Olivia Greene's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The greenhouse work had stopped cold. Ryan wouldn't lift a hammer while his brother's help still stung him. Ty stayed away to keep the peace, but the peace didn't come. Two days passed with rotted beams still stacked and no one to haul them. Olivia needed both men back, and neither would move until the feud cooled. So she went to the one who started the trouble. She found Ty at his garage, bent over an engine, grease black on his hands. He looked up when her shadow crossed the door. The wrench went still. He wiped his palms on the flannel tied at his waist. "You've got that look again," he said. It was the same line from the ladder, and it made her chest tighten. "The work's stalled," Olivia said. "Ryan won't come back while you two are like this. I can't finish the greenhouse without him." She heard her own voice shake. "I'm stuck in the middle of something I didn't start." Ty set the wrench down slow. His green eyes stayed on her, quiet the way he'd always been. "I still want to help you," he said. "I'll make it right with Ryan. I'll swallow it and shake his hand." Then a slow smile pulled at his mouth. "But I want something first. Dinner. Just you and me. Two old friends catching up." Olivia crossed her arms. "You'd fix your own brother only if I say yes?" "I'd fix it either way," Ty said. "But I've waited a long time to sit across a table from you." He reached behind the workbench. He lifted a bouquet wrapped in pale green paper and held it out. Wildflowers, loose and bright, every color crowded together. She took it before she meant to. Her thumb brushed the petals. Purple, yellow, small white blooms. Every flower she had loved as a girl, arranged like someone had listened years ago and never forgotten. "You remembered," she said. "I remember everything about you." His voice dropped. "Had them made this morning. Rosemary put it together." Olivia stared at the flowers, then at him. The bouquet was a kindness. It was also a hook, and they both knew it. She needed Ryan swinging a hammer by tomorrow. Ty held the only key to that, and the price was one dinner. She thought of the beams rotting in the sun. She thought of her grandmother's roof, still open to the sky. "One dinner," she said. "Two friends. That's all." Ty's smile spread wide. "That's all I asked." He grabbed his keys off the bench. "I'll go see Ryan tonight. He'll be back on the job by morning." He walked out toward his truck, whistling. Olivia stood alone in the garage, the bouquet heavy in her arms. She had traded a dinner for her greenhouse. And she had just made a promise to the one brother whose eyes never left her.