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‘Oh! Isn’t it…lovely?’
Even as she exclaims, Jemma finds herself wincing. She sounds very unconvincing, but she looks down hopefully anyway. Maybe Sophy won’t have noticed.
She is out of luck. Her seven-year-old daughter looks up at her incredulously, her wide amber eyes unblinking.
‘Mummy,’ she says flatly, ‘it’s a mess.’
With a sigh, Jemma turns back to survey the garden the two of them have inherited and quietly admits to herself that Sophy is right. It is a mess.
To be fair to Great Aunt Lydia, it had been enormously kind of her to leave Jemma and Sophy her house in her will. As the only one of her cousins who didn’t own her own property, Jemma had jumped at the chance to move out of their rented flat and into a home of her own, especially when the house in question was a large Georgian lodge, built in red brick with white sash windows and a walled garden at the back.
She had many fond memories of long summer days spent in the garden, chasing frogs behind the rose bushes and playing hopscotch on the paved paths. It was that garden that she’d been picturing when she’d told Sophy excitedly about the move, seeing the freshness of the dew-covered grass so clearly in her mind that she could almost smell it. She hadn’t stopped to think that perhaps the garden of her childhood no longer existed.
Standing on the patio now, Jemma realises what a mistake that had been. Clearly, gardening had not been very high on Aunt Lydia’s list of priorities during the last few years of her life. The carefully manicured lawns have taken over the stone paths that used to divide the garden into quarters and the grass has reached waist height. The fountain in the middle of the garden is covered in moss and rust, with a pool of water leaking out from its base. The avenue of roses along the back wall, the scent of which Jemma remembers so vividly, is now a line of dead bushes with a carpet of decaying petals underneath their branches. Even the fruit trees growing against the walls give no indication of their intent to flower that spring.
Looking out at it makes Jemma’s heart sink, and not just from nostalgia. The promise of a beautiful garden to spend the summer in had been her greatest bargaining chip in encouraging Sophy to leave her friends in London behind and move to the middle of nowhere.
Determined to make the best of it, Jemma pins an optimistic smile to her face and squeezes her daughter’s hand.
‘Alright, so it’s a mess right now,’ she admits, ‘but just imagine what it will look like when we tidy it up!’
Sophy sniffs, unconvinced.
‘We can buy new plants,’ Jemma pushes, ‘mow the lawn, fix the fountain…we can visit that garden centre we saw on the drive up here! I’m sure they’ll have everything we need.’
‘Hmm.’
Sophy cocks her head and Jemma holds her breath, watching the cogs turn in her daughter’s mind.
After a moment or two, Sophy looks up at her. ‘I’m sure I’d like homegrown vegetables better than supermarket ones,’ she says cautiously. ‘Maybe…maybe we could learn how?’
Jemma lets out an exhale of relief and drops to her knees. She pulls Sophy into a tight hug and kisses the top of her head.
‘Between the two of us I’m certain we can figure it out.’
When Sophy climbs into the car after her first day at school, there is only one thing on her mind.
‘Can we go to the garden centre now?’
Jemma blinks at her. She had been rattling about the house all day, worrying about how Sophy was getting on. She’d kicked up such a fuss about going to school that morning that, after a lot of coaxing and cajoling, Jemma had only been able to convince her to go by promising that they’d visit the garden centre immediately after. She’d been so on edge about her daughter’s first day that she’d completely forgotten the bargain she’d made to convince her to go in the first place.
Filing away her mental list of questions for later, Jemma nods and turns the key.
The garden centre is on the outskirts of the village, a low rambling building with a sprawling courtyard area filled with greenhouses and plants. As Jemma pulls the car into the gravelled parking area, she realises that it is an independent centre – there are no advertisements for reward schemes or attached cafes like the garden centres she was familiar with in London.
Together, she and Sophy head into the courtyard. The place seems deserted and even though Jemma calls out a few times no eager employee hurries out to greet them. Frowning, she turns to Sophy.
‘I’m going to go inside, see if anyone’s in there.’
Sophy nods and points to a display of brightly coloured geraniums. ‘Can I go look at those?’
‘Of course, darling.’ Jemma brushes her hand over her daughter’s hair. ‘Just don’t go anywhere else, promise?’
‘Promise,’ Sophy says earnestly.
Satisfied that Sophy isn’t about to run into the main road when she isn’t looking, Jemma turns to push through the double doors to the garden centre’s main shop.
Inside, she gets the feeling she has entered an old recluse’s garden shed: the rafters are hung with gardening equipment, the shelves are stacked with seeds and gardening gloves and terracotta pots, and large sacks of compost line the walls. The till area is empty, but the steaming mug of tea by the register tells Jemma that someone was here recently.
A man’s voice from outside makes her jump.
‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing, don’t touch those!’
Jemma turns to hurry back outside.
‘Sophy?’ she calls urgently.
She catches sight of her daughter scurrying away from the geranium display, white-faced. Behind her, a man follows. He is wearing a green polo shirt, baggy trousers, and a deep scowl on his face that makes Jemma bristle as she realises it is directed at Sophy.
Pushing her daughter behind her, Jemma steps forward to meet him. He is only a little taller than she is, so she pulls herself up to her full height and stares at him coolly.
‘I’m sorry, do you have a problem?’
‘I do, actually,’ the man says, stopping in front of them and crossing his arms over his chest. ‘Your daughter was prodding around at my geraniums and I’ve only just sprayed them with insecticide. All she’d have to do is lick her fingers and she’d be sick as a bloody dog!’
Jemma is taken aback by his rudeness but tries not to let it show. She gives him a sticky smile.
‘Well, lucky for me Sophy knows far better than to do that.’
The man snorts. ‘Yeah, but it wouldn’t be so lucky for me if she did get sick and I got lumbered with the lawsuit, now would it?’
It is all Jemma can do to keep her jaw from dropping. Feeling hot pricks of anger in her stomach, she rummages in her pocket for the car keys and presses them into Sophy’s hand.
‘Sophy, darling,’ she says through gritted teeth. ‘Please go and wait in the car.’
Sophy doesn’t need to be told twice; Jemma waits for her to get out of hearing range before rounding on the man.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ she snaps.
The man takes a step back and holds up his hands defensively.
‘Look, all I asked her to do was get away from the plants. I didn’t mean to…’
‘To what?’ Jemma raises an eyebrow. ‘Humiliate my seven-year-old? Insult her common sense and my parenting? Act like an arse?’
‘No! Of course not!’
He hesitates and Jemma can feel him eyeing her carefully.
‘You’re…you’re new around here, aren’t you?’ he asks after a moment or two.
Jemma gives a sharp laugh. ‘Yes, we are. And, thanks to you, I think my daughter has now lost any interest she might have had in moving here, now that we’ve had such a rude welcome in the one place she was excited to go. So thank you very much…’ She leans forward, squinting a little to read the name written on his badge. ‘…Fitz. Thank you very much indeed.’
And with that, she turns on her heel and leaves the courtyard without so much as a backwards glance.
Jemma is sitting at the kitchen table on her laptop when the doorbell rings. She is browsing Amazon’s gardening page, her basket filled with bags of bulbs, a set of trowels and a bright green rake. Ordering all this from the internet will be far more expensive than it would be if she’d bought it locally – and a lot less convenient – but there is no way she can convince Sophy to go back to Fitz’s garden centre. If Jemma is completely honest, she doesn’t blame her.
