffee drinks you're making and sprinkle them around your plants,” suggested Millie. “That will keep the slugs away.”

“Really?”

“Old wives' tale,” muttered the man.

“Oh, Henry,” Millie said pleasantly. And then introduced Amber.

Amber said a polite hello, but she wasn't going to give old Henry any more than that. She already had one grumpy man in her life. She didn't need another.

“I got my truck,” Seth announced before Millie could say more. He held up his prized Tonka truck for Millie to see.

She nodded her approval. “Very handy for hauling away weeds.”

He beamed. But the truck didn't divert his attention for long. “Look, Mommy, a bunny!” he cried.

Amber looked to where he was pointing. Sure enough. A little brown rabbit sat at the edge of a tangle of ferns and thimbleberry bushes, regarding them with a twitching nose. Peter Rabbit. “Oh, how cute!”

Of course, Seth ran toward it, crying, “Here, bunny.”

The rabbit took off as if Mr. McGregor was after it, and Seth dragged back to the garden plot, disappointed.

“Damned rabbits,” muttered Henry.

“But it's so cute,” Amber said to him.

“You won't think that when it's eating your garden down to the nub,” retorted the man.

“Well, Henry, we'll just have to take precautions,” Millie said to him. “Don't worry,” she told Seth. “It will be back.”

“Rabbits at the park?” wondered Amber.

Millie pursed her lips and shook her head. “Probably pet owners dumping them. People get a cute little bunny for Easter and then realize that, like all pets, the animal requires care. I'm sure later this spring, that little guy will have a lot more friends to keep him company. And Henry's right. They'll all be by to sample your lettuce.”

Amber frowned. Suddenly the bunny wasn't quite so cute.

“Invest in some chicken wire,” Millie advised.

“Great. One more thing to buy so I can save money,” Amber grumbled.

“Can I go look for the bunny?” asked Seth.

“Yeah, and if you find it, kill it,” muttered Henry.

Amber frowned at him, but he was too busy hoeing to see. “Stay right around here where I can see you,” she said to Seth, and he scampered to the far end of the row of garden plots and began peering under bushes.

“He's a sweet child,” Millie commented. “And all those lovely golden curls. I never did ask. Does he take after his father?”

“Well, in looks. Thank God that's all,” Amber said, feeling suddenly as grumpy as Henry.

“If you women are going to start male bashing, I'm leaving,” announced Henry, opening his garden gate.

Amber immediately felt like a heel.

“ 'Bye, Henry,” Millie said pleasantly. “See you next week. He was finished anyway,” she said to Amber as Henry hobbled off on stiff hips.

But Henry had been right. That hadn't been fair. Even if she was mad at Ty, he didn't deserve getting publicly villainized at the community garden. “I shouldn't say that. Ty's not a bad guy. Right now he's just not much fun to be around is all. He still hasn't
found a job. And he's not looking very hard, either,” she added miserably.

“Well,” Millie said thoughtfully, “didn't you tell me that your restaurant closed down?”

“Yeah. And we were supposed to come up here to make a new start. The only one really making any kind of new start is me. He's sitting in front of the TV and feeling sorry for himself. Oh, I take that back. He makes lunch every day. Big whoop.”

“Considering how depressed he probably is, I think it might actually be a big whoop,” Millie said thoughtfully.

“I'm the one who's working,” Amber protested. “
I'm
at the bakery three days a week at eight
A.M.
I'm
growing the garden. I'm even going to start selling cookies at the farmer's market. What's he doing?” With each word she could hear the anger building in her like lava in a volcano. She gave a weed a vicious stab with her spade, cutting it in half.

Millie sighed. “It's hard when the man you love lets you down. When our children were little, Duncan got a stock tip from one of his friends at the office.” She shook her head. “We lost ten thousand dollars. Not much by today's standards, I suppose, but to us it was a fortune.” She gave a mirthless chuckle. “I wanted to kill him.”

Amber stared at her. “The way you talked about your husband last time we were together I thought he was a saint.”

“He was, a saint who made mistakes. They all do.”

“Well, I bet Duncan didn't sit around moping every day,” said Amber. “Ty only went out to look for a job once last week.”

“Maybe that's because he's battle weary and he's lost his armor.”

Surely Millie wasn't comparing Ty to a knight in shining armor. “Oh, come on.”

“I know it sounds corny, but every man wants to provide for his family and protect them. Your husband is no exception. He's failed at both. That has to have hit him pretty hard.”

“I get that he's bummed, but that's no excuse for doing nothing.”

“Of course not,” Millie agreed. “But it is an explanation. It's hard for a person who is seriously depressed to motivate himself to do anything.”

“Hey, I'm seriously depressed, too,” protested Amber.

