Page 27 of Out on a Limb
Forever.
That left me staring down the very real possibility that I might have to go home. Spend the rest of my life growing one single plant.
Every year.
Until I died.
I took one final glance at the main building before following Julia toward the back end of the property. “How do you think we can stop them?”
She lifted one shoulder. “I don’t have any specific ideas.”
“None?”
“Nope.” The word came quickly.
A little too quick. “Really?” I watched her face, trying to read it. “Not a single idea?”
Julia slowly shook her head, eyes wide, brows lifted. “Nope.”
Not no.Nope.
All signs indicated that was a lie.
But I wasn’t going to call her out on it because that lie sparked a bit of hope inside me.
Hope that maybe the garden wouldn’t close. That I wouldn’t end up basing my decisions on what to grow on the pricing forecasts for field corn versus soybeans.
When we walked into the building I racked up our tools as Julia dumped the clippings we’d collected during our afternoon clean-up across the large planting table that took up the center of the room. She started picking through them, separating the stems and leaves into two piles.
“Anything good?” I decided to be optimistic and grabbed a stack of small pots. I was almost to the table with them when her phone started to ring. She pulled it out and connected the call.
“Hello.” Her eyes rolled to the ceiling. “Girls’ night hasn’t started yet. Calm your tits.” She hung up but her phone immediately started to ring again. She answered for a second time, but in a completely different way. “Hey, handsome.” Her brows came together and she spun toward the clock. “Oh shit. I didn’t realize how late it was.”
“I got this.” I tipped my head toward the door. “You go.”
She gave me a little smile before blowing me a kiss, phone still pressed to her ear. “I’m leaving now. Andrew’s going to stay and finish up for me.” Her blue eyes came my way, hanging for just a second. “Grant says he owes you one.” She grabbed her purse and work bag before giving me a wave and bumping her way out the door to go enjoy dinner and a girls’ night, while I stayed behind to deal with what remained of our workday.
Which meant we would both be having fun.
Because this was one of my favorite things in the world to do. I loved creating life from something that most people would throw away. Loved giving a broken piece of plant the chance to grow and thrive.
All it took was a little effort.
I sorted out anything that had the potential to root, adding each stem to a small cup of water to rehydrate while I worked my way through the pile. I ended up with ten possible babies, which was fantastic since we lost at least that many to the digging claws of the chickens.
I had to give the assholes behind us credit. It was a great idea. Chickens were surprisingly destructive and could tear through a flower bed in fifteen minutes, obliterating everything in their way as they hunted for anything crawling through the dirt.
I added potting soil to ten small planters and opened the lid of the white powder that would help stimulate the trimmed stems, encouraging them to put down roots and stay a while.
It’s what I wanted to do.
Literally and figuratively.
I’d done the literal part. I came to Florida intending to stay, thinking I had my own forever job. I bought a house. Made it exactly what I wanted it to be.
And now I might have to leave it all.
“You guys need to grow like hell.” I worked each powder-dipped stem into the dirt. “We’ve gotta make this work and you need to do your part.” I added a little water around the edge of each pot before taking them to the greenhouse attached to the back end of the building. This time of year all the vents were open, and it served more as a protective area for smaller plants while they established themselves.
