Baby Blues and Wedding Bells

by Patricia McLinn

  Then she pulled back, pushing against his shoulders, turning her head away.

  He released her immediately. She stepped back, looking away.

  “Fran?”

  Instantly her spine straightened, her shoulders squared.

  “It’s late. I need to check on Chester and the puppies.” Her tone held all the usual Fran calm. But her hand trembled as she took the remaining flower from her top and the one from her hair and dropped them into the water.

  She walked toward the shore. He matched her stride for stride.

  “Fran, what’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? Nothing. I told you, it’s late. I need to check on Chester and the puppies.”

  Reinforced concrete had more give than her voice.

  What the hell had happened? After her initial surprise, she’d been in that kiss, too. Maybe even as much as he had been. And then in a snap she had turned as cool and distant as he’d ever seen her.

  Could be she’d remembered what he should have been thinking all the time—he wasn’t back in Tobias to explore this attraction to Fran Dalton. He’d come to clear out the residue of his old life so his new one could run smoothly. Then discovered a daughter.

  Kissing Fran did not fit into those realities.

  They climbed the steps, crossed a grassy area, then the patio, and emerged through an arbor to the front drive.

  “Stay here,” he ordered. “I’ll get the car.”

  Not only did she ignore him, but she started laughing.

  His first impulse—to demand what the hell made her laugh when he wasn’t anywhere close to a laughing mood—died.

  She had a great laugh—it changed her whole face, her whole body. She became a different woman. No, the real woman. The woman she had buried.

  “What was that about?” he asked when she finished.

  “Oh, Zach…” She wiped moisture from the corner of one eye. “I did try to tell you… That kid you gave the keys to—he’s not a valet. His parents are that couple you blocked in the aisle. You gave your car keys to Tobias’s current version of Bad Boy Zach Corbett.”

  This new breed of teenagers simply didn’t have the energy of her generation, Fran decided as they drove home.

  Either that or the kid had decided Zach’s car wasn’t worth joyriding in. Because when they went to the parking lot, they found the car immediately—parked in the president’s spot, true, but with the keys in the ignition and no damage. The kid had kept the ten dollars, of course.

  And she had kept her pride.

  The laugh had done it. She hadn’t known what to say as they walked back from the pier, but the kid, his parents and Zach’s car had saved her.

  She shouldn’t have needed saving at all.

  It wasn’t as if she was a virgin. And she’d certainly been kissed before. Enough to know that kissing wasn’t necessarily soft and pretty.

  Not like this, though.

  This contact of mouth to mouth could bring what was deep inside, down where she hardly knew it existed, to the surface, creating something new between them.

  No, what was she doing? She was making this into something it wasn’t.

  Zach had kissed her. That was all. A simple kiss.

  It wasn’t serious. Not like with Tim.

  She’d thought she’d been in love with Tim—no, she had been in love. If she hadn’t been, it wouldn’t have hurt so much.

  They’d met less than two months before she graduated from college, a romance that seemed to come out of nowhere. She hadn’t dated in high school. In college, guys started noticing her. And she’d had dates. But none had felt comfortable or right.

  Maybe a life of being an observer had left her with a shyness that was hard to overcome. Or, more likely, starting to date halfway through college meant she was taking baby steps when her dates expected sprints. And never the twain would meet.

  That’s what she’d thought until she’d met Tim. He seemed to simply enjoy her company. All that summer, with both of them starting jobs in Madison, they spent long, relaxed hours together. Until not only was she ready for kissing, she was eager for more.

  They eased into making love. By winter she knew she was in love and equally certain he loved her. They wanted the same things—a home, family, children. Nothing flashy, no interest in conspicuous consumption. Their future together seemed clear and joyful.

  And then came the night when the course she was taking in Art History was canceled because the instructor had the flu.

  On impulse she’d gone to Tim’s. His apartment door was open and she heard male voices laughing and shouting. Tim hadn’t said anything about having friends over. She slowed, suddenly aware she had never met Tim’s friends.

