Passionate Kisses 2 Boxed Set: Love in Bloom

by Magda Alexander

  Grandma Nina shrugged one shoulder. “You’ve been talking about quitting for a while. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe it’s time to put that Classics degree to use.” She folded her hands over her stomach, relaxed. “Why don’t you stay a while? Look for a position at a library around here. Lord knows I’d love to have you closer. And your friends in Boston are just a few hours away. I don’t need you, honey, but I sure do like having you around.”

  Jade’s throat closed up with warm emotion.

  Her grandmother saved her from having to say anything. “You’ll pay me rent when you get a job. Until then, you’re my guest. Now, Joe McIntyre shut up the house for me, so you’ll need to get the keys from him or Betty. They’re in the white house next door. I think he flipped the breakers. Make sure to stop in the basement first thing and turn them back on. Oh, and you’ll need to run the water ‘til it clears. Sediment builds up in the pipes something awful. Now, what’s Brad’s number? I’m going to give that loser a piece of my mind.”

  *****

  When Jade made it back to the house, she was greeted with a cellophane-wrapped plate of snickerdoodles and a business card stuck between the sun porch door and the jamb. Tucking a Perfect Pita takeout bag under one arm, she plucked the card free. It was for Herald and Son Lawn Service. The handwritten message on the back said, I meant to give you this when you stopped by earlier. This service does a wonderful job, and they are affordable. All my best, Betty M.

  “Okay, okay, I can take a hint.”

  An hour into their visit, Grandma Nina had announced she needed a nap and told Jade to get some lunch and move her stuff into the house. Like the dutiful granddaughter she was, she obeyed to the letter. Once she’d dragged all her bags up to the master bedroom, which her grandmother had insisted she take, she headed for the shed out back to look for a lawn mower.

  It would suck mowing a lawn in the hazy Vermont humidity, but after a three-hour drive, fast food, and the best snickerdoodles known to man, a workout was in order. Besides, it was weird being in the house alone. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been inside without her sister or her grandmother or Grandpa Earl. Mowing the lawn would give her time to work up the courage to stay in the big, old house all by her lonesome tonight.

  The backyard used to be beautiful with its three acres of lawn sloping to the bank of a lily-pad covered pond. A screened-in gazebo near the bank made the perfect summer-night refuge for two little girls with sleeping bags and flashlights. Tall pines, maples, and birches blended with neighboring properties to create a magical woodland ripe for exploration. It had been a kid’s paradise.

  Now the grass was patchy and knee-high. Weeds hid the lattice-skirt of the gazebo. Even the quaint red shed behind the house sported streaks of rust. Grandma Nina would flip if she knew how bad it looked. Good thing she would never know. Jade would get it ship-shape in no time.

  The smallest of her grandmother’s keys opened the padlock on the tool shed. Jade let her eyes adjust to the dark then scanned the interior for a lawn mower. There. Huddled among the hanging, rusty yard tools was one of those push mowers with twisty blades. Those were rusty too.

  “Well, damn it.” With the grass high enough to lose a toddler in, a rust-locked push-mower wasn’t going to cut it. Seeing as she didn’t owe Grandma Nina rent until she landed a job, she figured she could cover lawn care until she could afford to splurge on a mower from Sears.

  Shutting out the heat with the kitchen’s sliding glass door, she dialed Herald and Son Lawn Service and listened to the voicemail kick in. The isolation of small-town life must have already started to sink in, because the friendly and masculine invitation to leave a message had her thinking about lazy hours around beer-stained pool tables. Shaking off the wistful longing, she left her message then went up to the turret bedroom to unpack.

  When she’d come upstairs earlier, she’d only stopped long enough to drop her bags inside the master bedroom. It had been dark inside with the drapes drawn, but she hadn’t bothered with the lights. Now, as she pushed open the heavy, paneled door, she swiped the switch on the wall. Only when nothing happened did she remember she was supposed to flip the breakers. Which were all the way down in the basement.

  Might as well unpack while she was up here on the second floor. Then she could go get the juice back on to the house.

