The Chocolate Garden (Dare River Book 2) Read online

  ~ Dare River ~

  Tammy & John Parker

  © 2014 Ava Miles

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  Visionary gardener Tammy Hollins is making a new life for herself and her children after a tragic marriage. Plants she understands, but men…well, they’re of the weed variety. She’s started her own landscaping business, catering to her country music rock star brother’s friends. Her first client is sexy, soulful, Alpha hero material, and the one man who tantalizes her and scares her to death.

  John Parker McGuiness is a man of many talents, working as a songwriter and lawyer for country music’s biggest stars. He’s drawn to Tammy like no other and hires her as his landscaper, wanting to show her they’re made for each other. When Tammy learns he’s a professed chocoholic, she fashions a magical garden for him—a chocolate garden.

  As the garden comes to life, their love for each other grows. When tragedy strikes Tammy’s home, John Parker is willing to move mountains to protect her and her children. Tammy struggles to guard her newfound independence as they use the magic of the chocolate garden to help her children feel safe again. But when secrets from Tammy’s past resurface, can their love and passion survive the memories haunting her?

  To my beloved friend, Joey, one of the first people who believed in my dream to become an author, and who shares her passionate love of gardening with me, giving me babies from her own garden, and for joyfully helping me find chocolate plants to feature in this novel. You are so like those magical plants, and I am blessed to have you in my life.

  And to my divine entourage, who continues to show me that the magic and mystery of love is all around us, helping me scale to new heights.

  Acknowledgements

  My continued thanks to all members of Team Ava, who allow me to spend more time writing stories. And my deepest thanks to Gregory Stewart for another amazing cover and all of the ways he visually supports my dreams with his gifts.

  Janet Geary for providing me with detailed information around law enforcement and security issues.

  T.F. For supporting me in ways that awe and inspire me.

  And my amazing readers, which now span the globe—you cannot know how happy I am we have connected around something as magical as storytelling.

  Chapter 1

  Since she was a woman who’d flushed her wedding ring down the toilet in a fit of rage after her divorce, Tammy Hollins understandably had mixed feelings about weddings. Yet the sight of the beautiful gardens she’d created at the estate of her brother, country music star Rye Crenshaw, made her heart sing, as did the flowers she’d arranged for his wedding reception. Rye and Tory had insisted on getting married at the home she and her two children, Rory and Annabelle, shared with them, saying no other place could compete for their affection.

  The reception was now well underway, and Tammy headed into the open white tent to check on the flower arrangements near the wedding cake, something she couldn’t seem to stop fussing over.

  “They say Rye paid a million dollars to secure his sister’s divorce,” a woman in a yellow chiffon dress declared to another woman in eye-popping pink as they examined the seven-tiered white wedding cake closely, as if searching for flaws. “It was all over the papers last summer.”

  Having people talk behind her back wasn’t a new circumstance, but it stopped Tammy dead in her tracks. They were surely not friends of Rye or Tory, but Rye had been forced to invite a slew of half-strangers for reasons he’d wearily explained away as “business.”

  “Scandalous,” Ms. Sunshine herself murmured.

  “Bless her heart,” Ms. Pinky said with a tsk.

  Usually the last phrase was sweet as honeysuckle in the South, but when vipers like this woman used it, it made Tammy want to grind her teeth.

  “I’ve heard Rye’s tried everything to find the person who spilled the beans about the money to the press, but without any success, bless his heart,” Ms. Pinky continued. “Even his lawyer has been stumped, and John Parker McGuiness is so charming he could coax a snake out of a woodpile. Tammy must be as mortified as Reverend Witherspoon when he was caught with Alice Higgins in the choir loft last fall.”

  “Imagine your own husband demanding that amount of money to get rid of you and the children, even if they are cute as a button,” Ms. Sunshine declared. “What kind of wife must she have been?”

