A Rose in Shadow

Chapter 97

Samantha spent her free time, such as it was, over the next couple of days working on her re-hab projects for Adam's family so by the time they were ready to go on Sunday afternoon she was pretty pleased with the results and was almost looking forward to seeing Adam's reaction as much as she was looking forward to seeing Greg and Ivy's. Adam had been working evenings all week so she had been spending a couple of hours each night down in Mr. Connor's little workshop in the garage to get things done.

Grabbing her bag and a couple of bottles of water she called to Adam from the door "Can you grab the pies and meet me at the truck? I'm going to get the things from the workshop". Adam poked his head out of the bedroom. "Okay. Do you need to come back up here or am I locking up?" She smiled at him, "You can lock up" and she hurried down the stairs. After throwing her bag into the back seat and putting the water bottles in the holders in front she lowered the tailgate and started hauling the things from the garage. Adam came down a few minutes later carrying the pies and stopped suddenly when he saw what she had made. A huge smile covered his face.

"Well what do you think?" Samantha stood nervously watching his reaction.

Laughing he set the pies down on the step and scooped her up, swirling her around. "These are fantastic. Oh my god, it's amazing. My mom is going to flip and so is Greg. I tried to imagine what they would look like from your description but these are ten times better."

"Oh good" she was relieved. "I just need your help to load them up".

"One problem" Adam said "What about the plants? We'll have to lay the window down but that's going to dump them" She grinned and pulled a small crate from the back of the truck and proceeded to remove the herb boxes from the window and place them gently in the crate. "I worried about that too but then I thought that it would be better if I made them removable anyway, you know in case any of them broke with weather or frost, then they could be replaced without having to throw the whole thing away" She put the herbs carefully in the backseat and grabbed one side of the frame, waiting for Adam to take the other. "I already put down some foam padding to lay it on so hopefully it won't move around too much. I used some netting and stretched it across the truck bed as another stop just in case" Shaking his head, Adam grinned. This woman was constantly surprising him.

They loaded the herb window and Greg's target and almost forgot the pies before they loaded themselves into the truck and hit the road.

Arriving at the farm Adam pulled around to the back kitchen door which led the way to the barns. Obviously his mom had been watching for them and she met them out there.

"What are you two up to?" she asked giving them both hugs when they got out. A huge grin crossed her face when Samantha handed her the two blackberry pies in the carrier. "Keith is going to kiss your feet" she said.

"Dad's not the only one" Adam said shooting Samantha a smile. He climbed into the back of the truck and helped Samantha maneuver the window box. Samantha had built it to stand on a wrought iron framework, another item that she had found in a junk pile. The iron detailing was beautiful and had actually been part of an old fireplace insert but it worked perfectly to support the window which Samantha had built to stand upright on its end. While she assembled the pieces with her own tools that she had brought along, Ivy watched on with disbelief and when Samantha pulled out the herb boxes and reattached them she had tears running down her cheeks.

She had her hand to her chest and turned her watery eyes to Samantha. "You made this for me?" Samantha nodded shyly. "We can change out the herbs to something different if you prefer but I thought that it might look nice on the kitchen stoop and that way you could just step out and snip what you need and it gets that great morning sun".