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“And toss in the new shoes, sweetie. They never fail.”
IN HIGH SUMMER business slowed at the garden center. It never trickled down too far at In the Garden, but in July, the heady late winter through spring rush was long over. Wet heat smothered west Tennessee, and only the most avid of gardeners would suffer through it to pump new life into their beds.
Taking advantage of it, and her mood, Hayley wheedled a salon appointment, and an extra hour off from Stella.
When she drove back into work after her extended lunch break, it was with a new do, two new pair of shoes, and a much happier attitude.
Trust David, she decided.
She loved In the Garden. Most days, she didn’t feel as if she was going to work at all. There couldn’t be a better quality in a job than that, in her opinion.
She enjoyed just looking at the pretty white building that looked more like someone’s well-tended home than a business, with the seasonal beds spreading out from its porch, and the pots full of colorful blooms by its door.
She liked the industry across the wide gravel lot—the stacks of peat and mulch, the pavers and landscape timbers. The greenhouses that were full of plants and promises, the storage buildings.
When it was busy with customers, winding along the paths, pulling wagons or flatbeds full of plants and pots—everyone full of news or plans—it was more like a small village than a retail space.
And she was a part of it all.
She stepped in, and did a turn for Ruby, the white-haired clerk who manned the counter.
“Don’t you look sassy,” Ruby commented.
“I feel sassy.” She ran her fingers through her short shaggy hair, then let it fall again. “I haven’t done anything new with my hair in a year. More. I almost forgot what it was like to sit in a beauty parlor and have somebody do me.”
“Things do slide with a new baby. How’s our best girl doing?”
“Fussy last night after her shots. But she bounced back this morning. My butt was dragging. Pumped now though.” To prove it, she flexed her arms to show little bumps of biceps.
“Good thing. Stella wants everything watered, and I do mean everything. And we’re waiting on a big delivery of new planters. They’ll need to be stickered and shelved once they come in.”
“I’m your girl.”
She started outside in the thick, drowsy heat, soaking the bedding plants, the annuals and perennials who’d yet to find a home. They made her think of those awkward kids in school who never got picked for the team. As a result, she had a soft spot for them and wished she had a place where she could dig them into the soil, let them bloom, let them find their potential.
One day she would have a place. She’d plant gardens, take what she’d learned here and put it to use. Make something beautiful, something special. There would have to be lilies, naturally. Red lilies, like the ones Harper brought to her when she was in labor with Lily. A big, splashy pool of red lilies, bold and fragrant that would come back year after year and remind her how lucky she was.
Sweat trickled down the back of her neck, and water dampened her canvas skids. The gentle spray annoyed the gang of bees covering the sedum. So, come back when I’m finished, she thought as they flew off with an annoyed buzz. We’re all after the same thing here.
She moved slowly, half dreaming, down the tables holding the picked-over stock.
And if one day she had a garden, and there was Lily playing on the grass. With a puppy, she decided. There should be a puppy, all fat and soft and frisky. If she was able to have all that, couldn’t she add a man? Someone who loved her and Lily, someone funny and smart who made her heart beat just a little faster when he looked at her?
He could be handsome. What was the point of a fantasy if the guy wasn’t great-looking? Tall, he would be tall, with good shoulders and long legs. Brown eyes, deep delicious brown, and lots of thick dark hair she could get her hands into. Good cheekbones, the kind you just wanted to nibble your way along until you got to that strong, sexy mouth. And then—
“Jesus, Hayley, you’re drowning that coreopsis.”
She jerked, whipping the sprayer, then on a little yip of distress whipped it back again. But not before the water hit Harper dead-on.
Gut shot, she thought, torn between embarrassment and inappropriate giggles. He looked down at his soaked shirt, his jeans with a kind of grim resignation.
“Got a license for that thing?”
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. But you shouldn’t sneak up behind me that way.”
“I didn’t sneak anywhere. I walked.”
His voice was aggravated, but so Memphian, she thought, where she knew hers hit twang when she was excited or upset. “Well, walk louder next time. I really am sorry though. I guess my mind was wandering.”
“This kind of heat, it’s easy for the mind to wander, then lie down to take a nap.” He pulled the wet shirt away from his belly. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he narrowed them. “What did you do to your hair?”
“What?” Instinctively she reached up, pulled her fingers through it. “I had it cut. Don’t you like it?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s fine.”