  A tug on each panel of brocade drapes brought in a flood of afternoon sunlight. Very warm afternoon sunlight. After shimmying all four turret windows up for air, she put her hands on her hips and assessed her new room.

  Four poster bed, neatly made with a floral-patterned bedspread, antique dressing table and highboy in the same dark wood as the bed, mirrored tray littered with a dozen perfume bottles, lace doilies on the bedside tables. It was just how she remembered it.

  This room had been the stuff of fantasies when she was a little girl. She’d so rarely come in here that each time had seemed like an adventure. A vivid memory made her heart smile: her and Jilly taking turns sniffing the perfumes with their eyes closed and guessing the brand, then playing dress up with Grandma Nina’s Sunday best, stacking on their body weight in pearls and costume jewelry, then posing in front of the full-length mirror.

  She had so many fond memories in this house. And no one to laugh about them with.

  Jilly was half a world away in Peru with the Peace Corps, and Grandma Nina was in the world’s coziest senior home.

  Seeing as her grandmother was so comfortable, she might as well make herself comfortable too. Peeking in the closet, she found some wardrobe stragglers, a few garments in dry-cleaner’s bags, a tweed blazer that must have been Grandpa Earl’s, a hatbox, and a crate filled with winter gear. Clearing enough space for her clothes, she piled everything else in the hall until she figured out where to store it all. Between the closet and the antique dresser, she had plenty of room for her wardrobe without needing to clean out the highboy.

  By the time shadows stretched across the wood-plank floor, her luggage and clothes were all tucked neatly away. Content with the state of her new bedroom, she gathered up an armload of Grandma Nina’s things and headed downstairs.

  Opening the door to the guest bedroom, she hit the light switch with her elbow. Nothing happened.

  “Duh.” Better go flip those breakers before it got dark. Dumping her armload on the brass bed she used to share with Jilly, she turned to go and something caught her eye low on the wall. Jilly’s old Barbie nightlight. A shudder went through her as she remembered the way that stupid nightlight would sometimes cast shadows that made her feel like she was being watched.

  “Old houses cast interesting shadows,” her grandmother had told her one morning when she’d mentioned seeing a ghost the night before. “It was probably just the curtains moving, playing with the glow from the nightlight. There’s no such things as ghosts.”

  “But it was a man,” Jade had insisted. “It had on a top hat and a cape.” She’d almost woken her sister to ask if she could see it too, but she hadn’t wanted to frighten Jilly.

  “What an imagination you have,” Grandma Nina had said on a chuckle. She’d offered Jade a plate of macaroons and a glass of pink lemonade, and suddenly it seemed moronic to have gotten so worked up over a silly shadow.

  The next time she saw the shadow, she had rolled over and ignored it and thought to herself, It’s just the curtains moving, even though she’d checked and the curtains had been perfectly still. Meanwhile, the shadow with its top had and billowing cape had crept the full length of two walls then turned its head and nodded to her before disappearing out the door.

  She’d forgotten about that shadow. She hadn’t seen it every time she and Jilly had spent the night, but she’d seen it enough times to dread sleeping in this bedroom. She shuddered again and said to the room, “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  She closed the door and headed for the basement in search of a breaker box. Just in time, too. Beyond the kitchen windows, the sun was throwing its last slan
ting rays over the tips of the pines.

  Chapter Three

  Emmett’s boots squeaked over protective plastic as he padded from his bathroom back to what had originally been his dining room, but was now the front office of Herald and Son Lawn Service. Thanks to his recent garage remodel, he had all the storage and maintenance space a growing lawn-care business needed. The one thing he lacked: an employee bathroom. He had plans to put one in next to the break area. Until then, he rolled out a fresh runner of carpet-protecting plastic each week so his staff didn’t have to take off their boots when they went into his house for a restroom break.

  The smell of pot roast in the Crock-Pot tempted him to call it a night and shovel in some dinner, but he headed to his desk instead. Monday meant payroll and filing last week’s work orders. And his voicemail light was blinking.

  He churned out payroll in twenty minutes. Then, sinking his teeth into a candy bar, he dialed up voicemail on speaker while he began sorting work-orders alphabetically by client.