  The buzzing in Tammy’s ears grew louder than the lovely band music. Why couldn’t the talk die down? She would rather be strung up than have people know her intimate business, but as Rye’s friend, Rhett Butler Blaylock, was fond of saying, that horse had left the barn.

  “And I’ll tell you something else,” Ms. Sunshine continued. “I have family in Likopee, Mississippi, a few towns over from where Rye’s family lives in Meade. My cousin said Tammy’s husband was a huge womanizer. Bless her heart.”

  Heat flushed across Tammy’s cheeks, competing with the warm, muggy May day.

  Ms. Pinky gave a clucking noise, and Tammy found herself thinking the silky fabric of the woman’s tight dress made it look like there were hot dog buns tucked beneath her bosom. “She’s attractive, I suppose, in a cool-as-a-cucumber way. Makes you wonder if that was the reason he strayed.”

  She might wonder about Sterling’s reasons for cheating, but no one had the right to say such a thing.

  “Of course you could have blown me over with a feather when Rye took her in,” Ms. Sunshine said. “Who would have thought he was from Southern aristocracy? My husband might do business with him, but I’ve always considered him nothing but a bad-boy country singer. Now, I’ve had to reexamine my entire position. He’s not much on appearances, is he?”

  “No, he’s not.” Ms. Pinky stuffed a crab cake into her mouth before continuing, not realizing Tammy herself was standing right behind them. “Rye getting married today to that Yankee cook of his is somewhat scandalous. I mean they shared his tour bus for the whole summer, and you know what that means.”

  Ms. Sunshine pressed her hand to her mouth as if scandalized. “And she chose red as her bridal color. It’s like she doesn’t have a lick of sense.”

  “They’ve got issues, no doubt. I hope his sister is grateful to him for all his charity. Of course, she’ll have to find someone else to give her a home now that he’s married.”

  “Tammy!” her Aunt Henrietta declared. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  Pink and yellow skirts swished as Ms. Pinky and Ms. Sunshine swung around in tandem, mouths gaping like catfish.

  Tammy pasted on a fake smile like a pro. First rule of Mrs. Augusta Keller’s Comportment School for Girls: Never let them know they’ve gotten to you.

  “How are y’all enjoying the wedding?” she asked as coolly as the cucumber they’d called her.

  “It’s wonderful,” Ms. Pinky responded tightly. “You?”

  “It’s the loveliest thing,” Tammy drawled in a voice that could have spun the sugar blossoms for the wedding cake. “Thank you so much for coming. I’m sure Rye feels blessed to have such sweet friends as y’all.”

  They flounced off, whispering furiously now. Why couldn’t only nice people be invited to weddings?

  “Were those women talking poorly about you?” Aunt Henrietta asked.

  Tammy linked her arm through the elegant older lady’s, and the two of them walked back to the main reception area. Since any answer would only generate more talk, she didn’t make one. Another rule from Mrs. Augusta: Only talk about what you want to talk about.

  “What do you think of
the wedding?” she asked.

  Her daddy’s sister gestured to the open reception tent. “The flowers you arranged, goodness me, I’ve never seen more beautiful orchids in all my life, and they pair perfectly with the calla lilies, peonies, and roses.”

  When Rye and Tory had asked her to arrange the flowers for their wedding, she’d been over the moon. They’d insisted on paying her as a vendor, just like when she’d designed Rye’s gardens in the spring. She had a nest egg started—the first money she’d ever earned on her own—and she planned to grow it. Charity, those two women had called it. Well, she wasn’t going to live off anyone’s charity. She had other ideas.

  “Tory wanted something unusual. She’s special that way,” she commented. “And what do you think of Rye? It’s been a while since you’ve seen him.”

  She patted Tammy’s arm. “I think he’s a changed man, just like the rest of you.”

  Hearing the gurgle of familiar laughter, Tammy turned to find its source. Rye and Tory were dancing with Rory and Annabelle to a spicy number she didn’t recognize. Her face softened. Stress evaporated. Love had a way of doing that, she was finding.

