****
While they ate a quick lunch together of toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup with walnut brownies straight out of the oven, the girls chattered gaily, taking turns telling Rich and Torrie about their sleepover, the Parcheesi board game they had discovered in the trunk of toys, and how Denise had taught them the rules so they could play. Estella then promptly instructed everyone about the royal game of India and how it was once played on large outdoor boards using colorfully clothed servants of the royalty household as game pieces. She had looked it up on the Internet, and she wondered whether it was possible to make a board game with chalk on the circular drive out front and enlist everyone in the neighborhood to be human players.
But it was Iris, as Torrie earlier suggested, who whined, “Why did you have to spend the night in New York, Mommy? What were you doing there? I missed you.” She punched out her lower lip, ready to mope.
Rich and Torrie’s gaze met for a suspended moment, and Torrie felt a sinking feeling right down to her toes. She could never lie, but at the moment, even a plausible excuse eluded her.
Rich pushed himself from the table. “Well, we were getting important business taken care of, but we did manage to find time to buy you both a surprise.” He offered them an endearing smile.
And in a flash, the tide of events changed as both little girls threw off their glum expressions and jumped up, following Rich and Torrie out to the SUV in the circular drive. They squealed as he withdrew two new shiny pink bikes with white fenders and sparkling handlebar streamers.
“For the two most beautiful princesses in Hickory Valley.” Rich pushed the bikes to an open section of the driveway away from the car and shrubs.
Estella clapped her hands and looked in awe at the bikes. “Yippee! It’s just what I wanted. I’ve missed my bike so much since we’ve been here.”
“For me?” Iris asked, taken off-guard by the generosity of the gift. “Is it really, Mommy?” She ran and wound her arms around her mother’s legs and hugged her.
Torrie nodded. “But there are restrictions,” she said firmly, pushing the girl’s pale bangs from her forehead. “You must keep the bike here at Estella’s house and they must be ridden in the back of the house, here on the front circular drive, on the front sidewalk, or on the driveway leading to the garage. Under no circumstances are you girls to leave the property with them. You cannot ride them downtown. Do you understand?”
“But how will we tell them apart?” Estella asked.
Rich withdrew two decals of sparkling silver and pink, one with the initial “I” and the other with the initial “E” on it and waved them in the air. “These go on the back fender.”
“Can we try them out? Now?” Iris asked, jumping up and down.
“Yes, but let’s be careful,” Rich cautioned.
After he and Torrie separated each girl at an even greater distance, they held the bikes upright while the girls got their bearings. It was Iris who sailed away first, grinning, pedaling the bike with relative ease down the drive, adeptly turning and racing back, her hair flying out behind her. “This is so much better than the bikes at Aunt Elsa’s,” she yelled, referring to the bikes of her male cousins. She glided to a smooth stop and hopped down, giggling, before setting off again.
“They’re having a blast,” Torrie said and looked over at Rich standing with hands in his back pockets. “You’re a very generous man, Rich.” And a very handsome, but devious one. “They’ve completely forgotten we were away for a night.”
“Uh-huh.” He came to stand beside her and looped an arm over her shoulder, rubbing the side of her cheek with his thumb. The single act of disguised affection turned her heart over. She gazed up at him and wanted so much to stand on tiptoe and kiss him. She wanted so much to stand there all day in the sunlight beside him. To be happy like this forever. But she refrained from making any romantic gesture, content to just watch the girls and listen to their innocent riotous giggles fill the summer air around them before she headed off to the potting shed in the backyard to see what could be saved of her precious rose cuttings.
****
Later in afternoon, after lengthy telephone conversations about business, Rich wandered onto the porch and took in a breath of clear, clean summer air. Somewhere far off and to the north of where he stood, someone had mown a field of hay. After all these years, he was surprised he still could recognize the smell of freshly cut alfalfa and clover, a smell so sweet and so unique to rural living. Beside him, a chickadee chattered and two swallowtail butterflies flitted on a bush. He gazed toward the potting shed where Torrie had been laboring for the last few hours.
