The Welcome Home Garden Club (11 page)

But this year, everything was different. This year, Gideon had risen from the dead.

It was still incomprehensible to her. That the man she thought long buried had returned. She wished this was a fairy tale or a movie where all they had to do was take one look into each other’s eyes and melt, arms twined in an endless embrace. But it wasn’t.

A lot of time had passed. They’d both grown and changed. They weren’t the people they used to be. She couldn’t profess her undying love for him, much as her heart might long to do so, because she no longer knew him. He’d been to war. He’d killed people. She didn’t have to ask. She saw it in his eyes. Saw the harshness that pulled down his mouth. A mouth that had once laughed so much it seemed impossible that it belonged to the same guy.

And she had Danny to think about. She couldn’t allow her heart to lead her head. She no longer had that luxury. She was a mother, and nothing was more important to her than that.

But he’s your son’s father. It’s part of the same whole. Without Gideon there would be no Danny.

Who was this new Gideon with the piercing dark eyes and the bitter laugh that held no humor? He’d always been a bold alpha male, but the military had heightened and ingrained those traits until he was almost unrecognizable. Where had the young man she’d once loved with every cell of her body gone? And could she ever get him back?

Without even posing the question, she knew the answer was no.

So what was going to happen now? Where did they go from here? She had to form some kind of relationship with him, had to accept who he’d become and let go of the image she’d carried of him in her head for years. He was Danny’s father, and the boy deserved to know his dad.

She hugged herself, blew out her breath, and remembered that split second of unspeakable joy when she’d looked into Gideon’s eyes at J. Foster’s funeral and realized he was alive.

That single emotion had been pure bliss, but now she felt too much. Emotions warred inside her—hope and fear, concern and sadness. She wanted to feel the joy again, but it had slipped out under the weight of the other feelings, squashed and weary.

The thing was, she never wanted to hurt again like she’d hurt when the PI had told her Gideon was dead. It had been the most crushing despair of her life. Worse even than her mother’s death. She’d been five at the time and hadn’t really comprehended what forever meant. But she’d known well enough when Gideon died—

But no, he had not died. He was here and it was an unbelievable miracle.

Caitlyn had a million impulses, none of them healthy, all of them rash and reckless. She could not afford to act on either hope or joy. She had to be calm, coolheaded, practical. Just the way she’d been when she’d married Kevin. Knowing it was not a love match, but understanding that he was a good and decent man who would take care of her and the child she carried. He had claimed Danny and reared him as his own.

She stood on the porch, mesmerized by the moon, trying to make sense of her life, taking stock of the options left open to her.

When it came down to it, one question kept circling her mind.

Just how damaged was Gideon?

Chapter Nine

Traditional meaning of sunflower—homage and devotion.

T
he gardening club buzzed with the news that J. Foster had left his entire fortune to the dark stranger on the motorcycle. Not everyone in the club had known Gideon before, and the old-timers filled the newcomers in on the juicy details.

The club met every Tuesday evening at the event room in the public library. On the Tuesday following J. Foster’s funeral, they gathered to finalize groundbreaking plans for the victory garden. Caitlyn was scheduled to present her design, and the group had asked the county extension agent, Newt Bandy, to stop by and give them advice on prepping the soil.

The spot donated for the victory garden had been underneath a building for over a hundred and twenty-five years, and the soil would need special preparation to make it suitable for growing.

Caitlyn stepped into the room, flip chart tucked under her arm, Danny in tow. She knew he’d be bored, but she’d been unable to find a babysitter, so she’d swung by the video store to rent him a game for his Nintendo.

“If you’re good,” she said, setting him up at the back of the room, “we’ll stop by Rinky-Tink’s for ice cream on the way home.”

“I’ll be good,” Danny promised.

She kissed the top of his head, smiled at his little boy scent. How she loved being a mom. It was a hundred times better than she’d ever imagined it would be. She couldn’t wait for Gideon to discover the joy of being this child’s parent. “That’s my boy.”

“Evening, Caitlyn,” Newt Bandy greeted, slipping into the chair beside hers.

Newt had been a good friend of Kevin’s. He was a slope-shouldered man, closer to forty than thirty, with the kind of grin that made you feel as if you were sharing a secret when he directed it at you. He was losing his hair, and as a cover-up, he never took off his cowboy hat. Idly, she wondered if he slept in it.

She could have had the opportunity to find out. He’d asked her out a few months after Kevin’s death, but she’d turned him down. For one thing, she wasn’t attracted to him. For another thing, she didn’t want to slip from one dependent relationship into another. She’d relied too much on her husband. Kevin had been a much-needed prop to get her out of her father’s house, but now she needed to learn to stand on her own two feet. She was twenty-five, high time she started carving out a life of her own. One not defined or confined by a man.

That was another concern she had about renewing her relationship with Gideon. He was an alpha male just like her father. Would a dynamic like that undermine her struggle for independence?

“Hi, Newt.” She returned his warm smile, but kept her body language aloof. She didn’t want him to read anything into her friendliness other than what it was. “Thank you for coming to speak to our group.”

