Harper Anderson had one boot halfway on her foot and one exhausted eye on the peonies struggling to flower along the south bend of her family’s property when her mother stormed into the kitchen from the sunroom, screaming with every step her slippered feet took across the hardwood floors.
“Family meeting! We are having a family meeting! Kitchen table! Two minutes!”
Muffled groans responded, but no one dared dispute her. Even Harper, whose alarm somehow kept getting snoozed, and whose to-do list ran longer than the Colorado River, slipped her boots back off—no muddy soles in the house—and joined the rest of the Anderson clan at the long-running dining table covered in twine, order invoices and water bills. Her mother fretted in the kitchen, practically falling over herself as she fumbled with the temperamental old coffee maker in the corner.
“What’s going on?” Harper asked, as she leaned into her older sister, Rose, who’d wisely taken the farthest seat away from their mother’s usual place at the head of the table.
“No idea,” Rose muttered over the lid of her chipped mug, steam fogging up the teal cat-eye spectacles that perfectly complemented her loose red locks.
Joining them at the farthest end of the dining room with a plop, the youngest Anderson sister—May—leaned forward on her elbows, waving her eyebrows with a salacious flair.
“I’ve got a clue.”
“What?”
“She just got off the phone with Elaine Bates.”
“That’s not a clue. That’s a fact.”
Today was Tuesday, and on Tuesdays their mother took her coffee into the sunroom and hung on to her telephone as if it were a lifeline instead of a landline. Instead of making calls like the grande dame she considered herself to be, Mrs. Annemarie Anderson, her short brown hair still in rollers, collected gossip from her friends in the comfort of her pajamas for hours, before emerging at lunchtime with a week’s worth of news to share with the family. The family, of course, usually knew the news before she did—after all, May and Rose worked the family’s shops in town and Harper and her father spent their days working with men and women from town—but they humored her anyway. The short, impossibly thin woman loved nothing more than sharing what she’d learned with her less-than-rapt daughters.
Today, though, was different. Gossip hour usually didn’t end until well into the afternoon, and it never resulted in her calling a family meeting, despite the fact that there wasn’t a human on planet Earth who called family meetings for less frivolous things. (Just last week, she’d called one to vote on whether the pictures she’d taken of a stray cat were cute enough to post on the company’s Instagram page.) But while she hummed idly to herself and helped herself to a kiss on her husband’s forehead as she made her way to her usual seat, something told Harper they weren’t in for a repeat of the same.
“Good morning, girls.” A small, nervous chorus of “Morning, Ma” from the assemblage of sisters answered her chipper greeting. She turned her gaze to her husband. “Good morning, Curtis.”
Their father, for his part, didn’t bother looking up from his copy of The Hillsboro Gazette.
“Morning, dear.”
Below the table, Harper bounced her leg up and down in a twitching rhythm as she leaned forward and held her breath for the announcement. Unfortunately, for all of her rush and fuss, her mother didn’t share her impatience. Shoulders curling up around her ears as she lifted her mug to her lips, she drank in a torturously long sip of her coffee before setting the drink down and folding her hands around the warm exterior.
“So, girls, did you sleep well?”
Harper’s leg moved so fast she was sure it looked no more than a frustrated blur to the outside observer. “Mom!”
“What?”
“Family meeting. You rushed us all down here and now—”
“Who raised this impatient child?” She had the audacity to smirk as she brought her coffee cup back up for another sip. “I know I didn’t.”
Heat tugged at the skin beneath her collar and she bit down hard on her lower lip. In a month, she’d turn twenty-six. Maybe she wasn’t financially solvent enough to move to an apartment of her own in town (but neither were May or Rose as that was one of the pitfalls of working in a family business), but that did not mean she was a child. From her place across the table, Rose offered a fleeting smile of solidarity and a you know how she can be shrug before picking up her peanut buttered toast. A flash of envy struck at Harper’s spine. If there was one virtue her sister had that she did not possess, it was patience.
But there were thousands of flowers to be tended along the south ridge and her chores weren’t going to do themselves. At worst, Rose and May would be ten minutes late to open stores no tourist wandered into until noon anyway.
