by Nina Strych
“Uh oh. Conversations that start like that are never good.”
Amy inclined her head at the truth of that, then brought a leg up on the bed so she could face him. Gripping his hand in both of hers, she asked, “Do you really, truly, absolutely, want to sell your groves?”
His brows drew together as if that was the last thing he expected to hear. “Why are you asking that now?”
She rested their hands on her knee and said, “I’m asking because I don’t want you to sell if it’s simply a matter of money.” There, she said it. Blunt—maybe too blunt—but it was out there.
He tensed a little and she thought he might pull his hand away so she gripped it tighter. He didn’t say anything at all for a moment, then he asked, “Are you that private interest my agent just called me about? The one who was asking about the sale?”
She winced and he didn’t need more than that. He withdrew his hand and scooted back a little on the bed. “Not cool,” he said.
Holding up her hands as if in surrender, she rushed on. “Let me explain!”
He shook his head and stood, kicking off his shoes and pulling out a pair of shorts and a tee from his dresser, not looking at her. She could tell simply by the way he held himself that he was irritated at the very least, possibly even angry.
“Please,” she said. “It’s important.”
The tone of her voice must have gotten through, because he tossed the clothes onto the bed and leaned back against the dresser, arms crossed. He was at least looking at her now. That was good, wasn’t it?
She took a deep breath and rubbed her palms down her pant legs. She had to say this right, make sure what she felt in her heart came out in her words. This was more important than a pitch to investors or even the sale of her company. This was Mike and he was her heart.
“You remember me telling you how I sold my dad’s house after he passed?”
He nodded, but nothing more.
“Cancer is expensive even with insurance, and I didn’t have a choice in the matter. But if I could have kept it, I would have. It was like flushing my entire childhood down the toilet. It was like erasing all the great things that happened in that house. It was full of our life.
“Now, I’m not saying that anyone else has to feel the same way I do, or that these things affect any two people the same way, but I do know that if there had been anyone who could have helped me, I would have taken that help. I would never have let that house go. Yes, it might have been hard and I might have been embarrassed, but I would have accepted help in a heartbeat. I don’t want you to suffer through that if you don’t have to, if you’re not absolutely sure that you want to let that place go.”
Tears had risen in her eyes while she spoke. It brought up all the feelings she’d had at the time. It made the grief and worry fresh and new and as terrible as they’d been right after her father had died. Mike was looking at her with his heart in his eyes, with so much compassion and the kind of understanding that comes only from knowing exactly what she felt like because he’d been there too.
He crossed the room and sat close to her again. His arm went around her shoulder and he pulled her to him, her head tucked against his chest and his hand on her cheek.
The tears finally fell and Amy wiped her suddenly runny nose—why did her nose immediately produce snot when she cried? He made soft noises of comfort and rocked them both a little on the bed. Mike really was a nurturer at heart and it made more tears fill her eyes.
After a moment, she asked, “Do you understand?” Her voice was thick from crying and she sniffed so she wouldn’t drip snot on him.
“I do. I really do. I’m sorry that happened to you like that. I’m just trying to think,” he said.
She waited, letting the tears end and only moving so she could pull the end of her shirt up to wipe her nose, which was disgusting but unavoidable. After a while, he said, “I’m not sure how I feel, to be honest. I’ve just never been able to settle my mind on what to do, so I avoided it.”
She raised her head so she could look at him. “But you’re doing it now.”
He nodded, then squeezed her for a second. “Yes.”
Pushing herself away from him was hard, but she wanted them to talk face to face and she wanted to see his answers in his expression. “Is it because of the money? Because you can’t pay for it anymore? Truth.”
He leaned back on the bed, his arms bracing him. He looked her in the eye and said, “Fifty percent, yes.”
“And what’s the other fifty percent?”
“I want to stay here with you.”
“Oh.” Well, that was great. Falling for her had now totally ruined his life. Such a bonus! Amy felt like crap.
“You wanted the truth. That’s it. It’s not a blame thing, it’s a reality thing. The reality is that I’m in love with you and I have absolutely no idea how that happened or why it happened, but there it is. I’m greedy and I’m not giving you up.”
He sat up straight again and took her hand, pressing the palm to his heart. “This isn’t at all how I planned to say it, but now I have. I love you, love every weird, quirky, shy, awesome, and sexy bit of you. I even love your crazy crooked pinky toes. I’m staying where you are and that means no California. It isn’t even just that I can’t afford to keep the grove, but that I know I’d rather be with you than there.”
Her heart was probably going to jump out of her chest and do some really bad disco moves across the floor. He meant it and she could tell he did. It was fast, so fast it was hard to trust it, but she felt it too.
“I love you too,” she said, squeaking at the final word. Not since her high school boyfriend had she said those words to a man other than her father. Not once. But she meant it and she wanted to jump up and down on the bed now that she had said it.
His hand squeezed hers where it rested on his chest. “You do? You’re not just saying that because I said it?”