‘Door!’ Sophy calls helpfully from the living room, where she is absorbed in the Saturday morning cartoons.
Jemma rolls her eyes as she pads into the hall, avoiding the worn and splintered boards of the parquet flooring. The wallpaper above the staircase is peeling too, but indoor renovations of the house will have to wait until the autumn. This side of summer, Jemma’s priority is getting the garden right for Sophy.
She opens the door and is so surprised to find Fitz standing on the step that she almost slams it shut again.
‘Um.’ The tips of Fitz’s ears are as pink as the petals of the large geranium he is carrying in his arms. ‘Hi. Jemma Simmons, isn’t it?’
All of a sudden, Jemma is highly aware that she is still wearing her pyjamas and a pair of fluffy slippers. She starts to flush, and is about to pull her dressing gown tighter around her when she remembers that he is the one who ought to be embarrassed, not her. She lets the folds of her dressing gown fall open again.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘But how do you know that? And how on earth did you know where we lived?’
Fitz gives a wry smile. ‘This is a pretty small community,’ he says. ‘The appearance of anybody new around here is bound to spark gossip, let alone two new somebodies in the biggest house in the village. It didn’t take me long to find you.’
Jemma purses her lips and silently regrets her conversation with the chatty woman in the post office the other day.
‘Well, you’ve found us. How can I help you?’ she asks crisply.
Fitz shifts his weight from one foot to the other, the plant pot clearly heavy in his arms. ‘Is, ah…is Sophy in?’
Glancing over her shoulder to check that her daughter is still absorbed in her TV show, Jemma closes the front door pointedly and joins him on the step.
‘What does it matter to you if she is?’
She feels a flicker of satisfaction as she watches Fitz squirm.
‘I wanted to apologise.’
‘Oh, really?’ Jemma shrugs nonchalantly. ‘What for? The yelling or the patronising?’
Fitz heaves a deep sigh. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘I messed up yesterday. I know that. I shouldn’t have yelled at her or said those things that I did. It was my mistake and I’d really like the opportunity to make up for it.’
It is an unexpectedly earnest speech and for a moment Jemma doesn’t know what to say. Glancing up at him, she notices where she hadn’t before that his eyes are a wonderfully calming shade of blue. Almost instantly, she finds that she believes him.
‘That pot looks rather heavy,’ she says, more gently than her remarks to him have been so far. She nods towards it. ‘Would you like to put it down?’
Fitz’s shoulders sag with relief. ‘Oh, yeah. Please.’ He glances at the limited space on their crowded front step. ‘Um. Where would you like it?’
Jemma smiles. ‘Follow me.’
She leads him down the front steps and through the large cast iron gate to the back garden. It’s a bright March morning and frost sparkles through the long grass like threads of silver string. It’s about as beautiful as the overgrown, uncared-for garden can look, but as Jemma steps over a patch of weeds that have broken through the paving slabs she finds herself seeing it through Fitz’s eyes. Her blush returns.
‘You can see,’ she says quickly, before he can judge her too harshly, ‘why we were at your garden centre. This place is due quite a lot of work.’
She gestures to a spot next to the large French windows leading to the kitchen. Fitz sets the geranium pot down with a grunt and straightens up, brushing his hands against his sides, to survey the garden. There is a curious expression on his face. Jemma is almost tempted to label it awe.
‘You’re right,’ he admits, his expert eye travelling over the dead plants, too-long grass and peeling garden furniture. ‘But all of the bones are there. With just a little bit of love, this place could be breathtaking.’ He shakes his head, smiling faintly. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see it in person. It’s exactly as Lydia described.’
Jemma turns to him in surprise. ‘You knew my great aunt?’
Fitz glances at her, a little sheepishly. ‘She used to visit the garden centre every Tuesday afternoon. I’d make her a cup of tea and we’d chat for an hour or two. She never bought anything but I didn’t mind. It was just nice to talk to someone who loved gardens as much as I do.’
‘Oh.’
Jemma swallows. Already, her mind is reappraising the man in front of her. If Aunt Lydia, a woman who had genuinely liked so few people in her lifetime, had willingly spent time with Fitz then surely he couldn’t be as grumpy as her first impression of him had led her to believe.
‘If only she’d let me know,’ Fitz murmurs, almost to himself, ‘how bad this place had gotten. I’d have come around and helped her out.’
With those words, the last of Jemma’s antipathy towards him melts away. She gives him a sympathetic look.
‘Aunt Lydia was very independent. I expect she knew just how willing you’d be to help, but didn’t like to ask.’
Fitz gives a chuckle. ‘Yeah, that sounds like Lydia. I’m going to miss her.’
Jemma nods. ‘I know. Me too.’
For a moment, the two of them stand together, gazing out at the garden. It is Fitz who fills the silence first, clearing his throat loudly.
‘So, um, what’s your plan with it? What do you and Sophy want to do?’
‘Oh,’ Jemma says with a grin, ‘Sophy has lots of plans. She’s been drawing pictures all week, and I have a list in my purse of all the things she needs me to buy. This isn’t about to be just any garden, you understand.’
‘Of course not.’ Fitz nods sagely. ‘Sophy sounds really enthusiastic about gardening.’
‘She is,’ Jemma agrees, then winces as she remembers discovering Sophy’s carefully coloured designs scrunched up under her bed the night before. ‘Or…well, she was but…’
‘But,’ Fitz finishes for her, ‘I’ve ruined it for her.’
He looks so genuinely upset at the thought that Jemma reaches up to touch his arm.
‘Oh, you haven’t ruined it,’ she tells him. ‘Not really. Her pride has been knocked, certainly, and she’s disappointed but she’ll come around.’ She points to the bright pink geranium. ‘This will certainly go a long way to help your case.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Fitz sighs. He looks up at her. ‘I do know I was an arse yesterday. And I am sorry, Jemma. Truly sorry.’
‘I believe you,’ Jemma says softly.
Fitz exhales and, for the first time, the two of them share a smile.
‘Hey,’ Fitz says suddenly, ‘who’re you getting in to do the garden?’
‘Uh, nobody.’ Jemma shrugs. ‘We can’t afford to hire anyone, so Sophy and I are doing it on our own.’
‘What if I did it?’
He says it so simply that Jemma doesn’t think she’s heard him right.
‘What did you say?’
‘I close the centre on Sundays,’ Fitz says. He sticks his hands in his pockets and turns to her. ‘What if I came over then and helped you out? No charge, of course. It’s the least I can do after what happened yesterday.’
Jemma is speechless. Her immediate reaction is refusal, to tell him he is too kind, but that she can’t accept. She can’t accept – a complete renovation of a garden like this is a job worth thousands of pounds, at least.
And yet his offer sounds genuine and he clearly feels deeply about the incident the day before and his eyes are such a kind blue that Jemma is having trouble pulling her gaze away from them. Besides, she thinks to herself, left to their own devices she and Sophy would never have this place ready for the summer. They need help, and Fitz is offering it with both hands.
Taking a deep breath, she makes her decision.
‘When do you want to start?’
The next Sunday, Jemma is awoken by the sound of the garden gate clanging.
