Love on Lavender Lane

by Karis Walsh

  “I’d like to hire you as her gift. Your services as a business consultant, of course.”

  Paige set her mug on the table, focusing on watching the movement of her own hands as she struggled to contain a completely unprofessional burst of laughter that wanted to escape. His first sentence had implied that this polished businessman intended to purchase her as the present, which was ludicrous. The second cleared up the misinterpretation but still seemed equally funny to her. The gift of her professional services didn’t strike her as a heartfelt present from a loving dad.

  Maybe it was a practical one from a father who didn’t remember his daughter’s birthdate?

  “What type of company does she own?”

  Kenneth waved his hand vaguely through the air again. “She has a little farm in the Willamette Valley, near McMinnville. She grows…herbs or something New Agey. Certainly nothing that would cover the property taxes and high cost of living in those fancy small towns that are within commuting distance of Portland. The last time I talked to her, she tried to sound confident and not at risk of losing the place, but I think she might be fooling herself. I tried to talk her into selling before she gets too deep in debt and finding a job with a regular salary, but she’s too stubborn.”

  Paige’s mind seesawed between Kenneth’s appallingly dismissive attitude toward his daughter’s business and a sudden vision of leaving the city behind and driving to McMinnville for a paid vacation. The daydream won for the moment, and Paige pictured herself behind the wheel of a convertible, her hair loose and blowing in the wind, and her dog Dante grinning in the passenger seat. Somehow, the weather was sunny, warm, and springlike in her mind, even though she had only mentally traveled a few miles from Portland’s overcast skies. The air in her mind was fresh and filled with the green scents of growing things and fertile soil. She could walk Dante through vineyards and stop for samples of wine. Visit her old college roommate Sarai.

  Of course, Paige didn’t own a convertible. She might be able to convince herself of the practicality of renting a car instead of racking up miles on her own if the trip from Portland would take more than two hours. She sighed and brought herself back to the conference room, where the heat was turned to a dehydrating level to counter the cold, rainy Pacific Northwest spring weather. Which was barely discernible from the cold, rainy Northwest winter. She shook her head. If she wanted a sunnier destination, she’d need to travel a lot farther than McMinnville.

  “I really don’t know anything about the agricultural industry,” she said, but the argument sounded weak to her. She could study. Research. The same thing she did every time she took a new job and made her client’s business concerns and passions her own, at least during the term of her employment. She hadn’t been familiar with Kenneth’s industry when she was first hired, and now she would feel comfortable teaching a class on commercial real estate at the local college. Did she want to learn everything there was to know about New Age farming, though? Not particularly. “And how can I save her money if she doesn’t have much staff to fire?”

  Kenneth laughed at her joke even as she cringed internally at her flippant reference to the people who would soon lose their jobs here because of her recommendations. “I know this isn’t your usual type of client,” he said, gesturing broadly with his hands. “I was hoping you would take the job as a favor to me.”

  Paige took another sip of her coffee, giving herself time to think. She would surely get more clients because of her work at Kenneth’s company, but not because he liked her and recommended her to others. Other managers and owners would be watching the firm over the next few months, studying its bottom line and determining whether her advice translated to more financial success. Then they would see that her input had added value to the company. A lot of value, in the form of dollar signs. And they would hire her.

  Eventually.

  Paige rubbed at a drop of coffee that had spilled on the table, but she ended up smudging the glass more than cleaning it. While she had been building her reputation as a consultant with her own firm, she experienced the expected highs and lows in terms of workload. She’d get a new client and work tirelessly to create a prospective plan for them. Then she—and the people who were considering hiring her—would wait to see how well her ideas worked. Those downtimes always came to an end, but she hated being in the middle of them. Idle, with an emptiness that she longed to fill with research on her next venture. She never quite knew what to do with herself in those middle places.

  Working for Kenneth’s daughter was an answer, but not a great one. Paige had no idea what to expect. Would she be as cutthroat as her father, or a flake, as he seemed to imply? Or maybe a witch who used her herbs to make love potions and spells to make ex-lovers go bald? Paige could only hope—that would at least make for some interesting research.

