The house was bigger than Loki remembered. An old two-story farmhouse with a wraparound porch, high ceilings and wide, open rooms flooded with east-west light, it made a stark contrast to the narrow hallways and dark paneling of his cramped London flat. So unaccustomed was he to the sheer size of the place, made all the larger by the three acres of rolling hills surrounding it, that for most of April he slept curled up on the couch in the front room.
His aunt had left him the house, along with everything in it, and he was filled with a strangely uneasy nostalgia as he went through the kitchen cabinets and rustic wooden furnishings, boxing up knickknacks and clothing for the donation bin. He hadn't seen Madeline since he was eight, when his father died and his mother moved them back to England. Yet he had vivid memories of sunny Sunday mornings, breakfast at the long table, his father pouring milk from this silly cow creamer dish.
Odd how one's life could be reduced to such trivialities.
The land had been neglected in the last years of Madeline's illness. The wooden planter holding the maple in the front yard was crumbling into decay. Sagging fence posts needed replaced. The vegetable garden was overrun. Loki devoted the first week of May to cleaning out the potting shed and checking the state of the tools, then spent two days hacking down a forest of milkweeds half his height.
Rifling through the bookcases, he found a worn copy of Gardening in Zone 5, marked up with Madeline's neat annotations in the margins and folded sketch-pages of gardens past. Gladsheim Gardens – best seedlings, she'd written on the first page.
He lifted his head to stare out the sliding glass door at the overgrown yard and the raw, turned earth running the length of the fence.
It would be foolish to plant. He wasn't planning to stay any longer than it took to clean up the property for sale.
These are cucumber vines, Loki, aren't they lovely? We'll can pickles in the fall.
He turned over the sketch of her last garden, three years earlier, and started a list.
Gladsheim Gardens was sprawled across a two-acre lot at the edge of town. Loki parked next to a drainage channel, spanned by a covered wooden footbridge with a gazebo at its center, and took a moment to absorb his surroundings as he strolled across. It was just after nine on a Wednesday morning, but spring had already been in the air for a month and the place was bustling. Couples, mothers with small children, an elderly man in a straw hat. A stocky Asian watering hanging plants from a long narrow spout. A burly, massive redhead and a slightly smaller, very attractive blond were moving bags of soil into the bed of a rusting white pickup.
Loki's gaze lingered upon the blond, appreciating the lines of the man's long legs, broad shoulders, an ass that looked amazing even in those ridiculous denim overalls. He was laughing at something the redhead said, giving him a friendly clap on the shoulder as he straightened up and glanced over to where Loki was still standing on the bridge.
Blue, blue eyes, striking even from this distance. Loki sucked in a breath.
The man smiled and lifted one hand in greeting. Loki mirrored the gesture and instantly felt a blush stain his cheeks.
The redhead elbowed him and said something that made him grin, and he turned back to the bags.
Loki shivered all the way down his spine and went in the opposite direction.
The place was enormous. For an hour Loki wandered through the enclosed greenhouses, until he had an entire cart filled with vegetable seedlings and found himself in front of a long table stocked with herbs. There was a perfect spot, just under the kitchen window, where he could start a tea garden –
"Did you need help finding anything?"
The voice was friendly and warm and decidedly male. Loki glanced over his shoulder to find the golden bear from out front now standing behind him, rocking back and forth in his work boots and smiling widely.
From a distance, he'd been cute. Up close he was gorgeous, all bronze muscles and straight white teeth and a delicious two-day scruff. And those eyes. Bluer than a summer sky. For a moment Loki was speechless.
"Um," he managed at last. Smooth. He gestured to the sea of green that was his cart. "More a matter of what not to take, it seems."
The big man grinned, and then frowned slightly, curiosity creasing a line in his forehead as he caught on to Loki's accent. "You're not from around here."
"No," Loki agreed, suppressing a smile.
The man tilted his head slightly, expecting more, but Loki offered nothing and his expression of intrigue deepened, smile widening as he extended a hand. "Welcome to town. I'm Thor. This is my place. My parents' place," he amended.
Thor's palm was warm and callused and lingered upon his for a few beats longer than was strictly necessary. "Loki."
"Well." Thor dropped his hand. "If you need anything, just flag one of us down." He popped the strap on his denim overalls, gesturing to the logo of an apple tree printed on the bib.
Loki's smile broke through. "Thanks."
Thor turned and walked back toward the front, a slow stroll, pausing now and then to straighten an errant plant back into the neat rows crowding each table. He did not look back, fortunately, because Loki found he absolutely could not tear his gaze away. He'd not seen anybody so gorgeous in… well, ever, really.
At last he shook himself back to reality and turned to examine the table before him. Cilantro. What was he doing here? He hated cilantro.
Focus, dammit.
By the time he wheeled his cart up to the cashier, it was crammed with herbs and vegetables, half a dozen clay pots, a new hose, bags of blood and bone meal, and a pair of green leather gloves. Mentally tallying the damages as the buxom girl behind the register began piling the seedlings into a cardboard flat, he cringed; he'd gone way over budget. The tools had needed scrubbed but were otherwise in good shape, so he was ahead there, at least.
"Ambitious," she grinned.
"Yes, I suppose so." Loki smiled, taking a proper look at her for the first time. A lovely woman, actually. Small but curvy, wide blue eyes, long dark curls pulled into a messy bun. Definitely along the spectrum of his type, when he went for a girl. "I'm not sure how I'm going to get it all in the car," he confessed with a laugh.
"We can deliver," she offered, counting the cucumber plants under her breath, "five at two-fifty," glancing back up with a smile, "but, I think it would have to be this afternoon…Thor's got a few ahead of you."
"I've got a few what?" Thor popped up from behind an aisle of how-to books, pushing a cart with a pair of medium-sized apple trees up to the register.
"Deliveries," said the girl. "Are you planting those, or just dropping off?"
"Planting." Thor glanced from her to Loki. "It's over on Kelly Road, probably take a couple hours with the drive, but…"
Loki shook his head. "No, it's fine. I can get it."
"Oh, well." Thor's smile fell a bit.
"I'll be back, though." It came out a bit too fast, and Loki shrugged. Casual. "I – there's a tree, in the front yard, needs a retaining wall." This was true, of course. Though he hadn't planned to deal with it yet.
"We can help you with that," said the girl. "We have all kinds of stone. Thor can build it, too, if you like. Okay, that'll be two-thirty-eight-seventy-two."
"Thor is very busy this week," retorted Thor with a smirk. "Don't be making promises I can't keep, Darcy."
Darcy glanced at Loki and flashed a wicked smile as she returned his credit card. "That's true. I guess Volstagg can do it."
Their eyes met for a moment, and Loki felt laughter tug at the corners of his mouth. "Well, I'll be back to look at that then." His gaze lingered on hers for another beat. She really did have remarkably pretty eyes.
"Great." She gave him a very obviously admiring once-over, and grinned. "Have a nice day."
"Same to you." He returned her smile and wheeled his cart away without looking back.
He was just to the entrance when he heard Thor's furious whisper. "Volstagg?"
He didn't stop grinning the rest of the day.