Frowning, she wriggles her toes out of the duvet. From her bedroom at the back of the house she has a perfect view out over the garden, which makes it easy for her to peer cautiously out of the window in an attempt to catch sight of their early morning intruder.
Fitz is standing in the middle of the lawn, a backpack by his feet and a clipboard in his hands. Jemma watches him for a few moments as he makes notes on it, turning in a slow circle about the garden. His brow is furrowed and Jemma can see his lips moving in silent debate with himself. There is something about his concentration that attracts her to him, something about the way he takes in every inch of her garden with an experienced eye. It sends a small shiver down her spine.
It is at that moment that Fitz looks up. He starts a little when he notices her standing at the window, but his surprise quickly melts into a half-smile. He lifts one hand in a wave and, feeling a little silly for being caught spying on him, Jemma waves back.
Turning away from the window, she quickly strips out of her pyjamas and into a jumper and jeans. Then, she takes the stairs two at a time, her heart thumping.
She’d thought about Fitz more than she’d wanted to over the last week. She’d been unable to get his face out of her mind, unable to forget the sincerity of his apology. Time after time she’d hesitated by the telephone, the garden centre’s number written on a scrap of paper on her lap, wanting to call him up and ask again if he’d been serious about helping them. She’d assumed he’d forget, or have found something better to do.
But now, here he was.
At the back door, Jemma tugs on her welly boots before heading out into the crisp morning air. Fitz has moved to the bottom of the patio steps to wait for her and she feels her stomach do a loop the loop as she meets him.
‘Hello,’ she says and then, because she can’t help herself, she adds, ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’
‘Of course I came,’ Fitz says. ‘It was my idea, after all. Would have been a bit rum of me to say I’d do it and then not show.’ He hesitates, as if something has just occurred to him. ‘Wait…were you hoping I wouldn’t show? Have you changed your mind? Because I wouldn’t blame you if you had, after what happened with Sophy…’
‘No!’
Jemma’s refusal is a little too quick, a little too loud. Fitz blinks at her in confusion and Jemma forces herself to take a deep breath and remember to smile.
‘No,’ she repeats, softer. Thinking for a moment, she gathers her courage and amends her sentence: ‘I was hoping you’d come.’
An understanding dawns on Fitz’s face and he grins. Inside Jemma’s chest, something warm is blooming. To distract herself from it, she gestures to the clipboard held in his hands.
‘May I see?’
Fitz nods and offers it to her. The cheap paper pad clipped to the front is covered in scrawled writing, with a few hastily drawn diagrams that, despite their sparsity, Jemma recognises as the boundaries of her garden.
‘I’m trying to work out a list of jobs that need doing,’ Fitz explains, ‘and then prioritise them.’ He gestures to the vast lawn in front of them. ‘Obviously the job at the top of my list is…’
‘…cutting the grass,’ Jemma finishes his sentence with a knowing nod. She gazes out at the lawn, dotted as it is with early primroses and grape-hyacinths. ‘It’s almost a shame, really. Those wildflowers have grown on me.’
Fitz’s head shoots up.
‘Oh, if you liked those then I can keep some for you,’ he says eagerly. Taking his clipboard back, he scribbles a few words before taking her gently by the arm. ‘See that bed by the wall there? It would be perfect for a miniature wildflower meadow. That way you’d have colour all year round. What do you think?’
His touch has sent heat shooting through Jemma’s body. When she opens her mouth to reply, she finds she has to suck in a breath in order to speak.
‘It sounds beautiful.’
Fitz’s chest puffs out slightly, his grin spreading wide across his face, and Jemma is struck once again by how attracted she is to him. It is his passion for gardening that is drawing her to him, she decides, the way he is so unashamed of doing something he loves. It’s open and honest and utterly irresistible.
She forces herself back to the moment, where Fitz is still talking.
‘Is there anything else you’d like me to put in? Any particular flower or feature?’
Jemma shakes her head. ‘No, not that I can think of. Although…’
She trails off, but her words have already caught Fitz’s attention. He tilts his head to one side.
‘Although?’
‘Sophy had a few ideas,’ Jemma admits. ‘A vegetable patch and suchlike. I saved her plans from the bottomless pit that is the underside of her bed. Would you like to see them?’
‘I’d love to! If you’re sure she wouldn’t mind.’ Fitz gives a light shrug and smiles ruefully. ‘It’s going to be her garden, after all. But I don’t want you to do anything she’d be uncomfortable with.’
His continued concern for her daughter’s feelings only intensifies the butterflies Jemma can feel fluttering about her stomach. She smiles. ‘Let me see what I can do.’
Leaving Fitz on the lawn, she heads back into the house, kicking off her wellies by the door. Making sure to create enough noise to rouse a hibernating bear – which is what her daughter can sometimes resemble on a weekend – she makes her way up the stairs, stepping heavily on the creaky floorboard outside Sophy’s bedroom before entering her own.
She soon discovers that her efforts were completely wasted. Sophy is crouched by her bedroom window, fingertips holding onto the sill. Her head whips around when she hears Jemma enter and the guilty look in her eyes shows that she has indulged in a bit of spying too.
‘That man from the garden centre is here,’ she says.
‘Fitz, Sophy.’ Jemma shoots her a look and crosses the room to rummage through her bedside table. ‘His name is Fitz. He’s come to help us with the garden, remember?’
Sophy pouts, pulling her arms tight across her chest. Petulantly, she slides down the wall to sit on the floor and Jemma has to turn her head away to hide her smile.
Ever since she’d told Sophy that Fitz had offered them his services, she has been watching her daughter’s behaviour very carefully. As she’d predicted, after the first few days of sulks and suspicions, Sophy had gotten her colouring pens out again and Jemma has found new garden designs hidden under the kitchen table and stuffed behind the television.
It is a handful of these plans that she takes out of her drawer and unfolds in front of Sophy.
‘He’d like to see some of your ideas,’ Jemma continues casually, ‘so I thought I’d take these down to show him.’
She spreads the papers out on the bed, smoothing the creases. She points to where her daughter has drawn a brown mound carefully labelled ‘bug hotel’.
‘You wanted a beehive in this corner, yes?’
Sophy twitches, but says nothing.
‘And…’ Jemma’s finger moves to a sharply drawn, angular building which she thinks represents a greenhouse. ‘Tomatoes and green beans growing up the far wall? And you thought we should move the fountain to the patio and have the table in the middle of the lawn, right?’
‘Urgh, Mum!’
Finally, Sophy crawls across the floor to take her drawings from Jemma’s hand.
‘You’re getting it all wrong,’ she complains.
Jemma sits back on her heels and folds her arms. ‘Well, do you think you could explain it better than me?’
Sophy pauses, glancing from her designs to the window and back again. Jemma waits, counting the seconds before Sophy says, with a grim determination, ‘yes.’
Together, they head back downstairs but when Sophy goes to collect her boots from the back door, Jemma ducks into the kitchen. There, she busies herself filling up the kettle whilst sneaking conspicuous glances out of the window.
She watches Sophy approach Fitz and his surprise when she taps on his elbow, looking around nervously to see if Jemma has followed. When he realises that she hasn’t, his throat bobs and he bends down in the wet grass to reach Sophy’s height. Jemma sees him nod thoughtfully, make notes on his pad, and watches a wide, satisfied grin spread across her daughter’s face. When Fitz holds up his hand and Sophy high-fives it enthusiastically, Jemma finds that she is smiling too.
