by Nora Roberts
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."
"Who 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 a
fford. 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.
"My work, my salary, my prices are between me and Roz."
"Not anymore," she said cheerfully. "She has the last word, no question, but I'm there to manage. I'm saying that, in my opinion, Roz showed foresight and solid business sense in bringing you into her business. She pays you very well because you're worth it. Any reason you can't take that as a
compliment and skip the brooding phase?"
"I don't know. What's she paying you?"
"That is between her and me, but you're certainly free to ask her." The Star Wars theme erupted in her purse. "Gavin's pick," she said as she dug it out. The readout told her the call came from home. "Hello? Hi, baby."
Though he was still a little irked, he watched everything about her light up. "You did? You're amazing. Uh-huh. I absolutely will. See you soon."
She closed the phone, put it back in her purse. "Gavin aced his spelling test."
"Yay."
She laughed. "You have no idea. I have to pick up pepperoni pizza on the way home. In our family,
it's not a carrot at the end of the stick used as motivation—or simple bribery—it's pepperoni pizza."
"You bribe your kids?"
"Often, and without a qualm."
"Smart. So, they're getting along in school?"
"They are. All that worry and guilt wasted. I'll have to set it aside for future use. It was a big move for them—new place, new school, new people. Luke makes friends easily, but Gavin can be a little shy."
"Didn't seem shy to me. Kid's got a spark. Both of them do."
"Comic book connection. Any friend of Spidey's, and so on, so they were easy with you. But they're
both sliding right along. So I can scratch traumatizing my sons by ripping them away from their friends
off my Things to Worry About list."
"I bet you actually have one."
"Every mother has one." She let out a long, contented sigh as he pulled into the lot at the nursery. "This has been a really good day. Isn't this a great place? Just look at it. Industrious, attractive, efficient, welcoming. I envy Roz her vision, not to mention her guts."
"You don't seem deficient in the guts department."
"Is that a compliment?"
He shrugged. "An observation."
She liked being seen as gutsy, so she didn't tell him she was scared a great deal of the time. Order and routine were solid, defensive walls that kept the fear at bay.
"Well, thanks. For the observation, and the afternoon. I really appreciated both." She opened the door, hopped out. "And I've got a trip into the city for ribs on my list of must-dos."
"You won't be sorry." He got out, walked around to her side. He wasn't sure why. Habit, he supposed. Ingrained manners his mother had carved into him as a boy. But it wasn't the sort of situation where
you walked the girl to her door and copped a kiss good night.
She thought about offering her hand to shake, but it seemed stiff and ridiculous. So she just smiled.
"I'll play the CD for the boys." She shook her bag. "See what they think."
"Okay. See you around."
He started to walk back to his door. Then he cursed under his breath, tossed his sunglasses on the hood, and turned back. "Might as well finish it out."
She wasn't slow, and she wasn't naive. She knew what he intended when he was still a full stride away. But she couldn't seem to move.
She heard herself make some sound—not an actual word—then his hand raked through her hair, his fingers cupping her head with enough pressure to bring her up on her toes. She saw his eyes. There
were gold flecks dusted over the green.
Then everything blurred, and his mouth was hard and hot on hers.
Nothing hesitant about it, nothing testing or particularly friendly. It was all demand, with an irritable
edge. Like the man, she thought dimly, he was doing what he intended to do, was determined to see it through, but wasn't particularly pleased about it.
And still her heart rammed into her throat, throbbing there to block words, even breath. The fingers of
the hand that had lifted to his shoulder in a kind of dazed defense dug in. They slid limply down to his elbow when his head lifted.
With his hand still caught in her hair, he said, "Hell."
He dragged her straight up to her toes again, banded an arm around her so that her body was plastered
to his. When his mouth swooped down a second time, any brains that hadn't already been fried drained out of her ears.
He shouldn't have thought of kissing her. But once he had, it didn't seem reasonable to walk away and leave it undone. And now he was in trouble, all wound up in that wild hair, that sexy scent, those soft lips.
And when he deepened the kiss, she let out this sound, this catchy little moan. What the hell was a man supposed to do but want?
