“What I don’t get is why you didn’t talk to me about any of this. Tell me about Karen,” Valerie says. Her eyes are dark, hurt fills them.
I press my lips together. “Val, you’re the strongest person I know. You’ve been through hell and never blamed a soul. You pulled up your bootstraps and made your life this beautiful thing. I wish I was brave like you. But I didn’t know how to explain how shitty I felt about my dead-end job, my barely written novel… and Karen made me forget all that. I didn’t know how to tell you how stuck I felt.”
Valerie reaches across the table. “But that’s what friends are for, Georgie. To help get one another unstuck.”
“I’m learning that now, a little too late.” I wipe the tears from my eyes and Grady rubs my back.
“It’s not too late, little sis,” Vance says. “I’m gonna go to the station and get to work. You’ll need to come with me.”
“Are you going to arrest me?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No, you didn’t steal anything. Karen did. And you’re gonna help me catch her.”
Chapter Seven
Grady
Grady’s Garden Supply Co. is open for business as usual, but my head is not here. Myra’s at the register, texting someone instead of working, but I’m too focused on Georgie to say anything. It’s been a hell of a morning, and I’m dying to hear from the woman I love.
I’m unpacking a box of freshly delivered melon starts and the fact it’s this fruit, out of any fruit in the whole wide world, is not lost on me.
When the bell to the shop chimes, I look up and see Georgie walking toward me. A shaky smile on her face.
“So, what happened?” I ask, taking her hands. She’s been at the station for more than five hours.
“I gave them all the information I had — her address, her phone number, her parents’ names… and they caught her.”
“Really?” I wrap my arms around her, kissing the top of her head.
“Thank you,” she says, looking up at me. “For pushing me to do the hard thing, talking to Vance.”
“What happens next… for you?”
“I won’t be charged with anything. I’ll testify if I need to, but I’m off the hook since I didn’t know what was happening.”
“I’m sorry you went through all of this.”
“As horrible as Karen is, without her, I wouldn’t have found out something I’ll never forget.”
“What’s that?”
“That I don’t need fancy clothes or purses to define me. I get to choose how I see myself.”
“And how do you see yourself right now, Georgie?”
She smiles, looking up at me with bright eyes. “I think that maybe I’m enough, just how I am. I don’t need to write some hot-shot novel or have a high-end job. I can just be me. I’m one in a melon, all on my own.”
I laugh, loving this woman, appreciating the clarity she’s found. Knowing this is how I saw her all along.
“The last twenty-four hours have been all about me,” she says. “Can we make the next twenty-four hours all about you?”
“I know exactly where I’d like to take you.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “But it’s not fancy. It’s not an exclusive invite to a night club, and there is no VIP list.”
“I don’t need any of that, Grady. I just need you.”
“Then come on, baby. Let me take you to my house.”
“What will we do there?” she asks, standing on her tiptoes, close enough to kiss.
I lift her into the air. “I can show you my garden. So long as you don’t mind getting a little dirty.”
She laughs. A big laugh. The kind of laugh I fucking love, that has my cock twitching. “I’ll get on my hands and knees in your garden, Grady. And maybe you can plant something while you’re there.”
“I want something else first,” I say.
“What?” she says, her eyes sparking.
“Honeydew you want to marry me?”
Her mouth drops open, clearly shocked. “Really? You want to marry a hot mess like me?”
I draw her lips to mine. “If you don’t say yes, I’ll be so melon-choly.”
She laughs, eyes sparkling. “We can’t have that, can we?”
I shake my head. “No. Not when we have the whole world before us.”
“Of course I will marry you, Grady. It’s only ever been you.”
I kiss her then, deeply, with promise. Our love story has just started, but I know it will grow more abundant than any garden.
Epilogue 1
Georgina
Three months later…
The garden is abundant and beautiful. Fresh flowers are everywhere — spilling over archways, garlands