The church was locked up tight when she arrived and she had to hunt around to find someone possessing keys to open up so she could place all the flowers in the sanctuary per her instructions. After that, she was off to the other side of town to deliver a dozen roses to a woman who took one look at the card included and dropped the long-stemmed beauties to the doorstep, where she ground her heel on them until they were pulp.
Then, taking in Arabella’s horrified fascination, smiled and tipped her a twenty.
Arabella returned to her car and the potted plant that was her final delivery for the day. She didn’t recognize the street at all, so she plugged the address into her phone’s GPS and set off.
Twenty minutes later, she’d left the outskirts of Rambling Rose behind and was beginning to wonder why the GPS-lady was sending her down a dirt road. There was nothing on either side of the road. No cows grazed in the green fields. In fact, whatever was growing in the fields looked more like weeds to her than actual crops.
She was almost ready to stop and call the number on the order slip for better directions when a white two-story farmhouse surrounded by rosebushes came into view. Unlike the unkempt fields, the rosebushes were entirely orderly and filled with roses just as red as the ones that had ended up beneath the woman’s heel.
The message on this card said “For my favorite granny” and the potted plant accompanying it would surely have a happier fate.
Arabella parked in front of the house, carried the plant up to the front door and used the eagle-shaped door knocker since there didn’t seem to be a doorbell. She soon heard footsteps and was already smiling when the door pulled open.
But instead of a delighted granny named Louella standing on the other side of the door, it was Jay Cross.
And Arabella was pretty sure she was the one who looked delighted.
Chapter Four
“I wondered when you were going to get here.”
“You did?” Arabella felt breathless looking up into Jay’s smiling green gaze. “Why?”
“I was hoping the plant would be here before my grandmother got done at Mariana’s Market.”
Arabella rather stupidly remembered the fern in her arms. “You ordered this?”
He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb. His dimple deepened. “I did.”
“Special occasion?”
“Definitely.”
He didn’t elaborate and she handed him the plant. “Well, I hope she enjoys it. Tell her that Petunia says it wants filtered light and moist soil so...” She trailed off as his smile widened. “What?”
“Appreciate the instructions, but my grandmother can grow anything. You should see her garden out back.” He straightened. “In fact, come on in. I’ll show you.”
Certain her smile was engulfing her entire being, she stepped past him into the cooler shadows of the foyer. He reached out, his arm brushing her shoulder, and her breath caught in her chest.
Then the door closed with a soft click and she realized he’d been only reaching around her to shut it.
Feeling as mature as a giggly girl, she stepped aside and glanced around.
The short foyer fed to a staircase on the left and an airy kitchen and living area on the right. Straight ahead, she could see through to tall, narrow windows at the back of the house. They overlooked another porch similar to the one at the front of the house. Beyond the porch were row upon row of fat, green bushes.
Obviously the garden Jay mentioned.
But the plants weren’t relegated only to the outdoors.
As she followed Jay deeper into the house, she saw houseplants thriving in nearly every corner and crevice.
He set the plant she’d delivered on the wooden dining table as they passed it. At the shop, she’d thought the fern was one of the larger ones they had, but here, amongst all these others that his grandmother was already growing, it seemed positively tiny.
“You weren’t kidding,” Arabella commented. “Your grandmother must really love plants.” Whatever the special occasion was, the plant that Jay had ordered barely stood out in comparison.
“That she does.” He pushed open a door and the old-fashioned metal blinds hanging over the window on the upper half swayed. “She adamantly refuses to leave her garden, much to my mom’s dismay.”
He, on the other hand, didn’t sound dismayed at all. “Why is that?”
“Mom figures my grandmother is too old to live here by herself, even though she’s lived in this house since she married my grandfather when she was eighteen years old.” He stopped on the covered porch and spread his arms. “She’s spent seventy years here and she keeps up with all of this, but Mom still worries.” He dropped his arms. “Come on.”
His hand closed around hers as if it were perfectly natural and she nearly tripped over her own feet as they went down the porch steps. “I’m guessing you don’t worry?”
He laughed softly. “Louella O’Brien defies worry.” He tugged her around the end of one row and stopped next to a raised bed positively bursting with ripening strawberries. He plucked a bright red one and held it in front of her lips. “Taste.”
She blinked, still too surprised by his presence there, much less his hand still clasping hers, to do anything at all.
His brows drew together and he pulled the strawberry away again. “Wait. You’re not allergic, are you?”
“No,” she said faintly.
“That’s good. Nobody’s berries taste better than my grandmother’s.” He held the fat berry closer to her lips. So close she could smell the sweet aroma. “Taste.”
Feeling caught in his gaze, she obediently opened her mouth and bit into the fruit. Sweet juice exploded in her mouth and she chewed more quickly, laughing a little as she wiped her lips. It really was the sweetest strawberry she’d ever tasted. She swallowed. “Is her secret growing the plants in sugar?”
“You’d think.” He grinned and popped the other half of the large strawberry into his mouth.
