The Trouble with Joe

by Emilie Richards

  “It looks good.”

  “It will when I’m done. I just dug in a ton of manure and peat moss and bone meal. I was planning to go to the nursery in the morning. There’s a great one in Sequim.”

  He rested a foot on one of the lower stairs, enjoying the play of emotions on her face.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “A climbing rose, for starters.” She turned to survey her creation. “It can climb up the porch railing. And maybe a clematis, too. They can twine together. Then a couple of shrubs. Maybe old roses. I’ve always wanted to grow some.” She laughed. “I already told you that, didn’t I? Oh, and perennials, and probably some annuals to fill in this year. It’s going to be such fun. I’m awfully tempted to start digging on the other side of the porch, too. Because now it looks unbalanced, doesn’t it?”

  He had a sudden impulse. “What if I came and helped in the morning? I can’t spend all day at the hospital. I don’t know much about plants, but I can dig and haul the sod away.”

  She gazed at him as if he’d gone nuts. “Are you serious?”

  “Sure.” He felt oddly light. “I could sweat out all my frustrations.”

  A laugh escaped her. No, a giggle. “Now that you mention it, all that labor was therapeutic.”

  “Will I be depriving you?”

  “Something tells me I’m going to hurt in the morning. I think I can do without too much more therapy.”

  Adrian grinned at her. “You don’t hurt right now?”

  She made a face at him. “Oh, yeah. Why do you think I was just sitting here?”

  “Why don’t you shower?” he suggested. “I could take you out to dinner.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to—”

  “I was thinking pizza. Unless you don’t eat it unless you’ve hand-rolled the crust from organic, whole wheat flour and canned the tomato sauce yourself?”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” he assured her.

  “Pizza and beer sounds really good, if you don’t mind waiting. Um...do you want to come in?”

  “I’ll just sit out here,” he said. From somewhere, he added, “Hollyhocks.” At her startled glance, he shrugged in embarrassment. “I was just thinking of Mom.”

  “The flowers that reach for the sky,” Lucy said softly.

  “Yeah.”

  Her smile was as glorious as any rose in full bloom. “Definitely hollyhocks.” She crossed the porch and opened the screen door. “I’ll hurry.”

  “Take your time,” Adrian told her, and sat on the top step, his back to the newel. Waiting, he felt better than he had all day.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ON THE WAY HOME from the nursery, Lucy cranked up the radio and in happy abandonment sang along with the top ten hits even though she couldn’t carry a tune. Her trunk was tied down with a bungee cord, and her backseat was covered with newspapers and buried in a forest of greenery, some of which waved in her vision when she glanced in the rearview mirror.

  She was happy. Ridiculously, gloriously, absurdly happy. She tried to tell herself it was because she’d actually accomplished something this weekend that pleased her and not spent it stripping the kitchen floor and picking up a prescription at the pharmacy and grocery shopping and hearing all the latest, trivial family gossip at her mother’s on Sunday night.

  But she knew she was kidding herself. She was floating on a wave of euphoria because Adrian Rutledge had stopped at her house yesterday and invited her out for pizza. And because, better yet, he was at her house right this minute, not only waiting for her, but also slaving in her yard because he apparently wanted to.

  She was being an idiot. He’d be gone soon. Probably tomorrow, and if not then, within the week. He appreciated what she’d done for his mother. He was thanking her. Heck, he might even be a little bit lonely. It could be that he was thinking of her garden, as she had, as something that would be meaningful to his mother.

  He was not falling madly in love with her, Lucy Peterson. The plain Peterson sister. Nobody ever had, and he was a particularly unlikely candidate to become the big exception.

  But just for today, she refused to listen to reason. She’d had fun last night. For once, they hadn’t talked about his mother. He’d listened with incredulous amusement to tales of her family instead. He’d asked about other people he had noticed around town, including several of the nurses and Jason Lee, the editor of the Courier.

