A Vine Mess (Love on the Vine #4)

2. Liam

Ella was starting to make me look bad with how much time she spent at the winery, and I’d be worried about my job if I didn’t know how indispensable I was around here.

Truthfully, I didn’t mind having her around—secretly loved it, actually. And every day for the last few months, I found myself looking forward to walking into the greenhouse in the mornings and finding her already there, up to her elbows in dirt as she tended to the section in the corner that housed her flowers.

That morning, she hadn’t noticed my arrival yet, so I took a moment to stand in the doorway, leaning my shoulder against it, arms crossed over my chest and a small smile on my lips as I watched her.

Her touch was gentle, reverent as she gently peeled the blooms apart and trimmed away a leaf that had begun to turn yellow at the edges. Then she set her tools down and cupped the fluffy snowball of a hydrangea, burying her face in the delicate petals as she deeply inhaled .

The smile—it couldn’t be described as anything but pure bliss. And it was the kind of smile I hadn’t seen on her in far too long.

Trust me, I’d been looking.

Not wanting to scare her but needing to announce my presence, I pushed off the door frame and cleared my throat loudly, letting my boots scuff on the concrete floor as I approached her.

That deep brown and bright purple hair went whipping around her head as she whipped it toward me, a hand to her chest. “Fuck, Liam.”

“I’m sorry,” I chuckled awkwardly. “I didn’t want to startle you.”

“It’s okay,” she said, waving a hand. “I get lost sometimes.”

“Get you lost all you want,” I assured her. “My greenhouse is yours whenever you want.”

Ella quirked one of those perfect, dark brows. “ Your greenhouse?”

I grinned. “Yeah, mine .”

She pursed her lips. “Last I checked, it was my name on the walls of this place, but sure.”

Fuck, I loved that fire. Missed the way her eyes flashed when she challenged someone. That side of her had been buried far too long under the large, stifling ego of her ex. I was happy to see it returning.

In truth, even since the last time I’d seen her just a few days ago, she was looking better. Her skin flushed healthily instead of looking sallow, the dark bags beneath her eyes brightened considerably.

Almost like she was coming back to life before my very eyes.

“What’s your plan for today?” I asked her as I moved closer, bending to inspect the tulips growing along the edge of the planter box we’d constructed over here for her.

I’d never understand how she did it—turned something so ordinary, so common yet beautiful, into something so unique. It forever amazed me that a tiny seed could become something so incredible. Where they emerged from the stem, the petals were a vibrant pink, almost fluorescent, but as the color moved to the tips, it faded to a softer shade, like the inside of a seashell.

The flowers were works of art, and the entire planter was filled with similar masterpieces and experiments. The hydrangeas, for example, were a riot of colors from blue to purple to pink to white. Once, when I’d asked Ella about it, she told me she fertilized each with something different, weighing the outcomes so she could pass the information onto other florists and horticulturists.

Ella gave me a look that said it should’ve been obvious, but out loud told me, “This.”

I barked out a laugh. “Fair enough. But how would you like to do something else?”

“Such as?”

“Such as…helping at the community garden?”

Ella perked up, shooting upright and wiping her hands on the legs of the white pinstriped denim overalls she favored while gardening. Either she had multiple pairs of the same ones, or she washed them daily, because I rarely saw her working in anything else.

“It’s planting day?” she asked excitedly.

“It’s planting day,” I confirmed.

Personal project abandoned, she gestured toward the door. “ Lead the way.”

The community garden was a new addition to Apple Blossom Bay, spearheaded by the winery’s head chef, Ezra, and his now-fiancée, Brie, the youngest of the Delatou sisters. But as the resident agricultural engineer—yes, it was a thing, and an actual degree I held, hence securing my position as the head vintner at a winery so young—I’d helped Ezra and Brie with the construction and layout of the rows.

We were growing a plethora of things in the garden, which members of the community could come up and pick, use in their own kitchens, or sell at farm stands in Traverse City on the condition that a part of the proceeds came back to the garden as donations.

It was very much a farm to table operation, and I was honored to be a part of it.

Today, we were finally putting the plants we’d started in the on-site greenhouse into the ground. At last, that harsh Michigan winter had loosened its grip, and the string of warmer days had thawed the soil considerably. We’d constructed a temporary tent over the garden to keep it protected at night until we were safely out of the frost danger zone.

Ella bounced happily in the passenger seat of my truck the entire ten mile drive, and I smiled to myself, my own happiness uncontainable in the face of hers.

When we pulled into the gravel lot beside the garden, Ella was out of the truck like a shot, racing toward her sister, who hung out on the fringes, directing people who pushed carts full of starter plants.

I followed Ella, joining the two Delatou sisters.