Arabella’s stomach hollowed. Feeling hotter than the sunny day warranted, she pulled her hand free and walked alongside the raised bed, pretending to study the plants. What she saw were a lot of great fat leaves and a massive amount of strawberries. Surely more than one person—even one family—could consume. “What does she do with it all?”
“Makes jam.” He’d plucked several more berries and handed her one as they moved down the row. “She sells jars of it at Mariana’s Market. Lou’s Luscious Jams.”
“That’s the jam that Harper buys. I had it on my toast this morning!”
“Then you know why it’s so popular.” He popped another strawberry in his mouth and grabbed her hand again as they continued walking along the rows. “Only one who comes even remotely close competition-wise is Mabel’s Marmalades.” They passed a three-sided potting shed that was as big as the bedroom Arabella occupied at her brother’s house. On the other side of the shed were rows and rows of trees. The shade they cast was welcoming.
“Peach trees?”
“With fruit almost as good as the strawberries.” He lifted their joined hands and pointed his finger beyond the trees. “That’s my place.”
He was pointing at a small stone barn situated on the bank of a narrow stream. Beyond that was a green pasture surrounded by a white-rail fence where several horses grazed near a three-sided shelter.
It was all so picturesque that every little romantic cell in her body quivered in delight. “You live in a converted barn? Can I see inside?” She heard her own eagerness and was vaguely embarrassed by it.
But there was nothing in his expression that suggested she ought to be embarrassed. “If you won’t judge me for my housecleaning.”
She crossed her heart with her finger. “Promise.”
His hand tightened on hers again and he headed toward the barn. But they hadn’t emerged from beneath th
e shade of the peach orchard when the coughing rumble of an engine cut through the quiet.
“Sounds like my grandmother is back.” He about-faced and started back through the trees.
Arabella couldn’t really complain. Not when he was still holding her hand the way he was.
They rounded the potting shed again and passed the strawberry beds and were halfway up the rows of big green bushes when a thin woman with dark gray-and-silver hair appeared on the back porch. She looked a lot younger than Jay had indicated and in her hands was the plant that Arabella had delivered.
“Favorite granny?” Louella O’Brien had a sturdy drawl and an equally sturdy tone. “Your only granny, you mean.” She balanced the plant on the porch rail and waited until they reached the steps. “If this is another attempt at bribing me to call your mama—”
“It’s just a plant,” Jay assured lightly. “So don’t get your hairnet in a knot.” He let go of Arabella’s hand and dashed up the steps, leaning down to drop a kiss on the woman’s tanned, lined cheek. “The plant was just an excuse, anyway.”
“I thought it was a special occasion.” The words escaped Arabella without thought and she saw the raised-brow look that Jay’s grandmother sent him.
“It is.” He beckoned Arabella closer. “Gran, this is Arabella Fortune. She delivered the newest addition to your indoor jungle. Arabella, my grandmother, Louella O’Brien.”
Arabella hurried forward, extending her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. O’Brien.”
Jay’s grandmother’s hand grasped hers in return. Not only were her fingers longer than Arabella’s, they were more darkly tanned and much more calloused. “Another one of those Fortunes, hmm?”
Arabella’s gaze collided with the amusement in Jay’s. “I don’t know about that,” she demurred. “But...related. I just moved here from New York.”
His eyes glinted. “You’ve decided to stay, then?”
She felt like steam might be radiating from her skin, but she kept her eyes from shying away. “The odds are beginning to look up.”
His grandmother cleared her throat noisily.
Arabella flushed and belatedly released the woman’s hand. She pushed her fingers into her back pockets and glanced over her shoulder. “Jay was showing me your garden, Mrs. O’Brien. It’s amazing.”
“Yes, it is,” Louella agreed matter-of-factly. “Do you garden?”
Arabella shook her head. “I couldn’t even keep the succulent a friend gave me last year alive.”
“No matter what people think, succulents can be touchy. Come out here tomorrow. I’m making cuttings and a new batch of jam.”
“Arabella has a job, Gran. At Petunia’s—”
“Posies,” Louella finished. “I can read well enough.” She flicked the embossed card that was tucked among the potted plant’s glossy leaves. “And I happen to be well aware that Petunia’s shop isn’t open on Sundays.” She gave Arabella a look. “Churchgoer?”
Only if one counted Christmases and Easters. “Umm—”
“Ten sharp,” Louella said, as if that settled it. “Jay? A word?”
Something in his gaze flickered, but he nodded. “Be right back,” he told Arabella before following his grandmother inside the house.
They closed the door after them, which only increased Arabella’s sudden sense of awkwardness. She stepped off the porch again, reaching out to steady the plant that was propped on the flat rail when it wobbled.
“An excuse or a special occasion,” she murmured, placing it more squarely on the rail. “What are you really?”
The plant provided no answer and she turned away, moving back over to the first row of bushes. She glanced over her shoulder, but the door to the house was still closed.
Maybe Jay’s grandmother was warning him not to get involved with one of those Fortunes.
