UNDER THE HUMMINGchaos of spring season was a kind of simmering stress for the grower, especially if she happened to be the owner as well. Had she prepared enough flats, was she offering the right types and numbers of perennials?
Would the blooms be big enough, showy enough to attract the customers? Were the plants strong enough, healthy enough to maintain the reputation she'd built for quality?
Had they created enough baskets, pots, planters - or too many?
What about the shrubs and trees? Would the sidelines compliment the plants or detract from those sales?
Were the mulch colorants she'd decided to carry a mistake, or would her customer base enjoy the variety?
She left a great deal of this in Stella's hands; that's why she'd hired a manager. Roz wanted to compartmentalize many of the details - in someone else's compartment. But In the Garden was still her baby, and she experienced all the pride and worry a mother might over any growing child.
She could enjoy the crowds and confusion, the customers wheeling their wagons or flatbeds around the tables, over gravel and concrete to select just the right plants for their gardens or patio pots. She could and did enjoy consulting and recommending, and used that to balance out the little pang she experienced at the start of high season when she watched the plants she'd nurtured ride off to new homes.
At this time of year she often lectured herself about being sentimental over what she'd grown. But they weren't, and never could be, merely products to her. The weeks, months, often years spent nurturing specimens formed a connection for her that was very personal.
For the first few days of every spring season, she mourned the parting. Then she got down to business.
She was in the propagation house, taking a break from those crowds and calculating which plants to move into the retail area next when Cissy burst in.
"Roz, I'm desperate."
Roz pursed her lips. The usually meticulously groomed Cissy had more than one highlighted hair out of place, and a panicked gleam in her eyes. "I can see that. Your hairdresser retire? Your masseuse run off with a musician?"
"Oh, don't joke. I'm serious." She hustled down the tables to where Roz worked. "My in-laws are coming to visit."
"Oh."
"Just dropped that bomb on me this morning. And they're coming in two days. Ihate when people just assume they're welcome."
"They are family."
"Which only makes it worse, if you ask me. You know she picks on me. She's picked on me for twenty-six years. If they hadn't moved to Tampa, I'd be a crazy woman by now, or in jail for murder. I need your help, Roz."
"I'm not going to kill your mother-in-law for you, Cissy. There are limits to friendship."
"I bet you could." Eyes narrowed, she took a long and calculating look around. "I bet there are all sorts of interesting poisons around here I could slip into her martini, and end this personal hell. I'll just hold that one in reserve. You know what she said to me?"
"No, but I guess I'm going to hear it."
"She said she supposed I hadn't replaced the carpet in the dining room yet, and how she'd just love to go out while she's here and find just the right thing. Not to worry about the time it took her, she had plenty now that she and Don have retired. And how I'd find that out for myself soon, since I'm reaching that age. I'm reachingthat age . Can you imagine?"
"Seeing as you and I are about the same age, I might find some poison around here."
"Oh, and that's not the half of it. I'd be here all day if I got started, and I can't because I'm under the gun. She started snooting at me about the gardens and the lawn, and how she wondered I didn't do more than I did with mine, why I didn't take more pride in the homeher son has provided me with."
"You have a lovely yard." Not that it reached its potential, but it was, in Roz's opinion, well kept and pretty enough.
"She just pushed my buttons - like she always does - and I just blurted out how I'd been slaving away, and put in new beds and whatnot. I just blathered, Roz, and now, unless you help me out, she's going to see I was lying through my teeth."
"If you want Logan, we can ask Stella what his schedule's like, but - "
"I hit her on the way back. He's booked - solid, she says - for the next two weeks." She clasped her hands together, as if in prayer. "I'm begging you, Roz. Begging you. Pull him off something and give him to me. Just two days."
"I can't yank him off another job - but wait," she said when tears gathered in Cissy's eyes. "We'll figure this out. Two days." Roz blew out a breath. "It's gonna cost you."
"I don't care. Money's the least of it. My life's at stake here. If you don't help me, I'll just have to fly down to Tampa on the sly and murder her in her sleep tonight."
"Then let's get started saving your life, and hers."
She had a vision in mind, and cut a swath through her own nursery as she built on it. Cissy didn't blink when Roz accumulated plants, shrubs, ornamental trees, pots, and planters.
"Harper, I need you to go to the house, bring my pickup on around. We're going to load this up, and I'm going to steal you for a few hours. Stella, you tell Logan to come on by here when he finishes for the day. He's going to be putting in some overtime. He can pick up what I've earmarked, and bring it to this address."
