Page 22 of The Lies Between Lovers

On the table sat a larger pot—not one she recognized. About three gallons, which was substantially larger than the pot Vaslav had initially brought the shrub in.

“It is good to plant it in the spring,” he replied as he pulled the root-bound shrub from its pot and moved it into the larger one. Coming to stand beside him at the table, she was surprised to find he already had dark, damp soil waiting in the larger pot. “Late spring, after it blooms in the pot. It gives the roots lots of time to take to the spot before the final frost for the year sets in, but it’ll do better if it’s already been in a bigger pot and had time to grow.”

Once he had the plant positioned where he wanted it in the larger of the two pots, he leaned down to yank a five-gallon bucket full of dark soil out from under the table.

“Did you bring the soil and pot?” she asked, smiling. “I have lots in the shed, you know.”

“I don’t, actually,” he returned.

“Don’t what?”

“Know about your shed, or your home ...” He trailed off, glancing her way before he added quieter, “Or much about you, I suppose. Beyond a very surface level, yeah?”

“Yet, you proposed to me on a plane after spending a handful of days with me in Paris.”

“I wouldn’t call that a proposal. I already did that once with a woman.”

Vera tried not to overthink that, and failed miserably. “Why offer it at all, then—if we’re not calling it a proposal?”

She didn’t really expect an answer. This man was always surprising her, though.

“What I do know, I like.”

Vaslav offered that information without any emotional inflection and immediately went back to his current task. One handful at a time, he started to fill the pot around where he’d placed the shrub on top of what soil was already at the bottom.

“Can I help?”

He chuckled, nodding down at the pail. “Have at it—this place certainly looks like you’ve got a green thumb, hmm?”

All one had to do was look around. Her villa wasn’t overly large, the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home did, however, house just about every plant she could manage to keep alive inside. There was even a small greenhouse in the back beside a shed she used for storage where she kept her vegetable seedlings in the late spring and early summer before moving them to the raised garden beds that her neighbor helped build. Sometimes, she managed to grow enough vegetables and herbs that she could store food to use well into the winter.

“I like gardening,” she admitted, avoiding his gaze as she reached for her first handful of soil to add to the pot. “It gave me something to do.”

“When?”

“How do you do that?” Vera returned.

Vaslav let her continue reaching for damp soil when he asked, “Do what?”

“I wasn’t purposely trying to explain how I started gardening, and yet, you ask a question that will basically give you the answer, anyway.”

“It wasn’t intentional.”

Or was it?

Vera had the feeling that this man was far sharper than he gave himself credit for. Or maybe that was exactly the point. He preferred when people assumed differently.

“I started after my accident,” she explained. “I didn’t go outside a lot; barely left my house on the good days, and only for appointments. I just ... I was so sick of seeing people, hearing them apologize, or worse, pitying me. Everybody in my life came from my connection to ballet, and ... I don’t know.”

Her lame mutter at the end had him tipping his head to the side a bit where he could watch her from the corner of his eye as she continued filling the pot with the soil he’d brought along.

“What do you use to mix up a good dark soil like this? I try something new every year,” she added when he said nothing. “I haven’t found a favorite.”

“A bit of seedling mix, standard gardening soil, and compost I make myself with house and garden scraps and the dry leaves that fall in autumn. Nothing special, but I don’t have to add anything between moving them to larger pots, and they’ll survive as is with only the rain water to feed them. Unless it’s quite hot, yes?”

“Huh.”

“It’s why I don’t plant them later than August. It gets too hot after that, and I’ve never found they do well when I put them in the ground that late.”