The sun was getting higher in the sky and hotter and the faint buzz of insects seemed like summer music. Maybe when she found a real job and started looking for a place of her own, she should look for one that had space for a tiny garden. Growing something outdoors might be easier than keeping a container succulent happy on a windowsill in her bedroom.
She glanced back at the house. Door still closed.
She told herself there wasn’t any reason to be concerned. If Jay’s grandmother were warning him not to get involved with one of those Fortunes, then why would she have invited Arabella to come back the next day for cuttings?
* * *
From between the slats of the window blinds, Jay watched Arabella disappear into the shade of the potting shed. “She’s just a friend, Gran,” he insisted for the third time and his grandmother made a third, disbelieving snort in response.
“I’ve been able to read your mind since you were knee-high to a grasshopper.” Louella set two glasses on the round serving tray she’d pulled from a cabinet. “I can read it now, too.” She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a glass jug of homemade lemonade. “You’re interested in that girl.”
He spread his hands, exasperated. “So what if I am?”
“Goin’ to tell her the truth, then?” She added the jug to the tray and turned back to the fridge.
Jay felt a faint pain start up inside his head. He’d been on the verge of telling Arabella the truth in January when they’d first met. But a lot of time had passed since then. Time for him to get even more settled into the routine of Jay Cross. Time for him to get further away from the man he’d been. But the further away he remained, the more interest kept growing to flush him out. “Eventually.”
His grandmother gave him a look as she pulled a tray of ice from the freezer.
“Probably,” he amended.
She said nothing. Just filled the two glasses with the ice, her lips compressed.
“Maybe,” he tried again.
“I knew you were waffling!” She peeled the plastic lid off an old metal coffee can and removed several cookies from inside. She spread them on a flowered plate and added it to the serving tray along with a few of her fabric napkins that she kept in a drawer.
“And you don’t approve.”
She slid her finger between two slats in the window blind the same way he had and peered through the narrow slit. “She’s a pretty girl.”
Arabella was a lot more than pretty, but he wasn’t going to argue the point.
“Not like that other one.” The slats snapped together again.
He didn’t have to ask who she meant. Louella had never pretended to like his ex-girlfriend. And Tina had never pretended to like Louella. The only thing Tina liked about Jay’s background was that he came from Texas.
In her opinion it gave him a sort of credibility.
Not that he’d recognized that at the beginning. In the beginning, he’d been totally taken in by her.
“You ought to be happy about that,” Jay said aloud. “Arabella being different than Tina.”
“I am.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
His grandmother picked up the laden tray and pushed it into his hands. “You’re a smart boy,” she said irritably. “So be smart. Start as you mean to go on.”
“She’s not even certain she’s going to stay in Rambling Rose.” The words were as much for himself as they were for his grandmother. A reminder that jumping in with both feet was fine when you were eight and standing on the precipice of a cool swimming hole on a hot day.
But his life was a lot more complicated now than it had once been. More complicated even than it had been in January. Staying two steps ahead of the man he’d been was getting harder by the day.
“Are you staying in Rambling Rose?” she asked pointedly.
He sighed noisily. She knew he didn’t have an answer. “You know I’m working tomorrow,” he told her. “But you invited her to be free labor for you.”
“She’ll learn a little about gardening and a little about jam-making. It’s a fair trade. Don’t worry. I won’t tell her who you really are, Jett.”
“I’m really Jay Cross,” he said flatly.
She gave him a steady look. “We’ll see ’bout that, won’t we?” She pulled open the door. “It’s hot out there. Go have lemonade and cookies with your girl.”
“Don’t think I miss the significance, Granny.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Can’t imagine what you mean.”
He made a face and passed her through the doorway.
He found Arabella in the potting shed. She was sitting on a stool at the scarred metal workbench, paging through one of his grandmother’s binders that were stored on one of the many shelves above the bench.
“Did you know she keeps notes on what she plants?” She glanced at him. “The dates and what the weather’s like and all sorts of little details?”
“As a matter of fact, I did know.” He set the tray next to the binder. “She has binders going back for decades. Before I was born, even. How else do you think she developed her sugar-soil recipe?” He filled both glasses with lemonade and handed her one. “Better drink it all. She squeezes the lemons by hand, too.”
Arabella’s eyes danced. “Did she mill her own flour for those cookies, too?”
He grinned. “Anything’s possible.” He lightly tapped his glass against hers. “Cheers.”
She took a quick sip of lemonade, made a soft, appreciative “mmm” sound that slid down the base of his spine and took a longer drink. “Delicious.”
He had to force himself to look away from the way her lower lip glistened. “Best lemonade in the county.” He chugged down half his own glass, feeling parched in a way that lemonade would never quench. “She has a box of blue ribbons from the county fair that goes back about as far as the binders do.”
Arabella picked up one of the golden cookies. “Chocolate chip?” She didn’t wait for his nod before she broke off a little piece and popped it in her mouth. She made that same throaty “mmm” sound. “How many blue ribbons did she win for her cookies?”
Cowboy in Disguise Page 6