by Cach, Lisa
He’d gone to the club the next night and stayed until three, hoping she’d appear. He’d Googled ‘Rosa Rugosa’ in as many variations – Rosalie, Roseanne, Rosamund – as he could come up with, but kept hitting sites about rose bushes. He didn’t care about friggin’ rose bushes.
In the rare dark moments when he was honest with himself, he admitted that part of the reason he was obsessed with her was that she’d dumped him. He wasn’t used to getting dumped.
Richard said he’d been boob-struck. It was like being star-struck, only more earthy in nature. Richard hadn’t missed an opportunity to razz him about how far out of his mouth his tongue had been hanging, or of his certainty that he’d found his future wife. “Quickest marriage and divorce on record,” Richard taunted. “You beat Britney!”
He couldn’t explain why he had been so overcome by Rosa’s beauty. Richard admitted she was a looker, but he hadn’t been felled by her the same way Jack had.
No, of course you weren’t, Jack thought. She was put on this earth for me.
Boob-struck was right.
As the meal wore on and his dining companion shifted in his seat, the redhead came back into view. Her bun had started to slide down the back of her head, and one long wisp of hair had already lain itself against the perfect whiteness of her neck. He imagined his lips there, against the soft skin, and could almost smell her. The hairstyle and glasses might not fit what little he knew of Rosa, but there was still something familiar about the woman.
The angle of her shoulders, the way she carried her head… He’d heard that one could recognize a person from their shape and posture long before one was close enough to see their face.
The woman stood and headed towards the restrooms. Jack excused himself from his companions and did the same. She was wearing an ugly sack of a dress: it was so big on her, she looked like a stick swishing around under a wet towel. Even so, there was a set to her shoulders and a lope to her gait that rang his bells of familiarity so strongly that he almost knew who she was. Images flashed beneath the surface of his mind. He saw sunlight, the outdoors… he almost had it.
As if sensing him trailing her, the redhead cast a glance over her shoulder and visibly tensed when she saw him. She hurried down the hall to the ladies’ room and disappeared inside.
She’d recognized him! He knew he knew her!
Or maybe all she’d ‘recognized’ was that a strange man was following her to the ladies’ room.
He loitered in the hall, avoiding the eyes of other restroom patrons, and waited for her to emerge.
The door cracked open an inch and he came to attention, but then it shut again. He stared at it, willing it to open.
A short, middle-aged woman came out. Jack scowled, and she dashed away.
After another minute, the door again opened a crack, and again he popped to the alert.
It shut.
It dawned on him that she was checking whether the coast was clear. He pressed himself up against the wall on the handle side of the door. She’d have to put her face all the way outside the doorframe to be able to see him.
A man leaving the men’s room gave him an assessing look. Jack put a hand on his gut and mimed vomiting, pointing at the ladies’ room door. “My wife,” he whispered.
“She didn’t have the duck, did she?” the man asked in alarm.
Jack shook his head. “Salmon.”
The man shook his head and hurried away.
It occurred to Jack that he might not be acting in a completely rational manner.
The door creaked open once again, then after a moment creaked wider and her head and one foot emerged. She checked out the other end of the hall, then turned her face in his direction.
He had a quick impression of huge thick glasses and a mouth opened in a shriek and then she darted back inside, but not before his hand shot out and grabbed her forearm. A tiny rational voice inside him screamed that he was not supposed to grab women, but the rest of him had to know who she was. The need overrode all social conditioning.
It couldn’t override her, though. She threw her weight to the side and he went with her, his head meeting the doorframe with a crack.
“Ow! Godammit!”
He shot his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, where she couldn’t do any harm.
Mistake number two.
She wrapped her own arms around his hips and hoisted him off the ground. Before he could overcome his shock and react they were halfway into the hall and she was trying to toss him aside like a bag of rotten potatoes. All he had to do to prevent it, though, was hold onto her shoulders.
They swayed together, her grunting against his chest and trying to shake loose his hold on her shoulders so she could toss him, he holding her and letting his toes drag on the carpet.
“Kelsey!” a man yelped.
She dropped Jack.
“Kelsey?!” Jack said. The sense of familiarity made perfect sense now: Every morning he watched her out in his yard. Even with her hat and goggles on there was enough revealed in her movements to give him a sense of recognition now, in a different context. Although how he could ever confuse her with Rosa, even for an instant, was beyond him.
“Are you okay?” the toad-like man asked, keeping a safe distance at the end of the hall.
Kelsey nodded, her face tilted downward, hidden from Jack. “It’s fine, Mark. I know him.” She made shoo-ing motions to her date. “I’ll be out shortly.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded, and he reluctantly left.
Jack narrowed his eyes at the retreating man. What type of guy left his date in a back hall with a man with whom she’d been struggling?
Kelsey started to inch away from him, sliding sideways like he wouldn’t notice.
“Kelsey! Jeez, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she mumbled.
“No, it’s not! I’m so sorry; I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Was there someone else you were going to attack?” she asked dryly, her face still averted.
