Page 52 of A Rancher's Love
Outside, to the west and south, lay the rest of the expanse of gardens. They were covered now with a blanket of white, but as she peered through the one clear glass window at the far end of the greenhouse, it looked as if everything waited.
Waited for her to make a decision about what to do next.
Too bad she didn’t know what the answer was yet.
Was it right to change course and veer away from the path she’d walked for years? She might not have spent the past three growing seasons at Silver Stone, but she’d spent them at operations that were very similar. Farms, and vineyards, and in one case, a community that had banded together to make a garden for everyone. Work at all of them had followed the seasons, and Ginny would have to here as well. Which meant deciding soon—this wasn’t something she could sit on for weeks or months.
Which was why she needed inspiration.
For the next hour, she wandered from one end of the greenhouse to the other. She dug her fingers into pots of dirt, sniffed buckets, poked under the sinks, and basically got herself dirty. This, even more than the house where Caleb and Tamara lived, had become her home after her mom and dad died.
The greenhouse had been Ginny’s domain. She’d liked having something to be in charge of.
Oh.
She stopped dead in her tracks, sitting in the middle of the path and tracing her fingers over the rough pressed concrete under her butt.
“I feel as if I’m not in charge of my life anymore.” She said it out loud, quietly, but in the stillness, it was a profound statement. It also wasn’t true, because she absolutely got to decide.
But what?
Do the next thing, sweetie.
Ginny sighed even as she answered back to the voice in her head.Great advice, Mom, but there’s no current to-do list anymore.
And until she made one, there was no use in starting anything.
She scrambled to her feet, brushed off her hands, and headed back to her truck. Right now she needed something more to listen to than dirt. She needed her friends.
Half an hour and one text message later, Ginny pushed through the door at Buns and Roses.
“Incoming.”
It was the only warning Ginny got before being wrapped up in a huge hug and squeezed tight. Tansy Fields gave her one more fierce squeeze before pulling back far enough to grasp Ginny by the head and give her an exaggerated set of kisses on her cheeks, one side, then the other, then the other.
“Stop manhandling her,” Tansy’s sister Rose demanded before taking over and hugging Ginny just as tightly. “About time you got here.”
Ginny went warm to the base of her toes. “Didn’t know for sure if I should stop at your place of work. I don’t want to interrupt.”
Tansy tugged her to the side of the room where they obviously had a table. “Sunday is our day off. Well, after I finish the morning baking.”
“Not Monday anymore?” Ginny should’ve figured that out during her visits over the last six months, but most of those brief excursions had been straight to the ranch to take advantage of every minute she could spend with her nieces and nephew.
“SundayandMonday,” Rose said happily before gesturing toward the counter. Their youngest sister Fern waved back, her shiny prosthetic made up today like an android arm. “Fern is helping during the holidays, but we’ve got a couple of other people hired on so that we can take more time off.”
“Good for you,” Ginny said, impressed and happy for them.
Tansy sat, keeping an arm wrapped around Ginny’s shoulders. “Did you get all the travelling out of your system?”
“And then some,” Ginny admitted quietly. She leaned her head against Tansy and glanced at Rose. Took in these two friends who had been in her life for as long as she could remember. “I want to get caught up. I want to know about all the changes, especially the good things, like that you’re doing well enough you can hire extra staff. But I also just want to spend time with you.”
“Same,” Tansy agreed. She slipped away far enough to lean her elbows on the table and meet Ginny’s gaze straight on. “Everyone feels like that, so gird your loins. We’re having a girls’ night out this week, and you are the main event.”
Ginny didn’t need to be the center of attention. “I just want to see everybody.”
Fern brought over a tray with drinks and brownies and pieces of pie that were big enough to make even Tucker blink. “Hi, Ginny. Nice to have you back. Your brothers were so excited. Dustin must’ve told me ten times that you’d be home in a few days.”
Interesting. Ginny kept her expression neutral. Was her little brother making a move on Fern? “Did he now?”
