Far Harbor by Joann Ross

She’d borrowed Raine’s laptop computer, hoping the fancy money-management program would make her prospects look more encouraging. It didn’t.
    “It doesn’t help that I keep expanding the original concept,” she muttered as she glared at the flashing cursor.
    John, who rode his bike to the lighthouse every day, was weeding nearby. His sunflower yellow T-shirt read Cultivate the Garden Within. Every time she’d seen Dan’s nephew he’d been wearing another message shirt, which had Savannah thinking that he and her grandmother would undoubtedly get along like gangbusters.
    “You’re unhappy,” he diagnosed.
    “Not unhappy.” Savannah sighed. “Just frustrated.”
    She took in the sight of the bunchberry he’d planted as a groundcover the first day she’d met him here at the lighthouse. The white blossoms looked like tiny umbrellas amidst the dark green foliage he’d promised would eventually spread all the way along the cliff.
    “That’s lovely.” There was something vastly soothing about the garden, which was why she’d chosen to work here today.
    “It’s going to be even better,” he assured her with the enviable confidence he seemed to possess regarding his horticultural work. “When summer ends, the flowers will turn to bright red berries that’ll attract more birds to your lighthouse.”
    If it was her lighthouse by then. Savannah shook her head to rid it of that depressing thought. Henry had begun to waffle about signing the final sales agreement, but she refused to consider the possibility of failure.
    “I like the idea of attracting birds,” she said as she watched a fat red-breasted robin energetically tug a worm from the moist ground.
    John rocked back on his heels. “Sometimes when I get worried and need to figure out an answer to a problem, I work in the garden and my brain works better,” he offered. “Even when I don’t get any answers, I don’t feel so bad.” He paused. “I have an extra pair of gloves.”
    Savannah immediately turned off the computer. “You’re on.” She spent the next hour attacking weeds, and while she didn’t come any closer to solving her financial problems, she discovered John was right: she did feel better.
    Despite her new-found garden therapy, Savannah’s stress level escalated as she continued to juggle figures and go around and around with Henry, who appeared to believe that his role in life was to make people—and her in particular—as miserable as possible. Whenever she could steal a free moment, she worked off her frustration in John’s garden. He seemed to enjoy her company, even after she’d mistaken a bed of newly sprouted seedlings for dandelions.
    “That’s okay,” he assured her easily, revealing no irritation that she’d destroyed an entire day’s work. “I can plant more.”
    She’d shown up the next morning with a Thermos of cold milk and a tin of crumbly, home-baked chocolate chunk cookies as an apology. John had taken one bite, then rolled his eyes.
    “These are the very best cookies I’ve ever tasted.” He flashed her a grin that reminded her of his uncle. “Any time you want to dig up more flowers, I won’t mind—so long as you keep bringing more cookies.”
    Savannah laughed and promised the cookies without the destruction. But the incident did give her an idea. After checking with the charge nurse at Evergreen to make sure Henry wasn’t on a restricted diet, she showed up at the nursing home with a tin of cookies still hot from the oven. It may just have been a coincidence, but that was the evening he finally agreed to her terms.
    Wanting to get the deal locked up before Henry changed his mind again, Savannah was at the legal offices of O’Halloran and O’Halloran first thing the next morning.
    The offices her sister shared with Dan were housed in a century-old building next to the ferry dock. The brick had been painted a soft gray-blue that reflected the water, and beneath the front windows scarlet