“Christ, I’m so sorry.” He grabbed two handfuls of hair, feeling like a loon. He’d manhandled a woman he didn’t recognize, in a public place! He was one lucky fool that it turned out to be Kelsey, and not a complete stranger. “I can’t really explain it; I’ve been trying to find this amazing woman I met and she has hair the same color as yours.”
“It’s from a bottle, Jack. It’s not unique.”
“Oh. I wouldn’t have known.” Damn. An unhappy thought struck him: Maybe Rosa’s brilliant eyes had been from colored contacts. They’d been unnaturally vivid, after all. “I saw the red hair and knew there was something familiar about you, and here we are. Can you forgive me?”
“Sure. No harm done.” She still wouldn’t make eye contact.
“I’ve never done anything like this before. You must have a terrible impression of me. First I flash you, now this.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not. Did I hurt you? How’s your arm?” He wished she’d look at him. With her eyes averted he felt that she hadn’t forgiven him.
“You startled me, is all.” A smile curled on her lips. “I gave as good as I got. A girl gets strong, moving dirt and rocks all day.”
He rubbed the bump forming on his head. “You aren’t kidding. Kelsey, I am so sorry. Please put it down to temporary insanity. I do not abuse women. Are we friends?” He put out his hand.
She shook it, firm and quick, as if afraid to touch him. “Friends. And Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I come by tomorrow and go over the garden design with you?”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday. You work weekends?”
“I need your undivided attention, and I don’t think I’ll get that on a weekday.”
“How did you get to know me so well?”
He saw another trace of smile on her lips. “Yes, come over whenever you wish,” he said.
She nodded. “Noon, then. I’d bette
r get back to my date now.” She hurried away, white shoulders held straight.
Jack gave her a moment for distance, then returned to his table.
“Thought you’d fallen in,” Todd said as he sat down. “I overheard there’s a problem with the salmon.” He looked pointedly at the half of a fillet still on Jack’s plate.
Jack put his hand on his stomach and made a face, shaking his head.
Todd pursed his lips. “Ooo. Sorry, man.”
Jack shrugged, but his attention was once more on Kelsey. The obvious question he’d forgotten to ask her was staring him in the face: She must have recognized him on the way to the restroom. Why, then, did she hide from him?
Tomorrow he’d have to find out.
Chapter Eight
Vanity, vanity, evil wicked vanity, Kelsey scolded herself as she pulled into Jack’s driveway at noon sharp. The man was bonkers over Rosa, and Kelsey wanted to hear all about it.
She didn’t know where the inspiration to invite herself over for a ‘design consultation’ had come from, but she’d blurted it out and been silently gleeful when he’d approved.
She didn’t hold his bathroom stalking of her against him: He was suffering the lingering effects of those evil shoes. But as Jack had groveled in the hall outside the restroom, appalled at his behavior, she’d realized she had the moral advantage over him. Any questions she asked about his redheaded mystery woman would be answered, and she wanted more time to enjoy his lovelorn complaints than could be provided in a few stolen moments away from her dinner date.
It was wicked of her, she knew it. Wicked and vain.
Kelsey checked her reflection in the visor mirror. Her hair was in a tight French braid and she had on her glasses. More importantly, she was also wearing a non-prescription pair of black contact lenses she’d bought for Halloween a couple years earlier, when she’d dressed as a vampire. They looked a little unnatural, and in very bright light her pupils contracted so much that her blue-green irises showed in the centers of the lenses, but he probably wouldn’t notice: her coke bottle glasses made her eyes look puny like a rat’s.
She gathered her things off the passenger seat and walked up the path to the front door. In normal circumstances, she insisted on total design freedom from clients once she’d gotten a sense of the type of garden they wanted: In her experience, homeowner input was either bad or a pain in the ass to incorporate. She was willing to suffer that possible consequence in exchange for hearing Jack talk about Rosa.
He answered the door in a blue T-shirt and well-worn jeans, his feet bare. His hair was wet, and as dark as beaver fur. She wanted to rub her bare skin against it.
“You’re punctual,” Jack said in greeting, opening the door wide for her to come in.
She caught a waft of damp, clean man as she passed by him and closed her eyes to inhale. Her lower belly responded, coming to life with remembrances of his hands on her.
He led the way to the kitchen. “The island is the best work surface in the house. I hope that’s okay?”
She set down her materials and thrust a small paper bag at him.
“What’s this?” he asked, taking it.
“Neufchâtel and zucchini bread.”
“Neufchâtel?”
“A peace offering.”
“Okay, but what is Neufchâtel?”
“Oh. It’s like cream cheese.”
He opened the bag, peering inside. “You made the bread?”
“And the cheese.”
He lifted out the plastic Glad container full of white cheese. “You’re kidding.”
“Ha ha,” she tried to laugh, although it was a joke she’d heard a hundred times.
“You are kidding.”
“What? No. I thought you were. You know, a pun: kid-ing. As in ‘kid’.”
Understanding swept over his face and his mouth pulled down in disgust before he could control his expression. “This is goat’s milk?”
“Of course,” she said, hurt.
“But – that’s not sanitary, is it?”