“I had the most miserable night of sleep. Did I wake any of you up? I just kept tossing and turning and—”
“Ma,” Rose said, perfect patience running out even as her voice ran cool as a September creek. “May and I have to get to work. Is something wrong?”
The soothing tones of the favorite child worked their magic. Harper bit back a flare of jealousy as their mother smiled and nodded, leaning into the table to deliver her news.
“I’ve just heard from Elaine Bates, we’ve got some new folks moving into town.”
“Oh?” Rose asked, a tiny inward twitch of her eyebrow the only hint of her disappointment at this “breaking” news.
“You remember Tom Riley, of course? The Riley boy? His family owns the Barn Door Winery.”
Everyone nodded with the notable exception of May, who buried her head in the discarded financials section of her father’s paper. Harper didn’t blame her. Back when they were in high school and had their heads full of world-traveling daydreams, Tom and May had everyone guessing they would run away together, a prediction that proved foolish on the night of their high school graduation, when May returned from the after-party in tears and refused to come out of her room for days. Even now, six years later, she’d never told anyone what caused the sudden breakup. All they knew was she had been single ever since, and refused to drink red wine.
Harper’s mom continued with barely a break, “Well, he’s getting married. And you’ll never believe it, the girl’s a big-time city slicker from Los Angeles and her brother owns some company down there, some tech firm or venture capitalist thing or something. Anyway, they’re moving here until the wedding.”
“What?”
“You’ll never believe this.”
Not if Elaine Bates told it to you.
“But apparently, she came here on a girls’ weekend over Christmas, met him on a wine tasting tour, and they just fell madly in love. That love-at-first-sight you only see in the movies. That sort of sweeping love that—”
“That makes you marry someone when you’ve only known them for four months?”
December to April. Four months. Harper had a hard enough time imagining herself getting married ever, much less to someone she’d only known—long-distance, no less—for a few months. Scanning the faces of her siblings, she tried to get a read on them. Did they think this was even half as ridiculous as she did? Rose sipped her coffee with a disinterested warmth while May’s hands tightened desperately around her fork, clenching it like a weapon.
“Will you stop being so cynical? She’s been coming down here every weekend to see him. That’s real love if you ask me. Anyway, Elaine said that she told him she couldn’t bear to be apart from him for another day, so she and her brother have rented out the Elsbury Estate until the wedding.”
A million questions popped into her head, questions like: How does Elaine Bates know the details of this apparently private conversation and why are you telling us any of this, but the one question that didn’t pop into her head was the one May asked.
“And when’s that going to be?”
Unable to help herself, Harper chuckled. If these people were as rich and powerful as the gossips claimed, they weren’t going to be anywhere near the venue. “Why? It’s not like we’ll be invited.”
“You don’t know that.”
The muttered reply knocked sense back into Harper’s thick skull. Of course she was curious about the wedding. Her high school love was the groom. A moment of tense silence followed, only to be broken by Rose’s desperate optimism.
“It would be nice to do the arrangements for a big wedding.”
“Exactly.” Ma nodded knowingly, beaming around the table. “Lots of money to be made on an internet star’s wedding.”
“What is she? Insta-famous?” May asked, a painful pull in her teasing tone.
Ma snapped her fingers. “Insta-famous. That’s what Elaine was saying. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what—”
A dark misery ashened May’s cheeks. Harper swooped in to save her from any more of their mother’s fawning.
“So, we’re going to try and get a big floral contract. Great. Can we go now?”
The woman either didn’t hear her or didn’t care to. Instead, she barreled forward with breathless glee. “And the man’s handsome. And young. And single. Her older brother, I mean. Apparently, he went to Religious last night and dropped almost a thousand dollars on dinner, and that was before a tip.”
The conflation of looks and wealth broke whatever control she had over her snark.