  About to walk in, she paused, and the voices became clear. They were adding commentary to a movie showing on the big-screen TV that Tim so loved. She heard no dialogue, but from the commentary she knew it was porn.

  “Does Fran perform like that?”

  “Are you kidding?” came Tim’s voice. “Hard enough to get her to do the basics.”

  “Then why keep her around?”

  “It’s not quality, it’s quantity. She’s so grateful, I can have it whenever I want.”

  Fran had fought her gag reflex. Steadying herself with a hand to the wall, she’d seen Tim’s neighbor. A woman around fifty who always waved to Fran in passing, frequently calling her “honey.” Now there was a pitying look in her eyes. The look seemed to say she had known all along what Tim was.

  Fran had left without letting Tim and his friends know she was there. She hadn’t answered his calls, which grew increasingly angry, until the last one when he’d cursed and slammed down the phone.

  She’d been busy by then. She’d started by getting rid of her bed. The bed where she had made love to him and he’d had sex with her.

  The first time she saw the Shaker bed she knew it was what she wanted. Once it was in place, though, it showed how wrong everything else was now. Maybe because Tim had seeped into the rest of the furniture. So she sold, gave away or junked everything in her bedroom.

  And when her dad got so sick, the new bedroom pieces she’d slowly picked out were the only furniture she’d brought to Tobias.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her.

  Each syllable of the thought was punctuated by a rhythmic footfall. Even after she’d laughed about his giving his car keys to that particular kid, she’d retreated from him in ways Zach couldn’t define.

  She’d gone somewhere else during the drive back to her house. Then she’d dismissed him with a few quiet words about taking care of Chester and the puppies and turning in early.

  But she hadn’t. She’d stayed on the porch a long time before coming upstairs. Only then had he slept.

  Then the dream came. So he’d gone running again.

  Zach stopped at the intersection now, even though there wasn’t a car in sight. The streets were dark and deserted as they were every night.

  And quiet, except for the voices in his head.

  Daddy said he wanted to have me as a daughter even before I was born because I was part of his brother and he loves his brother, but his brother went away.

  Steve is protective of Nell with everyone…he loves you, too.

  …your being dead. It’s what he’s feared most.

  Great, now he was having dreams and hearing voices. The voices of Nell, Annette and Fran, all telling him he’d been a bastard to Steve.

  Hands on his hips, Zach rocked back from his waist, eyes closed.

  Don’t try to take on responsibility for everything, just what you’re responsible for.

  Fran’s voice spoke in his head again. But it wasn’t only her voice he experienced.

  Damn. He shouldn’t have kissed her. Or else he should have kissed her more thoroughly.

  He opened his eyes, still bent back. A star like glittering confetti seemed to fall straight toward him. Was that the one?

  Most hours in the disaster zone, day or night, it had been n
oisy, intense. But the second night there’d been one of those lulls you couldn’t predict—hell, you couldn’t imagine them happening during the controlled frenzy. But they always did.

  The dust had settled, and Miguel said he saw a star, then added one of those proverbs he quoted all the time. Stars are not seen by sunshine.

  Zach hadn’t seen it. The old man made Zach put his head down nearly onto his chest, so Zach was staring up from the same angle he was, through the stripped bones of the building…to one star in a milky gray sky.

  How many nights has that star been there and I never looked, thinking it would be there another night and another. And I was right. It will be there, but I will not. I go now, Zach. I go.

  And he was right.

  From habit, Zach looked both ways before he pushed off the curb, turning the corner.

  The memories came with him.

  Fran’s voice drew Zach to the back of the house. She’d spent yesterday ignoring him and last night working. For once, he’d slept after his run. And wakened like a man with a hangover.

  “Fred? This is Fran. About this weekend…”

  Who the hell was Fred? And what did he have to do with Fran’s weekend?

