Page 6 of A Field of Beauty

Hmm. He had her there. Tessa hadn’t thought about how to get it from place to place. She should’ve, and probably would’ve, but the guy she’d bought it from had volunteered to deliver it to the farm, and she had happily accepted. She scratched her head. “I haven’t ironed out all the details yet.”

This was a common complaint of Dawson’s. Tessa had big ideas, but he was the one who had to figure out how to make them happen.

“How’d you get it here?”

“I, uh, well, you see...”

He lifted a hand. “Don’t tell me. Another rescue.”

“What?”

“Some hapless, eager guy offered to bring it to the farm. Once it was parked here, then you shattered his hopes.”

Tessa frowned. She didn’tmeanto take advantage of the guy. But she had to admit that after he delivered the trailer, he asked Tessa out on a date and seemed miffed when she declined. Dawson had noticed similar scenarios a couple of other times, like when Tessa had first rented the rototiller and the clerk shared his employee discount with her. When Dawson rented it, he had to pay full price.

So maybe there had been a pattern in Tessa’s life: getting rescued at just the right moment. And, she had to admit, usually by an eager guy.

Her cell phone went off and she reached into her pocket to see caller ID. She was expecting a call from her mom—living seven hours away in Saudi Arabia meant they had to schedule calls. But it was Tyler checking in, something he did each morning around this time while driving to his campaign headquarters. She looked up to catch Dawson rolling his eyes.

“Maybe 3T’s can loan you his golf cart to schlep it around.” He lifted a hand in a dismissive wave. “I gotta get to work.”

She answered the call, half listening as Tyler told her about his day. He was a talker. He might be a little self-absorbed, maybe a lot, but he was a glass-half-full kind of guy. Nothing was impossible. Nothing was out of reach.

She glanced over at Dawson as he dropped rolls of plastic mulch at the end of the field.

No, Tessa didn’t have a pickup truck ... but Dawson did.

One week later, the field was covered with plastic mulch as small clover plants peeked through cut holes. Tessa’s hands had blistersfrom making all those repetitive cuts with the shears. Farming was such hard work.

On Monday morning, Dawson arrived at Tessa’s screen door with tubers held in his outstretched palms. “Look at these beauties,” he said. “Incredibly valuable.”

She looked down at the small, ugly, swollen roots. “Dahlias?”

“Not just any dahlias. These are one of the oldest and rarest varieties of dahlias—the Yellow Gem of 1914.”

“Where’d you get your hands on them?”

He wiggled his dark eyebrows. “The soil world is full of sources.”

“So what’s your plan for them?”

“These are going to be the debut flower of Mountain Blooms Farm.”

She stared at him. “Five? Our debut flower consists of five little dahlias?”

“Five dahliatubers. Over the next few months, we are going to turn these five tubers into hundreds of dahlias.”

She stared at him. Was he kidding? No. He was entirely serious. “Dawson, how in the world—?”

“Ever heard of the parable of the mustard seed?”

“You mean ... from the Bible?” She vaguely remembered something from Sunday school about Jesus and a mustard seed and faith.

“Watch and see what will happen with these tubers.” He looked past her into her house. “First, I need a dedicated growing area that’s completely sheltered.”

“Let’s buy a greenhouse!” She’d been wanting to buy one from the start.

He frowned. “Unless you’re a trust-fund baby like 3T’s, we’re not buying anything like that until the farm turns a profit.” Dawson was extremely frugal with costs—he found a way to fix, barter, or borrow almost everything they needed.

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