  She told him more about Elton Weatherby, the aging, courtly lawyer, and how residents of Middleton had had to drive to Sequim or Port Angeles to find an attorney until the 1950s. That was when Elton returned from law school at the University of Puget Sound and set up practice in his hometown.

  Looking stunned, Adrian had paused with his beer stein halfway to his mouth and said, “He’s been practicing for fifty years?”

  “Most people have been doing whatever they do for close to that long when they retire,” she pointed out. “Think about it. You start work as an auto mechanic right out of high school, you don’t retire until you’re sixty-five, and that’s assuming you can afford to retire then, you’d have been working for, um—” she had to calculate “—forty-seven years.”

  “Good God,” he’d said, and swallowed.

  “Besides, Mr. Weatherby told me he loves the fact that he meets so many people and hears so many stories. No day is the same as the one that came before, is how he put it.”

  “Is he planning to keep tottering into court until the day he turns up his toes?” Adrian asked.

  “No, he’d like to find someone to buy the practice. Or even a young attorney to bring in to take over. He had bypass surgery last year. Mrs. Weatherby would like them to go to Arizona during the winter. Her arthritis is bad when it gets cold.”

  This time he shook his head. “Good lord.”

  Lucy had wondered from his amazement whether he actually liked his job. She’d had the impression he couldn’t imagine going into his office every day for nearly fifty years. Of course, he probably wouldn’t have to. Clearly, he made plenty of money. He could probably retire at fifty and...and do whatever rich people did. Sail the Caribbean. Lounge on the beach in Cabo San Lucas. Lucy wasn’t quite sure. She thought she’d be bored without work.

  Turning onto her street, she began to smile. Maybe she wouldn’t be bored, not if she had a huge English cottage-style garden to maintain and kids and grandkids to cook for.

  Just don’t fool yourself they’ll be Adrian Rutledge’s, an inner voice warned.

  Since she wasn’t nearly that stupid, she didn’t feel any compulsion to argue. Besides, that might not even be the life she wanted.

  Adrian’s Mercedes was parked at the curb. She pulled in to the driveway and stopped where they could unload most easily.

  He’d accomplished an amazing amount while she was gone. The wheelbarrow was currently piled high with sod, but he’d nearly cleared the rectangle under the dining-room window to match the bed she’d dug out yesterday. He was standing looking at it, but turned when she got out.

  He was on his cell phone, she saw. She heard him say, “Yeah, I said clear the rest of the week.”

  Lucy unhooked the cord holding the trunk closed and pulled the first flat of perennials out.

  “The Kendrick deposition?” he was saying, his gaze resting on Lucy. “Reschedule.” He frowned as he listened. “Yeah, yeah, I’d forgotten what a time you had. Okay, then, have Crawford do it.” Pause. “You heard me right.”

  Lucy set the flat on the grass and went back for another one.

  Adrian covered the phone. “Don’t carry anything too heavy. I’ll be off in just a second.” He went back to his conversation. “My mother’s condition is...unstable. I don’t want to leave until we know more. Crawford’s capable of handling the K
endrick case.”

  He listened, returning short answers that made no sense to Lucy, finally ending the call. “That was Carol. My administrative assistant,” he said unnecessarily. He set the phone on a porch step and went to Lucy’s car, lifting one of the two climbing roses from the floor of the backseat. When he set it down on the grass, he read the label. “Zepherine Drouhin.”

  “It’s supposed to be really fragrant. I like fragrance.”

  He nodded acknowledgement and passed her, going back to the car.

  Buffeted by a surge of lust, Lucy stayed behind, pretending to be inspecting his work. Adrian Rutledge was sexy in an expensively cut dark suit, and in the polo shirt and khakis he’d worn yesterday. But put him in well-worn jeans, athletic shoes and a plain gray T-shirt that clung to broad shoulders and bared strong, tanned forearms, dishevel his hair, add sweat, dirt and a strong, earthy smell, and her knees went weak. Which made no sense, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “You went all out,” he observed, returning with plant pots encircled in each of his arms.

