Wild in the Field

by Jennifer Greene

  “I’ve been paying them-”

  “I know that. And it’s even more wrong. I don’t want your charity, and the whole lavender thing isn’t your problem.”

  “Okay, I know how to settle this,” Pete said peaceably. “I’ll go ask your sister-”

  As expected, she promptly paled in horror, and dropped a spoon. “Come on. Don’t sic Violet on me. That’s not fair.”

  He scratched his chin. “Well, see, there we have a problem. Because I either have to talk to your sister or to you. There are some decisions that have to be made on all that lavender. I have to ask one of you before going ahead-”

  “What in God’s name are you trying to interfere with now?” she asked, obviously exasperated. In fact, so exasperated that she seemed to blindly set down a second mug in front of him. And once the hot water bubbled, she even stirred in some instant coffee for him.

  He took a sip of the sludge. Her coffee was almost-almost-as bad as his. “Well, there are three things we have to decide. The first is, your sis is going to have to invest in mulch, because you’ve got good drainage there, but not good enough for lavender. Then, assuming you actually want to make something of that mess, you need soil with a pH around six point five, which I haven’t tested for. But I suspect-knowing the nature of my land next to that acreage-that you’re going to need to side dress the plants with some lime.”

  He watched her sink into the scarred chair across the table. Violet’s eyes would have crossed at the first mention of soil pH and lime. Not Camille’s. She not only knew land; she had a sense for it that neither of her sisters had. It was pretty obvious, though, that she hadn’t thought through the long-term dimensions of the lavender problem. Still, she responded swiftly. “I can do all that without help.”

  “Yeah?” He figured she had the strength to mulch twenty acres like a cow could fly.

  “I can, Pete.”

  “Uh-huh.” At one time, the little kitchen had been a cheerful oasis. Now, the sink had rust stains; the paint was peeling and the floor needed to be redone.

  “You think my dad raised a couch potato? Maybe it’s been a few years, but I know how to fertilize and mulch and all. I just didn’t…”

  “You didn’t know the lavender was going to need it. And neither, apparently, did your sister. She’s not a couch potato either, but as far as I know she never steps into a field if she can help it. Which brings us to our main problem-”

  “There is no our, MacDougal.” When he sipped his coffee and said nothing, she prodded him, “So? So? What is this big problem supposed to be?”

  Pete raised a hand. This was a serious question, no teasing. “I have to know what she’s trying to do. Your sister. I mean, I read up on lavender, so I’d get an idea why anyone’d grow the darn stuff. But it’s not as if Violet planted a little flower garden here. Apparently she bred and crossbred all kinds of varieties. In France, now, lavender’s a major crop in the perfume industry-but it’s about the oil, not about the flower. Unless your sister planned to grow enough flowers for all the florists in the entire northern hemisphere, I have to assume she was hoping to harvest the oil. Only I don’t see any harvesting equipment to extract the oil. I don’t even know if she’s looked into potential markets. There’s only so much money you can pour into this if-”

  “I hear you. I’ll sit on my sister and find this stuff out.” Camille had seemed to be listening, but suddenly she blurted out, “When’d she leave you, Pete?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your ex-wife. When did she leave you and the boys? I figured it couldn’t have been long ago, because the hurt seems pretty fresh. The boys really talk up how much they don’t miss her. How much they don’t love her. How much they don’t care.”

  Pete chugged down the coffee, but only so he could set the mug down. He hadn’t come here to talk about this. “Yeah, well, it’s been a couple years. Almost three. It’s my dad who feeds them that kind of anti-women talk, making out like it’s fun to live like bachelors, not need women, all that. You know my dad.”

  “I used to.”

  “So you know he adored my mom. Nothing anti-women about him. I don’t understand why he keeps pushing the attitude on the boys. It seems as if he thinks we’ll all be hurt less if we just pretend we don’t need women in our lives.”

  “They really do seem like good kids, Pete.”