He ducked back inside, poured two glasses of Lulu’s homemade lemonade, and carried them across the yard. He found Torrie sitting on a stool before a bank of south windows. Head bent, deep in concentration, she was carefully examining and sorting the pieces of broken rose clippings Joe or Finn had salvaged and tucked into squat buckets of water to keep them fresh for grafting or rooting.
He set a glass beside her. “Is there anything I can do to help?” A multitude of flats holding four-inch pots filled with dirt lined the farthest end of the long counter.
Torrie looked up surprised. “You want to help?”
Rich watched her gaze travel from his scuffed cowboy boots to his faded Levis and on up to his plaid shirt before they rested on his face. He had purposely dug through his closet and donned the oldest clothes he could find in hopes of convincing her.
“This is a dirty job, Rich.”
He shrugged. “So is a lawyer’s job at times. Only a different kind of dirty.” He swept his hands over the counter and the buckets of rose clippings. “This whole mess is probably my fault, Torrie. Someone wants me to sell the house and hightail it out of Hickory Valley.” He went over to a far bucket and fingered a shiny leaf on a rose stem. “And anyway, babe, I just finished up a heap of legal business by computer and phone, so I’m your landscape slave until dinner time. Tell me what to do and how it’s done.”
Torrie shook her head, trying to look annoyed by his interruption, but finally slapped a pair of soft leather gloves against his chest. “First, we don’t want any thorns to harm those soft velvet hands, counselor. Some people knock the thorns off when they’re handling cuttings, but I prefer not to wound the plant any more than necessary.”
He nodded, slipped on the gloves, and grinned. “Yes, these velvet hands can work magic, don’t you agree?”
“Rich.” The tone was reprimanding.
“Okay, okay.” He chortled. “No wait. Just one more, please, Torrie. This one is good, I promise.” He held up his gloved hands and wiggled his fingers at her. “So now for the first time in my life, I can safely say I’ll be literally handling things here with kid gloves.”
This time, she gave him a doleful shake of her head. “I give up. You do know where Estella gets her clever but never-ending ability to annoy people, don’t you? Are you here to hinder or help?”
“Sorry.” He tried to look repentant, but couldn’t quite wipe the grin off his face.
She motioned him closer. “Since I don’t want you to play with knives and this one is very sharp”—she waved it in the air while he feigned being frightened and took a step backward—“I’m going to give you a six-inch stalk which is cut on a diagonal at the bottom and which has two sets of leaves attached. I will wound the rose stem at the bottom along the stalk as well.”
“Wound? Sounds like you have to be a little spiteful to do this. You sure you’re up to it?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Luckily for you, I’ve become adept at ignoring your snarky comments.”
“As are the girls, Lulu Smith, and even the darn cat.”
She shook her head again and persevered. “Now, try to focus. You’ll take each cutting, dip the bottom and the wound in this rooting hormone, and plant one in each corner of a pot farther up the counter, being careful to push them only half way into the soil.” She grabbed him by his shirt on his upper
arm and pulled him along as she planted the first cutting. “See? It’s simple.”
He squinted at the pots of soil. “What’s the shiny stuff?”
“Perlite. The soil in the pot is half soil and half perlite. The high water content of volcanic glass lends itself perfectly for rooting plants.”
They worked for the next hour with Torrie explaining to him the difference between bud and cutting propagation methods and other landscape techniques and problems. He could tell by her animated gestures and the excitement in her voice how much she loved her work, enjoyed the outdoors, and liked watching things grow—but at the end of the day, she really loved the roses and flowers above all.
“You never grow tired of this?” he asked when they were finishing up.
“There are some things you never grow tired of,” she admitted.
“Or people.”
He fixed his gaze on her. She didn’t try to look away, but her cheeks burned from pink to red. He realized he could watch her for the rest of his life. He loved the way she moved so efficiently and athletically, almost gliding around the potting shed. Her fingers were delicate but agile when she worked on the rose stems. Despite the lack of jewelry, except the ring she designed and some small hoop earrings, she possessed a raw beauty mixed with natural earthy qualities.