“I’m sure his wallet makes him look very handsome.” Pushing away from the table, Harper moved towards the doorway and her sturdy work boots. Today, she’d be grateful for the simple pleasure of the outdoors. Out there, she didn’t have to listen to mothers extolling the virtues of rich men. Out in the fields upon fields of flowers, nothing disturbed her but the conversations between the winds and the birds. Desperation pulled her towards the freedom. “Now, I’ve got chores to do—”
“I just worry about you girls.” An exasperated sigh forced its way up her throat, but she pushed it back. Ma often went into these moods, these half-joking but more than half-serious lectures about her poor daughters and their distinct lack of lives outside of their work. Usually, it happened when one of them wore too-loose jeans into town or refused her pleas for them to join dating apps. Today, it was over a very real man none of them had even met. “Cooped up in this house all the time. You never go out. You never see anyone.” By anyone, she meant any one man, but Harper decided not to interrupt the sermon. She usually ran out of steam faster when she was allowed to wear herself out. “I just worry. I want you girls to be happy.”
“We are happy, Ma.” Reaching for the coverall she’d draped over her chair, she tossed her mother a reassuring glance. Just because the woman tugged at her nerves didn’t mean she wanted her to suffer. “Don’t worry. If I see the rich man, I’ll go right up to him and ask if he and his wallet will take me out on a date.”
“Harper Anderson! I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”
She turned to her husband, still hidden behind the newspaper, and pressed him to help her, but Harper tuned the conversation out, turning instead to her sisters with a glance at the ever-quickening hands of her wristwatch. If there was ever a time their mother was going to let them escape, it was now.
“Rose, May, are you going to open the stores today?”
“Yeah. We’d better get going. Love you guys!” Rose practically bolted for the old wooden farmhouse door with May quick at her heels as they slipped into their shoes, collected keys and raincoats, and struggled to make it out of the door fast enough. “See you at supper!”
None of them waited for a reply to their farewells before shutting the house door behind them and walking away from the cozy warmth of home and down the steep driveway towards the ancient Jeep waiting patiently for them like an old, reliable hunting dog. It was spring in Northern California, but no one had told the weather yet. Though the sun blazed in a clear, blue sky over the rolling fields of blooming flowers that was the Anderson family’s way of life, the wind occasionally sliced through them with the sharp edge of a wicked cold snap. Not that Harper cared. There may have been heat in the house, but her mother and her mother’s opinion about her daughters’ lack of romantic interests were also in the house. She’d take the company of the flowers and a cold wind over that any day.
“Harper.”
Rose’s voice, now stern and maternal out of the presence of Ma, cut through Harper like a pair of freshly sharpened shearing scissors.
“What?”
“It’s okay to let her have a little bit of fun. You know she gets excited. It wouldn’t kill you to humor her a bit.”
“She shouldn’t get excited over some rich jerks who’re going to throw their money around town and look down on us poor country cousins.”
The deepest part of her knew her sister was right, as she usually was. The oh-so perfect Rose knew and saw their mother’s excitement as harmless fun, a release for a woman who spent her days counting flowers and keeping perfect accounting logs. Where Harper saw a woman’s desperation to control her daughters’ lives, Rose saw a woman who truly wanted to see her precious children loved by good, honest, and true men. She wanted them to be happy.
The problem was Harper also wanted to be happy. She also wanted to be loved. But small-town living meant she knew every eligible person from the time they were children. Now, at almost twenty-six, she hadn’t fallen in love with any of them. With every passing day, love became a more and more remote possibility, a hope she couldn’t afford to pin her heart on. She hadn’t sworn off of love or anything, but she’d long ago become pretty comfortable with the prospect that she would be a happy old maid, surrounded by a sea of flowers and friends, growing into her gray hair and comfortable walking shoes with dignity. She wouldn’t let her mother tempt her into silly daydreams and delusions of grandeur when she could have a practical, joyful life on her own.
“You don’t even know these people,” Rose tutted.
“No, but I know their type.”
“The type who could save the farm with internet fame and a big fat check for some flowers.”
“Yeah, but they’re also the same rich jerks who overran the town square with so many of their high-end shabby-chic condos and San Francisco high-concept restaurants that we can barely afford our storefronts there.”