  “They are. But it’s always there, you know? Hiding in the closet. That their mom left them. That she loved them so little that she could just take off and not look back. Reality is, she took off on me, not them. But that’s not how kids see it.” Pete frowned. He wasn’t sure why he was spilling all this stuff. He couldn’t remember talking this much about Debbie or the divorce. To anyone.

  And Camille was suddenly frowning right back at him. “It’s none of my business.”

  “Actually-it isn’t.”

  She was on her feet faster than a flash. “It’s not as if I care. I only started this whole conversation to tell you that I didn’t want your help, or your boys’ help, or anyone else’s help.”

  He stood up, too, thinking the damn woman was more mercurial than a summer wind. For a minute there, she’d not only listened about the scope of the lavender problems-which she sure as hell had no way to know about, coming in cold to the farm after all this time. But she’d also asked about his sons and the divorce situation as if she actually cared. Without thinking, he murmured, “I keep getting glimpses of the Camille I remembered. The Camille you used to be.”

  Wrong thing to say. Scarlet streaked her cheeks faster than fire. “Well, I’m not that person. That girl’s gone forever and never coming back, so if you were thinking-”

  “I wasn’t thinking anything, so don’t be tearing any more bloody strips off me.” His voice dropped low. Lower than a bass tenor and quieter than midnight. “Cam, I understand anger. If I’d been through what you have, I’d be tearing the bark off trees. I’m sorry you’ve been through such hell. But I’m not part of anything that hurt you. I’m just an old friend who happens to have the means and time to help you with the lavender. And I’ve got two sons who are teenagers, which means they’re selfish as hell, and that means it’ll do them good-for their sakes-to put in some hours doing something for someone besides themselves. Now, that’s all that’s going out there, so quit giving me a murdle-grups.”

  Her father used to use that Scottish term-murdle-grups. It meant bellyache. And Pete thought using it might make her smile. But apparently she’d scared herself, having a conversation with him as if she cared. She didn’t want to care. Not about him. Which she seemed obligated to make crystal clear.

  Her chin went up a notch. “I’m not keeping the dog.”

  “No?”

  Her chin shot up another defiant inch. “I’ve been tending him. I admit that. But I’ve only been taking care of him because I didn’t want him put away. The very instant he’s better, I’m finding him a home and getting rid of him.”

  “You do that. That’ll show me how mean you are,” he goaded her.

  “I am mean.”

  Aw, hell. It was such a stupid conversation that he couldn’t think of a single reason to continue it. So he grabbed her and kissed her instead.

  What else could he possibly have done? She was just standing there, fists on her hips, looking like a waif against Goliath. She wasn’t going to quit challenging him unless he did something.

  This time, though, she knew his kiss.

  She knew the taste of him.

  She knew the risk of him.

  And for damn sure, Pete knew how much trouble she was. Or he thought he did.

  Before he’d severed the first kiss, he was already coming back for another, his fingers disappearing into her thick, damp hair, his body picking up her body heat-even through the huge shirt she was wearing. Her impossibly soft skin was another aphrodisiac pull-and he didn’t need any more pulls. She was already yanking every emotional chain he had.

  He’d managed without since D
eb left. No question that he was more primed than a lit stick of dynamite, but in all this time, it was easier doing without than volunteering for any more wear-and-tear on his heart.

  He knew, instinctively, that Camille would risk more wear-and-tear than maybe his heart could handle.

  But she kissed like the loneliest soul he knew. She kissed as if he were her first. As if she was shaky-scared and still couldn’t turn away. As if she was starved to touch and be touched, to hold and be held. As if she’d die if he let her go.

  One kiss seeped into another, whispered into another, danced into another. A counter jammed into his back as he pulled her closer in, dipping down for another slower, deeper kiss. His fingers trailed down, kneading her shoulders, then molding down her back. Her breasts tightened, snugged against him so he could feel her bare nipples, smell the perfume of her skin, feel the frantic beat of her heart.

  He found her soft, silken lips again. Heard the murmur of a groan deep inside her throat when he took her tongue. Her responsiveness caused his pulse to jack-hammer. He lifted her tighter, higher, closer to him, nestling her between his thighs.