When at last they were done, and two pairs of leather gloves lay side by side on the wooden counter, he pulled her to him and kissed her gently, lovingly on the lips. She didn’t resist, but snuggled in against his chest. Around them, the scent of roses and earth filled the shed.
“Torrie,” he said in a tortured voice, laying his cheek along the side of her hair, “would you ever consider marriage someday? I need you so much in my life.”
She pulled away slightly and searched his face. “How on earth would it ever work?”
He sighed, but still held her by both arms. “I’ve been on the phone for the last few days with the other attorneys in my office. What if I told you I’d consider staying in Hickory Valley, but just travel to Texas when needed? I’d put someone in charge of the Dallas office.”
“But what about Estella?”
“Estella? Estella is in love with this town, this place, the outdoors. She adores Iris and that flea-bitten, pain-in-the-backside cat. And she is thriving here more than when she was in Texas. Lulu is like a grandmother to her. Who knows, maybe my half-sister is living somewhere nearby. I still have to find her.”
“Oh, Rich, I don’t know what to say. Can you give me some time to think about all this? Some time to think things through? There’s so much that needs to be sorted out and discussed, so many questions to be answered. I have to consider Iris and what’s best for her. This is more complicated than you can imagine.”
He kissed her mouth, tenderly at first, then more insistently with growing ardor. He pulled away. “Then I take it your answer is not a no?” He kissed her again. “How about we just get engaged and see where it takes us?’
“Rich, you’re pushing,” she whispered against his lips.
“If I keep pushing, will you cave?” he asked softly. He ran his index fingers over her lower lip. “Let me put a ring on your hand. Say yes. You’re driving me wild.”
Standing on tiptoe, she brushed her lips over his again. “I’ll give it serious thought. How about you give me two weeks?”
“You aren’t making it easy for me, you stubborn sexy minx.”
From somewhere behind them, Estella asked, “What’s a sexy mink? And are you two kissing each other?”
Rich jerked upright, groaned, and felt Torrie stiffly pull away. Semi-shocked, they found both girls standing in the doorway of the shed.
“Oh, brother,” Torrie muttered under her breath. “See what I mean about complicated?”
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning rolled in dismal and wet. Leaving Torrie to watch the girls at her house, Lulu and Rich set out to talk to Dr. Winters at an appointed time Lulu had somehow magically secured. The red brick mansion of Dr. Winters sat back from the road on a side street of Hickory Valley with an imposing chimney on each end and a black wrought iron fence protecting a large, well-manicured property of leafy maples, oaks, and gigantic elms. Old rhododendron reaching to the sky and knee-high ferns added to its stately charm and distinction. Colorful gold, bright yellow, and orange marigolds sprinkled beside the long walkway led guests to a gigantic porch and a large white front door with leaded glass sidelights.
A curtain of gray rain pounded down around them as Rich escorted Lulu from the car and up the walk. Wearing a bright pink raincoat, the little woman grumbled as she trudged along under an umbrella Rich held over their heads. Earlier, she had told him to keep the blasted thing away from her. She didn’t melt in the rain, and when he laughed and admitted he often wondered about it, she sent him a scorching look and warned he’d never get another bite of her blue ribbon chocolate chip cookies—the ones he always begged her to bake as soon as the cookie jar was empty—if he didn’t behave.
They stopped in front of the door and Lulu peered up at him. “Okay, big shot attorney, how do you want this to go down?”
For a bare second, she caught him off-guard.
“Lulu, this isn’t a sting operation,” he said. And if it were, he thought, her gaudy pink raincoat with her lime green handbag would have blown their cover before he turned off the car. “I just need to get the dear doctor to allow me to see the adoption papers of Anne Alexander and my father.” He pushed the doorbell and muttered, “And let’s hope Ivan isn’t around to throw a few wrenches in the old man’s gears.”