  “Rory’s gotten so big,” her aunt declared. “I can’t believe he’s seven. And Annabelle told me she’s practicing for kindergarten.”

  “Yes, she’s been coloring a lot to prepare herself.”

  “What are you going to do with all your spare time, darlin’? Be a big change.”

  She took a deep breath before speaking. “I’m starting my own gardening business. Daddy’s offered to help me set it up,” she said softly, in the same delicate way she’d said her babies’ names in the first hours after they were born.

  She’d been reading business books after the kids went to sleep at night, and while the thought of being incorporated created a giant lump of fear in her belly, fear would never control her life again.

  “That’s wonderful! Do you have a name for it yet?”

  It had taken a while to bubble to the surface, but she knew it suited her. “Visionary Gardening,” she said. The name resonated with her, not just because she always envisioned what a garden would look like before she broke soil, but because she was currently in the process of envisioning a new life for herself and the kids. But like her business, her life was still a work in progress.

  The way the malicious gossip of strangers still affected her showed her just how much work she had yet to do.

  Then she reminded herself weddings were known the world over for being a source of both joy and family tension. Seeing her mama for the first time since they’d parted badly nine months ago had made her insides feel like a hog’s slop bucket.

  “That’s a lovely name, honey, and it does my heart good to hear your daddy is helping you. Hampton looks better than I’ve ever seen him. You’d never know he had a heart attack,” Aunt Henrietta said, squeezing Tammy’s arm. “Of course, Margaret always stays the same.”

  Glancing at her carefully coiffed blue-blooded mama, sitting alone at the head table with a look on her face that could have turned the wedding’s patrons into pillars of ice instead of salt, Tammy shivered. Before last summer, she would have been sitting right beside Mama, looking just as disapproving and reserved. She’d been trained by the best, and she’d learned too well. Her immaculate sense of manners had helped trap her in a cold, passionless marriage to a cruel man. She hadn’t even dreamed an escape was possible until her estranged brother had showed up in Meade to make amends with their family.

  Now she was undoing years of training, and her life was as muddy as Dare River out back.

  Aunt Henrietta accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and took a long sip. “I’ve taken a shine to the idea of Amelia Ann continuing the Hollins tradition of having a lawyer in every generation, even if she is female. After Rye left Vanderbilt, I thought that practice had been broken for good. It’s still hard to imagine a debutant like our Amelia Ann taking a shine to the law, but she’s happier than I’ve ever seen her. When I asked her about her classes, she talked on and on about legal gibberish, just like Hampton used to do.”

  It was easy to smile now. Because she wasn’t the only Hollins sister to have broken free of a life dictated by the family matriarch. Amelia Ann seemed to be having an easier time with the transition was all.

  “I’ve never seen anyone happier to begin a summer job where it’s expected she’ll work long hours and rarely have a day off. She’s like Rye, in love with her work.”

  Amelia Ann was dancing with a man Tammy didn’t recognize, her blond hair cascading down her back as she laughed at something he said. She’d grown her hair out, and she often left it down in utter defiance of her mama’s decree about proper ladies not having big hair. Of course, she wore it up in a professional do when she was in lawyer mode, but at the moment, her curls hung to the middle of her back. Mama had suggested she cut it for the wedding, but Amelia Ann had easily refused, making Mama’s mouth pinch like she’d sucked down sour buttermilk.

  Yes, Amelia Ann had made short work of reinventing herself. Part of Tammy was jealous of the ease with which she’d managed it.

  But everyone had a different path lined with a different set of challenges.

  “I’m going to take a stroll through your gardens before it grows dark. I’m so proud of you, honey.” Aunt Henrietta air-kissed her cheek so they wouldn’t have a lipstick incident. Vanity trumped true affection in public, something Tammy wouldn’t be passing on to her daughter.