“People have been making their own goat cheese for thousands of years. It’s good cheese.” She felt tears welling in her eyes and sniffed them back, horrified.
“Are you crying?”
“No!”
“God damn it!” he said, dropping her gifts onto the island. “Why do I do the wrong thing every time I see you?” He glared at her as if it was her fault.
A tear dribbled down Kelsey’s cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.
Jack’s face turned red and he yanked open a drawer and took out a knife. He tore open the wrapping on the zucchini bread and popped the lid off the Neufchâtel, and a moment later he had a slice of bread loaded with soft cheese. He looked at her and took a bite. And chewed.
His face relaxed in wonder. “Mother of God,” he murmured through the food. “This is good.”
“Thank you,” Kelsey said softly.
“No, I mean this is really good. You could sell this.” He stuffed half the piece of bread in his mouth, his eyes wide with wonder.
She smiled and shook her head. “It’s for my family and friends.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze, then kissed the top of her head. “Thanks. You’re a sweetheart.”
It was the type of hug and kiss you gave to a sister. As casual a bit of attention as it was, she would have reveled in it if not for what she’d experienced as Rosa. Rosa had set new standards, and being given a crumb from the cake of sensual assault she’d had from him before only angered her. She was the same woman: How could one version of herself be desired so much, and the other so little?
She bit back her bitterness. She would steal her cake from him, bite by bite.
Kelsey spread out her landscape plans on the island. “So, let’s talk garden.”
Jack groaned in frustration and pushed the drawings aside. “I can’t visualize what any of this is going to look like in real life.” He gestured at the books on Japanese gardens that Kelsey had brought, overflowing with beautiful photographs. “Too many choices! I know what I want to feel when I’m in it, but I don’t know how to get from here,” he said, pointing at his heart, “to there.” He pointed at the slope out the window. “That’s why I hired you.”
“I’m trying to make sure you get exactly what you want,” she said, her small black eyes patient as a monk’s behind her thick glasses. He wouldn’t have guessed her eyes were black: They’d looked lighter in her orange-tinted goggles.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just not good with this type of visualization.”
“Would it make it easier to walk through a real Japanese garden with me?”
“Yeah.”
She slid off her bar stool. “Let’s go to Kubota Garden.”
“Where?”
“It’s a Japanese garden, and the best kept secret in Seattle.”
“Yeah, sure, let’s go.” It would be a relief to get away from the stacks of designs and diagrams and the Latin lists of plant names. The past hour and a half hadn’t clarified for him what his yard was going to look like when Kelsey was done, but it had increased his respect for what she did. Besides for being a physical Wonder Woman, she had a master’s degree in landscape architecture, an encyclopedic knowledge of plants, a civil engineer’s comprehension of waterfalls, pumps, and ponds, and an ability to visualize in 3-D that disproved all the studies that claimed women were spatially challenged. A formidable, creative brain resided behind those five pound glasses and quirky personality.
She’d been running such circles around him, he hadn’t found space to squeeze in the question of why she’d run from him, at the restaurant. A peaceful walk in a park would provide that opportunity.
A rain squall had come through while they studied the garden plans, but the sun was back out and the spring-green leaves of the trees looked fresh and renewed. Kelsey drove them in her battered old truck, and he rolled down the passenger window and stuck out his elbo
w, enjoying the breeze and cool, damp air, and the rare luxury of having nothing demanded of him. She turned on the radio – the same station he usually listened to – and he relaxed in the worn old seat of the truck and watched the road go by. Neither of them spoke on the drive, and somehow he knew that was fine with her.
He was sorry to arrive at the park and have it end. There were only three other cars in the lot, though, putting truth to Kelsey’s statement about the place being a secret.
“This garden was built over a span of fifty years by Fujitaro Kubota, a Japanese emigrant,” Kelsey explained as they walked through the entry gate. “He had a landscaping business and used this land as a display garden and nursery. After he died it was made into a public park.” Kelsey stopped by a tall hedge with a window-sized hole cut into it at head height. “Look through here.”
He did. The land dropped away on the other side of the hedge, into a valley that combined the best of native Northwest vegetation with the art of the Japanese garden. Dark Douglas fir trees rimmed the valley and covered the hills in the distance, with only occasional pieces of the 21st century showing through in the white of a distant house or the pole of a cell tower. He knew, though, that a busy street was less than three blocks away. The garden was an impossible well of tranquility amidst the fractured noise of the city. “No way,” he breathed.
She laughed and led the way down the path. “I know it’s not as impressive as some of the gardens you’ve seen in Japan, but what I love about this one is that it was one man’s dream, one man’s passion. His vision. His creation.”
“You’d like to do something like this, wouldn’t you?” Jack asked, seeing the joy in her face as they walked the paths. She’d put her Legionnaire’s hat on when they got out of the car, and he found himself wanting to toss the ugly thing behind a bush. She wouldn’t be half-bad looking if she let her hair down and smiled like this more often.
“I get to do this with each job I take, to some degree. It’s like playing God: I get to create a world exactly as I see fit.”