“There are some things we women simply don't understand about our men. They need to be able to provide for us, even in this day and age when women work. If a man can't provide for his family, he doesn't feel like a man. It's as if he's gone to war and lost a limb.”

“Lots of men learn to cope without an arm or leg,” Amber said unsympathetically.

“Yes, they do. But I suspect what your husband really needs before he can go out and fight the world again is his armor.”

That again. “Well, tell me where the nearest shining armor shop is and I'll be happy to get him some.”

Seth had returned. “I can't find the bunny anywhere.”

“I guess he's playing hide and seek,” said Amber. She handed Seth his spade. “How about helping me weed?” She set him to work at the far corner of the plot, then turned to Millie. “Okay, tell me about the armor.” What the heck? Millie had been around the marriage block. And they had to talk about something.

Millie beamed at her like she was a willing pupil. “Well, it's quite simple really. The armor is your faith in him, your encouragement.”

Amber yanked out another weed. Okay, maybe she didn't want to hear what Millie had to say after all. “Why me? I'm tired of being strong. I'm doing everything.”

“You are doing a lot,” Millie agreed. “And I know that seems awfully unfair right now. And, of course, I could be all wrong, but maybe you're not doing what's needed the most.”

That wasn't fun to digest. Amber spent the next ten minutes stabbing the dirt, pulling weeds, and brooding. Millie wisely kept quiet. “I don't see why I have to be the one to make all the effort,” Amber said at last. “He needs to man up.”

“It's been my experience that men sometimes need a little help with that. Did you ever hear the story of Samson, from the Bible?”

“The guy with long hair? Of course.”

“Then you remember what happened to him when his hair got cut.”

Amber chewed her lip. Where were they going with this? Probably no place she wanted to go.

“He had no strength until his hair grew back.”

This was dumb. “So, now we're comparing Ty to Samson?”

“They're both men, aren't they? What was your husband like before your restaurant failed?”

Amber took in a deep breath of spring air. The groundskeeper was cutting shaggy lawn in one area of the park, and the fragrance of newly mowed grass drifted their way along with the hum of the mower. She could close her eyes and remember other smells—the smells in the kitchen of their little restaurant: garlic and seared beef and salmon. She could almost hear the hiss and crackle of the pots on the big stove, and Ty's laughter.

His grandfather had been a chef who'd owned his own restaurant. Ty had inherited the prized black and white photo of Grandpa Tyler posing next to John Wayne's table, the Duke shaking hands with Grandpa, giving his compliments to the chef. He'd also inherited his grandfather's flair for food. His dad had become a teacher, but he loved the idea of his son owning a restaurant. In fact, both families had been more than happy to support them, both emotionally and financially. In spite of all the hands willing to catch them, the fall from that lofty, hopeful high had been horrible, humiliating.

Amber took in a deep breath. “He was a happy man. Lots of big dreams, you know. He wasn't a football star or anything in high school, but he was fun to be around. Everybody hung out at his house after school. He made better nachos than Red Robin. Everybody liked him.”

“Including you.”

“Including me. I don't like him much right now, though. In fact, I don't even know if I love him anymore.”

“Well, it seems to me that love is ninety-nine percent doing. If you keep doing love, the feeling might just grow back,” said Millie.

Seth came over with a handful of what Amber hoped were weeds. “Look at all the weeds I got, Mommy.”

“Good job, Sethie,” she told him. She regarded her little garden kingdom. Tiny green things had popped up everywhere, many of them uninvited. She'd be here forever. “I hate weeding,” she said with a sigh.

“Weeds don't go away instantly,” Millie said. “But don't worry, you'll get a handle on it. Gardening, like so many things, takes time and patience.”

“That was subtle,” said Amber, giving her a reluctant smile.

“I thought so.” Millie let out a tired sigh and pulled back a garden glove to check her watch. “Oh, look at the time. I need to get going.” She picked up her yellow kneeling pad. “Don't forget about the coffee grounds.”

“I won't. And thanks. For everything.”

Millie smiled down on her. “You're going to be fine, my dear. I know it.”

“I hope you know as much as you think you know,” she murmured as Millie climbed into her car.

She stayed at the community garden a little longer, idly pulling weeds and thinking about the man she'd married. For better or for worse. Things couldn't get much worse. Did she have enough energy to try just a little harder to make them better? She sure had nothing to lose.

They returned home to find Ty brooding on the couch, scowling over an old issue of
Bon Appétit
.

“Daddy, we saw a bunny today,” Seth announced as she pulled off his dirty shoes at the front door.

Ty rubbed a hand across his thickly stubbled chin. “The Easter Bunny, huh? He's probably got his Easter egg factory somewhere nearby.”