She shook her head, smiling at him. “I totally mean it. Absolutely mean it.” Then she did lose all composure and squeal like a girl, freeing her hand from his so she could grab his face and mash her lips to his in a way that was not at all sexy. “I love you and that’s just pretty much that.”
He grinned and hugged her, pressing the back of her head so that she was squashed against his chest and in danger of suffocation. Wriggling to get her nose free, she sucked in a breath and said, “Don’t murder me for it.”
He laughed and let her go, then ran a finger down her cheek. “Wow. I didn’t expect that tonight.”
“Me neither. But, you know, nice strategy for changing the topic.”
He rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and said, “Okay. You win. We’ll talk about it, but my feelings about the matter haven’t changed.”
“Granted, but if you could keep it…”
He pulled in a long breath and nodded slowly, as if trying to figure out the truth of it himself. “I probably would keep it. Probably. I’ve had a very hard time going back there, so I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to live there again, but I would probably keep it. That’s with all other considerations aside. But, and this is important, I’m not asking for help. I’m not. This is a problem that I know how to solve and then it will be done. And I’m still not sure whether or not I’m mad at you for interfering.”
She looked down at the bed, knowing she deserved that. He had every right to be angry. That didn’t mean she wasn’t also right about what she would say next. Plus, you know, he loved her and she loved him and that changed absolutely everything.
“Then keep it.”
“No.”
“Why? If it’s because of money then screw that. I have so much and I have absolutely nothing to do with my life right now. Nothing. I’d much rather do something with you than nothing with you.”
He wrinkled his brow at her. “What?”
She huffed out a breath and said, “What I mean is, I want to be with you. We love each other. But I have nothing to do. I mean, zero. I’
ve gone from working a hundred hours a week to sitting around in my pajamas till dinner time. I’m so bored I could scream when I’m not with you.”
“Really?” he asked. “I figured you were working out what your next venture would be. I mean, you never said you were bored and you always seemed to be doing stuff.”
“Trivial stuff and the truth is, I don’t want to do what I was doing anymore. It was hard and disheartening and showed a very ugly underside to the world of pharma research. I went into it with all this idealism about helping people, but the truth is, it runs on money. It’s about money, for money, and every single decision is based on the potential return on investment. If there was a discovery today that would end all cancer, it would be held up in secret for years while they figured out if curing cancer would be more profitable than treating it. I’m serious.”
He frowned and said, “That’s disgusting.”
Her eyebrows rose and she nodded, “It is. I can’t go back. I just can’t go through that again. I don’t know what I want to do. I’m trained for one thing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t train for something different, something useful. I’ve been thinking about being on the front lines, about those who really helped my dad. Nursing, maybe.”
He seemed to be looking her over, re-examining her. He smiled and said, “Yeah, I can see that. You’d be good at that. Not a doctor?”
“No way. Do you know what a residency is like? Forget that. But do you see what I mean? I’m utterly free and I can go anywhere. Staying here means running into people who ask me what I’m going into next or whatever. Except for my friends, I have nothing to hold me here and I can fly back to see them.”
His eyes roamed the room as he thought, his expression flitting between a frown and something else that wasn’t quite so dour. “You mean this? You’re not just doing it for me?”
“Well, both of us really.”
He gathered her up in his arms and gave her another of those ridiculously tight hugs, then bent his head to kiss her, making her body clench with the sensation of it. When he let her go, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and said, “I suppose I should make a call then.”
She smiled and clapped her hands. “Yes, make the call.”
Epilogue - The Next Spring
“Okay. Now you want to snug that into the wound so that it feels comfortable in there. Then we’ll wrap it and put it in the recovery ward.”
Mike backed away as Amy took the tiny whippet of branch, the end now covered in the hormone that would help it join up with the rootstock to create a tree made of two individuals merged into one. She smiled at the thought and then placed the powdery end into the notch she’d just made for it.
“There,” she said, holding the branch steady with gentle fingers.
Mike leaned down to inspect it and nodded his approval. “Nice. Perfect.”
They wrapped the small tree and then carefully ported the pot over to the side of the big nursery they called the recovery ward. It was a hat tip to her returning to school.
She’d been surprised that her college degrees and courses transferred so well and she was taking classes so that she could fill in the small gaps before going into the real nursing portion of it.
They stood back, Mike’s arm around her shoulders, the dirt on both of them smelling rich and of life. The new building was big, but not so big that they couldn’t handle it together. Part nursery, part storage, it was where they were grafting the stock that would one day cover the groves. The giant wheels of pipe for the micro-irrigation systems and all the other water saving devices she wasn’t entirely clear on were sorted and waiting for the next load of baby trees to be ready. They were taking their time and doing it right, enriching the earth with native plantings while they waited.
“Your first graft,” he said, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “So proud of you. We’ll have to be sure we plant that one in a special spot.”
She nodded and breathed in the scent of hundreds of tiny trees. Apricots and almonds. A perfect match. Just like the two of them.
Mike jumped a little and smacked his head. “Oh, I forgot something!”