  “It’s an intriguing proposition,” she said. “I’m sure I can find ways for her to cut costs by either diversifying or specializing, although I can’t make a business concept that doesn’t have intrinsic potential work, no matter what I suggest. Usually, I only take clients that have the elements for success buried somewhere in their companies.” Then she knew they would thrive, as long as they followed her proposals. If Kenneth’s daughter was facing a weak market with an undesirable product, Paige would never be able to fix the broken parts short of telling her to start from scratch and try something else.

  Kenneth propped his elbows on the table and leaned toward her. “Truthfully, that’s the reason I want to hire you. If you tell her the farm idea’s a bust, then she might be more inclined to take your advice than mine and get out of it while she still can.”

  Paige frowned. “So you want me to fail.”

  “Of course not,” he said, but it was accompanied by a smile and a nod of his head, as if he was relieved she understood. “I want you to succeed in helping her move toward a more financially responsible future.”

  Her initial irritation with his dismissive attitude had taken a back seat to the convertible-fresh-air-spring working-vacation daydream, but now annoyance moved to the forefront of her mind again.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. It wasn’t the type of work she wanted, and it definitely wouldn’t lead to useful contacts for future jobs. She’d help Kenneth’s daughter, though, but not in the way he wanted. She’d do her best to make the farm as profitable as it could be, and only as a last resort would she try to convince this woman to give up her dream and sell her farm, if it proved to be something she really cared about. Paige’s aggressive tactics might be more suitable for the boardroom than a garden patch, but how different could it really be? Business sense was business sense, no matter the location.

  * * *

  “So I’ll be spending a few weekends in McMinnville helping someone named Kassidy and staying in Portland during the week, in case Kenneth needs me to help during his transition period.” Paige toyed with the fragile stem of her wineglass and watched Evie to see how she would react. Paige wasn’t sure if she should ask Evie to go with her or not. She was planning to make this a vacation as well, after all, since she rarely left town and figured her work on the farm could be handled quickly and efficiently, leaving plenty of time to taste wine and sightsee. At least, to do whatever passed for sightseeing in the country. Looking at trees? Taking walks through nature? Dante would love those, but Paige was decidedly ambivalent about them. She usually preferred her nature to come in the form of paved walking paths that wended through city parks.

  “Are those bobby pins in your hair? I hope you didn’t pay your stylist since she cut you too short,” Evie said, taking a small bite of her grilled salmon. “Anyway, I get that you want to keep your client happy by taking on this job with his daughter, but it’s a dead end. Unless you’re planning to hand out business cards to every hobby farmer hovering on the outskirts of Portland, of course.”

  Evie laughed at this comment, and Paige covered up her lack of response by taking a sip of her merlot. Why did everyone want to
belittle Kassidy’s profession? Even though Paige had no interest in cultivating either plants or plant-growing clients, she didn’t feel a need to put down the farming community in general.

  “I thought it would be nice to get out of the city for a bit. Plus, I don’t have any other jobs lined up right now, and I hate to sit around and do nothing.”

  “I’ve been thinking of getting away, too,” Evie said, fiddling with her asparagus and not looking at Paige. “I thought I’d drive up to Seattle and visit some friends. Do some shopping and see what’s new in the art galleries. I’ve been meaning to redecorate my bedroom, so I want to find a new painting to hang in there. Or maybe a collage.”

  Just like that…Paige realized she wouldn’t be asking Evie to go to McMinnville with her—and Evie wouldn’t say yes even if she did. Paige didn’t need to hear the precise words to recognize that she was one of the things Evie would be removing from her bedroom when she redecorated. No eye contact. Decisions that sounded as if they’d been made for a while now, but this was the first Paige was hearing about them.

  She couldn’t complain or act too affronted, though, since most of her own sentences—like Evie’s—had started with the word I. It was all very civilized and drama-free, like the rest of their relationship had been. They had spent a pleasant six months together, and now it was time to move on. Paige exhaled in a long sigh, which she tried to cover with a small cough because too much of her sense of relief was evident in it.