  Theo banged into the shop, his arms covered in grease up to his elbows. “Damn X-two broke down on me again,” he informed Emmett as he clomped to the work sink and pumped his palm full of cleanser. “Had to do half the Pond View’s front lawn by hand.”

  “Sucks,” Emmett mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate and peanuts. He’d done the whole lawn at Dover’s popular upscale restaurant by hand more than once before he could afford his first riding mower. For one man, it was a full-day job. No wonder Theo was getting in so late.

  Theo’s voice rose over the sounds of running water and Mr. Bigley’s recorded voice complaining that his morning newspaper got shredded by Emmett’s crew this morning. “When are you going to scrap the two, man? You can afford an X-four. It’d make things way easier.”

  “Having a good mechanic on staff makes things easier.” He gestured at Theo with his candy bar. “You telling me that two’s more than you can handle?”

  Theo used the brush to scrub under his nails and flashed the grin that got him all the ladies. “Hey, man, if you got it, I can handle it. All I’m saying is that thing’s going to start costing you. You okay with buying new parts every other week?”

  He shrugged, his attention on jotting down the name and number of a prospective client with an unapologetic Boston accent and a voice as smooth and refreshing as iced tea on a hot day. All thoughts of John Deere parts flitted out of his mind.

  “Shit, man.” Theo strode closer while wiping his hands on a towel. “She sounds hot. Can I have her?”

  “Have her?” He resisted the temptation to listen to the message a second time, and instead hit delete. First thing tomorrow, he would hear that gorgeous voice again. The address was on his sweeping route.

  Looked like there was a new girl in town. Jade Alderwood.

  Theo grinned. “Yeah, as a client. And if the whole package is as hot as her voice, then…” He waggled his eyebrows.

  Emmett bristled, and not just because he had to reprimand Theo at least once a season for hitting on a client. The thought of Theo flashing that smile at this client hit him like a fist to the gut. Irrational, since Emmett didn’t even know her yet.

  Theo craned his neck to read his scrawl, and Emmett quashed an impulse to shift his hand to cover the woman’s name. “Jade, huh? She’s got to be smokin’ with a name like that. That’s like a stripper name or something. I could fit in a residential day after tomorrow.” He tossed the towel over his shoulder and went to the break area. “Want me to give her a call in the morning and set it up?”

  “Nah, man, I got it. House is on my Tuesday route. I can swing by in the morning, check her out-uh, check out her yard.” He winced at his slip, hoping Theo hadn’t caught it.

  No such luck. Theo chuckled as he cracked the top off a water bottle. “Feeling lonely without Chelsea, Herald? What’s it been, like four months, now?” He sprawled in a folding chair and slugged back half the bottle.

  “Six,” Emmett grumbled. “And I don’t pay you to analyze my personal life.”

  “Or lack thereof.”

  Emmett muttered a good-natured agreement, but gave Theo his back while he filed work orders. That comment had hit a little close to home.

  “I’m off the clock,” Theo said. “That means I can analyze your personal life all I want. Hey, what’s in the Crock-Pot tonight?” He opened the door to Emmett’s living room and made a show of inhaling. “Shit, man, pot roast? How could Chelsea dump you? I thought chicks loved a man who can cook.”

  “Go home, Theo.” He didn’t need to know it had been Emmett who had broken off the two-year relationship. And he sure didn’t need to know the reason he’d broken it off. Chelsea had given him an ultimatum: get hitched or get lost.

  When his parents had split, he promised himself he would never fall prey to the big-D. He’d been fourteen at the time and had believed that if he was patient, he would eventually find The One. She would be perfect for him and his heart would know her immediately. Loving her would erase his fear that marriage was merely a phase a person went through rather than the lifelong commitment the Bible said it should be.

  Thirteen years later, he still hadn’t found The One, and the older he got, the closer he came to accepting she didn’t exist. Maybe God intended him to be single forever, like the apostle Paul.

  “But, pot roast, man,” Theo whined. “Come on, you really going to eat all that yourself?”

