by Nora Roberts
Through the connecting door, her room was washed with winter light. Rhizomes patterned the oak floor.
A cozy sitting area faced the small white-marble fireplace, with a painting of a garden in full summer bloom above it.
Draped in gauzy white and shell pink, the canopy bed was accented with a generous mountain of silk pillows in dreamy pastels. The bureau with its long oval mirror was gleaming mahogany, as was the charmingly feminine dressing table and the carved armoire.
“I’m starting to feel like Cinderella at the ball.”
“If the shoe fits.” Roz set down the suitcases. “I want you to be comfortable, and your boys to be happy because I’m going to work you very hard. It’s a big house, and David will show you through at some point. We won’t bump into each other, unless we want to.”
She shoved up the sleeves of her shirt as she looked around. “I’m not a sociable woman, though I do enjoy the company of people I like. I think I’m going to like you. I already like your children.”
She glanced at her watch. “I’m going to grab that hot chocolate—I can’t ever resist it—then get to work.”
“I’d like to come in, show you some of my ideas, later today.”
“Fine. Hunt me up.”
SHE DID JUST THAT. THOUGH SHE’D INTENDED TO bring the kids with her after the school meeting, she hadn’t had the heart to take them away from David.
So much for her worries about their adjustment to living in a new house with strangers. It appeared that most of the adjustments were going to be on her end.
She dressed more appropriately this time, in sturdy walking shoes that had already seen their share of mud, jeans with considerable wear, and a black sweater. With her briefcase in hand, she headed into the main entrance of the garden center.
The same woman was at the counter, but this time she was waiting on a customer. Stella noted a small dieffenbachia in a cherry-red pot and a quartet of lucky bamboo, tied with decorative hemp, already in a shallow cardboard box.
A bag of stones and a square glass vase were waiting to be rung up.
Good.
“Is Roz around?” Stella asked.
“Oh ...” Ruby gestured vaguely. “Somewhere or the other.”
She nodded to the two-ways behind the counter. “Would she have one of those with her?”
The idea seemed to amuse Ruby. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay, I’ll find her. That’s so much fun,” she said to the customer, with a gesture toward the bamboo. “Carefree and interesting. It’s going to look great in that bowl.”
“I was thinking about putting it on my bathroom counter. Something fun and pretty.”
“Perfect. Terrific hostess gifts, too. More imaginative than the usual flowers.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. You know, maybe I’ll get another set.”
“You couldn’t go wrong.” She beamed a smile, then started out toward the greenhouses, congratulating herself as she went. She wasn’t in any hurry to find Roz. This gave her a chance to poke around on her own, to check supplies, stock, displays, traffic patterns. And to make more notes.
She lingered in the propagation area, studying the progress of seedlings and cuttings, the type of stock plants, and their health.
It was nearly an hour before she made her way to the grafting area. She could hear music—the Corrs, she thought—seeping out the door.
She peeked in. There were long tables lining both sides of the greenhouse, and two more shoved together to run down the center. It smelled of heat, vermiculite, and peat moss.
There were pots, some holding plants that had been or were being grafted. Clipboards hung from the edges of tables, much like hospital charts. A computer was shoved into a corner, its screen a pulse of colors that seemed to beat to the music.
Scalpels, knives, snippers, grafting tape and wax, and other tools of this part of the trade lay in trays.
She spotted Roz at the far end, standing behind a man on a stool. His shoulders were hunched as he worked. Roz’s hands were on her hips.
“It can’t take more than an hour, Harper. This place is as much yours as mine, and you need to meet her, hear what she has to say.”
“I will, I will, but damn it, I’m in the middle of things here. You’re the one who wants her to manage, so let her manage. I don’t care.”
“There’s such a thing as manners.” Exasperation rolled into the overheated air. “I’m just asking you to pretend, for an hour, to have a few.”
The comment brought Stella’s own words to her sons back to her mind. She couldn’t stop the laugh, but did her best to conceal it with a cough as she walked down the narrow aisle.
“Sorry to interrupt. I was just ...” She stopped by a pot, studying the grafted stem and the new leaves. “I can’t quite make this one.”
“Daphne.” Roz’s son spared her the briefest glance.
“Evergreen variety. And you’ve used a splice side-veneer graft.”
He stopped, swiveled on his stool. His mother had stamped herself on his face—the same strong bones, rich eyes. His dark hair was considerably longer than hers, long enough that he tied it back with what looked to be a hunk of raffia. Like her, he was slim and seemed to have at least a yard of leg, and like her he dressed carelessly in jeans pocked with rips and a soil-stained Memphis University sweatshirt.
“You know something about grafting?”
“Just the basics. I cleft-grafted a camellia once. It did very well. Generally I stick with cuttings. I’m Stella. It’s nice to meet you, Harper.”
He rubbed his hand over his jeans before shaking hers. “Mom says you’re going to organize us.”
“That’s the plan, and I hope it’s not going to be too painful for any of us. What are you working on here?” She stepped over to a line of pots covered with clean plastic bags held clear of the grafted plant by four split stakes.
