I hadn’t been lying when I told Ivy I hadn’t thought about it in years. But the second I’d seen his face, I’d been transported back to that day when I’d stood almost exactly in that spot, waiting for him. And he’d promptly ignored me, making his way to Ivy for a kiss right there, right in front of me.

Ten years. Really, I needed to let it go. But the wound was the sort that never healed, the kind that flared when the seasons changed or a storm blew in. And the season was changing.

I wondered if it already had.

Luke lived by laws that offended the very foundation of what I believed in. He spoke of adventure like it was nirvana. My nirvana was security. And security was not found in risk, but in consistency.

But we could be different, and just because he was different didn’t mean he was wrong, no matter how much it felt like it was. The truth was that Luke was leading the charge in revamping the store, lending his generous muscles to the task. Even today, he’d come prepared, and that earned my respect even if it was tarnished a bit by my terrible attitude.

All you can control is your reaction, I told myself, an adage my mother had imposed on me.

And so I spent the next hours appreciating the view and reminding myself that good manners were made of small sacrifices.

By the time I finished caulking the second wall, Luke was right behind me, touching up my work, which was both annoying and thorough, the feelings negating each other.

I climbed off the ladder and stretched my back out, twisting against the ache. “All right, ready to prime?”

“Can’t prime, not until tomorrow. Brick’s gotta dry. But we should definitely have the whole space painted tomorrow.”

“Oh, good. I can help again, if you want.” I shuddered to think what I’d wear after the dramatics this morning and mourned the use of my cutest painting outfit on caulk.

“Hey, I’ll take all the help I can get,” he said with a sidelong smile, setting his caulk gun on a ladder step. “Come on—let me show you what I found in storage.”

Luke looked like a kid on his birthday, full of possibility and excitement, and when he passed, he snagged my hand as if it were the most natural thing, towing me toward the greenhouse.

My hand disappeared in his fist, and his wide back obstructed my view, but I followed him like I had the option not to, nearly two of my steps to his one. He pushed open the swinging double doors to the greenhouse and turned to head down the main aisle.

The greenhouse inhabited the space behind five buildings, an oasis teeming with flowers begging to be cut. Every morning, I walked into this place empty-handed and walked out with my arms full of an almost unimaginable bounty of fresh-cut flowers.

This was my happy place. The smell of soil and leaves and blooming flowers. The blanket of humidity. The sunlight filtering in through the glass roof and walls, bathing everything it touched. Mr. Bennet’s head popped up between vertical planters of lavender delphinium, offering a knowing smile and a flick of his eyes to where Luke had a hold of me. Kash jerked his chin at us in greeting as he pushed a wheelbarrow full of dirt down one of the side aisles, a similar smile on his face, though his was less innocent.