“Likewise,” Kelly said with a laugh.

“Grab those flats off the bed, Denny,” Jillian said. “Jump in, Kell, and I’ll give you a tour. This is my garden-mobile.”

“This is quite the operation,” Kelly said as she climbed in beside her sister.

Jillian drove them through the trees to the back meadow. There were two freestanding greenhouses and just past them, someone had begun clearing another garden plot. “We put up these greenhouses a couple of months ago and are using lights and irrigation to start plants. We’ve been moving half of them into the outdoor garden and leaving half inside so we can monitor the difference in growth, gestation and quality. I have another shelter ready to put up when that plot is cleared, tilled and fertilized—but the new one is made of screen with retractable panels, and it’s very large. We might be trying it with smudge pots as the weather cools. Everything is experimental right now—but so far it’s working exactly as I’d hoped. We have some heartier early vegetables coming through and I’m cutting lettuce, pulling a few carrots and scallions, but the special heirloom starts are another month from appearing.”

Kelly gazed at her little sister in wonder. “Okay, I already know this, but tell me again how this all started.”

“I remembered being here last autumn with you and when I arrived here I just wanted to come over and see the back porch and garden, which was looking a little neglected. I was literally crying into the mud, crying over my losses in San Jose….”

“Kurt…?”

Jillian shook her head. “When you get down to it, it wasn’t about Kurt. I was upset over the demise of my career, my loss of innocence, missing my mentor—all the things I had put sixty to eighty hours a week into. I was so hurt and angry, and instinctively I started digging. Next thing I knew I was sitting at Jack’s bar having a glass of wine, talking about the stuff Nana used to grow and a guy at the bar asked me why I didn’t grow that stuff here. He said they grow pot year-round up here—using grow lights run on a generator. He said the special plant seeds I was talking about had to be available somewhere. I found them online, I ordered many varieties and I got moving.” She smiled. “I hired Denny so I could catch up with the planting season and I’m keeping him as long as I can.”

“And Colin?” she asked.

“Oh, I found him painting out back here. I was sitting up on the widow’s walk trying to figure out how to access this area through the thick trees when I noticed a guy had driven up here and was painting. He liked this meadow because it was large and there were no shadows from the trees. I clawed my way through to find out what he was doing here. And, little by little… Well, he’s the most wonderful man I’ve ever known.”

“When do I meet him?” Kelly asked.

“Now, if you’re ready. He’s here. Painting upstairs in the sunroom. Waiting for you to get here.”

Thirteen

Colin had never before met a woman who traveled with spices, condiments and recipes. He supposed it should come as no surprise that Kelly had stopped at the grocery store on her way into town to buy the food she wanted to prepare and eat—she was a chef, after all. Wherever she went, she cooked. But recipes in a locked box, the case of spices and another of condiments—this was interesting. And her cases were more like tool boxes with handles so she could carry them with her wherever she went. And then there were her knives—special knives that could slice your finger off if you didn’t know what you were doing. She always had a set of her own knives with her in case she’d be cooking, and if she was going to be eating, she’d probably be cooking.

After meeting Kelly and visiting for a while Colin had taken a place at the kitchen table with his laptop, watching and listening as the girls cavorted around the kitchen. Their choreography combined with chatter was interesting; they had a system for everything. Kelly was the leader in this venue: “Chop this tomato very small, no bigger than your baby fingernail. Mince the parsley and I mean mince. So this Denny helps around the garden? I don’t remember you telling me about him.”

“This size?” Jilly asked. “Sure you do—I told you all about him. Did I tell you I thought he asked me on a date?”

Colin’s ears perked up at that.

“That size is good. No way! A date?”

“I misunderstood—he was offering to take me to Jack’s for supper because he thought I wasn’t getting out enough. So I told him I had Colin.” She shot him a look with a smile. “Now he feels better about things. He didn’t really want to date me at all. Which is good because I wouldn’t have considered it under any circumstances, even if I didn’t have Colin. And I’d hate to fire him—he’s indispensable.”

“And awful young,” Kelly said.

“Awful,” Jilly agreed. “You still seeing that cook?”

“Chef, not cook. Preacher’s a cook, Luca is a chef. We’re really just friends. Friends with potential. We talk on the phone, text, email and sometimes cook together, but neither of us has much free time. Those pieces are getting too big, Jill.”

“Sorry. Maybe you should find a way to have more time. Is he well-known, your chef?”

“In culinary circles I suppose he is. That’s probably what attracted me in the first place. We talk food.”

“Hmm. I guess that can’t be any more boring than talking seeds….”

Colin laughed out loud and both women turned to look at him. “Is that so?” he asked, grinning. “Just so you know, Jilly never bores me.”

It was interesting to him that Jilly had referred to Kelly as very beautiful, as though she could be more beautiful than Jilly. They were different enough that if you hadn’t looked at their eyes and smiles you might not think of them as sisters. Jilly was tall and trim with chestnut hair that was smooth; her eyes were large and brown and, as Colin knew only too well, they could become even darker and sultry when she was getting turned on. Kelly, by comparison, was shorter, rounder, had blond hair full with loose curls and blue eyes. But their eyebrows had identical arches. Their teeth—perfect and straight—were the same shape. Their lips were different, but their smiles were alike.

