by Cora Seton
“I’m here to help Sadie—with her legacy.”
“Legacy?” Cass repeated, much as Sadie had earlier. Now she looked to her sister, but Sadie simply lifted a shoulder.
“According to him, I’m supposed to plant another maze.”
“Not another maze,” Connor corrected. “Something that calls to you. Something that’s all your own.”
“What kind of a plant would that be?” Cass looked confused.
“No—not a plant; a legacy. It could be anything.” Connor warmed to his theme. He’d been the one who’d proposed the idea to the General when he’d learned the history of the maze and standing stone from Brian. Two Willows was a special place, and he knew from his childhood special places needed to be tended and expanded in ways that connected people to them. A standing stone was something that drew people to a certain place in a landscape. A maze was another. Sadie needed to come up with a third. “Anything I can plant or build.”
“We could use a better clothesline,” Cass said.
Sadie rolled her eyes. “A clothesline isn’t a legacy,” she said before Connor could say so. “He means something like… like… a walled garden.”
Connor’s instincts sprang to life. Sadie did get it—and she did have dreams he could translate into reality. He’d build her something that made her as interested in him as he was in her at this moment.
“That’s it exactly. A walled garden—with benches and pathways and a fountain—”
“It was just an example,” Sadie said sharply. “It’s not something I actually want.”
She might as well have doused him with cold water.
“Well, whatever you do want, I’ll build it,” he reiterated. It took a lot more than a surly lass to throw him off the scent of his mission.
“That sounds lovely.” Cass’s lips twitched in a way that told Connor she saw right through him, right through this whole situation.
“That sounds like the General interfering again,” Sadie said.
Her legacy. She didn’t need a legacy, Sadie thought as she watched Cass unwrap the General’s gift—a beautiful necklace that made both of them go silent. It was a locket like the one he’d given their mother long ago. Sadie remembered Amelia wearing it all the time when she was young, but the necklace had gone missing only weeks before her death. She wondered if the General knew that?
Forcing those old memories away, she kept her mind on her own problems. The legacy she’d lost. No one had noticed so far—not Cass, not any of her sisters—but soon everyone would realize something had gone horribly wrong with her. Her glance strayed to her extensive garden, the greenhouse beyond it—and the maze. From here the rows and squares of vegetables and herbs still looked lush and well-tended. But her sharp, practiced eyes could pick out the first signs of trouble.
Spots on otherwise emerald-green leaves. Brown edges. Drooping stems. Infestations of hungry insects.
All through the garden, nature was playing havoc with her plants.
And it scared Sadie. Scared her more than anything else had since the day her mother died, and even on that occasion her intuition with the plants had been strengthened by the sudden shock—not wiped out by it.
But now she felt like she was working blindfolded when she went out to the garden. Worse, like her plants didn’t recognize her. Like she was anyone who’d stumbled into their rows rather than the one person who had a special connection to them.
Not to mention she couldn’t create her cures, which were her real legacy. Without that connection to her plants she couldn’t compound her tinctures and tonics and salves.
What had happened to her?
A man’s loud laugh made Sadie jerk around to search the crowd, her heart in her throat.
Was that Mark?
No—of course not. Thank God.
Sadie got herself under control. Mark was in the hospital… under guard. She was safe from him.
She wasn’t safe from her memories, though.
She still couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid to let Mark use her like she had. She’d been a fool to think such a handsome man was interested in her—or that he’d been worth the time of day.
Mark was a criminal. A callous, miserable loser. Someone who designed drugs to hook their users and siphon off all their money until he’d wrung every last penny from them. Once the scales had fallen from her eyes, Sadie had become aware for the first time in her life of the way that drugs pervaded her little town. People were using them to escape from their problems—to have a little fun. But by using them they were letting trouble into their lives.
Letting Mark into their lives, with his greedy hands outstretched demanding more money—and more and more.
Thank God she hadn’t fallen down that trap. She’d tried pot once—didn’t like it. Had told Mark so, and he’d backed off. Of course, he hadn’t been after her money; he’d only wanted her land, and the ability to use her ranch as a cover.
She scanned the happy crowd around her again. Wondered who among them were hiding secret addictions. She hoped not many; she wished happiness to all of them. Wanted it for herself.
It was funny about the pot—it hadn’t slipped her into that comfortable state she’d heard about—that Mark had told her she’d like. Instead, the herb had whispered to her of its true meaning, and in her mind’s eye she’d seen the religious rites once practiced with it, the way a certain set of peoples had once understood it as a pathway to the divine.
Now it had been overbred, planted far beyond its natural borders, hyped up and hopped up and changed to be more potent—to be used, rather than honored.
Nature knows, she remembered her mother saying once. It knows our intentions—and it gives us what we deserve.
Plants could heal—and harm. Like people.
Connor cleared his throat and Sadie shifted her attention back to the interloper. What were his intentions? They weren’t as simple as he was making them out to be. He wasn’t here to build her legacy. He would be just one more obstacle between her and the healing knowledge that had once existed within her—that she had taken for granted like Alice’s foresight and Lena’s resolve to run the ranch. The healing knowledge that had disappeared with her ability to tend plants, since the two were inextricably entwined.