Brie’s head whipped toward me, blinking quickly as though she wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at. Her green eyes—a few shades darker than Ella’s—swung between the two of us like a pendulum.

“Liam, hi,” she said. “Did you…come together?”

“I was at the winery working on my flowers, and he asked if I wanted to help.”

Ella shot me a wide grin, and everything in me softened, yearning to reach for her.

Fuck. I had to get this silly little crush under control. She’d never looked at me in a way that made me think something was there between us—not once. And the last thing I need to be doing is thirsting after her when she was clearly still reeling from her breakup.

With a mental head shake and a strong desperation to change the subject, I blurted, “Where do you want me?”

It was a constant battle of wills—my body’s desire to be near Ella in any capacity, and my brain’s reminders that she wasn’t mine to covet.

Brie pointed to the back corner, about as far from the sisters as I could get. “Will you help with the apple trees? They’re small but mighty, so we could use your muscles over there.”

With a salute, I sped off in that direction, reaching the area where the Granny Smith saplings would go into the ground right as Ezra exited the greenhouse.

“Liam!” Ezra greeted me happily. “Fuck, am I happy to see you.”

I snorted. “You sure about that?”

“Absolutely,” Ezra grinned. “Your burly ass is a sight for sore eyes when I’ve been surrounded by women all morning.”

“One of those women is your fiancée,” I reminded him. “And the mother of your unborn child.”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “I’m not talking about Brie, and you know it.”

I barked out a laugh. Of course I knew that. Anyone with two eyes and a brain could see how much he worshiped his woman.

“I mean the rest of them.” He swept a hand out at the women bobbing up and down rows, inspecting plants and arguing over the best use of the allotted space. “Who knew Fanny was such a tyrant?”

“ That Fanny?” I asked, pointing at the owner of Blossom’s Flower Shop. “That sweet old woman?”

“She may be sweet on the outside, but her chest holds the heart of a dictator. Just because she owns a flower shop doesn’t mean she knows how to plant crops.”

“Neither do you,” I pointed out.

Ezra let go of the cart he wheeled over the uneven ground to shove me, and I chuckled. “You’re an ass.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“You have icing in your beard.”

My hand flew to my face, combing through the coarse hair in search of the food remnants from my breakfast. At last I found it, brushing it away and pulling up the collar of my flannel to be sure I got it all.

“That was actually nice of you, Ez,” I said, clapping him on the back.

“One of Brie’s, I hope?”

“That cranberry orange scone with the vanilla icing gets me every time.”

In fact, Brie’s Bakery was one of two reasons I ever ventured into downtown Apple Blossom Bay.

The other sat two storefronts away.

At last, we reached the space cordoned off with stakes and string where, with my help, Brie and Ezra had decided to plant the apple trees. Though the town was full of them, the bulk were located on winery grounds and used for Chateau Delatou recipes like their spiced apple wine and Brie’s bakery treats. To give the community a piece of the pie, so to speak, they elected to plant a small grove of trees here at the garden as well.

Twenty trees would cross-pollinate year after year to ensure they remained ripe with fruit and adapted to their environments season after season.

Ezra and I worked in companionable silence, communicating mainly by grunts and clipped instructions.

It gave me too much time to think, too much time for my eyes to keep wandering toward the Delatou sisters.

To no one’s surprise, Ella was already up to her elbows in dirt, on the far perimeter of the garden where the raised boxes that would hold the fresh herbs sat. From here, I couldn’t tell what she was planting, but she stopped every so often to smell the leaves, or gently brush her fingers along the stem before carefully placing them in the earth and filling the hole.

I could watch her work all day like it was my favorite TV sitcom .

Unfortunately, Ezra noticed the way my gaze clung to her like a magnet.

“You’ve got it bad, my dude.”

I scoffed. “No, I don’t.”

“Please.” He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes in a get real expression. “I know that look. It’s the same one I gave Brie for months. So why don’t you just, I don’t know…man up and go for it?”

“She just got out of a relationship,” I said quietly, seeing no point in refuting him. He had, after all, hit the nail on the head.

Ezra snorted. “That guy was a fuckhead. From what Brie says, Ella was less upset that it ended and more about the fact that she’d wasted so much time on him.”

I cut him a look. “You shouldn’t be telling me this. That’s privileged information.”

Ezra dusted his hands off and clapped me on the shoulder. “You need it more than I do.”

I only hummed noncommittally.

“You want my advice?” Ezra asked.

“Not really.”

He gave it anyway. “Feel her out. Dip a toe in the water and see what happens. She might surprise you.”

I only glared at him and grumbled to get back to work.

Unfortunately, his words had taken root in my brain, and no amount of manual labor or reminding myself to stay away from Ella Delatou could shake them loose.