Before, pt 3

Chapter 21, Part 3

Previously in Garden of Little Peace:

Chapter 21 turned the clock back to Thursday morning, the day after Fletcher’s arrival in Ravina Springs.

Alone for the first time since landing in North Carolina, Fletcher finally has space to confront the grief he's been trying to outrun. A quiet walk through town becomes an explosive reckoning with Leah's death, the child he never knew, and the future stolen from them.

Along the way, he catches a glimpse of CeCe that doesn't match the charming face she shows the world, finds himself drawn once again toward Brennan and her bookstore, and begins to see Ravina Springs through fresh eyes.

Lunch with Winston reminds Fletcher how easily old friendships can pick up where they left off. But as the conversation turns toward Brennan, it becomes clear that the path Fletcher feels compelled to follow may lead him straight into conflict with his old friend.

Now to part three of Chapter 21. (I told you it was long.)

Garden of Little Peace, Chapter 21.

Thursday Afternoon

By the time they dragged the last shutter to the back of the house, both men were dripping sweat. The air felt thick enough to chew. Most of the second-story windows already sat buttoned up behind their heavy cedar shutters, but this one remained.

Win stood inside the window, passing the seven foot panel out to Fletcher, who was balanced on the porch roof. The shutter was awkward more than anything else, with iron hardware that weighed nearly as much as the wood itself.

“Lift your side,” Fletcher said.

“I am lifting my side.”

“Bullshit,” came the answer.

Win grinned and surrendered more weight to Fletcher.

The roof flexed under Fletcher’s boots as he worked the shutter out the window. Not much, but enough to notice. He glanced at Win and tapped the tarpaper with his foot.

“That section’s getting soft.”

Win followed the sound. “Wonderful. We’ll put it to rights after the storm.” He squinted toward the horizon, still deceptively bright despite the growing cloud cover. “Hope that’s all that needs fixing.”

Fletcher gave the shutter’s lower hardware a tug. The iron pintle had worked loose since the last storm. He held himself against the wall with one hand and drove it back into the wood with two quick blows from his hammer. Then he reached for the shutter again and lifted it.

A gust swept around the corner of the house, brief but strong. The heavy shutter jerked hard and swung in his hands, hanging from a single pintle. Fletcher caught it before it gathered momentum, planted his feet, and hauled it back. The panel slammed against the siding with a thud that echoed through the quiet evening.

Win, who had turned for the last piece of hardware, leaned out the window. “Still with me?”

“By the skin of my teeth.” Fletcher dropped the shutter into place and pivoted it on its hinge. “It’ll be fun tomorrow if these come loose.”

“They won’t.” Win climbed halfway out the window, testing the roof with his foot. “Shit, it does feel soft.”

“Aye.” Fletcher leaned back against the wall of the house and looked out across the garden. From up here, it showed differently. Paths curved into hidden corners. Beds overlapped until the whole thing felt larger than it did from the ground. “It’s a beautiful place. You’ve put a lot into it.”

Win followed his gaze. “I have.” A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “ But I’m still fighting her into submission.” He looked back at Fletcher. “Thanks for the help today. Usually I do this alone.”

Fletcher nodded. “Happy to.”

Win grinned. “After dinner we only have the twenty-two ground-floor windows left.”

Fletcher swiped a forearm across his sweaty hairline and laughed. “You’re joking.”

Win only watched him.

Fletcher’s gaze moved down to the shed where he remembered seeing another deep pile of shutters waiting inside. “....You’re not joking.”

A woman’s voice drifted up from the garden. “Oh, get a room, boys.”

Both men looked down.

Kate stood on a garden path near the house with a basketful of cuttings hanging from one arm. She was looking at Win.

Win sighed. “We’re admiring the garden and our work.”

Kate tilted her head. “Seemed to me like you were admiring each other.”

“You spend too much time inventing stories about other people, Kate.”

“Said the novelist.”

“Win?” Brennan called from somewhere below the far corner of the house. “Could you come look at the pot pie? I think it’s—”

She rounded the corner and looked up.

Fletcher stood on the porch roof, one shoulder against the siding, sweat darkening his hair and running down his bare chest.

Her words caught for the briefest instant.

“—done.”

His eyes met hers.

Just as quickly, she looked away, finding Win in the window beside him as though she’d meant to all along.

“I think it’s done,” she said again. “Would you come have a look before I pull it out?”

Win pushed himself back toward the bedroom. “Coming.”

From the porch roof, Fletcher had noticed a small opening in the ivy near the garden wall. It wasn’t a path exactly, more the suggestion of one. But it reminded him of the hidden corners tucked behind old estates back home, places designed specifically for disappearing for a little while.

He knew he should be more social, but right now he wanted to sit in quiet and take stock of his day.

The alcove revealed itself gradually as he followed the curve. Roses spilled over the low wall, giving way to an arbor draped in the thick leaves of an old wisteria vine. Beyond, the garden closed around a flagstone circle barely large enough for two oversized wooden chairs and the small table between them. Giant elephant ears rose behind the chairs, their broad leaves arching overhead until they nearly met the hanging vines, turning the little room into a green dome that caught the last of the evening light.