  “I think some time in Seattle sounds great. For you,” she added quickly, in case Evie thought she was trying to include herself in the trip.

  Evie met her gaze again and gave her a smile that had as much relief etched in it as Paige’s sigh. “And I’m sure McMinnville would be great for some people. I’ll bet you die of boredom there, though.”

  Paige shrugged. “That’s why I’m coming back to the city during the week. Short doses of country life shouldn’t prove fatal.”

  Evie made a skeptical-sounding noise. Paige watched her as she attacked her meal with gusto now, apparently relieved that their breakup had been simple and nonconfrontational, and no longer too nervous to do more than pick at her food.

  Evie was everything Paige should want in a woman. She was smart and a successful interior designer—her business never had any need for Paige’s professional assistance. She was gorgeous. Well-read. Informed on current events.

  Not the most romantic list of attributes, but then again, Paige wasn’t looking for flowers, pink hearts, and love notes left on bathroom mirrors. She and Evie had never defined their relationship, and Paige preferred it that way. She wanted nothing more than heated, explosive beginnings, ambiguous but pleasant middles, and vague, unemotional endings. Exactly what she had gotten with Evie.

  She felt sort of hollow, but she couldn’t tell if it was because she and Evie were through or because it was simply the way she always felt when she finished a consulting job and faced the stretch of empty days before she got to work again.

  “Are you going to start your farming research soon?” Evie asked.

  “Not yet. I don’t even know what she grows there, so I’ll wait until I see the place before I start formulating any sort of plan.” Paige always preferred to begin a new job without any preconceived ideas about how she wanted to fix a business. If she didn’t go in with a blank slate, then she might overlook key issues that were unique to the individual firm. In the case of Kassidy’s farm, Paige didn’t have any biases in place because she didn’t know what she’d find in McMinnville. Kenneth might have been correct about the herbs, but given his indifferent attitude, Paige thought it was just as likely that Kassidy was a chicken farmer or even something else entirely.

  Paige would find out soon. She’d observe the farm, locate the areas of mismanagement, and formulate a proposal just like she always did. She might not have a job with a high-end corporate client right now, but she at least had a temporary place where she could channel her energy and attention. She suddenly realized how hungry she really was and, like Evie, turned to her dinner with renewed enthusiasm.

  Chapter Two

  A burst of steamy fragrance filled the kitchen when the chopped garlic hit sizzling oil in the heavy enamel pan. Kassidy Drake stirred the mixture, careful not to burn the garlic, and then added a large plateful of diced chicken. While the meat browned, she returned her attention to wiping the last few morels with a damp tea towel and slicing them into thin half rounds. She added the mushrooms and a few leaves of sage from her garden to the pan and breathed in the earthy blend of aromas as the ingredients finished cooking.

  Kassidy didn’t have an abundance of fresh vegetables available to her this early in the growing season, but the ones she had been able to scrounge from her yard and some nearby woods made up for the lack of variety with a depth of flavor. She took the Dutch oven off the heat and set it on a trivet on the counter, somehow managing to fight the temptation to stand by the kitchen island with a fork and eat everything right now, all by herself. Then she wouldn’t have anything to bring to tonight’s potluck, but she could always stop by the grocery store and pick up a premade veggie tray. She smiled at the thought. Her friends from the neighborhood farming community wouldn’t recognize her if she wasn’t carrying a dish of something homemade.

  She scraped the chicken mixture out of the pan and returned it to the heat, moving through the process of creating a meal with the comfortable ease of long familiarity. She had been cooking since she was six, and she somehow continued to enjoy it as a hobby even though it had been an overwhelming responsibility when she was a child. She had started with burnt grilled cheeses and undercooked scrambled eggs, gradually teaching herself what she needed to know in order to feed her siblings and her mother—as well as not burning down the house. Cooking equaled love to her. And she hadn’t done more than microwave a frozen dinner since Audrey left.

