“Oh, Daddy.” The woman sighed, with a patronizing tone that made Win clench his teeth. “You can’t be serious. All this money, when you’ve known—you’ve known you can’t resurrect that old dream.”
“I can resurrect it. Look at this place—just look at it!” Dawson held his arms out and turned back the way they came, but there was no mistaking the excitement in his voice. Win blinked—so Holt had been able to see something of the construction despite the flying debris.
“It already has the life back to it, the way I remembered it all those years ago,” Dawson continued. “It already has the spark. All it needs is the gardens back in place, blooming again at last, and the place will come back. It has to!”
“Dad, you can’t be serious.” The son stepped forward, putting a firm hand on Dawson’s shoulder. The old man flinched away with a flash of irritation.
“I can be serious! Neither of you were there. You didn’t believe me, your mother didn’t believe me either, but that doesn’t change what’s truth. This house feels deeply. It always did. And now it has a chance to feel again. Besides, it’s my money and my house!” His voice was becoming shrill. “I can do with it what I want.”
“Of course you can, Daddy.” The daughter spoke with such condescension Win didn’t care that she was a member of the fairer sex or that this was the south. He still wanted to reach out and smack her. “You shouldn’t overset yourself. Now that you’re here, it’s been so long since we’ve talked. If Mr. Masters can stop the infernal racket, we can head back to our cars, perhaps have lunch in Charleston. Talk about this.”
“I don’t think there’s anything—”
“Yes, talk about it,” the son said repressively. He crowded closer to the old man, who seemed to have used all of his energy with his one outburst. Now Dawson shrank with his son’s every word. “It’s a hot morning, and you’re clearly tired. We just need to get you into some air conditioning.”
“I like the heat,” Holt said querulously.
“Air conditioning,” the son said again, and Win took in the younger Holt’s shiny bald pate, already beginning to redden in the sun. “That’s what we need.”
“I have reservations at the Garden Club,” Constance piped up. Win barely hid the start. He’d forgotten she was still there. “Why don’t you both help your father to the car, and I’ll speak a moment with Mr. Masters.”
Marguerite’s gaze met his, and Win nodded. What was Gibbs up to now? “We can have the men take a break,” he said. “And you can show everyone around. Just let the foreman know.”
“Of course,” Marguerite said. “If you’ll all come this way?”
“I’ve owned this house for sixty years,” groused Holt, clearly put out. “I know the way.”
Nevertheless, he stayed between his children’s imposing bodies as they all turned, Marguerite leading them back through the trees. She’d make sure they didn’t enter the house or linger too long in any one place, Win knew. Unfortunately, he suspected that wasn’t his biggest problem here.
His concerns were born out as Constance rounded on him. “How dare you,” she seethed. “I know the Masters family is used to making money off the backs of everyone in the district, but how dare you take advantage of a mentally challenged old fool this way.”
Win’s blood went cold, and he was doubly glad Marguerite was out of earshot. Gibbs’ comment struck a little too close to home. “I beg your pardon?”
“He’s clearly deluded, and you preyed on that delusion. What do you intend to do with this property once you’re done playing your game? Make it a museum?” she sneered. “You could have done that with your own home and bought six more besides. Instead you couldn’t leave this alone.”
“Your outrage is somewhat misplaced, Mrs. Gibbs, considering your plans for the property.”
“My plans aren’t the point here.” She was too pleased with herself, too confident, and Gibbs for all her many flaws, wasn’t an idiot. She had leverage, Win knew with absolute certainty.
A moment later, she explained it.
“You saw the man,” she said, her tone at once filled with spite and positively gleeful. “He’s distracted, feeble. He can barely string his sentences together—and he’s talking about a delusion he’s held for going on sixty years. Do you really think your real estate purchase will hold up in court once it’s discovered it was based on a promise you have no intention of keeping?”
Win saw the truth in her words, and his own retort was icy with finality. “What makes you think I have no intention of keeping it?”
