“Okay, thanks,” the man said, and abruptly turned away and lumbered toward the rear of the barn.
I glanced down at the dog. “You have a fan.”
Dash gave a soft woof and continued to gaze after the man.
Bongo Pete was a strange one, but sweet as they came. Gessie let him camp on the far side of the stables, and he did odd jobs for her as needed.
When he was out of sight, Dash turned back to me.
“I’ve decided the bank can wait,” I said.
He panted his approval.
I toyed with the idea of going to see Thea. After all, I did need that compost. However, it had been months since I’d taken even part of a day off, so instead I drove east into the foothills and found a stream still running fast from the spring snowmelt in the Sierra Nevadas. Dash and I spent the rest of the afternoon there, him dozing on his back in the sunshine and me staring into the sparkling reflections, inhaling the trout-laced scent of water until it washed away the past and my worries, and I felt clean and clear again.
CHAPTER 3
THE CLOSED sign was up in the front window of Scents & Nonsense, and Josie had left by the time Dash and I returned from our impromptu miniretreat a few minutes after six. The Greenstockings would be arriving around six fifteen, so I just had time to review the day’s receipts—nothing to write home about, but it looked as though the customers I’d left enjoying the garden had purchased a selection of naturally scented play clay and a box of orange-and-clove drawer sachets. I added the Monday receipts to the deposit from the weekend. Since I’d failed to complete any of my errands for the day, I’d have to run by the bank tomorrow.
I filled Nabokov’s bowl and fluffed his kitty bed. He came with the building, the real estate agent had told me. No one knew how old he was, but as he flowed through the door, touched his nose to Dash’s in greeting, and wended his way to his food dish, he moved like a young jungle animal. Astrid had declared him to be in perfect health, and that was good enough for me.
He and Dash got along well, though Nabby barely tolerated other animals. Still, I couldn’t convince him to sleep in the house with us. He was a shop cat, through and through.
Astrid arrived first for the Greenstocking meeting, elbowing her way through the garden gate with a platter of lemon bars in one hand and Tally’s lead in the other.
“Oh, heavens,” I said. “Let me help you.” I hurried to take the sweet treats from her and led the way to the patio. She let Tally off the leash, and the big dog ambled over to join Dash under the ancient apple tree.
On my way through town, I’d picked up an order of bacon jalapeño poppers from the Sapphire Supper Club as my contribution to the meeting snacks. They sat under foil on the bistro table, and I set the lemon bars beside them. Astrid helped me arrange the mismatched rockers in a semicircle around the table, and we were lining up paper plates and napkins when the latch to the gate rattled.
“Looks like the mantrap has arrived,” Astrid muttered under her breath.
“Stop that,” I admonished with a little laugh as Cynthia Beck picked her way down the path in her open-toed pumps and a cloud of Chanel No. 5.
It was true that at thirty-six she had already been married twice and was not in the least bit shy when she was interested in a man. Tall, blond, super feminine and the most hard-driving business woman I knew, Cynthia was my polar opposite in almost all respects. Since she owned Foxy Locksies Hair Studio down the street, she was inevitably highlighted, manicured, polished, and buffed to perfection, and she was one of the few women in Poppyville who wore business suits. Today’s was seashell pink over a white blouse.
“Ladies!” she called, and lifted the bottle of chardonnay in her hand. “I bring libations!”
“You are most welcome then,” I assured her with a grin.
“I’ll find some glasses,” Astrid said, and went down to my house.
Cynthia had started the Greenstockings a few years before, determined that women should band together to help one another in the same way men did. When she’d invited me to join a few months back, I’d been flattered, but a little nervous. I’d still been learning about running my own business at that point. It had been great, though, and I’d learned a lot.
Gessie King came in as Cynthia was uncorking the wine. She still wore riding chaps but had changed out her mucky knee boots for well worn but clean paddock boots. She smelled of horse and alfalfa. Her iron gray curls clung close to her scalp, and her open-necked shirt revealed an elk’s tooth on a leather thong around her throat. She was carrying a bowl of her famous guacamole.
