Thanks, Grandma!

Never thought I'd become a master gardener on my first try.

On this bright, crisp Saturday morning, the sight of vegetables thriving in my community garden plot dazzled me. Carrots, radishes, onions, beans, tomatoes, kohlrabi—what was I going to do with it all?

But the perfect combination of soaking rains and warm sunshine this spring had resulted not only in a bumper crop of produce but also of ugly weeds.

That's why I was here dressed in cutoffs, t-shirt, sneakers, and straw hat, hoeing and plucking the stubborn little monsters out of the ground.

Five years ago the city converted a vacant lot of several acres into a garden area open to people willing to stake out a small section and grow their own produce. I was sure my grandmother, who had taught me gardening, would be proud. See what I've accomplished, Grandma!

"Looks like you're working hard—and with excellent results."

The male voice startled me.

I stopped hoeing and stood straight. My breath caught as my eyes landed on a tall, handsome man dressed in a yellow T-shirt, well-worn jeans, and sneakers. His curly black hair glistened in the sunlight, and his awesome smile rocked me. I guessed him to be thirty-something, like me.

"That's your plot next to mine?" I asked, my intense reaction to him embarrassing me a bit.

He nodded, his blue eyes shifting from his plot to mine. "You've got a totally green thumb," he said.

I smiled. "Lived with my grandparents on a little farm in Iowa after my folks died in a car accident—I learned a lot."

He nodded. As he eyes scrolled over me in a gentle way, I felt myself flushing and wished I'd done something with my auburn hair besides letting it flow freely to my shoulders. Wished I'd worn a bit of makeup.

He said, "I usually stop here in the evenings, but you must be a morning person. So that's why I haven't seen you before."

"You're right," I said, tilting my straw hat back. What brings you here this morning?"

"Last night's rain. I knew this would be a perfect morning for tackling weeds. Name's Cody McCune," he added, extending a solid, square hand.

I whipped off my glove, and my heart lurched when his warm hand shook mine in a firm but gentle grip.

"Sarah Mitchell," I said, trying not to gulp.

We went to work weeding, but stopped now and then to rest, and we talked freely about ourselves like strangers do sometimes.

He was a dentist, divorced four years ago, single and still unattached. He'd been gardening for three years. He donated most of what he grew to our local food pantry. "Gardening is great physical exercise," he said. "It also gives me a chance to relax, but more importantly, it's an opportunity to donate to the needy, a cause I firmly believe in."

I decided to be honest with him as he apparently had been with me, but I knew it wouldn't be easy.

I was an accountant with the biggest firm in town—that was the easy part. This is the part that was tough: I'd spent the last two years cultivating a relationship that dried up and died on the vine because the man wouldn't commit. I was gardening to clear my head and release excess energy.

Peering sheepishly at my rows and rows of vegetables, I said, "I got carried away with the planting, but I know what I'll do—donate like you do. That'll be perfect."

"Um...would you like to swap some items?"

I looked at him curiously. A stubble of inky-black beard enhanced his handsome good looks. "Swap?"

"I've got lots of zucchini," he said. "But it looks like I'm going to be short on carrots. Tomatoes, too."

"Sure. I've got plastic bags my car."

A half hour later, finished for the day, after we'd completed our vegetable swap, an outrageous thought zipped through my mind. I inhaled a breath of fresh mid-morning air and hoped I wasn't about to make a fool of myself. "Um...when will you be here again?"

His eyes locked with mine, and my heart jolted.

He said, "Tomorrow morning, definitely. There's still work to be done. You?"

I nodded. "Tomorrow morning." Then I cleared my throat. "I have a great recipe of my grandma's for zucchini bread. I'll bring a loaf."

I beautiful smile lighted Cody's face. "I'll bring a thermos of coffee. There's a picnic table by the parking lot."

"Excellent!" I said, and we high-fived.

As we tromped to our cars, bags of produce and hoes in hand, our shoulders bumped. We both felt the bump and smiled at each other. Then I glanced at the blue sky and whispered silently, "Thanks, Grandma!"