As they arrived at the Jeep, a ringing silence followed and Harper knew her blow struck true. In the last few years, tourists from across California and the Pacific Northwest had turned their once sleepy wine-and-flower town into a weekend escape for big-city dwellers desperate for a piece of the country. The new business meant they could raise the prices on the flowers they grew on the farm and the bouquets Rose created at her store and the perfumes, soaps, and candy May crafted at hers. But it also meant they had to raise prices. If they didn’t, they’d be bankrupt tomorrow.
Ever the peacemaker, Rose shrugged into the silence and did her best to diffuse the tension tightening the air.
“I’m just saying we don’t know them. And we should reserve judgment until we do. We’re all pretty good judges of character.”
May kicked a pebble. “Not me, apparently.”
“Oh… I didn’t even think…” You idiot, Harper. How on earth did you not ask her how she’s doing? The obvious answer was that Ma drove her to the edges of her patience and clouded her best judgment, but the true answer was that perhaps she didn’t want to know. Her youngest sister was a tightly-kept secret of a woman. To see her heartbreak at learning her once-love was getting married was too much. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Whatever.” Slinging the Jeep’s door back, May helped herself to the passenger seat, plucking the keys from behind the rear-view mirror to turn the radio on. “We need to get going.”
The two elder sisters shared an uneasy look, but when neither of them could figure out what to say, they silently and mutually agreed to wait until May opened up to them. Prying at her wouldn’t do them any favors.
“See you both. Have a good day at work,” she said, patting Rose on the shoulder. A slender smile stretched across her face as she slipped into the driver’s seat and waved goodbye.
“See you. And don’t scare off any magnates while we’re gone!”
With that, the Jeep peeled off in a cloud of dust, leaving Harper alone. Alone with her flowers and her wide-open sky. Just the way she liked it.
Luke Martin loved his sister. He adored her. He relished her friendship. He relied on her counsel. He appreciated her insights. But there was something about his beloved sister that bothered him. Well, two things.
One, he didn’t care for her taste in men. And two—
“Stop here. Stop the car right now!”
He found her impulsive. And this entire exercise with their sudden upheaval to this provincial wine town only proved it more and more with each passing day. When Annie first told him about her intentions to run away with this Tom Riley character, he’d scoffed and asked her if April Fool’s had come early this year. But when he caught her with a suitcase and their mother’s wedding veil waiting at a Los Angeles bus stop one random night in March—a stunt for attention, of course, considering she had her own car—he decided intervention was necessary.
He was sure acceptance would suffocate the flame of love between her and this winemaker. Sure, let’s decamp to a town in the middle of nowhere, where we, the two heads of a data compression company, barely have internet or phone access. Sure, you can marry the man. In fact, let’s go live close to him and see how much you really like each other when you’re not sneaking around all the time. Sure, if you want a wedding so badly, why don’t you let me help you plan the wedding? He thought sunlight would be the disinfectant that killed this silly love affair.
That theory had not proven itself out. And in the wake of the fallout, he resigned himself to her happiness. If she thought this quiet, smiley winemaker would make her happy, he’d have to suck it up and help make this the most beautiful wedding wine country ever saw.
That didn’t mean he had to like it though. Or the whiplash the sudden demand to stop the car as they were driving back from lunch caused.
“What? What’s wrong?” he asked, checking her for injuries or the lost look of a woman who realized she was making a mistake by marrying a veritable stranger. He found neither. Instead, he found a pair of wide, awed blue eyes gazing up at something he couldn’t quite see through the slanted front of his slick black Italian car.
“We have to go up there.”
“Go up where?”
A small hand slapped his shoulder, dragging him down until he looked up under the lip of the windshield in the same direction as she was. And he had to admit… the slack-jawed expression on his sister’s face—the one that looked as if she’d caught sight of a passing angel—was completely warranted. Because there, just beyond a crooked fence of wires and single wooden posts, was a sea—no, an ocean… no, a sky of flowers, streaming up the side of a hill straight up into the heavens. Like the painting of an old master of Impressionism, the rich petals and stems of the flowers mixed and swirled together until their texture—so far away from him—felt so real and tangible that just the slightest outreach of his hand would let him touch the softness of their petals. And the colors. They wer. . .
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