“I’m here to help you,” Connor said in a low tone, as if it were just the two of them standing here.
“I don’t think that’s true,” she told him. She figured he was a message from her father. That he was disappointed in her behavior and that from now on he’d keep a close watch on her via this enormous airman he’d sent.
But she’d already received another message from the plants—the land—she loved so much.
They didn’t want her here anymore.
It was time to leave.
Could this be his home? Connor wondered as he took in the large white house, the back porch, the neat, orderly rows of Sadie’s garden and the rutted dirt track that led to the barns and outbuildings in the distance.
“Come grab some food from the buffet,” Cass said, sending a signal to her sister with her furrowed brow.
Sadie didn’t seem to notice. Her gaze was on her gardens, her mind obviously somewhere else.
“Sadie? You coming?” he asked.
“What? Oh—okay.” She followed along and Connor resisted the urge to take her hand to guide her through the crowd. She was so slim and girlish in her bridesmaid gown, he instinctively wanted to protect her. He knew that was partly why the General had sent him; trouble could return to Two Willows, and the General wanted men on the ranch who knew how to handle it when it did. He knew he couldn’t send them all at once, though. They were infiltrating Two Willows one at a time.
Now Connor understood the pressure Brian must have felt when he’d first arrived.
What if the plan didn’t work? What if Sadie didn’t find him attractive, or interesting—what if she didn’t care about men at all?
Sadie sent him a sideways look that trave
led over his body and up to his face. When her gaze met his she blinked and colored a little.
A grin tugged at Connor’s lips.
She cared about men.
And maybe found him just a little attractive, after all.
He definitely found her attractive. He was glad last night he’d sent texts to Lila, Bridget and a couple of other women he still chatted with online and told them goodbye. He wanted to begin a new life here at Two Willows, with Sadie Reed.
He’d wondered if he was ready for it, but now that he was here, the whole thing seemed like a brilliant idea.
At the buffet, he handed Sadie a plate and went along the length of the tables, offering her portions of dishes he thought might interest her. To his surprise, Sadie meekly allowed him to serve her, murmuring her preferences as they went. In the end, both their plates were stacked high with food when they went to find a table.
But the tables were mostly full.
He was about to admit defeat and suggest they divide up when Sadie said, “Let’s eat on the porch.” She led the way up to a grouping of wicker furniture and indicated he should take a seat. He hoped the settee would hold up when he sat down. Not that he was overweight—far from it. But the wicker looked like it had been out here a long time.
Sadie took a seat on one of the chairs opposite him. “Are you from Ireland?” she asked conversationally, as if he were any old guest at the wedding.
“Yes. Originally,” he admitted.
“So that accent isn’t entirely fake.”
“No. Not entirely.” He was a little abashed. Women usually found his accent charming, but when he turned it on, it was an obvious ploy, and Sadie had seen right through it.
“You must have moved here young.”
“Ten.” He took a bite of potato salad, chewed and swallowed. “Lived in Texas until I joined up.”
“Texas? Some of those spreads down there put Two Willows to shame.”
Connor thought about the huge spread he’d grown up on. Big enough to be its own state, they used to joke—not even trying to cover their pride. But that spread hadn’t belonged to him or his father, and the sun beat down hard on that flat Texas land. It had its own beauty, but not like Two Willows. “Not much can hold up to this.” He waved his fork at the house and the land around them.
“Two Willows is pretty special,” Sadie agreed quietly.
They ate in silence a minute, and Connor wondered what was bothering her. His presence? The shoot-out that had taken place here only weeks before?
He found it hard to make the kind of small talk that might set her at ease. He was too aware that this was the woman he was to marry. Back at USSOCOM, she’d merely been a two-dimensional facsimile of a woman he’d constructed in his mind from her photographs and the information Brian had told him. Here she was in the flesh. A young woman with serious blue eyes, a way of looking at him like she was searching his face for clues about what lay beneath.
Connor thought she was the type of woman who looked beyond surface features to the depths of people—and problems—for what lay at their heart. He was uncomfortably aware that such scrutiny could unearth things about him he didn’t want her to know.
What would Sadie think of his shallow existence—the way he’d held back from forming deep attachments to other people? What would she think if she knew that the few minutes he’d spent with Halil left him feeling he understood the Syrian man better than those he’d served with?
He’d spent far too many years hiding in plain sight. No one knew him. Definitely not the women he’d date previously.
But Sadie would have to as his wife.
“Brian told me about the maze,” he said finally when he’d cleaned his plate.
“Do you want to see it?” Sadie set down her plate on the table, although she’d only picked at her food.
“Sure.” His casual shrug hid his true feelings. Ever since Brian had first mentioned the maze, Connor had known it had significance for him.
“The land holds its own secrets,” he remembered his granny saying when he was young. “Even when men think they’re putting their stamp on it, often they’re following the land’s own will.” They’d been standing before a Neolithic dolmen in County Donegal at the time, Connor staring at the massive stones, wondering how his forbears had moved them. It was one thing to get the enormous uprights into position, but what about the capstone? It wasn’t like they’d had cranes to lift it into place.
