He was so annoying.
She glared at her little brother. “I’m pretty sure you have enough strength to get out the two syllables that make up my name. This is your final warning, or I will convince everyone to go back to calling you Dusty.”
His cocky grin grew bigger than it should have. “Fine. I was only teasing. Real news of the day, Tamara and Caleb gave me a heads up about you moving into the cottage. I wanted to let you know, there’s no problem.”
“Thanks.” Ginny was actually a little surprised he was that willing to give it up so easily. Maybe Tamara’s premonition about Dustin not hanging around for too much longer was true, which in that case, Ginny wanted to know now so she could make sure her little brother planned some smart moves. “You have plans?”
He snickered. “I swear you sounded just like mom right then.”
A wave of sadness rolled in and over her, gone in a flash. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“There’s a lot I don’t remember, but I do have these scenes in my head. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve half made them up, based on pictures I found in photo albums or stories people told me.” Dustin gave her a wry smile. “I think she used to get people to admit stuff without ever actually coming out and asking directly.”
“That was her.” Ginny laughed softly. “Mom would ask a direct question that was a hundred and eighty degrees from what you would actually end up confessing to. It was like magic,” she shared.
Dustin nodded, thoughtful now, and Ginny was reminded all over again how young he’d been when their Mom and Dad had died. How few memories he really had of time with them.
“Anyway, to answer the question you asked and the one that you didn’t,” Dustin teased, “I’m not a hundred percent sure I want to try my hand at rodeo. Not with all the possibilities around here. But in the meantime, Shim is sticking around for at least a couple of months. He is dying to live in crew quarters, so Ashton found us space in the bunkhouse.”
“He’s…” Ginny wasn’t quite sure how to say this without it coming out sounding offensive. “He’s not from around here, is he?”
Her kid brother wiped at his mouth, covering a laugh. “No. Very urban upbringing, very straightlaced, intellectual and non-outdoorsy parents. But he’s a good guy, so I figured, why the hell not? I’ve lived in crew quarters before.”
“Plus, you don’t mind eating at the mess hall, do you?” Ginny said dryly.
“We’ve got one of the best cooks in the county.” Dusty checked his watch. “I need to get going or Ashton will have my ass. Everything’s cleared out of the cottage, so you can move in any time you want.”
That was unexpected. “Already?”
Dustin shrugged, walking backwards. “Didn’t have much stuff in the first place.”
He strode away, suddenly looking so grown up that Ginny could’ve mistaken him for one of her older brothers. She called after him, “Hey, Dustin. I’ll have you guys over for supper sometime, okay?”
He offered a thumbs-up but kept walking.
She knew the feeling. Being late for a meeting with Ashton was not something that a person did on a regular basis…
The sudden realization hit her. Holy cow. That’s who Tucker would be. The man who, when he said jump, men would stop in the middle of their conversation and hurry back to work.
Yeah, being careful starting a public relationship between her and Tucker was pretty damn important. That said, she really didn’t want to give him up. Not even temporarily.
Time to give herself something else to think about rather than brooding. Ginny made her way past the main ranch house to the long, low greenhouse that had been her domain before she’d left.
It was well below freezing outdoors, so stepping inside was like instantly changing seasons. The heaters were still on winter settings, barely enough to keep pipes and materials from freezing. Warm enough that when Ginny took a deep breath in through her nostrils, the rich scent of soil and growing things temporarily at rest filled her senses.
The roof overhead and the walls were all made of a semi-clear polycarbonate material. It let in the light but was nowhere near as see-through as a regular glass, helping stop plants from burning in direct sun. It also retained heat better than clear glass, turning the inside of the building into a secret hideout that glowed with warmth and light.
At this end of the greenhouse there were a number of raised beds covered with boards for now. The grow lights above them were turned off, but everything was prepared for the next go-round of planting seeds and getting a head start on spring.
She walked slowly between the rows, past where the raised beds stopped and into the area with well-fertilized and screened soil where she could plant directly into the ground.
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.”