She scrawled Cissy's address on a scrap of paper. "You come with him. I can use your hands, and your eye."
"Do you really think you can get all this done in less than two days?" Stella asked.
"I will get it done in less than two days because that's what I've got."
SHE LOVED Achallenge. And there was nothing like digging in the dirt to take her mind off any worries.
She measured, marked, tilled, dumped peat moss, and raked.
"Normally I'd want to take more time to prep the soil. Starting a new bed's an important event."
Cissy chewed on her lip, twisted the string of pearls she wore around her fingers. "But you can do it."
"Not much I can't do with dirt and plants. It's my gift." She nodded to where Harper was already setting in a decorative metal trellis. "And his. And you're going to learn something today. Put those gloves on, Cissy. You're going to do some slaving away, then you won't have lied."
"I don't give a red damn about the lie." But she tugged on the gloves.
Roz explained, in basic terms, that they'd do a four-season perennial garden. One that would impress, whatever time of year the in-laws visited. Iris and dianthus, campanula. Bleeding heart and columbine for instant bloom. With spring bulbs, craftily placed annuals, and the foliage from later bloomers filling in now.
And once the massive planters she'd chosen were done and exploding with flowers, the bed would be a showpiece even a persnickety mother-in-law would love.
She left Cissy setting in crested cockscomb and dusty miller and moved off to reorganize and fluff up the already established beds.
At the end of another hour, she realized they would use everything she'd brought with her, and then some.
"Harper?" She swiped at her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand. "You got your cell phone?"
He stopped working the vines onto the trellis long enough to pat at his pockets. "Somewhere. Truck maybe?"
Like mother like son, she thought, sent him a wave, and went around front to find it. She called Stella, rattled off another list of needs - having no doubt her manager would record them all, invoice, inventory, and deliver.
She planted cannas at the back fence, along with blue salvia and African daisies. Then sat back on her heels when Cissy walked to her with a tall glass.
"I made lemonade, from scratch. For my sins. My manicure is wrecked," she said as she handed Roz the glass. "And I'm already aching in places I forgot I owned. I don't know how you do this."
"I don't know how you play bridge every week."
"Well, to each his own, I suppose. I owe you a lot more than the check I wrote."
"Oh, you're going to be writing a couple more before it's over."
Cissy just closed her eyes. "Hank's going to kill me. He's going to take his nine iron and beat me bloody and dead."
"I don't think he will." Roz got to her feet, handed the empty glass back, then stretched her back. "I think he's going to be pleased and proud - and touched that you'd go to all this trouble - ruining a manicure on top of it - to make your home more beautiful for his mother's visit. To show her, and him, how much you value the home he's provided you with."
"Oh." A slow smile spread. "That's damn clever of you, Rosalind."
"Just because I don't have a husband doesn't mean I don't know how they work. I'm going to warn you, you don't take proper care of all this, I'll come over here and beat you senseless with Hank's nine iron myself."
Cissy looked around at the dirt, the half-planted beds, the shovels and rakes and bags of soil and additives. "It's going to look really nice when it's finished. Right?"
"Trust me."
"I am. Completely. And this is probably not the best time to tell you that son of yours is one handsome devil. I swear, my heart nearly shut right down when I handed him that lemonade and he flashed that grin at me. God almighty, he must have the girls at his feet, four layers deep."
"Never known him to have trouble finding one. Doesn't seem to keep them long, though."
"He's young yet."
IT WAS DARKwhen she got home. Dirty, a little achy, she poked her head in the library before heading upstairs. She'd seen Mitch's car out front.
"Working late?" she asked.
"Yeah. You, too?"
"I had an amazing day. Time of my life. I'm going to go up and scrape several inches of that day off me, then eat like a pig."
"Want company? I've got a couple of things to run by you."
"Sure, come on up."
"Been playing in the dirt?"
"Most of the day. Gardening emergency." She shot a grin over her shoulder as she started up the stairs. "A friend, an unexpected visit by in-laws, passive-aggressive tendencies, and a desire for one-upmanship. This resulted in a hell of a profit for my business and a terrific day for me."
She walked straight into her bathroom, stripped off her shirt. "Been a long time since I got seriously involved in the design and landscaping end of things. I'd nearly forgotten how much I love to get my hands into somebody's dirt and create something."