  Of course, she hadn’t done much of anything since Audrey left. Kassidy slid a large hunk of butter into the still-hot pan and let it sizzle and sputter until it started to look a little foamy. Tonight’s get together was good for her beyond just getting her into the kitchen again, she decided, as she beat a blend of all-purpose and hazelnut flours into the butter. She had spent more time talking to the grafted plants in her greenhouse than her friends for the past couple of months, and her hermit-like behavior had gone on long enough. Sure, she had needed time and space to heal, but now she was scared of how much distance she had put between herself and other people.

  The toxicity of her relationship with Audrey had snuck up on her, but the moment she realized how dysfunctional things had become, she severed the relationship without a backward glance. Audrey had seemed honestly perplexed by the breakup, and maybe she hadn’t been consciously aware of what she was doing to Kassidy. That didn’t make it better, though. Kassidy had opened up to Audrey and shared parts of her childhood that made her vulnerable. Audrey had used that information to punish Kassidy every time she got angry, withdrawing from Kassidy and distancing herself with a cold, emotionless expression.

  Kassidy added milk to the pan and whisked with more vigor than was necessary, splashing herself with a few drops of hot liquid. She took a deep breath and calmed her movements. She had reacted to Audrey’s silences in ways that were deeply ingrained in her. She had apologized, cooked Audrey’s favorite foods, left her small gifts. Eventually, Audrey would turn to her with that dazzling smile again, and all would be forgiven. At least Kassidy hadn’t taken very long to recognize the old patterns, and she had pulled herself out of the messed-up game the moment she clearly saw what was happening.

  Old habits died hard. The proverb had stuck around for ages because it was true. Kassidy uncorked a bulbous glass jar and sprinkled a palmful of dried purple buds into her hand. She scattered the Sharon Roberts lavender over the surface of the steaming milk and was rewarded with the sudden release of a calming floral scent. A few sprinkles of freshly grated nutmeg, some twists of black pepper, and the
béchamel was done.

  She strained the liquid to remove the lavender pieces before mixing the chicken with the sauce, then covered the pan and set it aside to cool. She had already packed a small army of tiny puff pastry cups, and she’d assemble the hors d’oeuvres at the party. She had to be more vigilant with her romantic relationships and not let them lead her down the path she had taken with Audrey—and one or two past girlfriends—but she didn’t need to maintain the same distrust and carefulness around her friends. She knew she could rely on them for anything, just like they could turn to her without hesitation. And given the challenges they all were facing with increasing taxes and fickle markets, they needed to band together as much as possible if they wanted their artisan community to survive. And it had to survive. The world would be a much grayer place without it.

  Kassidy shook her head, trying to ignore—just for tonight—the near constant worry she felt when she thought about the future of her farm. She felt a little better when she focused on the fate of the community as a whole, because then she didn’t feel so overwhelmingly alone when she contemplated her financial situation. She went into her bedroom and pulled off the sauce-splattered shirt and soft flannel pants she had been wearing while she cooked. She tossed them into the clothes hamper and put on a pair of faded jeans and a gray T-shirt that showed a frowning cartoon grape holding an empty wine bottle upside down with the words I’m crushed underneath the image. She wouldn’t have to worry about empty wine bottles tonight, though. Over half of the members of their local business community were connected to the wine trade in some way, and all of them would be sure to bring plenty of bottles for everyone to sample. She added a thin sweater because the early spring evening promised to be a cool one and hurried out to the car with her heavy containers of food.

  The drive from her rural farm to Drew and Jessica’s tasting room in downtown McMinnville was a quick one. Most of the businesses except for a few pubs and restaurants along the small main street were closed for the evening, and the strings of colorful lights around the Bête Noir’s large paned windows provided a splash of brightness in the deepening dusk. The party was meant to give the local farmers and artists a chance to gather together after the quiet isolation of the winter season and before the bustle of spring and summer arrived, but no tourists or other passersby would be turned away from the welcoming room, the plentiful glasses of Oregon’s pinot noir, and the lavish food.