by Nora Roberts
“Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want my own business. I thought about it a couple of years ago. But that sort of leap with no parachute and two kids?” She shook her head. “Roz is gutsier than I am. Besides, I realized it wasn’t what I really wanted. I like working for someone else, sort of troubleshooting and coming in with a creative and efficient plan for improvement or expansion. Managing is what I do best.”
She waited a beat. “No sarcastic comments to that?”
“Only on the inside. That way I can save them up until you tick me off again.”
“I can hardly wait. In any case, it’s like, I enjoy planting a garden from scratch—that blank slate. But more, I like taking one that’s not planned very well, or needs some shaping up, and turning it around.”
She paused, frowned. “Funny, I just remembered. I had a dream about a garden a few nights ago. A really strange dream with ... I don’t know, something spooky about it. I can’t quite get it back, but there was something ... this huge, gorgeous blue dahlia. Dahlias are a particular favorite of mine, and blue’s my favorite color. Still, it shouldn’t have been there, didn’t belong there. I hadn’t planted it. But there it was. Strange.”
“What did you do with it? The dahlia?”
“Can’t remember. Luke woke me up, so my garden and the exotic dahlia went poof.” And the room, she thought, the room had been so cold. “He wasn’t feeling well, a little tummy distress.”
“He okay now?”
“Yeah.” Another point for his side, Stella thought. “He’s fine, thanks.”
“How about the tooth?”
Uh-oh, second point. The man remembered her baby’d had a loose tooth. “Sold to the Tooth Fairy for a crisp dollar bill. Second one’s about to wiggle out. He’s got the cutest little lisp going on right now.”
“His big brother teach him how to spit through the hole yet?”
She grimaced. “Not to my knowledge.”
“What you don’t know ... I bet it’s still there—the magic dahlia—blooming in dreamland.”
“That’s a nice thought.” Kill it. God, where did that come from? she wondered, fighting off a shudder. “It was pretty spectacular, as I recall.”
She glanced around as he pulled into a parking lot. “Is this it?”
“It’s across the road. This is like the visitors’ center, the staging area. We get our tickets inside, and they take groups over in shuttles.”
He turned off the engine, shifted to look at her. “Five bucks says you’re a convert when we come back out.”
“An Elvis convert? I don’t have anything against him now.”
“Five bucks. You’ll be buying an Elvis CD, minimum, after the tour.”
“That’s a bet.”
IT WAS SO MUCH SMALLER THAN SHE’D IMAGINED. She’d pictured something big and sprawling, something mansionlike, close to the level of Harper House. Instead, it was a relatively modest-sized home, and the rooms—at least the ones the tour encompassed—rather small.
She shuffled along with the rest of the tourists, listening to Lisa Marie Presley’s recorded memories and observations through the provided headset.
She puzzled over the pleated fabric in shades of curry, blue, and maroon swagged from the ceiling and covering every inch of wall in the cramped, pool-table-dominated game room. Then wondered at the waterfall, the wild-animal prints and tiki-hut accessories all crowned by a ceiling of green shag carpet in the jungle room.
Someone had lived with this, she thought. Not just someone, but an icon—a man of miraculous talent and fame. And it was sweet to listen to the woman who’d been a child when she’d lost her famous father, talk about the man she remembered, and loved.
The trophy room was astonishing to her, and immediately replaced her style quibbles with awe. It seemed like miles of walls in the meandering hallways were covered, cheek by jowl, with Elvis’s gold and platinum records. All that accomplished, all that earned in fewer years, really, than she’d been alive.
And with Elvis singing through her headset, she admired his accomplishments, marveled over his elaborate, splashy, and myriad stage costumes. Then was charmed by his photographs, his movie posters, and the snippets of interviews.
YOU LEARNED A LOT ABOUT SOMEONE WALKING through Graceland with her, Logan discovered. Some snickered over the dated and debatably tacky decor. Some stood glassy-eyed with adoration for the dead King. Others bopped along, rubbernecking or chatting, moving on through so they could get it all in and push on to the souvenir shops. Then they could go home and say, been there, done that.
But Stella looked at everything. And listened. He could tell she was listening carefully to the recording, the way her head would cock just an inch to the right. Listening soberly, he thought, and he’d bet a lot more than five bucks that she followed the instructions on the tape, pressing the correct number for the next segment at exactly the proper time.
It was kind of cute actually.
When they stepped outside to make the short pilgrimage to Elvis’s poolside grave, she took off her headphones for the first time.
“I didn’t know all that,” she began. “Nothing more than the bare basics, really. Over a billion records sold? It’s beyond comprehension, really. I certainly can’t imagine what it would be like to do all that and ... what are you grinning at?”
“I bet if you had to take an Elvis test right now, you’d ace it.”
“Shut up.” But she laughed, then sobered again when she walked through the sunlight with him to the Meditation Garden, and the King’s grave.
There were flowers, live ones wilting in the sun, plastic ones fading in it. And the little gravesite beside the swimming pool seemed both eccentric and right. Cameras snapped around them now, and she heard someone quietly sobbing.