His grandmother had been right; he’d been busy thinking about the men who’d built it, but the real question was why? Why there? Why like that?
Could the land really call men to do its bidding?
He scanned the ranch around him again. Two Willows had secrets. He could feel them whispering in the soft breeze playing with Sadie’s hair as they made their way down from the porch, through the gathered guests, across her garden to the tall hedges that formed the maze.
“Shall I lead?”
Connor hesitated. He’d have liked to take his time and explore the maze on his own, finding his way into the heart of it. But on the other hand, he was here to woo Sadie.
He nodded. “This time. Next time I’ll try it on my own.”
She entered the green passage, striding quickly enough Connor knew he would struggle to retrace their steps. He’d get the chance to learn his own way through its passages later, though. He reckoned this was the first of many times he’d trace his way through the maze.
When they reached its heart, he wasn’t disappointed. There stood a tall, rectangular stone, rough-hewn and ancient looking, as if it had been here since the dawn of time. It couldn’t be that old, of course. Maybe a hundred years—a hundred fifty at most. But he felt a kinship between it and the ones he’d seen back in Ireland.
It had presence, and Connor stepped close, wanting to get a better look.
Sadie pressed a hand on the stone, as if greeting an old friend. She was silent a moment.
Listening.
Tenderness flooded Connor’s heart; she reminded him a little of women he’d known back in Ireland. Kind, warm women with an extra bit of knowing he’d always wanted to have, too. How many times had he seen his grandmother get that distant look? He wondered what the stone was telling Sadie.
A shaft of sunshine loaned it a golden hue. Connor couldn’t help himself; he placed both palms on the stone’s warm flanks. Its rough texture under his hands made him fully aware he was really here in Montana. Here at Two Willows. Getting ready to convince Sadie to marry him.
Was this madness? He glanced at the serious woman watching him soundlessly. Sadie had reacted to his arrival with little more than a cool detachment. She wasn’t interested in him. For all he knew she wasn’t interested in marriage. He could be on a fool’s errand.
But standing next to her, both of them touching the stone—acknowledging silently its power—he thought not. They were similar in this at least; they respected the landscape that defined them.
It was funny; he’d thought this mission would require him to overcome his own reluctance to settle down and share his heart with a woman. But only an hour in, Connor found himself wanting to try. Something about Sadie tugged at his heart in a way he hadn’t experienced before. Her sense of place, maybe. Her sense of mission.
Sadie knew what she wanted. Knew where she was meant to be. Connor had never felt that way since he left Ireland.
But if he was falling for her, he wouldn’t have to overcome his own inclinations to marry Sadie; he’d have to overcome hers. Sadie’s indifference to him could prove the impediment that made him fail at carrying out the task the General had given him.
Connor didn’t like failure. He wasn’t used to it. Hell, even when he’d been kicked to USSOCOM, he hadn’t failed. On the contrary, his demotion came because he’d succeeded in saving Halil and his wife.
Is love worth fighting for? he asked the stone silently—as if it could answer.
Too late, he remembered Brian claimed it could.
Connor jerked back his hands, took in Sadie’s surprised expression as she stepped back, too, and searched for an explanation he could give her.
Before he could think of anything to say, the breeze played up, tossing Sadie’s hair into her eyes. It tossed something else past him—a ripple of color that landed in the hedge behind Sadie.
“What’s that?” He leaned past Sadie, just as she turned to investigate, too. Both of them reached for it at the same time, and their fingers touched before Sadie snatched her hand away and Connor lifted a faded hair ribbon from the greenery.
It was striped red, white and blue, but instead of reminding him of the American flag, it called to Connor’s mind the stripes of the French one. His parents had met in France—in Paris. They’d fallen in love there. Married there. Then traveled to Ireland to settle with his mother’s family.
When he held the ribbon up, Sadie shook her head. “I’ve never seen it before.”
On an impulse he caught her wrist and tied the ribbon around it. “Now you won’t forget the day you met me,” he said lightly. He knew he’d never forget the day he met her. Sadie was something else. Different from the other women he’d known. He wanted to touch her again. Wanted more.
Before she could pull away, he bent down and kissed her.
As both she and Connor reached for the ribbon, just for a moment—for one split second—Sadie felt her awareness sharpen. There was the hedge, thirsty, the needled tips of its branches feeling the blight of too much sun and not enough water—an imbalance that went too far beyond the normal long, hot Montana summer days for the hedge to withstand. Sadie sucked in a breath, grateful beyond measure for the return of that knowledge before she yanked her hand away, and Connor pulled the ribbon free of the branch where it had landed.
In that instant, the awareness disappeared. The world went mute again, and Sadie stared in shock at the man beside her as he held up the ribbon for her to inspect.
“I’ve never seen it before,” she managed to say, her mind still reeling. The fingers of her free hand ran lightly over the needles of the hedge again, but she felt nothing. Heard nothing. It was as if a wall had dropped down between her and the natural world.
