Page 33 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

"The jury's still out."

I find, quite unexpectedly, that I am smiling.

The meadow opens before us.

Color spills across the hillside in scattered waves—blue, violet, yellow, and white—untamed blooms stretching toward the horizon exactly as she once described them.

I stop walking.

"You said you wanted to see wildflowers."

The words sound embarrassingly simple once spoken aloud.

Lavinia stares at the hillside.

Then she looks at me.

Her expression softens into something so open and delighted that, for one impossible moment, I forget every careful reason I had for keeping my distance.

"You remembered?"

I want to say, I couldn't forget.

The words never come. Instead, I watch her forge ahead, boots splashing through the muddy furrows as she kneels beside a cluster of bloodroot and hepatica blooming shamelessly along the edge of a drainage ditch.

"Oh, look at you," she coos, delight warming every word. "You beautiful little bastards. Nobody told you it's still February, did they?"

She ignores the mud soaking through her jeans, her hands almost reverent as she snips a single blossom. Turning back to me, she holds it out with a smile, and I take it just as carefully as she offers it.

"They're perfect," she says, looking across the meadow. "Where did you find this place?"

"I watched," I answer.

She looks at me expectantly.

"For years."

That earns me one of her sideways smiles, the kind that says you're impossible, but she's far too delighted by the meadow to press me for another explanation.

We keep walking, climbing higher as the ground grows drier beneath our boots and the first real signs of spring spread across the hillside. Lavinia names flowers under her breath as we pass them—golden ragwort, spring beauty, wild hyacinth—greeting each one like an old friend. Every few steps she tucks another stem into her pocket or twists another blossom into the loose strands of her hair until she looks less like someone visiting the meadow than someone who has always belonged here.

When we reach the crest of the hill, the clouds finally part.

Sunlight pours into the valley below, washing the hillside in impossible color. Blues, violets, whites, and soft yellows spill across the landscape in every direction, untouched and gloriously wild.

She stops so suddenly I nearly walk into her.

"Oh . . ."

The word escapes on little more than a breath.

"You found it," she whispers.

Then she laughs.

"You actually found spring before everyone else."

She hurries down the slope, dropping to her knees among the flowers, turning slow circles as though she can't decide where to look first. There isn't a trace of self-consciousness in her, only uncomplicated wonder, and I discover that watching her enjoy the meadow is every bit as satisfying as finding it.