“People claim to have seen his ghost, you know, back there.” Logan gestured. “That is, if he’s really dead.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Oh, yeah, Elvis left the building a long time ago.”
“I mean about the ghost.”
“Well, if he was going to haunt any place, this would be it.”
They wound around toward the shuttle pickup. “People are awfully casual about ghosts around here.”
It took him a minute. “Oh, the Harper Bride. Seen her yet?”
“No, I haven’t. But that may only be because, you know, she doesn’t exist. You’re not going to tell me you’ve seen her.”
“Can’t say I have. Lot of people claim to, but then some claim to have seen Elvis eating peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches at some diner ten years after he died.”
“Exactly!” She was so pleased with his good sense, she gave him a light punch on the arm. “People see what they want to see, or have been schooled to see, or expect to. Imaginations run wild, especially under the right conditions or atmosphere. They ought to do more with the gardens here, don’t you think?”
“Don’t get me started.”
“You’re right. No shop talk. Instead, I’ll just thank you for bringing me. I don’t know when I’d’ve gotten around to it on my own.”
“What’d you think?”
“Sad and sweet and fascinating.” She passed her headphones back to the attendant and stepped on the shuttle. “Some of the rooms were, let’s say, unique in decor.”
Their arms bumped, brushed, stayed pressed to each other in the narrow confines of the shuttle’s seats. Her hair skimmed along his shoulder until she shoved it back. He was sorry when she did.
“I knew this guy, big Elvis fan. He set about duplicating Graceland in his house. Got fabric like you saw in the game room, did his walls and ceilings.”
She turned to face him, stared. “You’re kidding.”
He simply swiped a finger over his heart. “Even put a scar on his pool table to match the one on Elvis’s. When he talked about getting those yellow appliances—”
“Harvest gold.”
“Whatever. When he star
ting making noises about putting those in, his wife gave him notice. Her or Elvis.”
Her face was alive with humor, and he stopped hearing the chatter of other passengers. There was something about her when she smiled, full out, that blew straight through him.
“And which did he choose?”
“Huh?”
“Which did he choose? His wife or Elvis?”
“Well.” He stretched out his legs, but couldn’t really shift his body away from hers. The sun was blasting through the window beside her, striking all that curling red hair. “He settled on re-creating it in his basement, and was trying to talk her into letting him put a scale model of the Meditation Garden in their backyard.”
She laughed, a delightful roll of sound. When she dropped her head back on the seat, her hair tickled his shoulder again. “If he ever does, I hope we get the job.”
“Count on it. He’s my uncle.”
She laughed again, until she was breathless. “Boy, I can’t wait to meet your family.” She angled around so she could face him. “I’m going to confess the only reason I came today was because I didn’t want to spoil a nice gesture by saying no. I didn’t expect to have fun.”
“It wasn’t a nice gesture so much as a spur of the moment thing. Your hair smelled good, and that clouded my better judgment.”
Humor danced over her face as she pushed her hair back. “And? You’re supposed to say you had fun, too.”
“Actually, I did.”
When the shuttle stopped, he got up, stepped back so she could slide out and walk in front of him. “But then, your hair still smells good, so that could be it.”
She shot him a grin over her shoulder, and damn it, he felt that clutch in the belly. Usually the clutch meant possibilities of fun and enjoyment. With her, he thought it meant trouble.
But he’d been raised to follow through, and his mama would be horrified and shocked if he didn’t feed a woman he’d spent the afternoon with.
“Hungry?” he asked when he stepped down after her.
“Oh ... Well, it’s too early for dinner, too late for lunch. I really should—”
“Walk on the wild side. Eat between meals.” He grabbed her hand, and that was such a surprise she didn’t think to protest until he’d pulled her toward one of the on-site eateries.
“I really shouldn’t take the time. I told Roz I’d be back around four.”
“You know, you stay wrapped that tight for any length of time, you’re going to cut your circulation off.”
“I’m not wrapped that tight,” she objected. “I’m responsible.”
“Roz doesn’t have a time clock at the nursery, and it doesn’t take that long to eat a hot dog.”
“No, but ...” Liking him was so unexpected. As unexpected as the buzz along her skin at the feel of that big, hard hand gripping hers. It had been a long while since she’d enjoyed a man’s company. Why cut it short?
“Okay.” Though, she realized, her assent was superfluous, as he’d already pulled her inside and up to the counter. “Anyway. Since I’m here, I wouldn’t mind looking in the shops for a minute. Or two.”
He ordered two dogs, two Cokes and just smiled at her.
“All right, smart guy.” She opened her purse, dug out her wallet. And took out a five-dollar bill. “I’m buying the CD. And make mine a Diet Coke.”
She ate the hot dog, drank the Coke. She bought the CD. But unlike every other female he knew, she didn’t have some religious obligation to look at and paw over everything in the store. She did her business and was done—neat, tidy, and precise.
And as they walked back to his truck, he noticed she glanced at the readout display of her cell phone. Again.
“Problem?”
“No.” She slipped the phone back into her bag. “Just checking to see if I had any messages.” But it seemed everyone had managed without her for an afternoon.