“Yes!” Astrid exclaimed, returning with the glasses. “I swear, if I weren’t a member, I’d still crash these meetings for your guacamole.”
Gessie grinned and added the bowl of dip to the table along with a bag of corn chips. “Flatterer.”
“Seriously. You should market that stuff.”
The horsewoman just shook her head. “Good to see you, Ellie. Cynthia, you’re looking well.”
“Wine?” Cynthia asked with a smile.
“God, yes.” Gessie plopped into one of the rockers with a sigh. “I exercised four horses and washed them down this afternoon, on top of my regular lessons. I’m tuckered.”
Thea Nelson arrived next. We’d been in the same grade in school and had been casual friends ever since. However, we’d grown quite close during the creation of the Enchanted Garden. Rangy and slow-moving, Thea was a brilliant horticulturist and landscape artist who was willing to take the time to do things right. She was also willing to talk with me for hours about anything and everything plant related. She was a good listener, too. More than once, she and Astrid and I had spent pleasant evenings together while I mined them for advice on starting my business, dealing with Harris, and working with contractors.
“Girls,” Thea said by way of greeting, and plopped a bag of peanut M&M’s on the table. She didn’t like to cook, and she didn’t care who knew it.
We settled in with snacks and drinks. Gessie donned her reading glasses, and Cynthia brought out her electronic notebook.
“Anyone have any news to share before we get started?” Cynthia asked, looking around at us.
“I have a group of thirty-five coming in for a full hayride at the end of the week,” Gessie said. “That means dinner and dancing and live music. It should be a hoot.”
“Excellent!” Cynthia proclaimed.
Thea spoke up. “I got a message from Sophia Thelane. She wants me to do another landscaping project at their place.”
“Nice,” I said. The fashion model was rarely seen in town, but had put a lot of money in Thea’s bank account over the years.
Cynthia murmured her agreement, then said, “Let’s get down to business. Two weeks ago we talked about following up with the Hotel California about reopening the museum in the basement.”
She looked up. “I spoke with the owners, who, as we know, unfortunately don’t even live in Poppyville. They were unconvinced that reopening the museum would be lucrative for them. I told them that anything that would appeal to tourists would be lucrative to the whole town, and tourists love information about the gold rush days.”
“From the look on your face, they didn’t buy it,” Astrid said.
“No, they did not.” Cynthia brightened. “But I’m not done yet.”
I sat back, half listening to Cynthia work her way through the Greenstockings biweekly agenda, and sipped wine, reflecting on how lucky I was to know these women.
The meeting wrapped up after about forty-five minutes, and everyone left for their respective evening plans.
“You want to stay for some real food?” I asked Astrid, first to arrive but also last to leave.
“Can’t,” she said with a grin. “I’ve got a date.”
“With that mountain biker guy?”
She nodded happily. “He�
�s so buff.”
“How are his conversational skills?”
She grinned. “I’ll let you know if I ever find out.”
After she’d gone, I double-checked the doors and walked the few steps to my home. After a light dinner of chicken salad and blueberries, I retired to the back porch with a glass of hard cider and my laptop. I placed orders for bulk supplies of sea salt, goat’s milk powder, and eight ounces each of sandalwood and ginger essential oils.
Then I put the technology aside in favor of the burgeoning sunset, settling deeper into the porch swing with a light blanket across my lap and Dash keeping watch by my feet. Fuchsia and purple bruised the clouds above, and as they faded to the monochromatic slate blue of dusk, a six-point buck stepped out from a stand of trees three hundred feet away. He stood there alone, sans his usual harem of does, staring at me as if I were something for a deer to stare at. I met the velvet brown gaze for the longest time, it seemed.
Elliana sighed the wind through the trees. Elliana, the breeze-ruffled grass called.