  Probably not, and truth be told, he liked hanging with Theo. If he couldn’t find The One, at least he had good friends that made him laugh. “Fine. Come on in, but take-”

  “Off your boots. Yeah, yeah. I know the rules.”

  “And lay off the personal life.”

  “That’s cool. I’ll just tell you about my weekend.” Theo waggled his brows as he unlaced his boots, and Emmett groaned, dreading the latest edition of Theo’s Conquests.

  Sometimes he envied Theo. Unfettered by Emmett’s “churchy beliefs,” his friend reveled in the worldly passions Paul warned against, worldly passions Emmett had vowed to forsake as a seventeen-year-old in youth group. Though he would never admit to it, he often fantasized about acting like Theo and exploring some passions of his own. Heck, he more than fantasized about it. It was a downright temptation.

  He didn’t need Theo adding fuel to what was already a fire raging out of control. “Make it the edited version and you’ve got yourself a deal.” He took off his own boots and headed inside.

  Theo padded ahead of him to the fridge and pulled out two beers. “Oh, yeah, got to be careful of those virgin ears.” He said it without a trace of sarcasm as he popped open the brews and handed one to Emmett. It had been a long time since any of his friends had given him grief for being a virgin. In fact, the older he got, the more they seemed to go easy on him.

  Theo took a swig of beer and pulled up a chair at the kitchen table. “PG version it is.” He gave Emmett the kind of smile you give a guy who just got out of the hospital after a suicide attempt, cautious and laced with pity.

  He preferred getting grief.

  *****

  Grandma Nina had one of those houses where the stairs to the basement ran directly under the stairs from the main level to the second floor. Jade made her way to the paneled basement door and jiggled the brass knob until the door creaked open. A waft of cold air caressed her, as if the basement were sighing with relief.

  Weird. Must be a window open down there or something creating a pressure differential.

  Feeling along the wall, she found what she supposed was the light switch. She’d been expecting a regular flip-switch, but this was a little black knob. She tried pushing it. Nothing. Pulling. Nothing. Twisting…

  Ker-chunk. No lights came on, of course, but they would as soon as she flipped the breakers. Unless she’d just turned on the sprinklers or something.

  As she descended the stairs, the cold grew more intense, almost heavier. A shiver racked her body, and an old Wordsworth verse she’d memorized in English Lit
whispered like a Gothic chant in her mind.

  Not Chaos, not

  The darkest pit of lowest Erebus,

  Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out

  By help of dreams-can breed such fear and awe

  “All right, brain, that’s enough out of you. The basement is not scary. I am not scared.” She just needed a flashlight. That would take the edge off the creep factor.

  Climbing out of the basement put her across the rear hall from the kitchen. Even at sunset and without lights, the plentiful windows and sliding glass door to the deck made a cheery haven of the space where she’d helped Grandma Nina bake countless batches of cookies. It should have felt tired and dated with fifties-brown linoleum and eggshell-white enamel cabinets. The yellow curtains should have clashed with the shades of buttermilk, tan, and traffic-cone orange in the wallpaper. But somehow it all came together to fill her up with cheerful memories.

  She glided her fingertips over the sturdy, round table where she’d helped Grandma Nina roll piecrusts over dustings of flour. She palmed the back of her usual chair, remembering sitting there the weekend of Grandpa Earl’s funeral and telling Grandma Nina with a mouthful of oven-warm brownie that she was the best cook ever. “Cooking is what you do when you have a man in the house to feed,” her grandmother had said with a poke at her ribs. “Baking is what you do when you have granddaughters to fatten up.”

  Grandma Nina should be here. The power should not be shut off. The kitchen should be filled with the scents of fattening treats.

  A hunt through a few drawers revealed a heavy Black & Decker flashlight. A quick test proved the batteries were kaput. Fabulous.

  Fortunately, she remembered where Grandma Nina kept the candles. She pulled a box of red, tapered table-toppers from the pantry and found a silver candlestick in the china hutch in the dining room. After jamming three candles into the holder, she lit them and approached the basement again.