Unless something was wrong with the phones. Or they’d lost her number. Or—
“The nursery could’ve been attacked by psychopaths with a petunia fetish.” Logan opened the passenger-side door. “The entire staff could be bound and gagged in the propagation house even as we speak.”
Deliberately, Stella zipped her bag closed. “You won’t think that’s so funny if we get there and that’s just what happened.”
“Yes, I will.”
He walked around the truck, got behind the wheel.
“I have an obsessive, linear, goal-oriented personality with strong organizational tendencies.”
He sat for a moment. “I’m glad you told me. I was under the impression you were a scatterbrain.”
“Well, enough about me. Why—”
“Why do you keep doing that?”
She paused, her hands up in her hair. “Doing what?”
“Why do you keep jamming those pins in your hair?”
“Because they keep coming out.”
To her speechless shock, he reached over, tugged the loosened bobby pins free, then tossed them on the floor of his truck. “So why put them in there in the first place?”
“Well, for God’s sake.” She scowled down at the pins. “How many times a week does someone tell you you’re pushy and overbearing?”
“I don’t count.” He drove out of the lot and into traffic. “You’ve got sexy hair. You ought to leave it alone.”
“Thanks very much for the style advice.”
“Women don’t usually sulk when a man tells them they’re sexy.”
“I’m not sulking, and you didn’t say I was sexy. You said my hair was.”
He took his eyes off the road long enough to give her an up-and-down glance. “Rest of you works, too.”
Okay, something was wrong when that sort of half-assed compliment had heat balling in her belly. Best to return to safe topics. “To return to my question before I was so oddly interrupted, why did you go into landscape design?”
“Summer job that stuck.”
She waited a beat, two. Three. “Really, Logan, must you go on and on, boring me with details?”
“Sorry. I never know when to shut up. I grew up on a farm.”
“Really? Did you love it or hate it?”
“Was used to it, mostly. I like working outside, and don’t mind heavy, sweaty work.”
“Blabbermouth,” she said when he fell silent again.
“Not that much more to it. I didn’t want to farm, and my daddy sold the farm some years back, anyway. But I like working the land. It’s what I like, it’s what I’m good at. No point in doing something you don’t like or you’re not good at.”
“Let’s try this. How did you know you were good at it?”
“Not getting fired was an indication.” He didn’t see how she could possibly be interested, but since she was pressing, he’d pass the time. “You know how you’re in school, say in history, and they’re all Battle of Hastings or crossing the Rubicon or Christ knows? In and out,” he said, tapping one side of his head, then the other. “I’d jam it in there long enough to skin through the test, then poof. But on the job, the boss would say we’re going to put cotoneasters in here, line these barberries over there, and I’d remember. What they were, what they needed. I liked putting them in. It’s satisfying, digging the hole, prepping the soil, changing the look of things. Making it more pleasing to the eye.”
“It is,” she agreed. “Believe it or not, that’s the same sort of deal I have with my files.”
He slanted her a look that made her lips twitch. “You say. Anyway, sometimes I’d get this idea that, you know, those cotoneasters would look better over there, and instead of barberries, golden mops would set this section off. So I angled off into design.”
“I thought about design for a while. Not that good at it,” she said. “I realized I had a hard time adjusting my vision to blend with the team’s—or the client’s. And I’d get too hung up in the math and science of it, and bogged down when it came time to roll over into the art.”
“Wh
o did your landscaping up north?”
“I did. If I had something in mind that took machines, or more muscle than Kevin and I could manage, I had a list.” She smiled. “A very detailed and specific list, with the design done on graph paper. Then I hovered. I’m a champion hoverer.”
“And nobody shoved you into a hole and buried you?”
“No. But then, I’m very personable and pleasant. Maybe, when the time comes and I find my own place, you could consult on the landscaping design.”
“I’m not personable and pleasant.”
“Already noted.”
“And isn’t it a leap for an obsessive, linear, detail freak to trust me to consult when you’ve only seen one of my jobs, and that in its early stages?”
“I object to the term ‘freak.’ I prefer ‘devotee.’ And it happens I’ve seen several of your jobs, complete. I got some of the addresses out of the files and drove around. It’s what I do,” she said when he braked at a Stop sign and stared at her. “I’ve spent some time watching Harper work, and Roz, as well as the employees. I made it a point to take a look at some of your completed jobs. I like your work.”
“And if you hadn’t?”
“If I hadn’t, I’d have said nothing. It’s Roz’s business, and she obviously likes your work. But I’d have done some quiet research on other designers, put a file together and presented it to her. That’s my job.”
“And here I thought your job was to manage the nursery and annoy me with forms.”
“It is. Part of that management is to make sure that all employees and subcontractors, suppliers and equipment are not only suitable for In the Garden but the best Roz can afford. You’re pricey,” she added, “but your work justifies it.”
When he only continued to frown, she poked a finger into his arm. “And men don’t usually sulk when a woman compliments their work.”
“Huh. Men never sulk, they brood.”
But she had a point. Still, it occurred to him that she knew a great deal about him—personal matters. How much he made, for instance. When he asked himself how he felt about that, the answer was, Not entirely comfortable.