Someone Like Her

by Janice Kay Johnson

  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 Kendrick 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 t
o 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 tore 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.

  His gaze moved over Lucy’s face, now in profile, savoring her high, curved brow, the wing of her cheekbones, the slightly pointy chin with a hint of a cleft, the scattering of freckles on skin that had the translucence of a child’s. She’d acquired a scratch across one cheek today, courtesy of Zepherine Drouhin, but she’d only laughed and wiped away beads of blood onto her shirt hem.

  He wasn’t sure what her prized climbing rose would look like in bloom, but she made him think of a wild rose—pale pink, perhaps, without complicated whorls, the few simple petals perfectly arranged on long, arching canes, the scent elusive and sweet.

  Adrian didn’t know how it had happened, when he’d only known her a few days, but he couldn’t imagine driving away from Middleton without planning to see her again.

  You know people. Lean on them. Find her the perfect job.

  What if a restaurant like Veil or Earth & Ocean offered her a job as sous chef? That was the opportunity she’d dreamed about. Would she follow him to Seattle?

  Did wild roses transplant into urban, postage-stamp-size gardens?

  Why not? he thought recklessly. She longed for a life more sophisticated than Middleton could give her. People here wouldn’t change; fifty years from now, they’d still expect clam chowder on the menu every Friday. As talented as she was, she deserved better.

  And he liked the idea of having her in his life, of exploring where this peculiar blend of tenderness and hunger he felt would take them.

  “She squeezed my hand!” Lucy turned to him, her mouth forming a circle of delighted astonishment. “I’m sure she did!”

  Adrian smiled at her, relaxing now that he’d figured out a course of action.

  Find his mother a place in the best assisted-living facility in Seattle, and Lucy a job at her dream restaurant.

  He didn’t let himself think about the garden she’d created that weekend, or the café that bore her stamp, or the family that aroused amusement, exasperation and love in her. The family that sustained her.

  Middleton wasn’t that far from Seattle. She could visit. Maybe even keep the house.

  And if she didn’t like Seattle…His jaw tightened. Well, maybe he’d find that whatever he felt for her here evaporated in the real world.

  “Show me,” he said, and leaned forward to see the slender, long-fingered hand of this surprising woman wrapped around the arthritic hand of his mother.

  And damned if he wouldn’t have sworn the clawlike fingers tightened and clung to Lucy…who was beaming.

  “You’re coming back to us, aren’t you? Thank goodness! We miss you so much. We’re waiting, Elizabeth.” Her voice had a hitch, softened. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” he echoed, believing for the first time that she would wake up, that he would have a chance to become reacquainted with the mother who had disappeared from his life so many years ago.

  His heart seemed to swell in his chest, and he sat back in his chair.

  What would it be like? Having her back? Discovering the history he hadn’t understood as a child? Learning, perhaps, to hate his father?

  Lucy would listen if he had to talk, he thought involuntarily. He could deal with anything, if she were there.

  Damn it, he had to find a way.

  ADRIAN INSISTED on taking Lucy to dinner again that evening, this time at the Steak House.

  He seemed…different tonight, she kept thinking. Less tense, more confident, even expansive. She blossomed under the full force of his charm even as she felt wary.

  It was relief, she tried to tell herself. She felt a little of that giddiness, too. It was really beginning to seem that the hat lady would come out of the coma and be herself again. And imagine how much stronger the spark of hope must be for Adrian!

  On Friday, he’d discovered the mother he thought long dead was alive. He’d spent the past three days recovering his memories of her and at the same time assimilating the likelihood that she would never regain consciousness or know that he had found her. And now…now it looked like she would. Why wouldn’t he feel like celebrating?

  They waited until dusk to drive to her mother’s street. Lucy knew it was silly to sneak in to her own parents’ yard and steal lilac blossoms, but she didn’t want to knock and have to introduce Adrian to her father and whatever stray aunts or cousins happened to be over, embroiling them both into an explanation of the change in the hat lady’s condition.

  Everything else in her life had to be shared with the family grapevine; that was the price of havin
g their support. But she didn’t want to share Adrian. And especially not what she felt for him, which she was terribly afraid was writ bright on her face to anyone who knew her well.

  Like her mother, father or any stray aunts or cousins. Or, God forbid, her sister, who knew her best of all.

  Anyway, Lucy could just imagine her father peering at her over his reading glasses, doubt weighting his voice. “Her cheek has a tic? And her eyes are rolling behind the lids, but she isn’t opening them? And Ben says this means something?”

  That was her father: the Eeyore of the Peterson clan. He always saw the dark cloud on the horizon. She loved him dearly, but she didn’t think Adrian needed an introduction tonight.

  She had Adrian park three houses down. The neighborhood dated from the fifties, and trees were large and leafed out with spring. Several of the neighbors had large lilac bushes in their yards, too, but none had blooms as far advanced as her mother’s.

  She and Adrian hurried through a pool of light cast by the streetlamp, then slowed in the dark beyond, peering past a snowball bush in full bloom.

  “That’s my parents’ house,” she whispered, indicating the brick rambler.

  “You grew up there?” He spoke in a low voice, too.

  Lucy nodded. “The lilac is the one by the front window.”

  The house blazed with lights. As they watched, a figure moved in front of the window. Samantha. Why was Samantha here? Lucy wondered indignantly, and knew the answer. Probably Mom had invited her so she could tell the family all about Adrian. By this time, they must know how much time Lucy was spending with him. She’d seen enough heads turn as cars passed her yard today while they were working.

  Pull the drapes, she willed her sister, who instead turned and looked out the window. Lucy gripped Adrian’s hand and held him back.

  “Wait.”

  He nodded. She couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t disentangle his hand from hers.

  “Okay, now,” she whispered, when her sister turned and disappeared toward the kitchen.

  “Is that Samantha?” Adrian murmured in her ear. “I thought she was supposed to be turning down my bedcovers and putting a chocolate on my pillow right about now.”