“So avoid making any mistakes in the first place.” Trent sighed. “I never knew that. I should have put that together years ago.”
A small diner came into view. Trent flipped on his directional, pulled off the highway and into the parking lot. The building was shaped like an airport hangar and had a giant propeller over the entrance of The Destination Diner. He parked and shut off the engine. “I’m sorry, Kate. I should have asked, or should have made you feel more comfortable about hiking and canoeing.”
“It’s not all your fault. I never shared, either. I wasn’t as confident then as I am now, and I was much more risk-averse. Like you said before, we were young, and I guess we didn’t really know what we wanted.”
He wanted to ask if now she knew what she wanted, but he was afraid of the answer. What if it was “any man other than you?” After all, he had let her down, and then broken up with her. Far better to keep the distance between them before he did something foolish like fall for Kate all over again. “So, the sign on the door says they have the best burgers in the state of Washington. Want to test that theory?”
She grinned. “Of course.”
They headed inside and grabbed two seats in a bright red booth. Every laminate table was printed with a different topographical map. Everything, from the salt shakers to the clock on the wall, was airplane-themed or airplane-shaped. Even the waitresses wore old-fashioned flight attendant uniforms with pointy hats.
They ordered burgers, fries, and sodas. While they waited, the conversation turned to simpler things—the décor of the restaurant, the weather, the lack of traffic on a weekday. They left past history behind them, which was exactly where Trent wanted it to stay.
After lunch, they only had another hour on the road before they reached his hometown. The sign for Hudson Falls sat slightly askew, a sign of the visit to come, Trent thought. The small town had barely changed in the two decades since he’d been gone. The same gas station sat on the corner, and the same diner was advertising an all-you-can-eat fish special for Friday nights.
“This is such a cute place,” Kate said.
“You think so? I think it’s stifling.” He took a right, and before he could change his mind about this spontaneous idea of visiting his family, they were there. His parents saw the car pull into the parking lot for the nursery, and both of them came out of the greenhouse and started waving.
Great.
Kate got out the second he parked. “Mr. MacMillan! Mrs. MacMillan! So great to see you both again!”
His mother drew Kate into a car like she was a long-lost relative. “Oh, Kate! You’ve gotten more beautiful over the years. It feels like it’s been forever since we saw you. Come in, come in. I put on some coffee and made an apple cobbler.”
Kate grinned. “I was counting on that.”
His father stood to the side, as if he was lost without his wife there to serve as a buffer. “Well. You’re home. It’s taken long enough.”
“I’ve been busy, Dad. The company—”
“Family always comes before business, Trent. Always.” Then his father turned on his heel and headed into the house.
Trent could hear Kate and his mother laughing and chatting like old friends. Before he’d driven up here, he’d texted his mother and told her he was bringing Kate, as a FRIEND ONLY, in all caps. Given the way his mother had already drawn Kate into the family fold, it didn’t seem like she’d gotten the message.
“Come on in, Trent. Have some coffee and cobbler.” His mother pressed a kiss to his cheek, as if he was still a little boy, then grabbed his hand and hauled him into the sunny yellow space. Kate was already at the table, snapping green beans and tossing them into a colander. She’d plopped into the middle of his family as if she’d always been there.
“What are you doing?” Trent whispered.
“Helping with dinner.” Kate grinned. “So, Mrs. MacMillan, how is the nursery going? It looks like it’s doubled in size since I was last here.”
“Oh, call me Anne, please. And yes, we’ve expanded a little. Now that Marla is working full-time, she suggested we add a garden design section. You’d be amazed how many people want her to come up with a plan for the petunias.” She turned to her husband. “Robert, why don’t you show Trent the new greenhouse? I bet he’d love to see the seedlings.”
“Oh, can I go too?” Kate asked. “My grandmother and I have a little greenhouse where we plant a few things. Vegetables and primroses, mostly. She loves plants and taught me everything she knows.”
“Of course!” Anne tugged the apron over her head and draped it over a chair. “Let’s all go.”
“Oh yes, let’s,” Trent muttered under his breath. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid—a family reunion that drew Kate in like a moth to a flame. “We really can’t stay long.”
Kate shot him a glance. Okay, yes, he’d promised to stay a while so she could get background on him, but already his family was grating on his nerves and he was regretting agreeing to the trip.
“Nonsense. We’re starting dinner. You have to stay for that. I’m making a roast with baked potatoes. One of your favorite dinners if I remember right, Trent.”
“Mom…” He sighed. Okay, so that was a good way to entice him into staying. His mother’s roast was unsurpassed. “You’re not playing fair.”
Her smile overtook her face. “Of course I’m not playing fair,. That’s what mothers do best. Now, go ahead with your father. I’ll show Kate around, and we’ll catch up.”
Trent didn’t miss the subtle attempt to leave him alone with his father. The two of them had never really gotten along, and a single walk through the greenhouse wasn’t going to change that. But Trent loved his mother, and for her, he would try to talk to Dad.
Trent jogged up to his father, who hadn’t waited for anyone before heading into the greenhouse. “Hey, Dad. So you changed a lot of things?”
“Just added some things. You don’t need to change much about plants. Light, water, fertilizer. The formula is the same now as it was a hundred years ago.”
Trent bit back his impatience. “How’s business going?”
“It’s fine. We’re still open, aren’t we?”
His father’s bark of a sentence almost made Trent head back into the house and give up. But he remembered the smile on his mother’s face, and if there was one person in this family Trent couldn’t bear to disappoint, it was her. So he tried another tact. “And the garden design part? Marla must love that. She was always sketching when she was a kid.”