“And if there really is something wrong?” Nate asked. “It doesn’t just affect our bourbon. It affects Baker’s, the restaurants, everyone.”

“You don’t speak for Baker’s,” Elena said, eyes narrowed.

“And we don’t control how the garden acts or why it does what it does,” Irene said. “If the garden is changing, making our land commissionable won’t make any difference.”

Maura shook her head. “If I hadn’t agreed to sell that rosemary in the first place, none of this would be happening.”

Addison flinched.

Maura pushed her chair back and tossed her napkin on the table. “Enough,” she said. She turned her attention to the mayor. “When you decided to work with Nate Bonner to steal my family’s land, did you remember the grief I helped you with after your daughter died? You couldn’t bring yourself to give up even a single memory of her, but the pain itself was too much. Our family has helped everyone in this town, and this is how you repay us.”

A shadow fell over the room as cicadas hovered at the windows.

“Maura—” Sylvia started.

“Not another word,” Maura said. She stepped back from the table, her thick braid swinging with the movement. Her eyes met Irene’s, and there was no question as to whether Irene would walk out that door with her.

“You’ll regret this,” Irene said, her eyes locked on Nate.

“Is that a threat?” Nate asked.

“You better hope it isn’t,” Irene said. Though Addison sat rooted in her seat, Irene turned and followed her mother out the front door.

Chapter 28

Kaden

Kaden stood so quickly he toppled his chair, but he didn’t even bother to right it. He met his mother’s wounded gaze and shook his head in disappointment.

“I expected more from you,” he said. “But I really don’t know why I did.”

The entire conversation had felt too familiar to be a coincidence. Maura’s outrage, Irene’s look of betrayal. He’d convinced himself he’d been mistaken about stealing memories from that woman in the bar. He’d let himself believe his fever dream in the shadow garden had been the result of too much bourbon and too many fears. He’d told himself he’d imagined seeing the gloom rise from the townsfolk’s lips without them having any recollection that it happened.

Now, he heard his brother threatening to take the Haywoods’ garden out from under them, and all those flashes played on repeat in his mind—snippets of conversation, feelings of conviction.

The words from his mouth: “We must expose my family.”

The words from Maura’s: “I’ll kick them off my land. Without the dark corn, without the soil, everything will go back to how it was before.”