Turning away from the window, she drops two teabags into her best mugs and puts the kettle on.
Sundays quickly become Jemma’s favourite day of the week. Fitz is often already in the garden when she wakes up, having let himself in at the side gate to get started. She will bring him out a cup of tea and he will tell her his plans for the day, pointing out the patch of garden he has decided to work on. He always glances towards her, anxious for approval, and Jemma always smiles and tells him it sounds wonderful.
By this point, Sophy is usually awake and ready to replace her mother at Fitz’s side. While the two of them pull on their gloves and get down on their knees to dig up weeds and rake over compost, Jemma disappears inside to do chores, read a book or, more often than not, find an excuse to hover by the window and watch them at work.
It hadn’t taken long for Sophy’s grudge against Fitz to melt away into the soil they tend together. Partly this is because he lets her do whatever she wants and Sophy enjoys having the liberty to boss a grown man around. But Jemma can also see that her daughter has equally come to respect Fitz’s knowledge about gardening. He always takes the time to explain to her what he is doing, to show her how and why something works, and then allow her to try to. The day that he brings her a set of her very own tools, perfectly miniaturised for her smaller hands, Jemma knows that he has been completely forgiven. Sophy flings her arms around Fitz’s waist in delight, before hurrying out of doors to try them out, still dressed in her cat-print pyjamas. Fitz looks up, his cheeks pink with pleasure, and Jemma feels her heart skip a dangerous beat.
In retrospect, she should have anticipated that she wouldn’t be able to stay away for long. Barely a month has gone by before she is pulling on an old t-shirt and tying back her hair to join them in the garden.
Fitz is crouched on a kneeler pad by the back wall, a wheelbarrow by his side, but he twists on his heels when he hears her footsteps. He shades his eyes with his hands and blinks rapidly – dazzled by the brightness of the early spring sun, Jemma assumes. She steps to the side to aid his vision and smiles, gesturing before him.
‘How can I help?’ she asks.
‘Are you sure?’ Fitz springs to his feet, brushing his gloved hands together. ‘You don’t have to. I know that you have other things to be doing, and I’m managing okay by myself.’
Jemma gives a small shrug, suddenly feeling unusually shy. She is pushing herself out of her depth by straying into his territory here, the unknown rules of gardening looming in front of her like the vastness of the ocean.
‘I know that you are,’ she says, ‘but maybe with my help you could manage even better. If you’re willing to teach me, that is.’
There is a pause the length of a heartbeat before Fitz makes his reply.
‘Of course! Of course, I would. Just…hold on…’
He ducks past her, his chest just brushing her shoulder as he leans over the flower bed. Bending down, he picks a pair of worn green gloves out of the wheelbarrow and holds them out to her.
‘Here,’ he says. ‘I’m working on the rose avenue today and a lot of the bushes have pretty thick thorns. I wouldn’t want you to…’ His words trail off, as though they have simply slipped from his mind as he stares at her hands. ‘Well, I just mean…here.’
He opens out a glove and Jemma slips her hand inside. It occurs to her what an intimate gesture this is, but she quickly puts the thought out of her mind. Now is neither the time nor the place for it, especially as Fitz has given no indication over the last weeks of feeling anything more than friendship for her.
Jemma takes the next glove from Fitz before he can put it on for her and wriggles her fingers into it before clapping her hands together.
‘So,’ she says, in a voice that might be considered overly cheerily, ‘roses?’
‘Roses,’ Fitz confirms. ‘It’s always best to plant them early on in the year: after the worst of the frosts but before the best of their flowers.’
Jemma nods. ‘And you want to plant them along the back wall again?’
‘Yeah. They flourished here before, and Sophy said that it was always your favourite part of the garden.’
‘They were,’ Jemma says wistfully. ‘I loved seeing all the colours come out every summer, and the smell was always so beautiful. I used to try and bottle it when I was little, crushing the petals and adding them to water.’
‘You did?’ Fitz grins at her. ‘That’s really cute. But, anyway, I wanted to recreate that feeling for you, putting the roses back where they were.’
Jemma can feel herself blushing furiously, but manages to meet his eye to smile back. ‘Thank you, Fitz.’
‘It’s no trouble, really.’ It must be, but neither of them want to mention it. Fitz lifts his thumb in the direction of the house. ‘I’ve left the roses by my car at the front. Could you help me carry them around?’
The rose bush plants are surprisingly heavy and it takes both of them to lift just one. By the time all eight have been moved from Fitz’s car across the lawn to the back wall, there are soil smudges down Jemma’s jeans and a thin sheen of sweat across her back. She gulps down a swig of water from the bottle Fitz keeps in the wheelbarrow and then takes the spade he is offering out to her.
They start to dig, each starting at opposite ends of the bed Fitz has prepared for the roses. Jemma watches his movements carefully, able to tell herself it is purely for gardening purposes, so that she can mimic what he does with her own rose bush.
But as she follows his arms, gently lowering the bush into the opening he has made in the soil, she finds her attention wandering to how toned they are and how pleasing the contrast is to the softness of his chest and shoulders.
The roots of the rose prick sharply into her gloves as the plant almost slips from her hands and Jemma forces herself to concentrate as she copies the way Fitz pats the soil around the base of the bush and finishes it off with a liberal watering from the steel and brass watering can.
‘You must have spent quite a lot of time here when you were little,’ Fitz comments when they have both planted two bushes each.
Jemma nods, flicking her sweaty ponytail from the back of her neck. ‘A week or so every summer. Aunt Lydia always had plenty of room, she never minded us cousins coming to stay as long as we were willing to pitch in with the house and garden.’
‘So you’ve done all this before then!’ Fitz gets to his feet and takes a step towards her, ready to begin planting the next bush. ‘You didn’t need me after all.’
With a little laugh, Jemma does the same. ‘Oh no,’ she says without thinking, ‘I do need you.’
Fitz’s spade, which had been stuck half-way in the ground, wobbles, and a wave of heat washes over Jemma. Her words feel incredibly vulnerable in the light spring air, and she quickly amends them before he can feel their full impact.
‘We need you,’ she repeats. ‘Sophy and me. We’d never have gotten half as far this month without you, Fitz.’
He shrugs modestly, ducking his head as he digs his spade further into the earth. ‘Oh, I’m sure you would have. Especially with little Monty Don over there.’
Jemma turns her head. Last week, Fitz had built Sophy a raised bed for her to begin planting her vegetables and it is this bed that has garnered all her daughter’s attention since. Today, Sophy is kneeling at its side planting carrots, kale and asparagus seeds in the rich compost. Jemma can only hope she’ll be this enthusiastic about her vegetables when the time comes to eat them.
‘She’s really taken to it, hasn’t she?’
‘She’s good at it, too,’ Fitz says. Then, after a pause, he adds, ‘almost as green fingered as I am.’
‘And a lot more so than me!’ Jemma remarks, dropping her rose bush into the ditch she has made for it and dusting the soil from her gloves.
Fitz gives a soft snort of laughter then falls silent. He digs around a little with his trowel before looking up at her.
‘What, um…what about her dad?’