  Zach stopped in the archway, making no effort to hide his presence but not announcing it, either. Fran was on the phone, her back to him as she faced the window. She and Annette and Suz had been up to all hours last night working on the seed packet labels.

  “No. No, it has to be Sunday…. That’s when I hired you for and that’s when it has to be…. You agreed two months ago—! We have an agreement and it’s your responsibility— No. How can you—? There’s a word for it, Fred Buchell, but business is not the one I would use.”

  She hung up with a restrained click, pivoted smartly then started at the sight of him. “Oh. You.”

  That reaction was definitely a result of kissing her.

  Zach raised an eyebrow. “More problems with the seeds?”

  “No. We should have enough labels ready to put on tomorrow night. When I called, the company was apologetic—better than apologetic, they’re going to give us a huge credit on the next order.”

  “So this is a different problem.”

  “Yeah. The donated trees.” She sat at the table, casting a gaze over the battlefield spread before her. “The trees are donated, but moving them isn’t. And suddenly he says there’s a fifteen-percent premium for moving them on Sunday, when that’s when it was scheduled for all along.”

  “He knows you’re desperate.”

  “I gave him no indication—” She looked appalled.

  “Honey, you didn’t have to.” He doubted Fred Buchell had picked up on the urgency in Fran’s calm voice, but the guy had other ways of figuring it out. “Kay’s PR effort’s been so good he’s got to have heard about the opening. He can put two and two together.”

  She frowned. “I don’t have a choice. I have to give in. If the trees don’t go in this weekend, we can’t finish the gardens by the opening.”

  “I can do it for you.”

  She gave a short dry chuckle. “You are going to do it. You’re going to be planting like crazy.”

  “Yeah, but I meant I can move the trees for you.”

  “Really? But—”

  “Has he dug them up?”

  “Partially, to give the roots a chance to recover.”

  “We can rent equipment to get them up and use the Bobcat to plant at this end. I know somebody who does a lot of that. I’ll call him, get some pointers.” He and Waco had moved a dozen trees by the cabin.

  “You can really do this? Because—”

  “I know, I know. The gardens won’t be ready for the opening if I screw up.” He pulled out the chair opposite and sat, letting her look into him. “I can do this. I will do this.”

  Before he’d left Tobias, few people other than Steve had looked at him to see what he had inside. But in his line of work now, he’d gotten used to it. Then there’d been Miguel…

  “You really will.” Fran’s smile grew with each syllable.

  He nodded, and now her smile was as big and bright as a sunflower. She grabbed the phone and hit the redial button.

  “Oh, I’m going to enjoy making this phone call.”

  Miss Trudi bustled over to them as they got out of the car.

  “Ah, Fran, I hoped you would come by today.”

  “She works herself to exhaustion here every day,” Zach grumbled.

  Fran frowned. He was getting as protective as Rob. “Can I help you with something, Miss Trudi?”

  “I found an item among the books we had not yet catalogued that I am certain will interest you.”

  With the tight renovation schedule they had boxed the books in the Bliss House library, only separating those in the most appalling condition. Miss Trudi had insisted she check each book individually.

  Now she held out a volume that had brown scallops on the edges of the pages, a spine that parted ways with the binding and something white blossoming across the dirt-colored front.

  Fran lifted the back of her shirt to tuck her gardening gloves in her back pocket.

  “You…” Zach cleared his voice and started over. “You should leave your gloves on. God only knows what’s growing on that thing.”

  Fran ignored him and looked from the book to Miss Trudi, who for some reason was beaming. “What is it, Miss Trudi?”

  “It’s a journal my grandfather kept.”

  “His journal? From when he was planting the garden?”

  She accepted the volume with reverence, opening the cover with slow care.

  “What’s the big deal?” Zach asked.

  “Contemporary sources are always the best, and this might tell us the reasons for contradictions between the original plan and what’s actually in the garden,” Fran explained.