A tall, slender woman with steel gray hair answered the doorbell on the first ring and smiled widely when she saw Lulu. “Why, hello, Lucille. Come in. Come in! I haven’t seen you in a while. We missed you at cards the last couple of times. I heard you were working at the Redman house.” She gestured to a corner of the entranceway where an ornate brass coat tree stood ready to handle their soggy coats and umbrella. “Dr. Winters is most anxious to see you. He’s been fretting about refreshments and your arrival for over an hour. And you must be Rich Redman. All grown up, I see!”
Lulu spoke. “Do you remember Nancy Decker?”
“Ah, yes.” Rich smiled. “Your son, Paul, played quarterback for our high school, I believe. How is he?”
“Fine. Fine.” Nancy nodded. “He coaches football at Ohio State now. Paul’s married with three children.” She waved them toward the hallway. “Come. This way. Dr. Winters is in the sunroom at the back of the house.”
As soon as they entered the three-sided, glassed-in sunroom overlooking a well-kept vegetable garden and lawn, Nathan Winters rose and made his way across the gray slate floor to sweep Lulu into a polite hug. “Lucille, so nice to see you. It’s been a long time. Too long. How have you been?” He held her at arm’s length and continued, “I know your husband’s death must have been as troubling to you as my wife’s was to me. It’s hard to lose a spouse.”
Lulu nodded in agreement and untangled herself from the doctor’s embrace. “Yes, it is. But I’m fine, Nathan. Just fine. I’d like you meet Rich Redman. You remember his grandparents, Gertie and Matthew Redman, don’t you?”
“But of course, of course. Please sit. I’ll have Nancy bring some coffee and some sweets.” He took a seat in a wicker chair and gestured for them to take a seat on a matching wicker couch across from him. Beside him on the floor was a banker’s box of what looked like medical files.
“I must admit, I wasn’t totally surprised to hear Rich wanted to talk to me. But I was truly delighted to hear Lucille’s voice on the phone the other day.” He smiled and tapped his fingers lightly on the arm of his chair.
“Then you must know I’m searching for my half-sister.” Rich decided to get straight to the point. “I know Dad had a child with Anne Alexander, and the child would be just over eighteen years old now. I have money in a trust Grandmother Gertie left and which justifiably belongs to her. But if she’s not found in the next
year, then it reverts to me.”
Dr. Winters frowned. “And you think I was involved?”
“I know you were involved with the adoption, yes.”
“And how can you be so sure?” Dr. Winters’s voice took on a cautious tone.
“I spoke with her aunt, Winifred Fox…and some residents of Willow Tree Assisted Living.”
Dr. Winters paused, pondering his next sentence. ‘Wouldn’t it be in your best interest if the money was just returned to the trust?”
“I have a letter from my grandmother which she wrote just before she died.” He withdrew it from his jacket. “It was her wish my half-sister and I meet.” He held it out.
Waving it away, Dr. Winters spoke. “I believe you. That would be just like Gertie Redman. She was a righteous and honest woman. To be fair, though, I’d need to reread the adoption records and see what specific instructions were included before I divulge any information. Sometimes things are better left alone, Rich.”
Rich forced his lips to part in a stiff smile. “Maybe so. But there’s a sizable trust due the young lady, and quite frankly, I want to meet and know my half-sister. I was raised as an only child. For me, money from the trust is secondary to finding a blood relative.”
Commotion from the front room brought everyone to attention. Nancy rushed into the room without the coffee and refreshments. She halted, wringing her hands. “Ivan’s here. I told him you were having a meeting, Dr. Winters, but he insisted he needed to see you immediately.”
“It’s okay, Nancy.” Nathan Winters rose and went to the doorway. “Send him back here.”
Beside Rich, Lulu groaned and elbowed him in the ribs. “For pity’s sake. Just what we didn’t need—Ivan the idiot to muck up the works.”
Ivan appeared in the doorway, dusting water droplets off the shoulder of his impeccable navy blue suit. “Well, well, what have we here? A meeting? Don’t tell me I’m interrupting something?”
“Lucille Smith and Richard Lee Junior asked for an appointment to discuss some business,” replied Dr. Winters. He gestured down the hall toward the kitchen. “Why don’t you grab something to eat? I won’t be long.”
Four White Roses Page 16