This time, it is Jemma who feels the need to hide her face.
In a village this size, she had anticipated the attention she was likely to draw to herself as a single mother. She had been prepared for probing questions from shop workers and Sophy’s teachers, and had been bracing herself for the day when Fitz would ask the same ones. Now that it is here, Jemma finds that she doesn’t feel as defensive as she could about giving him her answer. By waiting until they have become friends to enquire about Sophy’s father in such a casual way, Fitz is showing her a respectfulness that only endears him to her more.
‘He’s not in the picture,’ she says simply, keeping her head low. ‘He never has been, to be honest with you. It was one night a long time ago that gave me the best gift I’ve ever received. He knows about Sophy and he sends her birthday cards and pays his child support, but that’s as much input into her life as he wants to have. And we’re okay with that.’
Once she has said her piece, Jemma looks up, biting her lip. She watches Fitz’s face as he takes it in, his trowel lying dormant in his hand. For some reason, her heart is beating faster.
After a moment or two, Fitz takes a deep breath and meets her gaze.
‘In which case, I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, don’t be.’ Jemma shakes her head dismissively. ‘He wasn’t in my life long enough for me to miss him. And Sophy’s never had anything to miss.’
‘I’m not sorry for you. I’m sorry for him.’
Wrinkling her nose, Jemma frowns at him. ‘You feel sorry for him?’
Fitz shrugs. ‘I know I probably shouldn’t, but, yeah. I do. You and Sophy…well, you’re both amazing. Whoever he is, he’s missing out on something really great.’
It is a perspective that Jemma has never considered before. She glances across at Sophy, who is whispering to her carrot shoots as she fingers the lacy green leaves sticking up from the soil, and smiles.
‘We are pretty great, aren’t we?’
‘Jemma,’ Fitz says earnestly, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met two people better.’
The sun is still shining down on them, but as Jemma picks up her spade again it is these words that warm her from her head to her toes.
She and Fitz continue to work in compatible silence, digging and lifting and watering, until they meet in the middle of the avenue and plant the last rose bush together.
‘Where do you want this?’
‘Uh…’ Fitz’s head appears from behind the till. His hair is mussed, his curls sticking up in odd angles that Jemma would be tempted to brand adorable if the expression on his face wasn’t so panicked. ‘Let me think.’
‘Urgh, Fitz!’ Jemma hops from foot to foot, struggling to keep hold of the large bag of compost in her arms. ‘Think faster, this thing is heavy.’
‘Alright, alright!’ With an exaggerated roll of his eyes, he leaves the till where he’d been sorting the banking and comes over to her. ‘Here, give it to me.’
Jemma ducks out of his way, almost toppling over in the process. ‘No, I can manage! Just tell me where you want it.’
She hears Fitz sigh, the kind of sigh that means you’re impossible but I like you anyway. He points to a spot below the window and Jemma carries it over, setting it down with a satisfying thud.
‘How many more of those are there?’ Fitz asks as she flexes her fingers.
‘Oh, not many.’ Jemma throws him a grimace. ‘Maybe two dozen?’
Fitz lets out a loud groan and drops his head into his hands.
When Jemma had arrived at the garden centre after dropping Sophy off at school, she hadn’t been Fitz’s first visitor of the morning. A large white lorry had beaten her to it, parked in her spot in the gravel car park, and several men in high-vis jackets were milling about, offloading crates and boxes and cartons.
Initially, Jemma had been rather miffed. Over the last few weeks, she had been spending more and more mornings at the garden centre with Fitz. He let her sit on his desk and chatter while he organised the shelves and watered the plants in the courtyard, looking up with a grin every so often to let her know he was still listening. Jemma has come to treasure these mornings alone with him, and was vain enough to hope that Fitz enjoyed them too. She couldn’t stop her heart from sinking when she realised that this could mean an interruption to their routine.
Her disappointment, however, had vanished as soon as Fitz had emerged from the garden centre doors with a look of pure panic on his face.
‘Stock delivery day,’ he had said faintly. ‘I completely forgot.’
Jemma had left her handbag in the car, rolled up her sleeves, and gotten to work.
Now, she can see that Fitz is in need of more support from her than just manual labour. Crossing the room, she takes hold of his hands and gently peels them away from his face.
‘Hey,’ she whispers. ‘We’ve got this. Look at how much we’ve done already. We just need to keep doing a little at a time and it will be done before you know it.’
Fitz sucks in a deep breath. His fingers curl around her own, their press warm against the cool of Jemma’s skin. He seems to draw comfort from her touch or her words or both, and after a moment he nods.
‘Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.’ He gives her a faint smile. ‘What would I do without you, Jemma?’
The smile Jemma gives him in return is weakened by guilt.
Secretly, she is sure he would have been far more prepared for this stock delivery if he hadn’t been at hers and Sophy’s until past sundown on Sunday. They’d cooked a fish pie together and eaten it on their knees in the living room, Sophy’s treasured copy of The Princess and the Frog playing on the television.
As much as Jemma loves having Fitz at the house, washing the dirt from his fingernails in the bathroom sink and sharing meals with them at the kitchen table, she knows it is the garden centre that provides his livelihood, not them. She’d never forgive herself if he got into financial trouble and she was to blame.
‘Oh, I’m sure you’d have been alright in the end,’ she says gaily. ‘Come on. Only a dozen each to go!’
Fitz moans again, but when she tugs at his hand to pull him forwards he follows.
Outside, it is drizzling, which only makes their job harder. The plastic of the compost bags slips under their fingers and they have to hoist them higher into their arms to stop them dropping.
After the first two or three, the ridiculousness of the situation is making it difficult for Jemma not to laugh. When Fitz drops his bag into a puddle and she looks up to see the hopeless dismay on his face, she can’t help it any longer. She laughs, long and loud, until her own bag is falling to join his and Fitz is biting his cheek to keep himself from joining her.
From then on, the rain doesn’t matter. They carry the rest of the compost bags into the shop with damp hair and light hearts, before collapsing onto the floor in front of the till to catch the breath that exertion and laughter has sapped out of them. The bags sit, higgledy-piggledy, around them, like a barricade against the outside world. Slumped as she is against the desk, Jemma has to fight against the urge to let her head drift down onto Fitz’s shoulder. He nudges her arm.
‘Thank you,’ he says, ‘for staying and helping. If you hadn’t been here I’d still be outside in the rain with twenty-five bags of compost getting wetter by the second.’
Jemma snorts. ‘No, you wouldn’t. You’re not as useless as that.’
‘Oh gee, thanks, Simmons.’ She can hear the grin in his voice. ‘But, seriously. You must have realised by now that retail isn’t exactly my natural calling in life.’
Jemma would be lying if she said she hadn’t. As much as she can see how much Fitz loves his plants and the care he takes over them every morning, she has also seen that interacting with customers is not, and will probably never be, his forte. Once, she had been with him when a retired man came in to ask for a gift for his wife. Fitz had uncertainly offered him a boot-scraper before Jemma had subtly steered them both towards a pretty birdbox instead.
She sidesteps having to respond by asking, ‘so, if not retail, what is your natural calling? What would you do, if you could do anything in the world?’
Fitz turns to her. ‘Surely you don’t need me to tell you that,’ he says teasingly. ‘Guess.’
