In any case, she loved this room. All the books, all those stories, all those words. Gardens outside the windows, big cozy chairs inside.

When she’d first come to Harper House she’d sometimes tiptoe down at night, just to sit in this room—her favorite of all of them—and marvel.

And she liked the way Mitch approached the whole Amelia project. With his work boards, his computer, his files and notes, he made it all rational, doable, grounded.

She studied the board now, with its long lists and columns that comprised Harper’s family tree.

“Do you think, after all this is over, you could do a family tree for me?”

“Hmm?”

“Sorry.” She glanced back at him, waved a hand. “Mind’s wandering.”

“It’s okay, you’ve got a lot on it.” He put down his notebook, focused his attention on her. “Sure I can do that. You give me the basics you know—father’s full name, date and place of birth, your mother’s, and we’re off and running.”

“I’d really like that. It’d be interesting. Harper and I cross a couple generations back, sort of over to the side. Is he awful mad at me?”

“No, honey. Why would he be?”

“He was upset. He wanted to scoop me and Lily right up and haul us to Stella’s. I wouldn’t go. I can’t.”

Mitch doodled on a pad. “If I could’ve gotten Roz out of this house a few months ago, I’d have done it—even if it had taken dy***ite.”

“Did you fight about it?”

“Not really.” Amusement danced in his eyes. “But then I’m older, wiser, and more in tune with the limitations a man faces when dealing with a stubborn woman.”

“Am I wrong?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

“It is if I’m asking you.”

“Rock and hard place, kid. That’s where you’ve shoved me.” He pushed back, took off his glasses. “I understand exactly how Harper feels and why, and he’s not wrong. I respect how you feel and why, and you’re not wrong either. How’s that?”

She managed a wry smile. “Smart—and no help at all.”

“Just another benefit of that older and wiser phase of life. But I’m going to add one thing as a potentially over-protective male. I don’t think you should spend a lot of time alone.”

“Good thing I like people.” When his cell phone rang, she rose. “I’ll go on, let you get that.”

Because she’d seen Harper outside, she went out the side door. She hoped Stella wouldn’t mind a little more time on Lily patrol. She wandered the path toward where he worked in the cutting garden.

Summer still had her world in its sweaty clutches, but the heat was strong and vital. Real. She’d take all the reality she could get. Mammoth blue balls of hydrangeas weighed down the bushes, daylilies speared up with their elegant cheer, and passionflowers twined their arbor in bursts of purple.

The air was thick with fragrance and birdsong, and through it rode the frantic wings of butterflies.

Around the curve Harper stood, legs spread, body slightly bent as his quick, skilled fingers twisted off deadheads, then dropped them in a bag knotted to his belt. At his feet was a small, shallow basket where daisies and snapdragons, larkspur and cosmos already lay.

It was, somehow, so sweepingly romantic—the man, the evening, the sea of flowers—that her heart floated up to her throat and ached there.

A hummingbird, a sapphire and emerald whir, arrowed past him to hover over the feathery cup of a deep red blossom of monarda and drink.

She saw him pause to watch it, going still with his hand on a stem and his other holding a seed head. And she wished she could paint. All those vivid colors of late summer, bold and strong, and the man so still, so patient, stopping his work to share his flowers with a bird.

Love saturated her.

The bird flew off, a small, electric jewel. He watched it, as she watched him.

“Harper.”

“The hummingbirds like the bee balm,” he said, then took his sheers and clipped a monarda. “But there’s enough for all of us. It’s a good spreader.”

“Harper,” she said again and walked up to slide her arms around him, press her cheek to his back. “I know you’re worried, and I won’t ask you not to be. But please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not. I came out here to cool off. It usually works. I’m down to irritated and worried.”

“I was set to come out here, argue with you.” She rubbed her cheek over his shirt. She could smell soap and sweat, both healthy and male. “Then I saw you, and I just don’t want to argue. I just don’t want to fight. I can’t do what you want when everything inside me pulls the other way. Even if it’s wrong, I can’t.”

“I don’t have any choice about that.” He clipped more flowers for the basket, deadheaded others. “And you don’t have any say about this. I’m moving in. I’d rather you and Lily shift over to my place, but it makes more sense for me to move into your room for now since there are two of you and one of me. When this is over, we’ll reevaluate.”

“Reevaluate.”

“That’s right.” He’d yet to look at her, really look, and now moved off a few paces to cut more blooms. “It’s a little hard to figure out where we’re going, what we’re doing under the circumstances.”

“So you figure we’ll live together, under the circumstances, and when those circumstances change, we’ll take another look at the picture.”

“That’s right.”

Maybe she did feel like arguing. “Ever heard of asking?”

“Heard of it. Not doing it. At the nursery, you work with Stella, Mama, or me, at all times.”

“Who suddenly made you the boss of me?”

With steady hands, unerring eye, he just kept working. “One of us will drive back and forth with you.”

“One of you coming with me every time I have to pee?”

“If necessary. You’ve got your mind set on staying, those are the terms.”

The hummingbird whizzed back, but this time she wasn’t caught by its charm. “Terms? Somebody die and make you king? Listen, Harper—”

“No. This is how it’s going to be. You’re determined to stay, see this through. I’m just as determined you’ll be looked after. I love you, so that’s the end of it.”