  She kissed back like a summer storm, all heat and lightning and surprise. Hell. How could such a small package have been hiding so much explosive passion?

  He thought: it wasn’t that she wanted him. It was that she’d been alone so long. He thought: it couldn’t be that he mattered to her, because half the time she was furious with him. In his head he understood-really understood-that this wasn’t likely about him. She’d just been so lost since her husband died that being kissed and desired opened a door that had been rusted shut with grief and pain.

  But just then, just for that minute, he sucked in those hot, wet kisses of hers. Inhaled the lush feeling her busy hands invoked. Smelled her skin, inhaled the earthy sweet sounds of longing she made. At least until she nipped his neck.

  And then his eyes bolted open and he lifted his head with a little shock-and humor. “You bit me,” he murmured.

  “What can I say? I missed lunch.”

  “But you. You. Actually bit me.”

  “You’re telling me a woman’s never taken a nip of you before, MacDougal? What, have you been with all sissies?”

  “Campbell, are you flirting with me? From the minute you came home, you’ve given me grief nonstop.”

  “It wasn’t personal. I’ve given everyone grief. Temporarily, though, all I can think about is having you for lunch.”

  Nobody have given him a sudden ticket to Never Never Land. Reality was all around him. The silky sunlight. The dust. The sound of birdsong. The smells of bad coffee and verdant earth and flowering almond outside the window screen. Yet all he could see was her wildly tumbled hair, the ache in her eyes, her mouth swollen from his kisses. Her face was still, her gaze searching his just as urgently as his searched hers.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked gently.

  “Maybe I’m trying to scare you away.”

  “And you think I’ll scare?”

  Silence. Then she touched his cheek with her fingertip. “Yeah, I do, Pete. I don’t know why you keep kissing me. I don’t know why you keep trying to help me. But you have to know that I’m a walking catastrophe. I can’t fit in your life, in your sons’ life. I’m not ready for any kind of relationship. I’m not ready for much of anything.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  A whisper of a grin, the first natural one he’d seen on her lips. “Don’t get sassy with me, you dolt. I’m serious. If you come on to me, you could get what you’re asking for. Trouble. So you think it through real good before you kiss me again, you hear?”

  Slowly, she pulled completely free from his arms, then turned around and simply walked out. The screen door clapped behind her.

  The damn woman had left him in her kitchen. And he stood there for a good five minutes, feeling as dazed as if someone had smacked him upside the head-or upside the heart. God knew what he was going to do about her. Right then, for sure, he didn’t have a clue.

  Five

  Nothing had gone well for the entire week, and as far as Camille was concerned, it was all Pete’s fault. He’d rattled her. It was one thing for her high school crush-the heroic icon of her whole darn childhood-to turn into a living, breathing man who seemed to be attracted to her. But entirely another thing for her to respond to him.

  Obviously there was nothing serious between them-and couldn’t be. It was just a matter of shaking off this constant rattled feeling. So she’d withdrawn. Specifically, she tried holing up in the cottage the way she had those first weeks, but that no longer seemed to work. The darn dog took all kinds of time and care. And the lavender simply had to be tended. And then, Pete’s boys kept showing up to help her.

  Camille was all for denial and cowardice and hiding out, but dagnabbit, a woman couldn’t even be a neurotic hermit in peace around here.

  She hiked the driveway between the main house and her sister’s Herb Haven business. Clouds had started building before noon, and now they were chasing across the sky, tumbling over each other, bringing a storm in their shadows. Since she’d been chased out of the lavender field because of the inclement weather, she figured she might as well use the time to suck it up and seek out her sister.

  She hoped to find Violet alone, but when she poked her head in the Herb Haven, she spotted at least three bodies wandering around-that is, three human bodies, not counting the half-dozen cats.

  She shied from the sound of strangers’ voices. She’d have shied from the cats, too, except that two of the long-haired Persians tangled around her legs before she could escape back outside. Trying to walk to the greenhouses was an exercise in getting tripped and sabotaged. Finally, she hunched down to pet them, snarling behind her, “Dammit, Killer. You’re a dog. Isn’t it a mandate that you’re supposed to chase cats? What good are you?”

