Love & Valentines by Cyndi Faria

Author:Cyndi Faria [Faria, Cyndi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sweet Harbor Series
Publisher: Sugarbird Publishing
Published: 2019-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

Clayton Trefor

When the sound of the creaking gate startled Clayton for a second time, he ripped his head toward the noise, squinting through the dimness of the morning. Heart pounding, he tried to swallow past his pulse as he shot up from the cart where he’d been hiding out, noting morning had barely started to make her golden appearance.

Now or never… He sprung from the cart. Didn’t take him two seconds before he bounded up and over the iron fence into the penned area, landing in the middle of some kind of foreign spongy debris underfoot.

Crouching, he could just make out little gray discs on the trail that led to the top of the hill, right under the willow. He yanked his flashlight from his pocket and flipped it on. The faded beam leached out over the ground.

Red rose petals soldiered upward toward the large willow tree. He twisted and shone the beam behind him to light up the trail of petals that flowed down toward the closed gate.

Was he going mad? Or on the brim of insanity? Certainly he wasn’t imagining the petals, which he scooped up, adding them to one of the baggies he’d stuffed inside his sweatshirt pocket. No doubt the vandals were close, which led him on a hunt for clues.

He stood and stalked up the hill. He’d been wide awake, waiting. How had he missed teenagers? Teens were clumsy, noisy, giggly...as he’d been one not six years prior.

Topside near the willow, he spun the flashlight in a complete circle, pausing on the glassy river below. The garden was void of anyone other than still shadows. Not even for a minute had he nodded off, so how had this oddly decorative trail of petals been created?

Once he was on the opposite side of the tree, he whipped his gaze toward the tree limbs—

His eyes flew wide and he jolted to a halt.

Braided again.

Half of the tree. How could this have happened? He didn’t have two additional hours to unbraid branches when petals littered the landscape, too. Folks were due to arrive in an hour. The estate owners demanded perfection, and he did, too.

He dropped his shoulders, realizing he’d let down everyone, just like he’d let down Samantha…

Pacing in a tight circle, all he could think about was the mess that was the garden and his life. He didn’t know how to handle either.

Distant laughter echoed around him.

He pivoted toward the river, to the sound, thinking it was those dang juveniles. But again, all he spotted were a few sparrows and chickadees, since the garden wasn’t open to the public yet.

Mockingbirds, he concluded, could have mimicked the chatter of people, though doubt seeped through him.

He scooped one petal up after another, noting their delicate, familiar texture. His heart beat faster. The culprit had picked his roses! His favorite velvet red he’d planted only last year. Then the responsible party littered them along the ground in waste. He followed the trail that led him down the hillside and out the open gate.

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