Not really, of course. Because that would be silly, thinking the wind was calling my name. But even after I’d gone inside a little after nine, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it had.
I retrieved Gamma’s garden journal from one of the shelves tucked under the staircase. It was larger than what most people would think of a journal as being, thick, with well-worn pages beginning to fray at the corners. I sank onto the love seat and slowly flipped through the book, drinking in the comfort it always provided. She’d made notations in blocks and swirls and geometric shapes, tucked in bits of poems and flower lore, obscure recipes, suggestions for cultivation, and preferred habitats. Here was a drawing of a tiny golden-crowned kinglet, there the starburst of a thistle, and throughout it all, insects and butterflies. I paused at a whole page dripping with precise renderings of ladybugs.
Elliana, do you see them gathering on the fence as the thunderheads rear up above? Soon there will be thousands. We have been blessed with sheltering a loveliness of ladybugs from the storm.
Her voice faded from memory, and I ran my finger lightly over the words she’d written around the margins of another page:
Hyacinth for jealousy.
Ivy for fidelity.
Larkspur for fickleness.
Nasturtium for victory in battle.
The language of flowers, around for thousands of years and spanning every continent, but reinvigorated in Victorian times. Gamma had been an expert and had passed her love of this unique horticultural dialect on to me. With a sigh, I closed the worn and dirt-stained volume.
Despite the pleasant afternoon and evening, I felt slightly jittery and distracted. My thoughts kept returning to Josie’s revelation that she was dating Harris. I didn’t pine for him, that was certain, but I couldn’t help wondering if things might still become awkward at the shop. And more important, I couldn’t help wondering if my ex would break her heart. Josie was good people, and a very independent woman. I didn’t think of her as particularly naive, either.
I didn’t take sleeping pills, but I had the ingredients for a relaxing tea. In my narrow kitchen, I mixed dried valerian root with chamomile flowers and peppermint leaf I’d grown and dried the previous summer. I drank the brew as I stood over the kitchen sink, rinsed out the cup, and followed Dash up the carpeted staircase that wound to my sleeping loft.
Forty minutes later, I was still wide awake. I sat up. On the bed beside me, Dash came to his feet, eagerly watching to see what I had in mind.
“How about a walk?”
He woofed and jumped to the floor. I dressed in jeans, trail runners, and a warm hoody. I grabbed a flashlight, and a few minutes later we stepped off the back porch and headed for the path that led along the edge of Raven Creek and the nearby park. The moon was nearing full, and I found I could see perfectly well without added light. Dash kept to my left heel, as well trained as any show dog. Once in the park, we fast-walked a loop on the quarter-mile fitness trail and headed back.
“If this doesn’t work I see a long night of reading ahead,” I said to my dog when we were almost home. Just what I needed: another bout of the insomnia that had plagued me for months after I’d moved out on my own.
A rustle in the bushes behind us made me stop and turn. Dash woofed deep in his throat, and his long, pointed ears turned to catch every sound in the darkness. All was silent. I flicked on the flashlight, but saw only a cluster of low willows at the side of the trail. Dash stared into the night, and I saw the ridge of hair down the center of his back was on end.
My thoughts shot to the word I thought I’d seen on the river rock in the garden that morning: Beware.
Heart banging against my ribs, I turned and ran the rest of the way home.
Once Dash and I were back inside, though, I felt silly. It was just some animal settling in for the night, you nervous Nellie.
That gave me comfort as I put on my pajamas. Despite my earlier worries of not being able to sleep, I drifted off within minutes.
• • •
SOMETHING tugged me back to consciousness. For a few confused moments, I stared up at the angled skylight above my bed, registering the square of ripe blue that indicated the sun had been up for a while. Fresh air blew in from the open window to my right.
Elliana . . . Elliana . . .