  She didn’t have to look back to know the shepherd was as close behind her as bad breath. Killer was still snarling at every opportunity-including at her-but this last week, he’d taken up following her everywhere. She couldn’t go to the bathroom, couldn’t go to dinner, couldn’t close the door on her bedroom without him. Just like now, he sat patiently, tongue lolling, less than two feet away from the disgusting sight of her petting the two long-haired nuisance cats.

  The damn dog was just like having a second conscience. Couldn’t escape him for love or money.

  Finally the cats seemed sated. She stood up, slugged her hands in her jeans pockets, and wandered around the first greenhouse. Her parents had built this one. It wasn’t as high-tech as Vi’s new greenhouse, but it still had touches of their mother in here-Margaux’s sacred pruning shears, her tidy potting sink and counter, the old French apron she used to wear.

  Camille swallowed hard. Margaux was a wildly flamboyant flower lover, like Violet. And like Daisy. Cam was the only misfit of the daughters, the only one who’d wanted a high-stress city job, the one who’d never loved romantic lace and doodads. But when she was in here, sometimes she imagined the faint hint of her mother’s perfume, lavender and jasmine, the warm scents hiding in all the musky, humid greenery.

  Of course, that was foolishness. The greenhouse smelled like dirt and fertilizer, nothing more fanciful than that. She didn’t miss her mother. She was long a grown woman, for God’s sake. She was just…ticked off. Because she’d postponed talking to Violet as long as she possibly could-not because she cared about what her sister was going to do with the lavender, but because she’d promised Pete.

  And darn it, she definitely didn’t want to think about Pete.

  So she poked and prodded, sniffed flowers, tested soil, read labels, snooped. By the time she heard Violet’s exuberant, “Hey, you!” she’d explored one greenhouse stem to stern and was halfway through the new one.

  “Cam! You’re out and about. Still with the mutt, I see.” Violet sidestepped Killer, who growled and snarled for a second, but Vi had stopped being impressed by the dog’s shenanigans. She barely
spared him a patient look before surging forward. Today she was wearing one of her floppy straw hats, a peasant blouse and a gypsy skirt printed with every color and some that probably didn’t exist. “You could have found me in the store if you needed me.”

  “You had customers. And I wasn’t in any hurry.”

  “You mean, you’re still avoiding talking to anyone. Have you been to town yet? Even once?” Vi glanced at her face and said hastily, “Never mind, never mind. I’m so glad you’re here. Did you see my peonies? My St. John’s Wort? How about this one? You know what this is?”

  She pointed to a silver-leaved plant, flowering now with deep, deep blue petals and bright yellow stamens. Camille figured she’d better cater to her. “No, what is it?”

  “Nightshade. There are different kinds of wild nightshade. This silver-leafed one is poisonous, but it’s also a wonderful, healing herb. People shouldn’t be afraid of it. I mean potatoes and tomatoes are cousins of nightshade, and we all love those. And over here, Cam. Do you know what this one is?”

  Camille had barely settled down to study the nightshade before Vi was dancing off, all excited now, fluttering from plant to plant like a butterfly. “Are you looking?” Violet demanded.

  “Yes. Sheesh.” Truth to tell, most things in the greenhouses were gorgeous, but the plant Violet motioned to now was uglier than a weed. The leaves were coarse and stiff and fuzzy.

  “It’s called a button bush. Reminds me of lavender.”

  “Are you kidding? Lavender’s beautiful. This looks something you’d spray to kill.”

  “Well, I know it’s not much to look at. But you can’t pamper lavender and you can’t pamper this either. Lavender’s going to grow where it’s going to grow. It’s like a Scot. You can’t tell it anything. This button bush’ll grow, but only if you create kind of the same marshy, hostile environment where it grows naturally.”

  “And you’d do that why?” Camille asked wryly.

  “Because it’s so pretty in dried bouquets. And that’s a lot of why people want herbs. Some for medicine or healing. Some like flowers. Some want them for spices. But some just like to dry them, and these buttons really add something cute in a bouquet.”