Page 117 of The Woman in the Hollow
We all thought getting Giulia together with a man might have her easing up on the matchmaking. It turned out the exact opposite was true. Now she wanted absolutely everyone to find their own love stories as well.
Dante’s hand squeezed mine under the table.
And, hey, she had a pretty good track record.
Dante - 11 months
“Are the sprinklers really necessary?” Hazel grumbled, wringing the water out of her soaked hair. “They’re supposed to be for skunks, so they don’t dig up the pastures.”
“And this year, we are using them to keep the pain-in-the-ass teens from destroying the place again,” I said, shrugging.
After a lengthy investigation into not only every member of our family and the hacker who’d been in cahoots with two of ourmen, we’d eventually figured out that while the attacks on Hazelwereabout the Family, the actual destruction of property had been from some new kids in the area.
Who learned real quick who the Grassi Family was and why they shouldn’t be fucked with.
They were all still alive, of course. And unharmed. But scared shitless.
We thought of it as a bit of a community service, really. If they were willing to destroy my property, who was to say they wouldn’t have just kept on doing so to others? Putting the fear of God (and cement shoes) in them likely set them on the straight-and-narrow.
That said, it was a new year. Kids had aged up. Who knew what kind of trouble they might have in mind.
“Didn’t Domenico offer to sit here at night and watch the place?” Hazel asked.
“He offered to sit in the woods and wait for anyone to show up then chase them with an actual chainsaw,” I reminded her.
“I mean… I’m not seeing the problem.”
A laugh escaped me at that.
Hazel had gotten extremely protective and possessive of the garden center ever since Domenico fully handed the reins over to her. If his P.O. asked, he still worked there. If they showed up, he was just ‘out to lunch’ or ‘out to a meeting with the owner.’
But it was Hazel’s garden center now.
Not only had last Halloween been a smash, but the Christmas season had brought in an almost absurd amount of money.
I thought there was no way of topping it. But then she took control of the planting and ordering in the spring season. And, suddenly, I’d almost doubled sales from the previous year. Even with my ma coming in and stealing whatever she wanted.
Also, with her planting of the ’specialty pumpkins’ in shades of white and green, we were looking at making fall even better than summer sales.
Hazel, it turned out, was a brilliant businesswoman. And DG Greens was her baby. I almost felt guilty having my damn name on it.
“You worked too hard to have this ruined,” I told her.
“Yeah, but the security system and flood lights should do it.”
“But think how fun it would be to watch a bunch of kids get hosed down on the cameras if they try?”
“Okay. You have a point,” she agreed, exhaling hard. “Especially as we get closer to actual Halloween. We might want to take up Domenico on his offer for mischief night.”
“Deal,” I agreed. “You ready to go meet with Matteo?” I asked, taking her hand, my finger tracing the underside of the band of her engagement ring.
I’d asked on opening night of The Hollows. After secretly having Domenico, Ant, my mom, and Valley set up an area in the woods to look all romantic instead of spooky.
It felt fitting.
Asking the woman to give me the rest of her life after she’d already given me the best year of mine.
Luckily, we were both good at planning aesthetics. Matteo and his team over at the wedding venue wouldn’t have to deal with a wedding planner, just us.