“Because far better men and women than you have tried to grow flowers on this infernal plot, and those flowers have all died—died! Overnight. You don’t think new soil hasn’t been brought in over the years, every manner of fertilizer tried? Have you even done the research on this place? Because I have. And it’s a doomed proposition to grow anything on this property.”
“Attempts have been made, they were unsuccessful,” Win said curtly. “Ours won’t be.”
“Yours won’t be.” She sneered. “Then you’re a bigger fool than I gave you credit for. I’m here to tell you that you’ll be judged in a court far grander than the one I’d originally planned. The court of public opinion. And when you fail—which, you will—you’ll be exposed for the charlatan you are. The charlatan you and your family has always been, as anyone with roots long enough in this area knows all too well.”
Win fixed her with a steely gaze. “I suggest, Mrs. Gibbs, that you stop you’re your slander, and that remove yourself from my property.”
“Oh, I will,” Constance said primly. “Because it won’t be yours for long.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Holts left in a slinking line of exhaust.
Marguerite squinted at the departing vehicles, already feeling like she’d run a marathon that day. Even before the Holts had fully cleared the house, the workers had started up with their saws again, though admittedly at a much more reasonable pace. She turned to the sound of ripping over the grinding blades, and smiled to see a knot of workers tearing down the plastic that had shrouded the front doors of the house.
With that simple movement, it seemed like the place recovered itself.
“Are we on schedule?” Marguerite asked as Win returned from the front drive to stand beside her, both of them surveying the house and grounds.
“Well enough,” he said, though his manner was far too grim. “The beams have all been sunk for the garden trellises, and the plants we’re getting in tomorrow are already established on their own wire and wooden structures. It’s mostly a matter of replanting them and watering…then crossing our fingers.”
Again, his tone was glummer than it should be, and she frowned. “Except…”
“Except for Constance Gibbs, for all her bitterness, is right about one thing. If we don’t pull off this reveal, if everything dies, then two things will happen. One, the sale of the house to me will be contested, which I don’t much care about, since I never planned on keeping the thing. But more importantly, Holt’s ability to manage his own assets is at risk. He’ll be ruled incompetent after this.”
“Incompetent? Why?”
Win waved at the workers. “Whether it was his money or not, he just approved thirty-thousand dollars’ worth of renovations because he thought flowers would bloom again on an abandoned property. Eccentricity like that is charming unless you have family members who are suffering because of it, which his children clearly think they are. It won’t take much for them to get a judge to agree that he shouldn’t make decisions without oversight. From there it’s a slippery slope to them being put in charge of all of his assets.”
Marguerite stared at him. “They wouldn’t do that.”
“You saw them. I think they would. Hell, I think they’d believe they’re doing him a favor.” Win squinted as another vehicle lumbered up, then he brightened. “Unless, we catch a break right now.”
The man who hopped out of the vehicle was sh
ort, wiry and no nonsense. He strode quickly over to Win and stuck out his hand. “Mr. Masters? Pleasure. Bill Tubbs.”
He turned to Marguerite and pumped her hand too, then addressed both of them with a quick grin. “You’ve been keeping me hopping for the last few days, and that’s the truth. Thanks for clearing it with management, Mr. Masters, I haven’t had this much fun at my job in the last few years.”
“You found something?”
“Found a lot of things. Most of which makes absolutely no gol’dern sense, I’ll tell you plain. Come here so you can see what I mean.” He turned on his heel and trundled back to the large box truck, popping the latch on the door and swinging it wide.
“Like you suggested, we ran a joint test. Transplanted mature plants into soil from the Holt House lot into other local soil, and into non-local soil. Housed the plants at the agency and on the site—not in the dirt here, they were in their own pots. Photographed the lot of them. Here there are.” He pointed to a series of flowers, and Marguerite studied the grouping. There were two sets, one with bright, showy blossoms and the other with bunched up blooms that looked like closed fists.
“Night bloomers,” he said, following her gaze. “Past their peak growing season, but the glory of hot house blooms and this infernal heat, they don’t seem to know it.”