  She managed a cheeky grin. “It was the most fun I’ve had in years.”

  He returned the grin, looking years younger than he had when she met him, his teeth a flash of white in a dirty face. “Does that suggest there’s something wrong with your life?”

  She was tempted to ask if he was talking about sex. If so, it was overrated, in her opinion. Although... Lucy couldn’t help wondering if sex with Adrian would be different. Way different.

  “There are different kinds of fun,” she said with dignity.

  “Yeah, there are.” His voice was deep. No longer smiling, he just looked at her, his expression thoughtful and...something more.

  Lucy looked back. She suddenly had trouble breathing.

  Of course, she lost her nerve and began to babble. “You’ve gotten so much done. I’m really impressed. I wasn’t gone that long. And I’ll bet you don’t ache like I do. Obviously, I need to get more exercise.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “I run regularly. But I suspect I will be sore tomorrow. I can’t remember the last time I used a shovel.”

  “So...you aren’t going back to Seattle tomorrow?”

  “You heard? No. Mom seemed to be reacting because I was talking to her. And Slater asked me not to move her until we can tell what’s going on with her.”

  He couldn’t have made it more clear that he would be moving his mother, or that he remained in Middleton only because of Dr. Slater’s request.

  “Yes, that makes sense,” Lucy said with forced cheer. “Well, let me finish unloading the car and then I can help you.”

  “No, you start planting. I’m not far from done.”

  While she carried the last flat of perennials over, he disappeared around the house with the wheelbarrow to deposit his load in the pile she was now designating as her compost heap. Or maybe it was an eyesore, but at least it was in back by the alley, and it would compost eventually, wouldn’t it?

  She set the pots out the way she thought she wanted to plant, then rearranged them half a dozen times. Adrian gave advice a couple of times, then once he’d finished amending the soil, helped her lay out the shrubs and perennials she’d bought for his side of the porch, too.

  His side. Who was she kidding?

  But it was fun having the companionship of someone who had invested as much hard work as she had. He gave his full attention to such problems as whether the half dozen hardy Geranium Johnson’s Blue should be sprinkled amongst other perennials or clustered in artful drifts.

  A few times, he would look down at one of the plants and say, in an odd tone, “Mom grew that.”

  He remembered the spiky Siberian irises and the tall Japanese anemones from her garden.

  “And peonies,” Adrian said reminiscently. “We had a whole row of them on top of a retaining wall along the street. Pink and white and red. It was really something when they were in bloom. Cars would stop in the middle of the street so the drivers could gawk.”

  Lucy had bought a couple of peonies, one for each side. She was pretty sure they needed some kind of staking, which made her wary of having too many.

  They broke off to have sandwiches, which she put together quickly in the kitchen and they ate on the front porch steps. Lucy asked more about his early-morning visit to the hospital. Adrian had been disappointed that he’d found his mother unresponsive.

  “Yesterday may have been a fluke. I’ll go back this afternoon when we’re done here.” He glanced at her. “You probably have things to do, but if not—”

  “I’ve been staying away so I didn’t intrude,” Lucy admitted. “I’d love to come. Except...I really need to shower first.”

  He looked ruefully down at himself. “Yeah, I’d better do that, too.”

  Having downed the sandwiches and the apples she’d sliced, they went back to work companionably. When they were done setting every single plant she’d bought into the ground, Adrian insisted on helping her clean up.

  Then they stood on the grass and admired the two flower beds.

  Looking satisfied, Adrian said, “Give ’em a month or two, and this is going to look great.”

  He wouldn’t be here to see.

  Ignoring her hollow feeling, she said, “I think I need some annuals to fill in. There’s a lot of bare soil.” She frowned. “Maybe we should have put everything closer together.”

  “What, you don’t believe they’re going to get as big as the nursery says they will?”

  She sighed. “I’m impatient. I want my garden bursting with flowers now.”

  “You want the equivalent of fast food?”

  Lucy laughed at herself. “No, I don’t. Fine, you’ve made your point.”