She undressed while she talked, in a practical sort of way, dumping her clothes in the hamper, leaning in to start the shower and test the water temperature, while he stood in the doorway, listening.
"A lot of the place was virgin ground - unrealized potential. I should feel guilty for charging her when it was such a good time for me - but I don't. We earned it."
"We."
"Had to call in the troops." She stepped into the shower. "Took Harper with me, then had Logan and Stella swing by as reserves later in the day. I put in the nicest four-season perennial garden. Looks sweet now, and in a few weeks the early daylillies will pop, and the wild indigo, then it'll move right into the spirea and ladybells, the meadow sage and foxglove. Harper started this gorgeous purple clematis on a copper trellis and put in a trio of oakleaf hydrangeas. Then when Logan got there . . ."
She trailed off, stuck her head out, hair dripping. "I'm boring you senseless."
"Not at all. I may not know what you're talking about, but I'm not bored. You sound revved."
"I am. I'm going by tomorrow morning for some final touches and to present her with the final bill. She may faint, but she's going to wow her in-laws."
"You never did give me an answer about that plant for my apartment. You know, feng shui."
"No, I didn't."
He waited five seconds, heard nothing but water running. And laughed. "Guess that's answer enough. You know, I'm fairly intelligent and responsible. I could be taught how to care for a plant."
"Possibly, but your track record's ugly, Mitch. Just ugly. We may discuss a probationary period. I threatened to hurt Cissy if she didn't maintain what I did over there. I heard her talking to Logan about hiring him to come in twice a month to deal with it. And that's fine. We should all be self-aware enough to know our limitations."
"You water it. You put it in the sun. I can do that."
"As if that's all there is to it. You want to hand me a towel?"
She shut off the water, took the towel he handed her, and began to dry off. "We've been so busy at work I've barely been able to knock two thoughts together about anything else. Stella's wedding's right around the corner, too. And I know there are things that need my attention in this project."
He watched as she slathered on cream, as the scent of it mixed with the scent of her soap. "We'll manage it all."
"Winters fly by now that I've got the business. A lot more to do over the winter than people might think. And here we are, into another spring. I can hardly believe it's . . ."
Her eyebrows drew together, with that faint vertical line between them. Falling silent, she carefully replaced the top on her cream.
"Just hit you, didn't it?" he asked.
"What would that be?"
"The two of us, right now." He stayed where he was as she moved by him into the bedroom, as she opened a drawer for fresh clothes. "End of the workday, talking over the shower. It's all very married, isn't it?"
She slipped on cropped gray sweats, tugged a T-shirt over her head. "How do you feel about that?"
"Not entirely sure. A little nervous around the edges, I guess. Amazingly calm at the center. What about you?"
She rubbed the towel over her hair as she studied his face. "Getting married again wasn't just not on my radar, but top of my list of things to avoid. Such as poisonous snakes, frogs dropping out of the sky, ebola viruses, and such."
He smiled, leaned on the doorjamb. "I heard past tense."
"You have good ears. I fell in love once, very young. And when I fell in love, I married. It was very good, and I'll love John Ashby all of my life. I'll see him in the sons we made together, and know I wouldn't have them if we hadn't loved the way we did."
"People who can and have loved like that are fortunate."
"Yes, we are. At one time I was lonely. My boys were going their own way, and the house just seemed so empty, so quiet. I was sad, under the pride of seeing the young men I'd help create, I was so damn sad."
She walked back into the bathroom to hang the damp towel, then opened her daily moisturizer to smooth it over her face.
"I needed something to take that away, or thought I did. I wanted someone to share the rest of my life with. I picked someone who, on the surface, seemed right. That mistake cost me a great deal. Emotionally and financially."
"And because of that, you'll be very careful about another marriage."
"I will. But I'm in love with you, Mitchell." She saw the emotion rush into his eyes, and what a thrill it was to see it, to know it was there because of her.
She saw him start to step forward. And stop himself, because he knew she wanted him to wait. Another thrill, she thought, to be so well understood.
"I never expected to love again, not with the whole of my heart. That was the mistake I made with Bryce, you see. The basic mistake, in marrying someone I didn't love with the whole of my heart. Still, marriage is an enormous step. I hope you won't mind if I let you know when and if I'm ready to take it."
"I can work with that, because I love you, Rosalind. Mistakes I made before hurt people I loved. I won't make them again."