“What were the results?”
“Probably just as well I show you as tell you, but I wanted you to know we were thorough.” Tubbs pulled a laptop out of a bag that was snugged into the corner of the truck, and popped open its lid. A second later he had a screen up featuring several images.
“Here are the pots at the agency, two nights ago,” he said, and there were a series of bright pictures clearly taken on an outdoor patio. It was full night, and all the blooms were showing brightly. Another shot in the day showed half the flowers open, half closed. Tubbs cycled through half-dozen more shots with different time stamps, all of them roughly equal.
“These are using all the soil variants?”
“Ah-Yep. The soil ain’t the problem. Now look here.”
Another picture came up, and the setting was clearly the Holt House, during the day. All the plants looked absolutely wilted no matter what the time stamp, and when evening came down, the night blooming variants stayed closed.
“What in the hell…” muttered Win.
“Ah-yep,” Tubbs said again. “Took ‘em over to Mrs. Bessie’s alpaca place, she was more’n happy to help, and here you go.”
He clicked the keys, and new photos showed up, flowing across the stream. Full, buoyant blooms, both during the day for half the flowers, and at night too. Bess and Beatrice even posed with one set.
Win was scowling by the time Tubbs finished the last set. “What do you make of it?”
“Me?” the older man rocked back on his heels, shaking his head. “Welp, I’d say the house was cursed.”
“But curses have reasons,” Marguerite swung away from both men and looked up at the Holt House, pretty and pristine there in the sunlight. “They’re put there to make a point, to punish, or even as a warning.” She thought over all the reams of newspaper clippings and locally-penned books she’d read in the past few days, and felt a headache coming on.
“There’s nothing that could account for the change?” Win persisted. “Not temperature or air quality or sound pollution…” he shook his head, rejecting the ideas even as he said them.
“Nothing, nope,” Tubbs offered. His excitement was dimming as he took in their drawn faces. “Aw, shoot, I didn’t know it mattered so much. Not everyplace is friendly to flowers, you know. They grow in lots of places they shouldn’t, and some where they should, well, they just don’t take. They can be sensitive like that.”
Marguerite smiled at this attempt to make them feel better. “Oh? And what do you recommend for a house where nothing ever blooms? How do you turn around something like that?”
“Well, can’t say as I’ve ever had to deal with that, but you know, when my grandma was growing pea plants in her back yard—and couldn’t for the life of them get ‘em to stick, she eventually just started talking to ‘em. Derned things started growing like it was their job, she always said.”
Marguerite stared at him. “She talked to them?”
Tubbs shrugged. “Made for a good story, anyway. But she ain’t the only one what does that in these parts. Hell, Bessie talks to those fur beasts she’s got as if they can understand every word she says. And derned if they don’t follow her around like she’s some kind of school marm. Maybe there’s something to it.”
“Ah, thank you.” Win’s voice was strained, and Marguerite couldn’t blame him. There was simply no way they were going to be able to walk around to a thousand different plants and murmur words of encouragement. “Go ahead and leave these here, if you would—we’ll add them to the plants coming in tomorrow.”
Tubbs scratched his head. “I’m telling you, Mr. Masters, those ain’t going to bloom for you. Not here. I’d be just as happy to transfer them up to the Grand.”
“The Grand doesn’t need them, I’m afraid.” Win turned to the house, as if lost in thought. “Holt House needs them. It’s needed them for a long time, I guess. Flowers are what gave this place life, and even if we can’t get them to bloom the way they should, it deserves us to give them a try.”
Marguerite felt the sudden urge to cry. She slipped her hand into Win’s, squeezing it, and he gave her a rueful smile.
Behind them, Tubbs snorted. “Welp, if you say so.” He leaned forward, and pulled out a tray, then blew out a sharp breath. “Well, I’ll be gol’derned,” he chuckled. “Lookee there.”
Marguerite glanced over, then her eyes went wide. “Oh!”
