how that happened.” His pretended ignorance didn’t fool me, and I turned in my seat to face him.
“Did you do that?”
His arm pressed closer into my back as he shrugged. “Might have been part of it. But it was mostly Anna’s idea, so she gets the credit.”
“They’re beautiful.” As soon as Noah came to a stop, I opened the door and jumped out of the truck to get a better look.
“Surprise!” Standing on the porch with the rest of my friends, Jenny clapped her hands. “What do you think?”
“I love it. It’s exactly my vision for this place.” I knelt down to sniff at a blossom. “When did you do this?”
Leaning on the rail, Anna Girard chuckled. “We all got here early this morning. Noah hauled over the plants I’d ordered from the nursery, and we brought the ones I’ve propagated from my own cuttings—from the ones you especially liked at the farm.”
“How did you know?” I marveled, touching a soft leaf.
“Child, I pay attention when you talk.” Anna rolled her eyes. “And I’m not so ancient that I can’t keep track of what I hear.”
“You’re not ancient at all.” I wrapped my arms around my middle, mostly to hold in my excitement. Noah had parked the truck in my driveway, and now he strolled over to join us.
“Nice work, y’all,” he drawled. “Good to see that you didn’t slack off after I left.”
Nico snorted. “You didn’t leave us that much to do. You were standing right here, pointing out to us what needed to go where. And if it wasn’t you, it was one of the women.”
I beamed up at my friends. “Well, I appreciate all of you being here, particularly you, Nico, since it’s your day off. I know you don’t get many of those.”
He winked at me. “Happy to help, Emma.”
“And he did more than plant flowers,” Jenny put in. “There just might be some food in your fridge and freezer that was prepared for you by the chef whom The Tampa Times called ‘fresh and exciting—making food fun again’!” She slid her hand into the crook of her boyfriend’s elbow and hugged his arm, her pride evident.
My eyes widened. “No way—thank you so much, Nico. I’m going to eat like a queen.” For a moment, I simply let my gaze wander over my friends. When I’d arrived in Harper Springs almost eighteen months ago, I never would have dreamed that I’d have this tribe around me. I’d met Noah—my patient’s husband—and Jenny and Darcy—both nurse practitioners—on my very first day at the hospital. Nico, Jenny’s boyfriend, I’d gotten to know after he’d returned to Florida to declare his love for Jenny.
Anna and Jimmy Girard were the grandparents of my ex . . . whatever it was that Deacon had been to me. He’d introduced me to Anna and Jimmy as his girlfriend, but we hadn’t had enough time together for me to get used to that idea. And then before I could, he’d taken off for Slovenia.
And Alison was the newest member of our group. She was the doctor who’d taken over for Deacon after he had officially extended his leave of absence.
“So, are we going to stand around here soaking up the ambience, or are we going to move boxes?” Jimmy rubbed his hands. “We have a full truckload of the stuff you’ve been storing in our barn, Emma. Just need to hear from you where you want it all to go.”
“What are we waiting for?” I flipped over my hands. “Let’s get started!”
When I’d taken the job as the staff naturopath at St. Agnes Memorial Hospital in Harper Springs, Florida, I had decided that this small town, surrounded by plentiful farmland, was the perfect place to realize my dream of living on my own property and raising my own food. In the three weeks between signing the contract and driving south, I’d contacted a real estate agent, purchased several acres of land, and then gone online to arrange to buy a mobile home to live in until I could build my own house.
That hadn’t been my finest hour, since the infamous Bobby Lucas had sold me a dilapidated, filthy box on wheels that didn’t have a real bathroom or air conditioning. Well, to be fair, it wouldn’t have mattered if it had had air conditioning, since city-dweller me had neglected to realize that an undeveloped piece of land wouldn’t have electric, water or sewage hookups. Suffice it to say that the past eighteen months