Her finger itched on the trigger of the sprayer. “Please, stop. That kind of flattery’ll just go to my head.”
He smiled at her. He had such a great smile—sort of slow, so that it shifted the angles of his face and lit up in those deep, dark brown eyes—she nearly forgave him.
“I’m heading home, for a bit anyway. Mama’s back.”
“They’re back? How are they? Did they have a good time? And you don’t know yet because you haven’t been home. Tell them I can’t wait to see them, and that everything’s fine over here, and Roz shouldn’t worry and come over and start in working when she’s barely walked in the door. And—”
He cocked his hip, hooked a thumb in the front pocket of his ancient jeans. “Should I be writing any of this down?”
“Oh, go on then.” But she laughed as she waved him away. “I’ll tell them myself.”
“See you later.”
He walked off, the man of her daydreams, dripping a little.
She really had to get her mind off Harper, she warned herself. Get it off and keep it off. He wasn’t for her, and she knew it. She walked over to give the potted shrubs and climbers a good soak.
She wasn’t even sure she wanted anybody to be for her—right now, anyway. Lily was number one priority, and after Lily came her job. She wanted her baby happy, healthy, and secure. And she wanted to learn more, do more at the nursery. The more she learned, the less it would be a job, and the more it would be a career.
Pulling her weight was fine, but she wanted to do more.
After Lily, her work, and the family she’d made here, came the fascinating and spooky task of identifying Amelia, the Harper Bride—and laying her to rest.
Most of that fell to Mitch. He was the genealogist, and along with Stella the most organized mind of the bunch. And wasn’t it cool that he and Roz had found each other, fallen in love, after Roz had hired him to research the family tree to try to find where Amelia fit in? Not that Amelia had cared for the falling-in-love part. Boy, she’d been a stone bitch about it.
She might get mean again, too, Hayley thought. Now that they were married and Mitch was living at Harper House. She’d been quiet for a while, but it didn’t mean she’d stay quiet.
If and when the whirlwind resumed, Hayley intended to be ready for it.two
HAYLEY WALKED INTO Harper House—ah, the blessed cool—with Lily on her hip. She set Lily on her feet, then dumped her purse and the diaper bag on the bottom step so they’d be handy for her to carry up. Up’s where she wanted to go. She wanted to shower for, oh, two or three days ought to do it, then drink an ice cold beer, straight down.
But before she did anything, she wanted Roz.
Even as she thought it, Roz came out of the parlor. She and Lily gave mutual cries of delight. Lily changed direction, and as she headed toward Roz, Roz closed the distance and scooped her up.
“There’s my sweet potato.” She gave Lily a fierce hug, nuzzled her neck, then with a grin for Hayley, looked back at the baby and listened with amazement to the excited and incomprehensible babbling. “Why, I can’t believe all that happened in just one week! Don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here to catch me up on all the local gossip.” She grinned at Hayley again. “And how’s your mama?”
“I’m fine. I’m great.” Hayley dashed over to lock them both in a hug. “Welcome home. We missed you.”
“Good. I like being missed. And look at this.” She flipped her fingers over Hayley’s hair.
“I just did it. Just today. Woke up with a bug up my butt. Oh, you look so beautiful.”
“Listen to you.”
But it was true, always true. And now a weeklong honeymoon in the Caribbean had added a dewy glow to innate beauty. Sun had turned the creamy skin pale gold so that Roz’s long, dark eyes seemed even deeper. The short, straight hair capped a face with the sort of classic, timeless beauty Hayley knew she could only envy.
“I like that cut,” Roz commented. “It looks so young and easy.”
“Gave my morale a boost. Lily and I had a rough night. She got her shots yesterday.”
“Mmm.” Roz gave Lily an extra hug. “No fun there. Let’s see if we can make up for it. Come on in here, baby girl,” Roz said, snuggling Lily again as she went back in the parlor. “See what we got you.”
The first thing Hayley saw was a life-sized doll with a mop of red hair and a sweet and foolish smile.
“Oh, she’s so cute! And almost as big as Lily.”
“That was the idea. Mitch spotted her before I did, and nothing would do but we bring her home to Lily. What do you think, sweetie?”
Lily poked the doll in the eye a couple of times, pulled its hair, then was happy to sit on the floor and get acquainted.
“It’s the kind of doll she’ll name in a year or so, then keep in her room till college. Thank you, Roz.”