The realization dawned slowly. I hadn’t been awakened by wind or light, but by my olfactory nerves. My nostrils flared as I sat up, testing the air. Beside the bed, Dash came to his feet, and I saw his nose twitching, too. I swung my feet to the floor and hurried to the staircase. The corgi made his stout way down the outside of the spiral steps as I took the tighter inside route.
It was the same aroma I’d smelled the day before in the garden. The one I couldn’t identify. Now it was stronger, pulling me, intoxicating in the way catnip must be to felines. Still in my pajamas, I opened the door and walked out into the morning, barefoot and goose bumped, my head swinging right and left like a hound on a trail as I tried to identify the source. It seemed to come from everywhere. Maybe over there—
And suddenly it was gone.
Just like that. Gone. As if the strange, heady scent had never existed in the first place. I stopped, one foot poised in front of the other. That was impossible.
Right?
Had my sense of smell turned on me? Or maybe I was losing my mind. Or both. People with brain tumors smell things that aren’t there, I thought, scrambling for an explanation, however morbid it might be.
Dash growled low in his throat. Surprised, I looked down to see him standing with all four feet firmly planted and his muscles bunched like springs. He barked then, high and urgent, and took off like a shot for the partially open garden gate. My gaze followed him as I stood, still stunned, in the middle of the garden. He veered around an overturned rocking chair and stopped next to the gate. Something was there, on the ground, holding it open a few inches.
Something that shouldn’t have been there.
I squinted.
A boot.
Dash looked over his shoulder and barked again.
CHAPTER 4
BARE feet forgotten, I flew down the path. When I reached the gate, I pushed it open and fell to my hands and knees, all worries about smells or brain tumors forgotten.
Josie Overland lay crumpled on the ground at the end of the boardwalk that ran in front of Scents & Nonsense, shadowed by my fence. I recognized her work uniform from the Roux Grill: jeans and black T-shirt, the orange flames of the restaurant’s logo visible under her arm. Her shiny brown hair fanned out, unbound, obscuring her face from view. She was on her side, one jeans-clad leg bent up toward her chest while the other stuck out straight, her foot wedged in the open gate. Her bare arms were wrapped around her torso as if she were trying to keep herself warm.
“Josie?” I reached a tentative hand toward that th
ick veil of hair, intending to push it aside. “Josie, honey?” My voice was calm and soothing, which struck me as odd since my hand was shaking so badly I couldn’t seem to grip a single lock of hair. When I touched it, the faint smell of cheap aftershave, mingled with garlic and green-apple conditioner, rose into the air.
Finally, my trembling fingers managed to reveal her face.
Josie’s eyes were closed. She looked peaceful, as if she’d merely fallen asleep. Asleep—except she didn’t seem to be breathing. I moved my hand to her shoulder and gave a little shake. Her skin felt cold beneath my palm. Clammy, even in the dry warm air.
Dash looked at me with worried eyes and nosed Josie’s other cowboy boot.
Slowly, almost against my will, I placed my fingertips on her neck like I’d seen people do so many times on television. There was no pulse. But what if I wasn’t doing it right?
It didn’t matter. I knew she was dead. Blackness encroached on my peripheral vision, and my head swam.
Breathe.
I forced oxygen into my lungs with a big whooping inhalation, and the darkness receded a fraction. It took a few more deep breaths before I felt able to stand. Pushing myself to my feet, I turned and stumbled back to where I’d left my door hanging open in my half-asleep scentual daze only minutes earlier.
My cell phone was charging on the kitchen counter. I waited through three rings before the 911 operator picked up.
“I found a woman collapsed out front,” I panted. “I think . . . I think she might be dead.” I took another wavering breath. “Please send help.” The last sentence came out an octave higher.
There was a moment of shocked silence on the other end of the line before the dispatcher slipped into professional gear. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
“Yes,” I said, impatient now. “I’m fine. But she’s not breathing. At least I don’t think so.”
“What’s the address?” she asked. I heard rapid typing in the background.
Daisies For Innocence Page 3