“My pleasure.” Newt beamed and scooted closer.

As president of the club, Patsy called the meeting to order promptly at seven o’clock. “I know Belinda isn’t here yet, but we need to get this show on the road, and who knows when she’ll drag in here. First order of business, we need a name for the garden. Something snappy that will capture the judges’ attention.”

Dotty Mae raised a hand. “How about the Lost Loves Garden?”

“That sounds so sad,” said Emma. Her husband Sam’s first wife had been an RN killed in Iraq by an IED while on her way to deliver medicine to orphans. “What about something a little more upbeat?”

“What about the Twilight Memorial Garden?” Marva suggested.

Raylene wrinkled her nose. “Too blah.”

“Soldier Fields?” Christine proposed.

“That’s leaving out the navy and air force veterans,” Terri pointed out. Her husband, Ted, had received his medical training in the air force.

A few more names were bandied about, but nothing they could come to a consensus on. And then Caitlyn ventured a suggestion based on Gideon’s homecoming. “What do you ladies think of the Welcome Home Garden?”

They all tried it out, saying it several times, and no one shot it down.

“Hey,” Flynn said. “We could wrap the trees with yellow ribbons.”

That resulted in an enthusiastic response from the group and some off-key renditions of Tony Orlando and Dawn, and then they took a vote.

“All in favor of calling it the Welcome Home Garden, raise your hands,” Patsy said.

Everyone raised her hand. It was unanimous.

Patsy banged her gavel. “Welcome Home Garden it is. On to the next order of business. Caitlyn, how are the design plans coming along?”

Caitlyn stood up. Behind her came the cheery sounds of Super Mario Bros. ramping up a level on Danny’s Game Boy. She walked to the podium, settled her flip chart onto the easel. “I’ve finished the preliminary sketches and my father finally sent the carousel over.”

Patsy nodded. “I saw them unloading at the lot on Saturday afternoon.”

“You need to get a temporary shelter built to house it,” Newt interjected. “Keep it out of the weather while it’s under construction. Discourage vandals.”

“I’ve already got one coming,” Patsy said. “Now we have to find someone who can restore the thing. That project is going to be as big as the garden itself. We’ll need a lot of hands.”

“I’ve got plenty of hands,” Belinda Murphey called out as she came through the door, her five kids in tow.

“Great, she brought her army,” Patsy muttered under her breath.

Danny spied the Murphey kids and jumped up from his seat. By their sheer number, Belinda’s children caused chaos wherever they went. “Y’all go outside and play. But stay on the lighted basketball court.”

Danny hung at the door looking like he really wanted to go outside with the other kids, but knowing better than to go without Caitlyn’s permission. She nodded at him. “Go on.”

He raced up to the podium, handed her his Game Boy to put in her purse, and then zoomed off with Belinda’s brood. Once the kids were gone and everyone from the garden club had assembled their chairs in a semicircle around the lectern, Caitlyn opened the flip chart.

She’d painstakingly spent hours designing and drawing up the plans, using colored pencils to illustrate the carousel positioned in the middle. She’d divided the garden into four circular quadrants—fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers, encircling the carousel and spiraling outward in a circle like ripples on water.

The traditional victory gardens of World War I and II were food-based, meant to feed the locals and boost morale, but Caitlyn couldn’t bear the thought of excluding flowers from the mix. What lifted the spirits more than saucy bright flowers in bloom? Besides, the contest rules had not restricted the gardens to edibles only.

Almost every night since they’d filed the paperwork with the state to be entered into the contest, she worked well until after midnight, long after Danny had been in bed. On paper and in her mind, the garden had bloomed, a testament to her dedication to the project.

And to Gideon.

But that had been when she’d thought he was dead. The garden had been a memorial. Yes, it was supposed to represent all the servicemen and women who’d served for Twilight, but in her mind, she’d been thinking only of Gideon.

“My gosh, Caitlyn, that’s beautiful,” Marva said.

“If you can plant the way you can draw,” Terri said, “we’re hands down going to win.”

The carousel was the showstopper. Blaze featured front and center on her illustration, his beautiful head reattached, the poppies in his mane freshly painted, his eyes flashing as he jumped high on the shiny brass pole. It was how she remembered him. Before the aneurysm stole her mother from her. Before her father decapitated him with an axe.

All around the carousel were the flowers: taller ones in the back, shorter ones in the front. She planned a variety of plants to attract butterflies for all their stages of life—milkweed, violets, phlox, gaillardia, tuberosa, blazing stars, purple coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, bee balm. She picked other flowers for their vibrant colors or intriguing petal pattern and orchestrated their combination for the most dramatic effect—caladium, cosmos, hibiscus, impatiens, roses, salvia, red begonias, zinnias, and sunflowers.

Particularly sunflowers. They stood for homage, just as the garden did. The plants would flourish by early June, just in time for the contest judging.

“We’ll have benches between the four circular gardens,” Caitlyn explained, using the laser pointer on her key chain to illustrate. “And a few birdbaths scattered throughout, along with wind chimes and gazing balls and a sundial.”

“Wonderful idea,” Belinda said.