“We’re not done. There was this little shop, and they had the most adorable dresses.” She began to pull them out of the bag while Hayley goggled. Soft smocked cotton, ruched lace, embroidered denim. “And look at these rompers. Who could resist?”
“They’re wonderful. They’re beautiful. You’ll spoil her.”
“Well, of course.”
“I don’t know what to . . . She doesn’t have any grand—anybody to spoil her like this.”
Roz arched a brow, folded a romper. “You can say the G word, Hayley. I won’t faint in horror. I like to think of myself as her honorary grandmother.”
“I’m so lucky. We’re so lucky.”
“Then why are you tearing up?”
“I don’t know. All this stuff’s been going on in my head lately.” She sniffled, heeled a hand under her eyes to rub away the dampness. “Where I am, how I got here, how it might’ve been for us if I’d been on my own with Lily the way I thought I’d be.”
“Might’ve beens don’t get you very far.”
“I know. I’m just so glad I came to you. I was thinking last night that I should start looking for a place.”
“A place to what?”
“Live.”
“Something wrong with this place?”
“It’s the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.” And here she was, Hayley Phillips from Little Rock, living in it, living in a house that had a parlor furnished with beautiful antiques and deep rich cushions, with generous windows that opened up to acres of more beauty.
“I was thinking I should look for a place, but I don’t want to. At least, well, not right now.” She looked down, watched Lily struggle to carry the doll around the room. “But I want you to tell me, and I know we’re good enough friends that you will, when you want me to start looking.”
“All right. That settled then?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t you want to see what we brought you?”
“I got something, too?” Hayley’s lake blue eyes went bright with anticipation. “I love presents. I’m not ashamed to say it.”
“I hope you like this one.” She took a box out of the bag, offered it.
Wasting no time, Hayley took off the top. “Oh, oh! They’re gorgeous.”
“I thought the red coral would suit you best.”
“I love them!” She took the earrings out of the box and holding them to her ears rushed to one of the antique mirrors on the wall to study how they looked. The trios of delicate and exotic red balls swayed from a glittery triangle of silver. “They’re wonderful. God, I have something from Aruba. I can’t believe it.”
She dashed back to give a chuckling Roz a hug. “They’re just beautiful. Thank you, thank you. I can hardly wait to wear them.”
“You can give them a test drive tonight if you want. Stella, Logan, and the boys will be over. David tells me we’re having a welcome-home dinner.”
“Oh, but you’ll be tired.”
“Tired? What am I, eighty? I just got back from vacation.”
“Honeymoon,” Hayley corrected with a smirk. “Bet you didn’t get a lot of rest either.”
“We slept in every morning, you smart-ass.”
“In that case, we’ll party. Lily and I’ll go upstairs and get ourselves all clean and pretty.”
“I’ll give you a hand up with all these things.”
“Thanks. Roz?” Everything inside her had settled down to a glow. “I’m really glad you’re home.”
IT WAS SO much fun to put on her new earrings, to dress Lily in one of her pretty new outfits, to fuss a little over both herself and her daughter. She shook her head just for the pleasure of feeling the way her hair fell and her earrings swung.
There now, she thought, not feeling dull and blah anymore. Since she was feeling celebratory, she capped it off with new shoes. The thin-heeled strappy black sandals were impractical and unnecessary. Which made them perfect.
“And they were on sale,” she told Lily. “Gotta say, they’ve got to be more fun than Prozac or whatever.”
It felt great to wear a dress—a short dress—and sexy shoes. A new haircut. Red lipstick.
She gave a turn for the mirror and struck a pose. Maybe she had a skinny build, but there was nothing much she could do about that. Still, she wore clothes pretty well, if she did say so. Kind of like a clothes hanger. Add new hair, new earrings, new shoes, and you had something.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe I’m back.”
DOWNSTAIRS, HARPER WAS sprawled in a chair, sipping a beer and watching the way Mitch touched his mother—her hair, her arm—while they related some of the highlights of their trip for Logan and Stella and the boys.
He’d heard some of it already when he’d buzzed home for an hour that afternoon. He wasn’t really listening. He was just watching, and thinking it was good, it was time his mother had someone so obviously besotted with her.
He was happy for her—and relieved. No matter how well his mother could take care of herself, and God knew she could do just that, it was a comfort to know she had a smart, able man at her side.
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