Page 27 of A Touch of Spring Magic

He sipped the chai and looked at her. “It’s something I negotiated with Miss Millie and Meghan. And Chloe had her say.”

“Her say.” That made Jessica laugh a little. “She probably just waved her hands and said, ‘Make it pretty. Do whatever Jessie wants.’”

He looked at her oddly.

“Was that it exactly?”

“No.”

She was about to demand to know what Chloe had said, but something warned her off. It probably didn’t matter. Every atom that made up Chloe was generous. She was so easy to please.

“Seriously. What are you getting out of the great garden disaster rescue project?” Looking at the drone footage had only made her realize how much work she was actually facing, and she was worried that she’d throw in her lot with Storm. Rely on him. Defer to him. Play it too safe like she’d always done. And how much could she ask him to do without feeling exploitative?

“I want to show you something.”

Typical Storm, he didn’t answer any questions he didn’t want to, and he’d already started moving away. She really shouldn’t be noticing the liquid way his body moved through the now early morning light. Nope. She shouldn’t look. But she did and then had to jog to keep up.

He skirted the pond and waded through some high ornamental grasses and weeds that she hadn’t begun to figure out what she should do with.

“I think there was a maze here at one point with a mosaic of some sort.”

“Huh?” Jessica nearly swallowed her chai wrong. “Grandma Millie didn’t say anything about a maze, and we played here as kids. A lot. This was just a lot of grasses and wildflowers. There used to be a lot of livestock on the farm and so the pasture and orchard grasses just started taking over once there was nothing grazing or mowing.”

“I bet there’s still a wild beauty here in late spring, but it needs shape, color and context,” he mused as he swished his hands through the stiff brown grass, although Jessica could see new green shoots at the bottom.

He squatted down, searching more. She joined him.

“Chloe mentioned it once when we were kids.” Jessica tried to remember, but she’d had so many flights of fancy, and Jessica had started maturing, being more practical, whereas Chloe had remained childlike, and a little fey. “She called it a path to nowhere, and once she found a blue tile—she wouldn’t tell me where—but she called it bird art.” The memory built. “Chloe said it was a circle.”

“There is a pattern from the drone picture.” Storm showed her the video, and her breath caught as her imagination engaged.

“It’s a little archaeological ruin. I’ve been doing research. The Cramers were another early settler family who amassed a lot of land—like the Mayes. Some Cramers had studied in England and when they moved to North Carolina in the mid eighteen hundreds they brought their ideas of an English garden with them. Pretentious.”

“The climates are hardly similar,” Storm noted. “Lot of trial and error, I suspect. Let’s figure out our start footprint. I want to know the initial worksite so we can make a plan to build out. You’ll want a focal point in garden.”

Jessica surveyed the waving grass around them. “I’ll want several focal points,” she said, nibbling on her bottom lip, wishing the vision would come as effortlessly as it had to Storm as they’d reviewed the drone footage. “Over time, but I’ll need something beautiful for the party. Do you think…” She paused. No, she was deferring again, but if she’d hired Storm on her own, she’d be paying him for his advice, and maybe that wouldn’t be the same as him taking over.

The problem was, she really wanted an olive grove. That would be so Tuscany, and fit in with the pond and fountain—if she could get it fixed in time. And then perhaps a large pergola with climbing grape and other vines.

“Lavender,” she said dreamily. “What do you think the chances are we could get the fountain working again, fix the pond and reconnect them? Looking at the footage today, this is the center.”

“The heart,” he said softly. “A fitting beginning.”

“Feasible?” she asked, troubled. Would she be wasting too much time and resources trying to resurrect the once elaborate water feature and maybe trying to uncover the mosaic that may or may not have been at the center of a now dead, destroyed maze?

“We can make that happen.”

There was nowe, but she didn’t say it because it would sound petty. She’d changed since high school. No reason to believe Storm hadn’t. And just because she’d had so much pushback over the years with several of her former bosses and colleagues, that didn’t mean Storm too would demean her value and contributions.

“I’ll get back into the muck.”

“No. If you want to start with the pond, I’ll rent equipment to suck out the water. We’ll pressure wash, make any repairs to the basin and replace the pump and filtration system. That will give us a clean slate. You want to connect the pond to the fountain, we can re-dredge the canal, do the necessary repairs, add whatever hardscape you want—pavers or pea gravel or a combination, then fill in to soften the edges. Having the pond and a connected water feature sounds like a central place to start.”

Jessica knew it. Just knew it. Already he had a vision and likely wanted her to follow along. Worse, she’d been thinking along the same lines.

“All that sounds expensive and time-consuming.” Jessica chafed at her growing list of things to do and how comfortable Storm was sharing his ideas. She needed to assert herself. The creative vision was hers. This was the chaff from the wheat—she grabbed at a farming analogy from her ancestors. But after years of trusting that numbers and diligence would illuminate her path, she couldn’t shy away from the hard work of the beginning.

“And it sounds like you are already making decisions for or without me,” she said tightly. “When did you plan to share these ideas with me? Show me the budget? The timeline?”

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