  “Isn’t watching plants grow supposed to be half the pleasure?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never actually gardened before, except for hanging baskets. I only imagined gardening. Which isn’t quite the same.”

  “Ah.” He was quiet for a moment. “Mom used to say something about possibilities.”

  Lucy couldn’t help noticing how much more casually he now said Mom instead of my mother, in that stiff way he’d had. It was as if she’d become a real person again to him. Lucy was glad about that, if nothing else.

  “Well.” He stirred. “I’ll head to the B and B and shower. Then I’ll come back for you. Say, half an hour? Forty-five minutes?”

  She nodded. “I’ll be ready.” When he started to turn away, she stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Adrian. Thank you. I wouldn’t have gotten nearly as far without you.”

  “You know, I actually enjoyed myself today.” He sounded surprised. “It felt...”

  When he seemed unable to supply a word, Lucy did. “Real?”

  “Real.” His eyebrows pulled together as he seemed to sample the concept. “Yeah. Most days, I write e-mails, I make phone calls, I file briefs. Nothing you can touch or look at a month later.”

  A tinge of sadness in his voice made her want to reassure him. “But...you must affect people’s lives.”

  “Do I?” He shook himself. “Definitely time for that shower. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  He strode to his car and got in so quickly, Lucy wondered if he hadn’t wanted her to see that he felt even a moment of doubt about his life. But maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe he was just determined to shut off any unwelcome reflection.

  Lucy gazed once again at her new garden and, for a moment, saw it as it would be, in glorious bloom, not as the bare beginnings it now was. She imagined the hat lady beside her, nodding gently in approval, her new spring hat adorned with a riotous bouquet of silk flowers. In this picture, Adrian was there, too, debonair in a cream-colored linen suit, as if they’d all been to Ascot.

  Then, smiling crookedly at her absurdity, she tor
e herself away and went inside to get cleaned up.

  * * *

  LUCY SEEMED CONTENT to stay with Adrian at his mother’s bedside for a couple of hours. She was thrilled by every facial tic and refused to let him dismiss any new activity as random.

  She scowled at him. “Dr. Slater didn’t really say that.”

  “Yeah, actually he did. Although that was before,” Adrian admitted, “he’d actually seen for himself how expressive her face is getting.”

  “Well, there you go then.” She gave a firm nod, her jaw jutting out as if to tell him she’d keep arguing as long as he wanted.

  Of course, he didn’t want. Sitting here in the hospital was different with Lucy beside him. She was able to talk to his mother so naturally, anyone listening in would assume she was getting responses of some sort. With her as an example, even he began to get the hang of it.

  “You know,” Lucy said suddenly, after talking about which old roses she’d bought and why, “none of these bouquets are fragrant.”

  “What?” Adrian stared at him.

  She waved at the pot of chrysanthemums on the windowsill and the two bouquets on a bedside stand. He’d bought one himself downstairs in the gift shop, and had seen from the card that the other was from Lucy and George, the grocer. “Until your mom opens her eyes, she can’t see them. But if we brought really fragrant flowers, maybe she could smell them.”

  What an idiot he’d been. Of course she was right. Adrian wanted to stand right that minute and go drag a florist away from his dinner table to make up a new bouquet.

  “Like what?” he asked. “Roses?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Most florists’ roses are hybrid teas and might as well be plastic. Oriental lilies—they have a powerful fragrance. No, I know what! Mom has an early lilac. We can cut our own bouquet.” She smiled impishly at him. “We can do it tonight. I won’t even ask. Mom’ll never notice a few missing branches.”

  God, she was beautiful.

  Stunned by the power of his realization, Adrian wondered how he’d been so oblivious in the beginning. No, he knew why—he was used to hothouse flowers, showy and pampered. The women in his world visited their salon weekly for manicures and facials; they applied makeup skillfully, wore three-inch heels and shopped for clothes at Nordstrom or the downtown boutiques. Any pets were elegant purebreds, and the women’s cars as expensive as they were.