The End

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A Man With a Beard

"Okay—here's the deal," I told my best friend Carla. "I'm not a romance-novel kind of girl. I don't believe in love-at-first-sight. I don't believe in moonlight and passionate kisses that destroy your knees as you fall into his arms."

Carla sat in a chair across from me in my office.

I'm Dean of Students at Mount Saint Clare College for women—Dr. Alexis Anderson. Carla's an English Professor, head of the department. She's forty, married twenty years, three kids. I'm forty and never married. Not involved with anyone. Well...except....

"Let me get this straight," Carla said, eyeing me. "You spend the summer in a wilderness cabin. You meet a tall, bearded, pony-tailed mountain man—"

"Forest Ranger."

"Whatever. You carry on a passionate affair—"

"We dated...a couple of times."

"And now that you've left the wilderness and school's started again, you can't get the guy out of your mind. You mope around like a zombie, but when you talk about him there's a twinkle in your eye—and you can't figure out if you're in love. Am I right so far?"

"It can't be love. I mean, something like this just doesn't happen to me."

"Who says you're different from any other woman?"

Maybe Carla was right. Who says I'm different?

I'd spent last summer living in a cabin on Lake Mystic in a state wilderness area not far from the college—reading, relaxing, and getting ready for this school year. It was the first summer I'd taken some time off. When a raccoon took up residence in the attic of my cabin, I called the state ranger's office. That's when Max Winter, dressed in uniform, appeared at my cabin's door—tall, broad-shouldered, piercing blue eyes, heavily bearded. He trapped the pesky raccoon and released it fifty miles away. The problem is I think he captured more than the raccoon—he'd captured my heart, but he didn't release it.

He visited me several times at the cabin. "Just to check on you," he said the first time. "Bears and cougars around here occasionally. You've got to be careful. Don't leave food out. You like living here in the wilderness by yourself?"

"Love it. School's always so hectic. This gives me a chance to get away. It's the first time I've spent the summer like this. I have a condo in town I'll go back to when school starts."

One night we sat around a campfire and ate bratwurst on toasted buns and devoured s'mores. He looked handsome and rugged in a camouflage shirt, tight-fitting jeans, and shiny black boots—my heart skipped rope the entire night. He told me his grandfather and dad had been loggers in these parts, but logging days had passed, so he became a ranger because the wilderness was in his blood. He'd never married. Our first date was a fish fry at Smokey Joe's Roadside Inn where, after devouring bass and walleye, we had a blast line dancing. A good night kiss in front of my cabin in the moonlight buckled my knees as I fell into his arms, and more dates followed.

But at the end of summer we both agreed that though we didn't live very far apart, we came from different worlds—academia and the wilderness—and well—that was it. We parted.

The first month of school ended, and Max still haunted my memory. One Friday afternoon, Carla popped into my office, closed the door, and said breathlessly, "There's a man out there at the secretary's desk asking about you."

My eyebrows jumped. "Brilliant blue eyes. Heavy beard?"

"Clean shaven. Crew cut. New jeans and pressed shirt. Truly handsome."

"Probably a father worried about his daughter."

When a tentative knock sounded at my office door and I said, "Come in," Carla jumped up and left. I stood up behind my desk in front of man whose face was familiar but unfamiliar. But for only a second. My mouth dropped, and I collapsed into the swivel chair behind my desk. "Max—?"

A smiled swept across his face. His lake-blue eyes sparkled. "Dr. Anderson?"

"What are you doing here, Max?" My mouth and lips could barely form the words.

"Took a little time off. Thought I'd visit your world like you visited mine—I haven't been able to forget you, Dr. Anderson."

"Lexi—please."

"I've really have missed you, Lexi."

Then I did something only a character in romance novel would do. I popped up out of my chair, stepped around my desk, and cupped the man's smooth cheeks in my hands. Right there in my office I kissed him. "I think we can blend our worlds," I said, my heart hammering.

"You think? Honestly?"

"Honestly. But you've got to let your beard grow out," I said, kissing him again. And again.

The End
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