Page 26 of 15 Summers Later

“Yes! We picketed and also led a boycott until they decided they couldn’t afford to make us mad. Now they offer both. Yes, it’s more expensive to go with organic producers, but there are plenty of us who are willing to pay that price to help the environment as well as our local community.”

“I would have to agree,” Ava said with a small smile of approval for her rabble-rousing grandmother.

Ava’s mother had inherited Leona’s activism. She could remember Beth marching in a protest against the school board’s book censorship in their eastern Oregon hometown.

Her father, she remembered, had fully supported her. That was before Beth died, before grief and loneliness had somehow twisted him into someone unrecognizable.

The air was still cool at Emerald Park, but the square buzzed with activity as people unloaded vehicles and set up tables and shade canopies.

They were situated directly across the street from the historic courthouse, with its pillars and sweeping stone staircase. She had often thought the building would make a lovely backdrop for wedding pictures.

Her own wedding pictures had been rushed. She and Cullen hadn’t wanted a huge wedding. They had married in the leafy backyard of his mother’s house in Portland in a ceremony officiated by his grandfather, who was an ordained pastor.

Those in attendance had consisted mostly of his friends and family and their shared group from the university in attendance. On her side, only Leona and Madi had been there, she remembered, along with her best friend, Jada.

Jada had texted her five times over the past two days, asking how she was doing. She was the only one who knew the truth about the rocky road her marriage currently faced, and while Ava appreciated her concern, she really didn’t want to talk about it. As a result, she had ignored each of the messages.

She was going to have to get back to her friend at some point but right now she had no idea what to say.

As soon as the Emerald Thumbs market went live, Ava quickly realized why her grandmother wanted her assistance. Yes, she had been helpful carrying items from Leona’s car, setting up the stall and putting up the umbrella. But Leona really needed her to handle the cash register and the tablet for online transactions so that her grandmother could spend the morning chatting with every single person who walked past.

Leona seemed to know everyone, from the older people around her own demographic to young mothers pushing strollers to middle-aged couples loading their bags with produce.

If Leona didn’t know the shoppers, she chatted with them anyway, asking where they were from and how long they planned to visit the area.

Ava didn’t mind. Though their table was shaded by trees and the large patio umbrella did the rest, she kept her sunglasses firmly on and pulled down the sun hat she had borrowed from Leona.

With any luck, no one would recognize her and she could make it through the morning without having to talk to anyone about anything but Leona’s vibrant flowers and whether they had any gluten-free offerings among their baked goods.

After the first hour or so, she started to relax. She might have even begun to enjoy the simple hustle and bustle of the market, if not for the vague nausea she couldn’t seem to shake and the ever-present worry that she wouldn’t be able to fix her marriage or her relationship with her sister.

She was busy helping a woman with pink-dyed hair choose between a dozen chocolate chip cookies or a dozen sugar cookies—why not get six of each?—when she sensed some strange shift in the atmosphere.

A disturbance in the Force, her Star Wars–loving nerdy husband might have said.

A scent drifted to her above the baked goods and the sweetness of the flowers. Something earthy, rugged, masculine, with notes of black pepper, sandalwood and leather.

Cullen used that same kind of soap. She bought it for him at a trendy boutique in Portland’s Nob Hill area.

She scanned the area, trying to pinpoint whatever man might be using the same kind of scent. She spotted a couple of guys in the next stall over and stared at them.

It wasn’t some other man using Cullen’s scent.

It was Cullen himself.

The air seemed to squeeze out of her lungs and she felt lightheaded, shaky. The mild nausea bloomed into something more and she fought down the dry heaves.

She really should have tried to eat something.

Ava gripped the edge of the table to keep her balance. What on earth were Cullen and his fellow researcher doing here, at the Emerald Creek farmers market?

Buying produce, apparently. From the neighboring stall, they bought early cucumbers and tomatoes that had to have come from a greenhouse, as naturally grown tomatoes were still weeks away from being ripe.

As the men finished the transaction and paid, Ava couldn’t seem to figure out what to do. Should she make some excuse to her grandmother and escape into the crowd or should she stay and try to talk to him?

She was still trying to decide when he took the choice out of her hands. He and Luis Reyes left the neighboring booth and headed toward theirs. She quickly averted her face, shrinking farther into the shadows under the umbrella as she heard him recognize her grandmother.

“Leona!” he exclaimed. “How good to see you.”

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