Jemma groans, stretching her aching arms out in front of her. ‘Fitz, I just carried thirteen bags of compost inside for you. You can’t seriously expect me to exercise my brain muscles as well as my arms and legs today.’
‘Fine, fine.’ Unexpectedly, he reaches up and takes one of her arms, pulling it into his lap. Jemma’s heart turns over in her chest as he starts to massage her sore muscles, rolling his thumb absently against the soft skin of her upper arm. ‘If I’d been able to choose, I’d have gone into landscape design.’
He was right. He hadn’t needed to tell her that. His talent and passion for designing has been obvious to Jemma right from the beginning.
‘Why didn’t you?’ she asks, struggling to keep her focus on his conversation and not his fingertips; the massage feels impossibly good. ‘Go into landscaping, I mean?’
Fitz shrugs. ‘Money,’ he says. ‘The plans was always to run the centre for a few years until I built up the revenue to start my own company. But the years have gone by, and I’m still here. I’m beginning to think I always will be.’
There is a lingering sadness to his words that makes Jemma’s chest clench.
‘It’s always good to have dreams,’ she says softly. She turns her body, angling it so that she can look him in the eye. ‘You never know what will come along to make them come true.’
‘I do, actually.’ With the hand that isn’t massaging her arm, Fitz scratches the back of his neck. ‘You.’
Jemma blinks at him. ‘Me?’
‘Yeah.’ There is a shyness to the way Fitz is holding her now, his touch growing gentler as his neck grows pinker. ‘You and Sophy letting me take over your garden, allowing me to spend every spare minute I have there, welcoming me into your home…it’s made me feel more myself than I have in a long time. I love every minute of it.’
‘And we love having you,’ Jemma says immediately. ‘Don’t forget: we’re the ones who’re getting something for nothing. I still feel bad we’re not paying you for any of the work you’re doing.’
Fitz shakes his head. ‘Jemma, trust me. You’ve allowed me to dream again. And that’s worth more than any deposit in the world.’
There is a lump in Jemma’s throat, and she has to swallow it before she makes her reply.
‘Well, if you’re willing to wait a few more years, I can see Sophy jumping at the chance to join you in a landscaping venture. Fitz-Simmons Designs, what do you think?’
Fitz laughs, a wonderful sound that rolls through the shop and right through Jemma’s heart. In his lap, their fingers have fallen together and she can feel his pulse beat gently against her wrist.
‘Has quite the ring to it, doesn’t it?’
In late May, Jemma wakes at two in the morning with a blocked nose, a high temperature and a sense of rising nausea.
She just makes it to the bathroom before throwing up. Shivering, she flushes the toilet and shuffles back to bed where she collapses into oblivion until half-past six, when she is woken by a small voice calling her from the door.
‘Mummy?’
Jemma’s heart sinks. Struggling, she pushes herself up onto her elbows.
‘Hi, darling,’ she croaks.
The room spins and she has to blink several times in order to focus properly on her daughter. Sophy eyes her warily.
‘You’re sick,’ she says decidedly.
‘Oh. Oh, no.’ Jemma contemplates shaking her head, then decides with a grimace that doing so would most likely prove Sophy right. ‘No, I’m fine, love. Really. Go have your breakfast and I’ll be up to take you to school, okay?’
The speech seems to sap her strength and she has to gasp in order to finish it. This doesn’t go unnoticed by Sophy, who narrows her eyes and goes ‘hmm’ in a very unconvinced tone. But she backs out of the room even so, and Jemma falls back onto the mattress and pulls the duvet up to her chin.
Two more minutes, she promises herself as her eyelids close, feeling as heavy as lead. She will rest for two more minutes and then she will get up and shower and dress and…
‘Jemma?’
A voice reaches her through a sleep that has been thickened by fever. It sounds close and vaguely familiar and Jemma wishes her brain was working well enough for her to identify it.
‘Hey.’ There is a gentle touch to her shoulder and a warm breath on her cheek. ‘Jemma? I’m here.’
Stirring, Jemma opens her eyes a crack. The appearance of Fitz’s face, floating in front of hers, feels so out of place that for a moment she wonders if she is still dreaming. She watches his eyebrows crease into a concerned frown.
‘How’re you feeling?’
The realisation that this is not a dream hits her in a rush. Fitz is standing by her bedside, probably having had to jump over her discarded socks and underwear to reach her. Jemma’s stomach rolls.
‘F-fine,’ she stammers. She tries to push herself up into a sitting position. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Um, Sophy called me. She said she needed me to take her to school?’
Jemma groans internally. Curse her seven-year-old’s infuriatingly perceptive tendencies.
‘I don’t,’ she says as firmly as she can – which, it has to be said, was currently not that firm. ‘I’m so sorry, Fitz, she shouldn’t have done that.’
‘On the contrary,’ Fitz replies, ‘I think she was absolutely right to have called me. You look awful, Jemma.’
Jemma opens her mouth to give him a snide reply but the words jumble together on her tongue so she closes it again. The worry written across Fitz’s face deepens, and he touches the back of his hand to her forehead.
‘You’re burning up. Let me drive you to the doctor.’
‘No!’ Jemma shakes her head, then immediately regrets the action. ‘No,’ she repeats once she is sure she is not about to throw up anymore. ‘Really, Fitz, I’m fine. I just need to get up and take Sophy to school.’
‘Oh no, you don’t.’ Fitz’s voice is far firmer than hers had been. ‘I’m going to take Sophy to school. And at the end of the day, I’m going to bring her home. You are going to stay in bed and rest. Okay?’
Jemma wants to protest, but the tenderness with which Fitz delivers the plan is making her almost as dizzy as the fever. She licks her lips and finds them flaky and dry.
‘Okay.’
‘Good.’ Fitz sounds relieved as he straightens up. ‘Here, your phone is by your bed. If you need anything at all, text me, okay? I’ll keep my phone on me at work.’
Gratitude floods Jemma’s chest as he heads to the bathroom to fill her a glass of water and hunt down some flu tablets.
‘Thank you, Fitz,’ she whispers as he hands them to her. ‘You didn’t have to do all this.’
He shrugs, sitting by her feet as she takes the pills. ‘Maybe I didn’t,’ he says, ‘but I wanted to, Jemma. I know that you’d do the same for me.’
And she would. Once Fitz and Sophy have left for school, under strict instructions to hold hands beside all main roads, Jemma spends some time contemplating the truth of his words. At some point over the last three months, Fitz has become her best friend. Aside from the treacherous leap of her heart any time he stands too near, he is the person she is most comfortable being around, the person she wants to spend most of her time with. She laughs with him, she jokes, she shares truths she’d thought she never would again.
Falling in love with Fitz has been such an easy process that Jemma only realises it is happening when it is already over.
Exhausted by the revelation and eased by the medication, Jemma quickly falls into a deep sleep. She breaks into consciousness around midday to find a warm flask of tea and a buttered scone on her bedside table, along with another glass of water and a fresh set of tablets. She drinks the tea, eats the scone and swallows the pills without stopping to think who might have put them there.
For the rest of the afternoon, she drifts between sleep and wakefulness, the real and the dreamlike merging in her mind. At one point, she thinks she hears the front door open and careful footfalls on the stairs. Perhaps someone enters her room on tiptoe, quietly moving around to clear empty plates and cups before lingering on their knees by her bed, but Jemma could not be sure.