  Left alone, she turned and watched as Annabelle ran over to her granddaddy and tried to tug him toward the dance floor. He was mid-conversation with Rye’s deputy business manager and groomsman, Clayton Chandler, but he excused himself to twirl her daughter around the dance floor, prompting more of Annabelle’s girlish giggles.

  “You should join them.”

  Tammy turned toward the voice, which she imagined a giant oak would sound like if it could speak, and felt a different brand of nerves surface. John Parker McGuiness had a sweating longneck in his hand. The man was equally comfortable wearing a three-thousand dollar suit as he was in a wrinkled John Deere T-shirt and running shorts. Yet, in formal dress, he was devastatingly handsome. The beer rounded out his style. Casual, yet elegant. That was John Parker to a tee. She was fascinated by how comfortable he was with himself, and since he was one of Rye’s best friends and a frequent visitor at their house, she’d had plenty of opportunity to interact with him.

  John Parker’s curly brown hair glinted in the sun’s fading light, and the twinkle in his blue eyes made her wonder if he knew what she was thinking. Dear God, she hoped not. As he waited for her to respond, he smiled slowly. The devilish dimple in his left cheek made his handsomeness more approachable. And then he winked at her and all she could do was stare like some tongue-tied schoolgirl.

  Earlier, he’d met her halfway down the aisle as her companion in the bridal party, electrifying her arm with his touch. His boy-next-door good looks, intense gaze, and easy charm had…gotten to her since she’d arrived in Dare River.

  He’d never made a move on her, but she knew she wasn’t alone in her attraction. She could all but feel his desire to wrap her up and carry her off.

  “Did you hear me, honey?” he asked again.

  “I heard you. I just haven’t anything to say back.” The words were slightly rude, but she was always stuck between a conversational rock and a hard place with this man. She could show neither cool artifice nor real emotion with him. No one muddied her water like John Parker.

  His sexy mouth twitched. “How about I just talk then? So, it was a nice wedding.”

  Okay, she could do conversation. Heck, she’d gotten an A in the Conversation Class at Mrs. Augusta’s. “Your mama’s words at the ceremony were really moving,” she said. To further unsettle her, he was a preacher’s kid and a rock solid man of faith. It was a quality that appealed to her in a man, especially after her experience with Sterling, who had been able to say all the right words in c
hurch without ever meaning them.

  “It meant a lot to her when Rye and Tory asked her to marry them. She’s fond of saying, ‘I’ve been praying for that boy for years.’ She couldn’t be happier to see the direction his life has taken.”

  “We all are.” His mama, Reverend Louisa Adams, was a gem, and so were John Parker’s three sisters, whom he’d spun around on the dance floor earlier. Yeah, she’d been watching.

  “Rye told me you handled the flowers. And of course, the gardens are perfect and growing like a rocket now that summer is easing up. Tammy, you outdid yourself.”

  She followed his gaze as it swept across Rye’s property. She had designed the gardens last fall after coming to live with her brother. She’d planted an array of trees in different colors and textures, everything from weeping willows to dogwoods to magnolias, with a few more exotic varieties added in to catch the eye. Crammed with hundreds of different plant species, the garden beds exploded with color, weaving around the vibrant green grass like a windy mountainous path. There was blue and purple foliage for contrast against the green, weeping branches for texture, and mop-size blooms for impact.

  She was proud of it.

  Pride was a new, rare emotion for her—one she liked. Gardening was the only thing she thought she was good at right now other than mothering, and even her confidence with her kids had taken a hit during her marriage to Sterling. All of her other accomplishments—ones she hated like her ability at bridge or tennis or dressage or even gossip—had fallen away like a house of cards. Heck everything she’d thought she was inside and out was undergoing a complete overhaul.

  Reading books about women and their journeys had blown her life open. Realizing she wasn’t alone in wanting to be loved for the woman she was helped, as did the hundreds of other passages she’d outlined with her highlighter.

  “I’m happy everything came together,” she responded. “I’m so glad Rye and Tory wanted to get married here.”