“Gypsophilia—baby’s breath. I’m shooting for blue, as well as pink and white.”
“Blue. My favorite color. I don’t want to hold you up. I was hoping,” she said to Roz, “we could find somewhere to go over some of my ideas.”
“Back in the annual house. The office is hopeless. Harper?”
“All right, okay. Go ahead. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Harper.”
“Okay, ten. But that’s my final offer.”
With a laugh, Roz gave him a light cuff on the back of the head. “Don’t make me come back in here and get you.”
“Nag, nag, nag,” he muttered, but with a grin.
Outside, Roz let out a sigh. “He plants himself in there, you have to jab a pitchfork in his ass to budge him. He’s the only one of my boys who has an interest in the place. Austin’s a reporter, works in Atlanta. Mason’s a doctor, or will be. He’s doing his internship in Nashville.”
“You must be proud.”
“I am, but I don’t see nearly enough of either of them. And here’s Harper, practically under my feet, and I have to hunt him like a dog to have a conversation.”
Roz boosted herself onto one of the tables. “Well, what’ve you got?”
“He looks just like you.”
“People say. I just see Harper. Your boys with David?”
“Couldn’t pry them away with a crowbar.” Stella opened her briefcase. “I typed up some notes.”
Roz looked at the stack of papers and tried not to wince. “I’ll say.”
“And I’ve made some rough sketches of how we might change the layout to improve sales and highlight non-plant purchases. You have a prime location, excellent landscaping and signage, and a very appealing entrance.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming on.”
“But ...” Stella moistened her lips. “Your first-level retail area is somewhat disorganized. With some changes it would flow better into the secondary area and on through to your main plant facilities. Now, a functional organizational plan—”
“A functional organizational plan. Oh
, my God.”
“Take it easy, this really won’t hurt. What you need is a chain of responsibility for your functional area. That’s sales, production, and propagation. Obviously you’re a skilled propagator, but at this point you need me to head production and sales. If we increase the volume of sales as I’ve proposed here—”
“You did charts.” There was a touch of wonder in Roz’s voice. “And graphs. I’m ... suddenly afraid.”
“You are not,” Stella said with a laugh, then looked at Roz’s face. “Okay, maybe a little. But if you look at this chart, you see the nursery manager—that’s me—and you as you’re in charge of everything. Forked out from that is your propagator—you and, I assume, Harper; production manager, me; and sales manager—still me. For now, anyway. You need to delegate and/or hire someone to be in charge of container and/or field production. This section here deals with staff, job descriptions and responsibilities.”
“All right.” On a little breath, Roz rubbed the back of her neck. “Before I give myself eyestrain reading all that, let me say that while I may consider hiring on more staff, Logan, my landscape designer, has a good handle on the field production at this point. I can continue to head up the container production. I didn’t start this place to sit back and have others do all the work.”
“Great. Then at some point I’d like to meet with Logan so we can coordinate our visions.”
Roz’s smile was thin, and just a little wicked. “That ought to be interesting.”
“Meanwhile, since we’re both here, why don’t we take my notes and sketches of the first-level sales section and go through it on the spot? You can see better what I have in mind, and it’ll be simpler to explain.”
Simpler? Roz thought as she hopped down. She didn’t think anything was going to be simpler now.
But it sure as holy hell wasn’t going to be boring.
four
EVERYTHING WAS PERFECT. SHE WORKED LONG hours, but much of it was planning at this stage. There was little Stella loved more than planning. Unless it was arranging. She had a vision of things, in her head, of how things could and should be.
Some might see it as a flaw, this tendency to organize and project, to nudge those visions of things into place even when—maybe particularly when—others didn’t quite get the picture.
But she didn’t see it that way.
Life ran smoother when everything was where it was meant to be.
Her life had—she’d made certain of it—until Kevin’s death. Her childhood had been a maze of contradictions, of confusions and irritations. In a very real way she’d lost her father at the age of three when divorce had divided her family.
The only thing she clearly remembered about the move from Memphis was crying for her daddy.
From that point on, it seemed she and her mother had butted heads over everything, from the color of paint on the walls to finances to how to spend holidays and vacations. Everything.
Those same some people might say that’s what happened with two headstrong women living in the same house. But Stella knew different. While she was practical and organized, her mother was scattered and spontaneous. Which accounted for the four marriages and three broken engagements.
Her mother liked flash and noise and wild romance. Stella preferred quiet and settled and committed.
Not that she wasn’t romantic. She was just sensible about it.
It had been both sensible and romantic to fall in love with Kevin. He’d been warm and sweet and steady. They’d wanted the same things. Home, family, future. He’d made her happy, made her feel safe and cherished. And God, she missed him.
She wondered what he’d think about her coming here, starting over this way. He’d have trusted her. He’d always believed in her. They’d believed in each other.
He’d been her rock, in a very real way. The rock that had given her a solid base to build on after a childhood of upheaval and discontent.