She wakes in the morning with the ghost of a kiss on her forehead and has to wonder whether the memory was born from something more vivid than her imagination could ever be.
It is a balmy evening in June that Fitz plants the last of the morning glories in the patio bed and declares the garden finished. Jemma joins Sophy in her cheers, but inside her heart is sinking. It is a day she has been dreading for weeks and now that it is here she wishes she had bought a dozen more glories so that Fitz would have to keep planting them. She is not ready for him to leave.
In order to prolong the inevitable, she suggests that they hold a celebratory barbeque.
‘Think of it as the garden’s grand opening,’ she says.
She doesn’t have to work hard to convince Fitz and Sophy. Their eyes light up and they start to talk excitedly about the burgers they want and what type of sausage barbeques best. Jemma takes notes for her shopping list and tries not to think about how much it will hurt when it is all over.
The next Sunday, she stokes the barbeque and makes a salad from the lettuce leaves and tomatoes Sophy has grown in the greenhouse. She carries it out to the table with three plates and knives and forks, where she is joined by Fitz, who sheepishly produces a bottle of champagne.
He pops the cork and they all shout as it shoots into the air, landing with a satisfying plop in the restored fountain. Sophy darts off down the stairs to retrieve it, while Jemma sinks into a chair and takes the glass of champagne Fitz is handing to her.
‘Thanks,’ she says, taking a sip and feeling the bubbles shoot up her nose. ‘And cheers!’
‘Cheers!’ Fitz repeats, clinking his glass against hers. The flutes sing as they touch, letting out a wonderful, round note that carries across the garden. ‘Congratulations on your new garden.’
Jemma chuckles. ‘I think it’s me who ought to be congratulating you. When you compare what it looks like now with the mess that was here before…’
She trails off, shaking her head as she takes in the garden in front of her. The flower beds are bursting with colour, from the pinks and corals of the rose avenue to the promised wildflower bed by the east wall. Along the west side, the espalier fig and apple trees have been brought back to life, and although Fitz has not promised yields this year he assures them they will bear fruit again soon. The fountain Sophy is fishing the champagne cork out of is cleaned of its moss and bubbling out fresh water that falls into the pool around it with a noise like laughter.
‘We couldn’t have wished for anything better,’ Jemma says quietly. Her fingers itch to reach out and cover Fitz’s own, but she manages to resist and smile at him instead. ‘Thank you for giving it to us.’
‘I didn’t give you anything.’ Fitz gives her a light shrug as he returns the smile. ‘It was already yours. All I did was help you highlight the best bits, and even that I didn’t do alone.’
Jemma follows his gaze to where Sophy is bobbing the cork along the surface of the water, splashing herself and her best dress as she goes. The affection on his face as he watches her daughter warms her to her core.
‘My sous-gardener was utterly invaluable,’ Fitz announces. Jemma ducks her head to smirk into her glass and feels his eyes flick up to look at her. ‘And I’d never have been able to do it without you.’
‘Oh, of course.’ Jemma rolls her eyes with a giggle. The champagne has gone right to her head. ‘Because I was such a help.’
‘But you were!’ Fitz looks as if he is fighting back a laugh of his own. ‘The, uh, the cups of tea. The moral support. The pristine bathroom for me to dirty with my muddy boots…’
‘Is that all? Are you not going to praise my stellar gardening skills?’
‘Hey, does that rose bush look wonky to you?’
Jemma shoves him good-naturedly. ‘Leave my rose bush alone. I’m very fond of it, I think it looks better like that.’
‘What, slumped to the side?’
‘Abstract.’
‘Wonky.’
‘Artistic.’
Fitz snorts. ‘If you say so, Simmons.’
At some point during their debate, he had rested his arm along the back of Jemma’s chair without her noticing. The gesture feels so casual, so right, that Jemma finds herself leaning towards him on the arm of her chair, bringing them even closer. If she was to inhale, she’d be able to smell his shower gel. Peppermint. She marvels at how she knows that with such clarity.
There is a charge in the air as Fitz looks to her, a curious intensity in his eyes. Despite this, Jemma can read the hesitation on his face, as though he is struggling with words he is desperate to say.
‘I’ve loved being here,’ he says. ‘I’ve loved being with you.’
Jemma nods, her heart thumping. ‘Me too.’
There is a pause that seems to last a lifetime, and then Fitz speaks again.
‘I wish…I wish it wasn’t over.’
‘I know,’ Jemma whispers. She hardly dares to breathe. ‘Me too.’
When Fitz’s gaze flickers down to her lips, she thinks her heart might give out. He leans forward, so she does too, and as Jemma’s eyes close she finds herself remembering the way her forehead had felt hours after he’d kissed it. She wonders whether this time he will leave such an impression on her lips that it will last forever.
‘MUMMY!’
They spring apart so fast that Fitz has to leap to his feet to keep himself from following his chair to the floor. He hurries to pull it upright again, as Jemma takes to the steps, red-faced, to answer her daughter’s cry.
‘Sophy? Are you alright?’
Sophy is crouched on the ground by the apple trees, her fingertips brown from digging in the soil. She turns to Jemma, her face alight.
‘Mum,’ she whispers with awe. ‘Look.’
Between her fingers is a soft white flower with a pink centre, their first blossom of the season. Sophy beams delightedly.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
Jemma kneels beside her, her heart beating erratically against her ribcage. She finds that her arms are shaking and has to bend forward to hug Sophy tight in order to hide it.
‘Yes,’ she says, knowing with a sinking feeling that the moment she’d shared with Fitz is over. ‘Beautiful.’
They return to the table together, where Fitz has deposited a plate full of burgers and sausages during Jemma’s absence. He avoids her gaze as he serves Sophy one of each, but Jemma notices his hand tremble as he puts down the dish. She takes her seat, feeling a lump gather in her throat.
The meal is agonising. Jemma pushes her food about her plate, watching Fitz swap his champagne flute for a glass of water. Neither of them speak much to each other, choosing instead to focus all their conversation on Sophy, who gives them both odd looks but doesn’t question it. She tells Fitz about the apple blossom excitedly, and when he responds in kind Jemma’s heart clenches painfully.
Fitz does not stay long after they finish the food. He helps her carry the plates into the kitchen then makes his excuses, giving her a feeble, flimsy reason that Jemma doesn’t even remember afterwards. She walks him to the door and closes it behind her to shield Sophy, like she had the very first time he’d come to the house. Fitz shoves his hands in his pockets and stares at the cracks in the pavement beneath their feet.
‘Bye, Jemma,’ he says, and the words sound like an apology.
Jemma opens her mouth to reply, but he is already turning to leave, taking the steps two at a time until he reaches his car.
She sits down heavily on the doorstep to watch him go, waiting until the car leaves the driveway and the sun begins to set, taking the last of her hopes with it.
For the next week, Jemma mopes. Intensely.
She lays in bed, drawing the curtains against the beauty of the garden that feels tainted now, as though to enjoy it would be wrong. When she takes Sophy to school, she drives straight home again, slowing down only momentarily in front of the garden centre before driving on.
Disappointment sits heavy on her chest as she plays the day of the barbeque back in her mind, over and over again. She watches herself bend down to kiss him, wishing she could stop herself, not knowing what she had been thinking. Fitz clearly hadn’t felt the same way.