Brennan sat with one leg folded beneath her, her plate balanced on her knee. Evening light filtered through the leaves overhead, breaking across her face and shoulders in shifting patches.

Fletcher stopped. He’d come hoping for silence and a chance to collect himself. Instead, the knot that had followed him all afternoon loosened the moment he saw her.

For the past several days, he’d watched her solve problems before other people realized they existed. She steered conversations away from trouble and toward safer ground so smoothly most people never noticed she’d done it.

She’d likely sought out this corner for a few quiet minutes before someone needed one more thing. He wasn’t about to become that someone.

He took a step backward. The gravel shifted beneath his shoe.

Brennan looked up, and their eyes met.

Fletcher immediately started retreating. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“You’re not.”

He stepped forward again, cautiously. “I think,” he said, “you may have come here specifically to avoid people.”

Brennan smiled and gestured to the other chair. “It’s okay. Come. Sit with me.”

Fletcher crossed the little circle and settled into the empty chair. Beyond the alcove, someone laughed near the house, the sound softened by layers of leaves. Conversation drifted through the garden in fragments, close enough to hear but too blurred to follow.

“The acoustics here are odd.”

Brennan brushed her hand across one of the giant elephant ears rising behind her chair. “It’s the plants. Win planted this corner thick so it would feel private.” Her eyes flicked around the little alcove. “I think it might be my favorite part of the garden.”

Fletcher nodded and resisted asking again if he were intruding. Brennan said things once and meant them.

She shifted in her chair. “How are you liking Ravina Springs so far?”

Those calm, deep eyes invited honesty. Fletcher took a moment before answering. “I enjoyed my walk around town today...”

“But—”

He hesitated, then added, “...but I'm not here on vacation.”

Brennan’s gaze lingered on the green canopy overhead. Somewhere beyond the greenery, porch boards creaked beneath passing footsteps, then faded into silence. “You want to talk to me about the phone call with Leah.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

Her eyes found his again, gentler now, though no less direct. “Soon, okay? But not right now.”

Every instinct told him to press her, to ask what she knew, what Leah had said, why his wife had brought him halfway across the world only to leave him chasing questions no one seemed willing to answer. He'd spent days looking for threads where none seemed to exist. Now, for the first time, he was sitting across from someone who might actually have answers.

But Brennan was asking him to wait.

“…Okay.”

The corner of her mouth lifted. “Let’s just have pleasant dinner conversation.”

He found himself smiling back. "I'll try. You may find I'm better at listening."

From there, the conversation wandered from one subject to another. They talked about Win, about books they'd loved, and about how Ravina Springs could feel so much like Killeshandra in some ways and nothing like it in others.

Somewhere along the way, Fletcher realized he'd been doing most of the talking. The discovery surprised him almost as much as the ease with which it had happened.

He looked at his now empty plate, then up at her. "I've talked on and on, and I still don't know much about you."

She smiled. “That’s because I don’t much like talking about myself.”

He couldn't remember the last time he'd talked so freely about himself. “Why?”

A shoulder lifted. “Occupational habit, maybe. Customers prefer discussing their lives.”

“Or?”

“Or mine's fairly ordinary.”

Fletcher gave her a skeptical look. “I don’t believe you.”

Brennan lowered her eyes and shifted toward the opening leading back toward the main garden. “Should I be asking for legal representation?"

She expected him to smile. He didn’t.

“Don’t do that.” The words weren’t sharp. If anything, they were quieter than everything he’d said all evening. “Don’t make a joke every time the conversation gets close to you.”

“I—” She stopped, then met his eyes again. “That’s a little unfair. You're asking me to go somewhere you haven't gone yourself. You haven’t revealed anything deep here. Tell me something that matters, before you criticize.” She stood and reached for her glass on the table between them, ready to bolt for the garden beyond.

Fletcher caught her hand. “But you already know.” His voice barely carried between them.

Brennan looked down at the way his fingers threaded through hers. Warm skin beneath her fingertips, and suddenly she was standing behind the house again, looking up at him on the porch roof.

He waited until her gaze lifted to his. “I think you do.”

He let go, then flexed his fingers once before tucking his hand behind him. “You could know everything.”

Come back for Chapter 22 on Jul 15th

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Prologue: One for the road · Chapter 1: The kept knife · Chapter 2: The weight of silence · Chapter 3: What remains · Chapter 4: Where none can follow · Chapter 5: The only question · Chapter 6: Twice gone · Chapter 7: Worlds collide · Chapter 8: No more waiting · Chapter 9: After after · Chapter 10: The dangerous ones · Chapter 11: The witching hour · Chapter 12: Bright as a pin · Chapter 13: Wet clay · Chapter 14: The wrong answer · Chapter 15 pt 1: On solid ground ·Chapter 15 pt 2: On solid ground ·Chapter 16: Into darkness ·Chapter 17:The walls come down ·Chapter 18:The long way round ·Chapter 19 pt 1: The breaking point · Chapter 19 pt 2: The breaking point · Chapter 20 pt 1: The calm · Chapter 20 pt 2: The calm · Chapter 21 pt 1: Before ···