  “The journal dates somewhat after the period when the garden was established, my dear,” Miss Trudi said. “However, if you look at the entry under March 12, you will find something most interesting.”

  Behind the prim words, Fran heard excitement.

  She paged carefully. March fourth…seventh…tenth… March twelfth.

  She read aloud:

  Winter blankets all beyond my window, although spring holds sway in my imagination. Even as I consider the offerings from the nurserymen that arrive in ever more proliferation, I received another letter from Mr. Jensen.

  “Mr. Jensen?” she asked Miss Trudi.

  “Read on, Fran, read on.”

  As has occurred many times in the annals of man, it has taken one from outside to observe that which is best in a locality. Coming, as Mr. Jensen does, from Europe, he sees and values what we overlook. His ideas spill across the page with an enthusiasm that melts the snow and allows me to see the garden that could be.

  I cannot bear to despoil all that resides here, even as I see that it fades to old-fashioned paleness before the rush of these ideas. However, I will have a glimpse of this new vision beside the parlor, which has never been entirely satisfactory. Some may mock but I am assured of having the pleasure in the future of saying that I had the advice of Mr. Jens Jensen.

  Fran’s head snapped up. “Jens Jensen? Really?”

  Miss Trudi nodded happily. “I found an earlier reference to Grandfather encountering a young couple not long in this country on a train as they moved to Chicago. They struck up a conversation about gardening and continued to correspond.”

  “Oh, my God. Oh, my God!”

  “Who’s Jens Jensen?” Zach asked.

  “The father of the Prairie School of Landscape,” Fran said. “It was a whole move away from Victorian gardening toward more natural settings. Jens Jensen designed parks in Chicago, not to mention the grounds of North Shore mansions—”

  “And Henry Ford’s,” Miss Trudi added happily. “All that came much later than this correspondence.”

  Fran dredged her memory for what she’d learned. “My God! This might be one of the first referen
ces to his development of the new style. This can draw lots more people to Bliss House.”

  “Scholars, historians and gardeners,” Miss Trudi agreed.

  “If we can find a curator—someone who would donate time. An expert on Jens Jensen…”

  “Or the Prairie School,” Zach tossed in.

  Fran stared at him. “You’re right. Oh—this might be another source of grants. We’ve got to tell Annette and Steve….”

  Half a dozen strides toward her car, with Miss Trudi trailing her, Fran stopped and looked back. Zach leaned against the wall and grinned.

  “Did you need me, Zach?”

  “You know, I think Grandfather Bliss had it right about it taking people from outside to see what’s really the best.”

  She shook her head—that made no sense. But she didn’t have time to sort it out.

  “I mean, you’re okay with what to do next?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah. That I know.”

  Kay saw the journal’s potential for promoting Bliss House as soon as Fran showed it to her that night.

  Zach had cleared out after their return from the gardens. He’d said he was going to take Walter from the country club out for dinner and catch up. She had a feeling he also had some idea about giving her time alone with Rob and Kay.

  Rob immediately went to Steve’s house to check about the Bliss House budget. So she’d had an audience of one to tell about the journal. But Kay was a great audience, reeling off ideas on how to capitalize on the Jens Jensen connection to benefit Bliss House.

  “Those are wonderful suggestions, Kay. No one else understood what this could mean. Miss Trudi was pleased, but in that vague way she has. Zach grumbled it was going to make more work for me. Even Suz and Annette didn’t—”

  “That’s because he’s nuts about you—”

  “What? Who?”

  “Who?” Kay laughed. “Zach, that’s who. No—no, you don’t. No giving me that Mona Lisa-plays-poker face. Like you don’t know.”

  “There’s nothing to know.”

  “Right. And—oh, my God, you don’t know? Oh, honey. But…” Kay sat up. “Okay, you can tell me to get lost, because I don’t want to mess up our relationship before we’re even in-laws. But I am here to tell you that guy is nuts about you.”