If he had, he wouldn’t have left the way he did.
Jemma cups her chin in her hands and stares at the chintz fabric of her curtains.
By the time Sunday rolls around again, she starts to prod tentatively at her bruised feelings. Perhaps, she reasons, she hadn’t been in love with Fitz after all. Maybe it had all been in her head, a potent manifestation of her need for adult companionship. She had been alone with Sophy for so long she had just latched onto whoever came along first without stopping to think.
Perhaps, she thinks uncertainly, Fitz had just been convenient. Maybe he was a sign that she is ready to start dating again.
She brings this idea up, cautiously, to Sophy the next morning when they are parked outside the school.
‘So, what do you think?’ Jemma asks. In her lap, her hands are fidgeting. ‘Do you think Mummy should start looking for a new boyfriend?’
Sophy’s delicate features fall almost immediately into a deep frown. ‘Oh, no, Mum,’ she says seriously, shaking her head. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea at all. It wouldn’t be fair.’
Jemma lets out a long breath, relieved that the decision has been taken out of her hands. No, of course it wouldn’t be fair. What had she been thinking, wanting to bring a strange man into her daughter’s life? What kind of mother was she?
‘Besides,’ Sophy continues, fumbling with her door, ‘Fitz wouldn’t like it.’
Jemma had been about to press the child-lock button, releasing her daughter from the car, when she freezes, her finger millimetres from the button.
‘What?’ It is the first time she has heard his name spoken out loud in a week.
‘I said, Fitz wouldn’t like it if you got a new boyfriend.’
Jemma’s heart is in her throat as she turns to Sophy, trying her hardest to look casual. ‘Why…why would you say that, darling?’
‘Because,’ Sophy says slowly, as though it is the most obvious thing in the world, ‘he’s already your boyfriend.’
When Jemma doesn’t move, she leans across her to release the child-lock herself. Sophy kisses her mother on the cheek before scrambling out of the car, leaving Jemma alone to contemplate the astonishing truth that her seven-year-old had just dropped on her with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
The gravel crunches under Jemma’s trainers as she crosses the car park. She has come straight from the school, knowing that if she waited any longer her courage would falter. For the first time in a week, when she passed the garden centre on the way home she had turned the indicator on.
It is past nine now, so she knows exactly where Fitz will be. While planning her rose avenue, he’d acquired enough expertise about the plants to open up his own. He’d converted the space around of the back of the garden centre to accommodate the new roses, of which he sold all kinds: patio roses, climbing roses, ground cover, and shrub. Jemma knows that he likes to water them first thing in the morning, so that the scent rises, lingering in the air until lunchtime.
Sure enough, when she rounds the corner she finds him, hose in hand, bending over a particularly rambling rose bush with petals the colour of wind-whipped cheeks. Jemma sucks in a sharp breath, not having realised since this moment quite how much she has missed him.
‘Fitz?’
He jumps at the sound of her voice. ‘Jemma! Hey.’
‘Hi.’ Jemma’s heart is pounding as she clasps her hands loosely in front of her. ‘Could…could we talk?’
Fitz nods, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘Yeah. Yeah, of course.’ He glances down, as if just remembering the spurting hose in his hands. ‘Uh…’
Jemma steps back. ‘You finish. I can wait.’
There is a flash of gratitude on Fitz’s face and he finishes watering the roses. Once he has turned the tap off at the wall and set the hose on the ground, he pulls off his thick gardening gloves.
‘I’m glad that you came,’ he says, with only the hint of nerves to his voice. ‘I’ve been wanting to call you.’
‘Why haven’t you?’
The question is out of Jemma’s mouth before she can stop it.
‘No good reason.’ Fitz sighs. ‘I wasn’t quite brave enough, I guess. But, now you’re here, I suppose I can say it. I’m so sorry for what happened at the barbeque. I should…I should never have tried to kiss you like that. I don’t know why I did, except that I really wanted to.’ He meets her eye. ‘All I was thinking about was how it would make me feel, when I should have been thinking about how you would feel.’
His apology is as unexpected and as earnest as the one he had given her all those months ago, standing on her doorstep with a pink geranium in his arms.
‘So,’ Fitz says, awkwardly. ‘That was what I wanted to say. I’m guessing you cam here to say something too?’
Jemma is still trying to process everything he has said, a sapling of hope sprouting in her chest. It is largely due to this that, when she speaks, her thoughts muddle together and she ends up blurting out the first words to find their way to her tongue.
‘You’re my boyfriend.’
Somehow, Fitz manages to stumble over the hose while completely stationary.
‘What?’
And then Jemma is grinning, because now she has said it she realises quite how true it is. ‘You’re my boyfriend,’ she repeats, and then laughs. ‘Sophy said it to me just now, and although she wasn’t right she is right.’
Fitz is staring at her with an expression that is so adorably mystified that Jemma finds she isn’t afraid anymore. Stepping forward, she takes his hand in hers.
‘You’re my best friend. You’re the person I want to talk to first thing in the morning and last thing at night. When you come over for dinner, you wash up when I ask and you take the bins out even if I don’t. My daughter adores you. You built her a dream garden and you don’t want anything in return. When you kissed my forehead, I wanted you to kiss me anywhere and everywhere else.’
There are tears in Jemma’s eyes as she tilts her chin up, but not too many to obscure the awe-struck look Fitz is giving her.
‘You have done,’ she says softly, ‘everything that a boyfriend would do, just without the title. So, I came here to say that…if you want it…it’s yours.’ She pauses. ‘What do you think?’
The words are barely out of her mouth before Fitz is pulling her towards him. He takes her by the waist and uses his free hand to cup her cheek, drawing her near enough for him to kiss her at last.
The kiss is sweet and warm and just about sweeps Jemma off her feet. Fitz’s lips move against hers with an urgency that tells her he has thought a lot about this moment but also with a gentleness that takes her breath away.
She returns the favour, reaching up to twist her hands in his hair, and deepening the kiss with her tongue. The soft moan that this elicits from Fitz is enough to get her heart racing even faster than it had been before.
His arms as he wraps them around her back to pull her flush against him smell like rich soil, but Jemma does not mind. In fact, she finds that she quite likes it. Lost in this moment when she feels like she could be floating among the stars, Fitz is keeping her anchored to the earth.
They draw apart less easily than they had fallen together – with a lot of soft kisses to noses and cheekbones and mouth corners and with a reluctance to let each other go. Between them, their fingers intertwine and Jemma cannot resist lifting their joined hands to her lips to press one last kiss to Fitz’s knuckles. The gesture makes him sigh contentedly.
‘Don’t tell me this was just some elaborate ploy to get me to do your front garden next.’
Jemma snorts, falling in love all over again with the warm humour in his voice.
‘If it was, would you do it?’
When Fitz grins, it is with a smile so wide and bright that he could have lit up the whole night sky.
‘For you? Yeah.’
Happiness bubbles inside of Jemma’s chest until she has to laugh, lifting herself up onto her tiptoes to take his face in her hands and kiss him again. As Fitz’s arms wrap around her back to pull her close, she decides that there is no better way to spend a morning than by showing an avenue of blooming roses enough love to last them a lifetime.