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It had taken three years to convince Mr. Longwood to grant her a two-season probationary apprenticeship with lodging in one of the cottages—based, she hoped, on her night school training and community resource and volunteer work as a Master Gardener, her innovative crossbreeding of roses, and her sincerity poured into letters that sped across the Atlantic. She feared it was more likely her desperate persistence, the subtle pressure that her mother was a descendant of the Dymokes—distant relative of Lord Dymoke, Queen's Champion and owner of the park—and the fact that he'd never be rid of her if he didn't acquiesce.

But he'd said yes. That was all that mattered. Despite her age, once her feet hit British soil, she'd convince him of her strength and abilities, her strong work ethic, and her commitment. She'd make herself a valuable contributor, indispensable.

The garden catalogs she'd pored over for all the years of her adult life would have to go. The stacks filled five bins in the small closet of her room. She'd already sold or given away nearly everything not transportable in two suitcases—all but her gardening books and botanical presses. No storage units for Ginny.

Those smacked of baggage and returning.

At the retirement supper, her coworkers had celebrated her and the more than thirty years they'd worked together in the gardening center. Like Claire, they'd teased that her planned move to England was temporary—a flight of fancy and something she needed to get out of her system—and that she'd be back in their midst, eager to rejoin their ranks, before the spring rush.

Ginny knew better. She'd do whatever it took to make her move permanent. She'd volunteer if her application for an extended work visa was denied and camp out at the embassy, begging for extensions on her visa. She'd apply for dual citizenship if necessary. Her coworkers were good friends, but not family. There was nothing and no one to keep her in New Jersey, or even the US, not anymore.

From the bank, Ginny stopped at her post office box. She'd need to close that in a few months and see about having important mail forwarded. She didn't get much mail, so it shouldn't be a problem. Reaching into the box, she pulled out yet another spring garden catalog—always a pleasure—and a long, official-looking linen envelope, clearly not an advertisement.

She turned it over. The name and address did not register at first: Miss Virginia Dionysia Pickering—a name Ginny hadn't gone by or seen written out since she was not quite sixteen. The envelope had been mailed to and forwarded from a local Cape May boardinghouse where she'd rented a room decades ago—just after leaving Virginia during WWII, of all things—while she'd saved and waited for Curtis to return from the front before she'd purchased their home.

"I don't believe it," Ginny whispered. The letter could have only found its way to her now because she'd stayed in touch with the family that owned the home all these years—now another generation—and had developed gardens for the old Victorian house as part of her internship in her Master Gardener's program a couple of years ago.

Seeing her maiden name, and the town of her birth, founded by her mother's ancestors, on official letterhead, sent a cramp to her heart, as if a ghost walked over old graves.

Ginny gritted her teeth. She shoved the letter into her purse, locked her box, and hurried from the post office as if someone were following her.

She wouldn't open it, didn't want to know what it said. Anything from New Scrivelsby, Virginia, stank of her past, a past she wasn't about to dredge up now. Not when she stood on the threshold of stepping into her long-cherished dream.

She hadn't yet made her airline reservation for England. There was plenty of time. She wouldn't be traveling for six months. Whatever the letter said would be of no importance by then. She'd simply ignore it.

Back in her room, she shoved the envelope beneath a pile of junk mail and set the stack atop her boxes of seed catalogs to take to recycling. Out of sight, out of mind.

But the envelope niggled at the back of her mind for days, a little spider climbing the wall of her brain, spinning dark and silken threads to tempt her, taunt her.

For three days she stayed busy and tried to forget about it, but in the long night hours, just before dawn, knowing the letter was there, unread—it haunted her.

She wondered if the letter contained bad news, news that might alter her plans in some way. Never. On the third night, she turned over, punched her pillow, and stared at the ceiling.

Her parents were dead, and the farm was long gone from her. Every tie she'd ever had to the town of her birth had been severed decades ago. The only person who might still be alive had long ago shut her out, declared her dead to their family.