“The second section will contain herbs and spices,” Caitlyn went on. “Rosemary, lavender, lemon balm, basil, comfrey, oregano, sage, mint, thyme, dill, allspice.”

“It’s going to smell like my grandmother’s pantry,” Marva said. “I can’t wait.”

“Third tier will be fruit—strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, rhubarb. Fourth tier, and largest, is for the vegetables; yellow squash and zucchini, bell peppers and tomatoes, onions and potatoes, carrots and Swiss chard, cucumbers and radishes, pole beans and black-eyed peas, spinach and beets.”

“We’re a shoe-in for Most Romantic garden in the state of Texas.” Belinda breathed dreamily. “I can’t wait to get started.”

“That’s good because we need to get a move on fast,” Caitlyn said.

“I’ve talked to the high school ag teacher and he’s giving extra credit to the kids who help out in the garden. I should have a roster to you by the end of the week,” Marva said.

“I’ve also got a list of local churches who have eager volunteers,” Patsy added. “This is a community project. Your main role, Caitlyn, will be to oversee it all.”

Newt stepped up to examine her flip chart. “I don’t know why you ladies asked me here. Caitlyn knows exactly what kind of plants will do well in North Central Texas in the summer, and she’s incorporated them into an eye-pleasing design that really works.”

Caitlyn’s cheeks heated at his compliment. “We need you because I’m not a soil expert, nor do I know everything there is to know about organic gardening. And since that ground has been lying fallow underneath the old Twilight Theatre since 1875, it’s going to need a lot of TLC to get this garden to grow. Can you tell us where to start?”

Newt took the podium and Caitlyn sat down. He launched into what they’d need to do to prep the soil. She busily took notes while her fellow garden club members asked lots of questions.

When he finished, Patsy Cross took over. “Okay, Caitlyn’s got the design in place and we all agree it’s beautiful, but to follow Robert’s Rules of Order, let’s vote on it. All for using Caitlyn’s plan, raise your hands.”

Ten hands shot into the air.

“It passes. We approve Caitlyn’s design. Now,” Patsy said. “There’s the not so small matter of the carousel. Restoration is not going to be easy and we have a tight timetable to stick to. First order of business is to hire someone to refurbish the carousel. I know Marva can round up some of the high school kids from the woodworking and engine repair classes to help with the grunt work, but we need someone in charge. Someone with exemplary carpentry skills. Any suggestions?”

Caitlyn stood up. “I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds, but since you put me in charge of the garden, I’ve already hired someone.”

“Oh?” Patsy said. “And who is that?”

“Gideon Garza.”

The group gaped at her.

“Gideon?” Dotty Mae asked. “Is he even staying in Twilight?”

“I doubt it,” Raylene said. “He turned down his inheritance. I’m surprised he hasn’t left town already.”

“He’s changed his mind,” Caitlyn said. “He’s staying and he’s accepting his inheritance.”

“Whew,” Flynn said. “That’s going to have some repercussions.”

Caitlyn didn’t comment on that. “Gideon is masterful with his hands. He’s got mad woodworking skills. You’ve all seen that intricately carved jewelry box he made for me.”

“Gideon might have been good with his hands once,” Patsy said, “but that was a long time ago. And now he’s only got one hand. We need someone with two good hands for this project.”

Anger flared through her. “That’s discrimination. Just because he’s disabled doesn’t mean he can’t do the job.”

“We’re talking about a job that requires working with your hands and he’s only got one.”

“I’m for giving him a chance,” Belinda said.

“As someone in the disabled camp herself,” Christine threw in, “I’m backing Gideon. He can do anything a two-handed guy could do. It might take him longer, but we can recruit Marva’s students to help.”

“And what if he fails to live up to our expectations?” Patsy asked.

Caitlyn lifted her chin. “Then it’s on me.”

Patsy shrugged. “All right.” She met Caitlyn’s eye. “All in favor of hiring Gideon to take the job of refurbishing the carousel, raise your hands.”

The motion passed with only Patsy voting against him.

It was official. Caitlyn and Gideon would be working side by side in the victory garden.

W
hile the garden club was meeting, Richard Blackthorne was taking his supper at Froggy’s Marina Bar and Grill on the Brazos River. It was Greta’s night off and he had a coupon for a half-priced fried chicken dinner. The dining room was packed, and because he hadn’t wanted to wait—he was accustomed to taking his evening meal precisely at seven—he’d agreed to be seated in the bar area.

Crockett Goodnight was sitting at the bar nursing a long-necked Miller, one eye on the preseason baseball game playing out on the television monitor mounted over the bar. He wore khaki pants and a button-down crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, looking collegiate casual. He’d gone to the University of Texas on a baseball scholarship and then come back home to open his own business selling baseball memorabilia. This was the Goodnight brother Caitlyn should have gone for. Not that rascal Garza who’d dragged her down to his level.

“Hello, Judge.” Crockett smiled.

Richard put a hand on his shoulder. “How you boys holding up?”

“As well as could be expected.”

He wasn’t good at the sympathy stuff. So he just grunted and said, “Give it time.”