Her hair was like a maze of madly coiled silk, and that pretty, curvy body of hers vibrated against him
like a well-tuned machine, revving for action. The longer he held her, the more he tasted her, the dimmer the warning bells sounded to remind him he didn't want to get tangled up with her. On any level.
When he managed to release her, to step back, he saw the flush riding along her cheeks. It made her
eyes bluer, bigger. It made him want to toss her over his shoulder and cart her off somewhere, anywhere at all where they could finish what the kiss had started. Because the urge to do so was an ache in the belly, he took another step back.
"Okay." He thought he spoke calmly, but couldn't be sure with the blood roaring in his ears. "See you around."
He walked back to the truck, got in. Managed to turn over the engine and shove into reverse. Then he
hit the brakes again when the sun speared into his eyes.
He sat, watching Stella walk forward, retrieve the sunglasses that had bounced off the hood and onto
the gravel. He lowered the window as she stepped to it.
His eyes stayed on hers when he reached out to take them from her. "Thanks."
"Sure."
He slipped them on, backed out, turned the wheel and drove out of the lot.
Alone, she let out a long, wheezing breath, sucked in another one; and let that out as she ordered her
limp legs to carry her to the porch.
She made it as far as the steps before she simply lowered herself down to sit. "Holy Mother of God,"
she managed.
She sat, even as a customer came out, as another came in, while everything inside her jumped and jittered. She felt as though she'd fallen off a cliff and was even now, barely—just barely—clinging to
a skinny, crumbling ledge by sweaty fingertips.
What was she supposed to do about this? And how could she figure it out when she couldn't think?
So she wouldn't try to figure it out until she could think. Getting to her feet, she rubbed her damp palms on the thighs of her pants. For now, she'd go back to work, she'd order pizza, then go home to her boys. Go home to normal.
She did better with normal.
TEN
Harper spaded the dirt at the base of the clematis that wound its way up the iron trellis. It was quiet on this edge of the garden. The shrubs and ornamental trees, the paths and beds separated what he still thought of as the guest house from the main.
Daffodils were just opening up, with all that bright yellow against the spring green. Tulips would be coming along next. They were one of his favorite things a
bout this leading edge of spring, so he'd
planted a bed of bulbs right outside the kitchen door of his place.
It was a small converted carriage house and according to every female he'd ever brought there, it was charming. "Dollhouse" was the usual term. He didn't mind it. Though he thought of it more as a cottage, like a groundskeeper's cottage with its whitewashed cedar shakes and pitched roof. It was comfortable, inside and out, and more than adequate for his needs.
There was a small greenhouse only a few feet out the back door, and that was his personal domain.
The cottage was just far enough from the house to be private, so he didn't have to feel weird having overnight guests of the female persuasion. And close enough that he could be at the main house in minutes if his mother needed him.
He didn't like the idea of her being alone, even with David on hand. And thank God for David. It didn't matter that she was self-sufficient, the strongest person he knew. He just didn't like the idea of his
mother rattling around in that big old house alone, day after day, night after night.
Though he certainly preferred that to having her stuck in it with that asshole she'd married. Words couldn't describe how he despised Bryce Clerk. He supposed having his mother fall for the guy proved she wasn't infallible, but it had been a hell of a mistake for someone who rarely made one.
Though she'd given him the boot, swiftly and without mercy, Harper had worried how the man would handle being cut off—from Roz, the house, the money, the whole ball.
And damned if he hadn't tried to break in once, the week before the divorce was final. Harper didn't doubt his mother could've handled it, but it hadn't hurt to be at hand.
And having a part in kicking the greedy, cheating, lying bastard out on his ass couldn't be overstated.
But maybe enough time had passed now. And she sure as hell wasn't alone in the house these days. Two women, two kids made for a lot of company. Between them and the business, she was busier than ever.
Maybe he should think about getting a place of his own.
Trouble was, he couldn't think of a good reason. He loved this place, in a way he'd never loved a
woman. With a kind of focused passion, respect, and gratitude.
The gardens were home, maybe even more than the house, more than his cottage. Most days he could walk out his front door, take a good, healthy hike, and be at work.