Then fate had kicked that rock out from under her. She’d lost her base, her love, her most cherished friend, and the only person in the world who could treasure her children as much as she did.
There had been times, many times, during the first months after Kevin’s death when she’d despaired of ever finding her balance again.
Now she was the rock for her sons, and she would do whatever she had to do to give them a good life.
With her boys settled down for the night, and a low fire burning—she was definitely having a bedroom fireplace in her next house—she sat on the bed with her laptop.
It wasn’t the most businesslike way to work, but she didn’t feel right asking Roz to let her convert one of the bedrooms into a home office.
Yet.
She could make do this way for now. In fact, it was cozy and for her, relaxing, to go over the order of business for the next day while tucked into the gorgeous old bed.
She had the list of phone calls she intended to make to suppliers, the reorganization of garden accessories and the houseplants. Her new color-coordinated pricing system to implement. The new invoicing program to install.
She had to speak with Roz about the seasonal employees. Who, how many, individual and group responsibilities.
And she’d yet to corner the landscape designer. You’d think the man could find time in a damn week to return a phone call. She typed in “Logan Kitridge,” bolding and underlining the name.
She glanced at the clock, reminded herself that she would put in a better day’s work with a good night’s sleep.
She powered down the laptop, then carried it over to the dressing table to set it to charge. She really was going to need that home office.
She went through her habitual bedtime routine, meticulously creaming off her makeup, studying her naked face in the mirror to see if the Time Bitch had snuck any new lines on it that day. She dabbed on her eye cream, her lip cream, her nighttime moisturizer—all of which were lined, according to point of use, on the counter. After slathering more cream on her hands, she spent a few minutes searching for gray hairs. The Time Bitch could be sneaky.
She wished she was prettier. Wished her features were more even, her hair straight and a reasonable color. She’d dyed it brown once, and that had been a disaster. So, she’d just have to live with ...
She caught herself humming, and frowned at herself in the mirror. What song was that? How strange to have it stuck in her head when she didn’t even know what it was.
Then she realized it wasn’t stuck in her head. She heard it. Soft, dreamy singing. From the boys’ room.
Wondering what in the world Roz would be doing singing to the boys at eleven at night, Stella reached for the connecting door.
When she opened it, the singing stopped. In the subtle glow of the Harry Potter night-light, she could see her sons in their beds.
“Roz?” she whispered, stepping in.
She shivered once. Why was it so cold in there? She moved, quickly and quietly to the terrace doors, checked and found them securely closed, as were the windows. And the hall door, she thought with another frown.
She could have sworn she’d heard something. Felt something. But the chill had already faded, and there was no sound in the room but her sons’ steady breathing.
She tucked up their blankets as she did every night, brushed kisses on both their heads.
And left the connecting doors open.
BY MORNING SHE’D BRUSHED IT OFF. LUKE COULDN’T find his lucky shirt, and Gavin got into a wrestling match with Parker on their before-school walk and had to change his. As a result, she barely had time for morning coffee and the muffin David pressed on her.
“Will you tell Roz I went in early? I want to have the lobby area done before we open at ten.”
“She left an hour ago.”
“An hour ago?” Stella looked at her watch. Keeping up with Roz had become Stella’s personal mission—and so far she was failing. “Does she sleep?”
“With her, the early bird doesn’t just catch the w
orm, but has time to sauté it with a nice plum sauce for breakfast.”
“Excuse me, but eeuw. Gotta run.” She dashed for the doorway, then stopped. “David, everything’s going okay with the kids? You’d tell me otherwise, right?”
“Absolutely. We’re having nothing but fun. Today, after school, we’re going to practice running with scissors, then find how many things we can roughhouse with that can poke our eyes out. After that, we’ve moving on to flammables.”
“Thanks. I feel very reassured.” She bent down to give Parker a last pat. “Keep an eye on this guy,” she told him.
LOGAN KITRIDGE WAS PRESSED FOR TIME. RAIN HAD delayed his personal project to the point where he was going to have to postpone some of the fine points—again—to meet professional commitments.
He didn’t mind so much. He considered landscaping a perpetual work in progress. It was never finished. It should never be finished. And when you worked with Nature, Nature was the boss. She was fickle and tricky, and endlessly fascinating.
A man had to be continually on his toes, be ready to flex, be willing to compromise and swing with her moods. Planning in absolutes was an exercise in frustration, and to his mind there were enough other things to be frustrated about.
Since Nature had deigned to give him a good, clear day, he was taking it to deal with his personal project. It meant he had to work alone—he liked that better in any case—and carve out time to swing by the job site and check on his two-man crew.
It meant he had to get over to Roz’s place, pick up the trees he’d earmarked for his own use, haul them back to his place, and get them in the ground before noon.
Or one. Two at the latest.
Well, he’d see how it went.
The one thing he couldn’t afford to carve out time for was this new manager Roz had taken on. He couldn’t figure out why Roz had hired a manager in the first place, and for God’s sake a Yankee. It seemed to him that Rosalind Harper knew how to run her business just fine and didn’t need some fast-talking stranger screwing with the system.
