Page 2 of Coming Up Roses
“This place is gorgeous,” I say. “It’s all a bit overwhelming but hopefully I’ll figure it all out soon.”
“You will,” he says, absolute certainty in his tone. He opens his mouth to continue talking, but nothing comes out. He rubshis hand across the back of his neck. I wait. “Do you want to see Sadie this afternoon?”
I blink at him. My heart stutters and a hot flush races through my body. Anxiety. I haul in a deep breath, counting slowly as I release it.
Before I have a chance to reply, Dallas speaks again. “I know you’ve had a big day already, so I understand if you want to leave it for another time, but I don’t want Sadie to feel like we’re keeping you a secret over here.”
“I thought you wanted to be certain I wasn’t going to flake on you again.”
He steps into the room and drops into a chair across the desk from me. “You’ve taken the job and Olivia mentioned you’ve rented a house in town.”
I nod. It’s an adorable little house and while I don’t have a lot of stuff in it at the moment, I’m looking forward to furnishing it properly and hopefully, the second bedroom will become Sadie’s when she stays with me. The thought makes my heart race again so I decide not to think about that just now.
“You’re nervous, huh?” Dallas says, voice soft.
“Utterly terrified,” I say.
A smile tugs at his lips at my brash confession. “You’ll be fine. I’ve been bringing you up a little bit with her. She knows we’ve been in touch. I’ll talk to her when she gets home from school and check she’s in a good space to see you. If she isn’t, don’t take it personally. Some days when she gets home she can barely keep her eyes open.”
“I don’t want to cause her any stress,” I say. “Any more stress, I mean.” I lift my hand towards my mouth, the urge tobite my nails strong. But I catch sight of the shimmery gold polish on them and refrain. I paid for this manicure, I’m not ruining it on its second day.
“Abi,” Dallas says and I drag my eyes back up to meet his. “I know this is easier said than done, but you’ve got to let the past go. It happened, none of it was your fault, and you’re back now. That’s what matters.”
Heat prickles behind my eyes. Dallas has never held my failings against me, even when he should have, even when I abandoned him with a two-year-old. When I first realised he didn’t hate me and wasn’t going to keep Sadie away from me, I cried for an hour—full on, body wracking, eyes nearly falling out of my head, bawling.
“I’m trying,” I whisper.
“I know. I need to keep moving, but I’ll call you after Sadie gets home and let you know where things are at.”
“Sounds good,” I say, smiling through my nerves.
As Dallas descends the stairs, I pick up the document I’ve been trying to read. It’s not any easier after taking a break, in fact, now that I’m thinking about possibly seeing Sadie this afternoon, it’s a whole lot harder to concentrate.
2
FLYNN
I turnoff my motorbike and prop it on the stand, then swing my leg over and stare up at the sign hanging above the Wildflower Ridge Function Centre door.
I’m here to introduce myself to the new manager, but I can’t seem to make my feet move.
I might be nervous.
Scratch that, I’m super nervous.
I can’t even understand why.
I’ve only seen Abigail once and all I can remember from that encounter is that she’s gorgeous.
But surely that’s not enough to make menervous. I see good-looking women all the time. My two best friends are objectively hot women, and they don’t make me nervous. The thought of being into either Olivia or Katie is … well,ew.
It’s not like I’m into Abigail either. She’s so far out of my leagueandso completely off-limits it’s laughable.
It’s that realisation that finally gets my feetmoving.
I kick my boots off at the door because there’s still mud clinging to them from the farm and I know from experience Olivia will lose her shit if I track it through the building.
Abigail may not have my hide over it yet, but I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot. Or speed up the process of her realising I’m an irresponsible pain-in-the-ass.