She watched with delight as he jogged over to the section where they were propagating drought tolerant native plants for the property. He was an amazing sight and, as always, she squeezed her thighs together almost out of reflex. He returned carrying a spiky plant that looked almost dangerous.
“Good grief! What is that?” she asked, reaching out to touch one of the sharp leaves.
“It’s a good one for anchoring the soil, especially over where that slope is. You know where I mean?”
“Yep. I’m glad you’re not going to grade it. It’s so pretty there.”
He shrugged and said, “We don’t have to change everything.”
She agreed with that sentiment wholeheartedly. They hadn’t yet gotten to the point where Mike was ready to build a house, but each day found him a little more comfortable here. He’d started telling her stories of happy times without getting sad afterward and looking toward the clearing where his house had stood. It was progress.
He held the pot out for her and said, “Anyway, check out the way it grows. It’s like a circle. Isn’t that cool?”
She peered down at the center and saw what he meant. It was sort of neat how plants did different things. This one was like a series of concentric circles, very eye-catching. A glint caught her eye and she said, “Hey, there’s something in there.”
He looked down into the plant and said, “Really? I don’t see anything. Can you get it out?”
Reaching down into the center, she moved aside a long, stiff leaf and saw a ring around one of the stiff spines that were just beginning to shoot up from the center. She carefully pulled the ring off and then held it up. It was a plain gold band, clearly someone’s wedding ring.
“Where did you get this plant? We should call them, because somebody’s going to be in trouble when they come home without this.”
“I would never get mad at you for losing your ring,” Mike said.
“That’s nice,” Amy said, inspecting the ring. Then it hit her. She looked at the ring, then at him. He had a giant grin on his face.
“Will you marry me? And this plant, because it’s totally got a stake in it at this point.”
She took the pot from him and set it down on the ground next to them, then stood back up and held out the ring to him. His smile faltered a little, so she said, “Yes, you idiot! Of course I’ll marry you!”
When she finally broke their kiss, she nudged the potted plant with her foot and looked down at it. “And I’ll marry you too, but no sex for you. I’m scared of your spikes.”
Mike snorted and then slipped the ring on her finger. There were no fancy diamonds, no flashy stones at all. Just a simple wedding band, the kind that was perfect for a nurse and an almond grower.
Also apricots, of course. Amy couldn’t forget the apricots.
*****
Marion took a swig of her wine and then reached for the bottle on the table, sloshing in another half-glass and then sighing because the bottle was empty.
“I hear you,” Charlie said, sitting next to her at the table. They were both watching Amy and Mike accept congratulations from a variety of friends and acquaintances, getting the post-dinner personal chatting sessions out of the way before the engagement party really kicked into gear. They were so adorable it was disgusting. So much in love.
“I’m so disgusted,” Marion said, taking a hefty swig.
“Again, I hear you. They’re so…so…”
“Cute?” she offered.
“Exactly. If they really do get married they’ll just ruin everything.”
Marion sat up straight and set her glass on the table with a little more force than was strictly necessary. She leaned closer to Charlie and said, “That’s what I tried to tell Amy! I mean, once you put paper to it, then it’s just a countdown until something really awful happens.”
Charlie no
dded, sliding his beer bottle onto the surface of the table. “Like kids.”
“Right!”
Marion screwed her face up a little and bumped Charlie with her elbow, “You think they’ll dump us?”
Over the past nine months, Charlie and Marion had gotten to know each other. Being best friends with a pair as tight as Mike and Amy meant they had to. Once the news of the engagement came out, they’d been talking more, both of them dreading wedding duties and generally commiserating with each other over the permanent change in status of their best friends.
Charlie swiveled on his chair and narrowed his eyes at her. “No. Do you think they’ll dump us?”
Marion shook her head, one of the coils of hair in her up-do flopping out of place as she did. “No. She’s stuck with me. Like Hep C, I’m here to stay.”
Charlie snorted, picked up his beer, then said, “They can cure that now. Better choose a worse one.”
Marion thought for a moment. “Herpes. Like herpes. I will be herpes, embarrassing and impossible to get rid of.”
He’d been tipping back the bottle for a drink, but he shot forward and choked, foam coming out of his nose when he did. Several people turned to look at the commotion, but Marion waved that they were fine and hoped Charlie wouldn’t die during the party, because that would put a major damper on things.
Marion slapped Charlie on his back and grinned out at the guests like it was no big deal. Mike and Amy were both looking, but instead of concern, they were both shooting warning looks her way. They knew the pair of them far too well, Marion decided.
When he recovered, he took the wad of napkins she shoved at him and said, “Jesus, that burns. Beer is not a good way to clear out your sinuses. Am I bleeding?” With that, he lifted his head so she could look up his nose.
“Nope, just snot.”
He wiped his nose and then blew, rolling up the napkin into two others before tossing it onto the table.
“You should throw that away,” Marion said, eyeing the bundle. “You could start a plague or something.”
“This coming from the woman who just called herself herpes.”
