Page 15 of The Brit and the Bridesmaid
Barney dropped onto his stool, looking frustrated and tired. “Am I going to lose the whole garden?”
Abby immediately and emphatically shook her head. “We got this, Barney. We totally got this.”
“You can save the plants?”
“I won’t give up on them if you don’t,” Abby promised.
A look of relief crossed Barney’s face. That garden really did mean everything to him. The plants were almost like family. Somehow, after only knowing him for a few moments, Abby had figured that out. She smiled at the old man. If Matt hadn’t been half gone on her already, that single moment would have done it.
“I have something at home that will help a lot with the mites.” Abby stood, wiping soil and bits of crumpled leaves from her hands. “Let me run back to my place and shower—I’ve spent the afternoon showing a bunch of boys how to play soccer—and I’ll be back in, say, an hour. Does that work?”
Barney took one of her hands in both of his. “This is very kind of you, Abby.”
“I have loved plants since I was six years old,” she said. “I would never let a garden as beautiful as this one get eaten by mites. Not ever.”
“Will you let me treat you to dinner when you get back? You and Matt both?”
She glanced Matt’s direction. He could see the question in her eyes, so he nodded. Turning Barney down would hurt his feelings.
“That is a deal,” Abby said.
Matt walked her to the door. “I’ll see you in an hour, then, I guess.”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
He watched her disappear down the corridor. Barney came and stood next to him.
“Did you know that I met my wife at a nursery?” Barney said. “She loved to garden. Loved it. I’d never grown a plant in all my life.”
“Then why were you at a nursery?”
“I was buying a potted plant for my mother for Mother’s Day.” Barney’s expression grew wistful.
“Francis convinced me to buy a fuchsia instead of an iris. And over the next forty years, she taught me everything she knew about plants.”
Matt set a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I wish I could have known your wife. She sounds remarkable.”
“She was.” Barney looked up at him, an earnestness in his expression. “When a man meets a remarkable woman, he doesn’t let her slip away.”
Matt knew what Barney was getting at. “Abby’s pretty great, isn’t she?”
Barney nodded. “Hold on to that one.”
“I’ll do my best.” But would his best be enough?
Chapter Seven
Over the next weeks, Abby saw Matt— she discovered he preferred to be called Matt instead of Matthew—more often than she saw her own sister. An evening here or there, plus Saturdays, belonged to wedding preparations, but the rest of her evenings and Sundays were spent with Barney and Matt. She didn’t think she was necessarily a lonely person, but having those two to spend her time with filled a hole in her life she hadn’t realized was there.
She learned all about Barney’s late wife, how they’d met and fallen in love over plants. He taught her a few things about caring for fuchsia, his wife’s favorite flower. Fuchsias hung in baskets all along his roofline.
They saved the tomatoes from mites, trimmed back some overgrown rosemary, and, using Abby’s own formula rose food, had his Sunflare roses blooming to perfection. And while she enjoyed every minute of that, and came to adore Barney like a wonderful mixture of grandfather and friend, Matt somehowmanaged to be an even better part of those evenings and Sundays together.
She found out he talked with his mom a couple of times a week, not in a mamma’s boy kind of way, but simply because they liked each other and got along. More impressive even than that, he wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed of being close to his family. Abby liked that. A lot.
Matt wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and help with the gardening. Though he didn’t have Barney’s experience or Abby’s expertise, he knew his way around soil and plants and gardening tools, and he was a quick learner. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so at home with two people. Even her own family grew quickly tired of her obsession with flora.
For dinner the Sunday night exactly one month since Abby had begun frequenting Matt and Barney’s apartment building, she and Matt introduced Barney to Indian food. Much to the dear man’s surprise, he liked it. After a leisurely, casual meal, Barney made his way back to his own apartment, tired from a day of gardening.