The first tray of primroses lay open on the shadowy metal surface of the truck…and one was stretching its tiny petals out to the sun.
Right alongside it, the smallest sprout of an idea began to blossom in Marguerite’s mind.
Win watched Marguerite surreptitiously as they worked over the next few hours, savoring every laugh, every conversation she had with the workers, every smile she directed his way. Even Tubbs, when he saw what they’d built in the back garden, enthusiastically gave them a hand with transplanting the dozen or so plants that had been his test subjects. Bess arrived not long after, adding her skillful hands to the mix while her alpacas stared bemusedly and chewed at the long grass. Win had never felt grimier in his life, but then—he hadn’t worked this way in years: with his hands in the earth, no task beneath him, shoulder to shoulder with men, women and the occasional shaggy beast. If anyone had told him this would be how he’d be spending his time after his father’s departure for New York, he wouldn’t have believed it. Now it seemed like there was no better place for him to be.
While they worked, more trucks arrived and soon a veritable forest of plants were installed along the arbors, their vines threaded and re-threaded through the beams and along carefully constructed wires.
The temporary sprinkler system Win had commissioned for the week worked perfectly, and soon the new plants were glistening with a sheen of moisture. He’d planned on transitioning the sprinklers to permanent fixtures once the dust had settled and they could proceed on a more sensible timetable, but he didn’t know what to think anymore. Would he have to transfer the house to Holt’s children when all was said and done? It seemed impossible to fathom but…maybe. If the flowers didn’t bloom, he wouldn’t have much choice.
When at last they were finished, he wiped his brow. Marguerite sagged against the porch, now properly screened and awaiting only a fresh coat of paint. She looked out over the magical garden, but behind the fatigue in her face there was doubt again. Worry. Win wished he could take it from her. Once she let herself go, she seemed to feel her emotions more intensely than others. All he wanted to do was surround her with joy.
He caught himself even as he thought the words. He’d wanted that for someone once before, too. And even though Marguerite was a far stronger pers
on, was he really prepared to pay the price of that failure a second time? Or would he be the one who broke into pieces?
Now she smiled wearily at him as her phone chirped. She’d been checking it all afternoon but now that it finally made a noise, she groaned.
“Figures,” she said, swiping at it. When she peered at the screen she uttered something in Garronois that was decidedly unhappy
“Bad news?” Win asked, and she scowled at him.
“How awful do I look, right now?”
“Um…not awful?” he ventured. She was beautiful, of course. She couldn’t be anything else. But she was also worn out, her hair wild and curled in the late summer heat, her face smudged with sweat and dirt. “Probably as good as I do.”
Her eyes gleamed with amusement at that. “Well, perfect. Because you look fantastic, and we have one more thing we need to do.”
“And that is…”
“Come on.” Her phone still in hand, she stood and pulled him off the stairs down one of the manicured pathways to the refurbished gazebo. Ferns now hung from several planters, adding their rich green foliage. Fortunately, ferns didn’t have flowers, so he didn’t have to wince when he looked at them. On all the other plants, the flowers were even now beginning to droop.
Don’t look at them.
“Okay, this is going to be brief, but intense,” Marguerite was saying. He focused on her instead.
“I’m sorry?”
“This call. The queen is insisting on holding it via Skype, and I’ve already told her you’ll be on it with me. You can’t back down.”
“What?” But even as Win protested, the phone rang in Marguerite’s hand. She gestured him over to her furiously and a moment later, the face of an absolutely stunning older woman appeared on the screen.
She was Greek—or looked Greek, her features definitely Mediterranean, her eyes wide and intelligent for all they scanned his and Marguerite’s faces with something approaching shock. Her hair was arranged in a soft bun-like apparatus that looked tidy and feminine at the same time, and the pearls she wore around her neck were unusually large and perfectly matched. He knew at a glance they must have cost a fortune, yet the woman wore them with casual grace.
Chosen: Gowns & Crowns, Book 7 Page 17