It made sense to him that a gardener would be slim, muscular and tan while a chef would be more curvaceous, fuller, rounder, her skin more ivory. It didn’t take much observation to appreciate how much hard work it must be to create dish after dish in a busy kitchen, yet he thought the gardening was still more physically demanding. Kelly looked like a gorgeous chef while Jilly looked like a heart-stopping athlete.

He realized Jilly looked as if she could ski the Alps, jump out of an airplane, dive in a coral reef…go on a safari. Play with him by day, heat up his sheets by night, pass the quiet time in sweet camaraderie, challenge him with her wit, appreciate those qualities in him that no one else ever took the time to notice…. What was this? A mate? He saw a partner, a friend, a lover impossible to forget or replace.

He shook his head absently. Colin didn’t mate. But then, according to her history and what she told him about herself, neither did Jilly. While he’d had many women and assumed he’d never settle down to one, Jilly had had few men in her life and thought that one day there might be one for the long term, but she didn’t count on it. Neither of them had ever had a romantic partner who’d tempted them to a permanent relationship. He and Jill were so alike…yet so different.

There was one thing tickling the edges of his mind, however. He was falling in love with her. This was a first. He wondered if this might have happened to him long ago if he had just slowed down enough. He searched his memory, but he couldn’t recall a single woman he wanted in the way he wanted Jilly. His Jilly. He had a very real urge to make her his so that no other man would ever touch her, so that she would always belong to him.

“Can you close up shop now, Colin?” Jilly asked him, tapping the laptop. “Kelly has hors d’oeuvres ready and then dinner.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “She’s going to make our cooking look pretty pathetic, isn’t she?”

“Oh, worse than that. She’s a genius.”

For the past couple of months Jill and Colin had joined forces in the kitchen at mealtime, throwing together an evening meal. It was always plenty satisfying, but certainly nothing special.

When Colin reclaimed his seat, a place mat, plate, linen napkin and water glass had appeared before him. He fingered the place mat. “Is this something new?”

“No,” Kelly said. “Something from my trunk. I know Jill doesn’t bother with anything as pedestrian as presentation. I brought what I needed.” She put a platter in the center of the table. It looked like a sampler platter, a few bites each of mini lettuce wraps, meatballs, humongous stuffed mushrooms, little baby pears and—

“Stuffed grape leaves, ground lamb and garlic meatballs, mushrooms stuffed with bread crumbs, tomato, celery and onion, baby yellow tomatoes straight off the porch, soft shell crab and broiled calamari. And—” she put down a small bowl of what looked like salsa and a small basket of sliced bread “—nana’s sweet relish and French baguette, thin sliced and lightly toasted. Mangia! Eat!”

Jill brought Colin an O’Doul’s and a chilled glass, but he waved it away. Kelly was pouring wine that she’d brought to complement the food and he wanted to participate. For a guy who was generally unimpressed with anything fancier than a grilled steak, or a burrito, this was intriguing. He suddenly wanted to experience it all and see if he connected with this whole passion—this transporting of special spices and condiments, this chopping a tomato a certain way, this seasoning and sautéing and then presenting the whole thing on a dish that had to be on a place mat.

He watched Kelly, then put a few items on his plate. He scooped a little of that sweet relish onto a thin slice of bread, bit down and said, “Jesus,” as if in a prayer. “What is this?”

Kelly merely shrugged. “Nana’s sweet relish. She used everything in the garden. Her first mission was to feed us, but her second objective was to pass on very old family recipes—her mother’s from Russia and her father’s from France. Then there were some from her American husband—Chester Matlock. The beauty of Nana’s recipes is that she never had access to the expensive delicacies—she only had what she could grow or buy cheap. She grew her own herbs in the windowsill and I remember she used to buy the cheapest ground meat and bring it home to grind it three more times. We had a meat grinder that was mounted on the counter—a bowl could fit under the spout. She worked hard to make her food delicious, but her first concern was that we be properly nourished.”

“That starts in the garden,” Jillian said. “We were very young when we came to Nana—we were the third generation she would raise. First her only child, her daughter, then her grandson, then us. And we’re the only ones who have had the opportunity to take on her legacy in the kitchen and the garden.”

“Now for the chicken,” Kelly said as she cleared space on the table.

She served a chicken so tender and delicious, Colin had to catch himself before he let his eyes roll back in his head in a swoon. He had no idea how it might’ve been made.

“Marinated in virgin olive oil and saffron, spritzed in lemon, sprinkled with parsley, seared and then steamed with sliced mushrooms. The baby beans are garnished in slivered beets and almonds, the rice cooked with onions, peppers, chopped black olives and topped with paprika, the same lightly toasted baguette, and Nana’s sauce—kind of a salsa made with fresh tomato, tomatillo, peppers—I brought that from home because it takes hours. It’s got a kick. And I apologize—I didn’t have time for dessert.”