In the Garden Trilogy (5 page)

“I’m very fond of Will and Jolene. How are they?”

“They’re good. They’re enjoying having their grandchildren around.”

“I imagine so. Your daddy shows off pictures of them from time to time and just about bursts with pride.”

“One of my reasons for relocating here is so they can have more time together.”

“It’s a good reason. I like young boys myself. Miss having them around. The fact that you come with two played in your favor. Your résumé, your father’s recommendation, the letter from your former employer—well, none of that hurt.”

She picked up a cookie from the tray, bit in, without her eyes ever leaving Stella’s face. “I need an organizer, someone creative and hardworking, personable and basically tireless. I like people who work for me to keep up with me, and I set a strong pace.”

“So I’ve been told.” Okay, Stella thought, brisk and to the point in return. “I have a degree in nursery management. With the exception of three years when I stayed home to have my children—and during which time I landscaped my own yard and two neighbors’—I’ve worked in that capacity. For more than two years now, since my husband’s death, I’ve raised my sons and worked outside the home in my field. I’ve done a good job with both. I can keep up with you, Ms. Harper. I can keep up with anyone.”

Maybe, Roz thought. Just maybe. “Let me see your hands.”

A little irked, Stella held them out. Roz set down her coffee, took them in hers. She turned them palms up, ran her thumbs over them. “You know how to work.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Banker suit threw me off. Not that it isn’t a lovely suit.” Roz smiled, then polished off the cookie. “It’s been damp the last couple of days. Let’s see if we can put you in some boots so you don’t ruin those very pretty shoes. I’ll show you around.”

 

THE BOOTS WERE TOO BIG, AND THE ARMY-GREEN rubber hardly flattering, but the damp ground and crushed gravel would have been cruel to her new shoes.

Her own appearance hardly mattered when compared with the operation Rosalind Harper had built.

In the Garden spread over the west side of the estate. The garden center faced the road, and the grounds at its entrance and running along the sides of its parking area were beautifully landscaped. Even in January, Stella could see the care and creativity put into the presentation with the selection and placement of evergreens and ornamental trees, the mulched rises where she assumed there would be color from bulbs and perennials, from splashy annuals through the spring and summer and into fall.

After one look she didn’t want the job. She was desperate for it. The lust tied knots of nerves and desire in her belly, the kinds that were usually reserved for a lover.

“I didn’t want the retail end of this near the house,” Roz said as she parked the truck. “I didn’t want to see commerce out my parlor window. Harpers are, and always have been, business-minded. Even back when some of the land around here was planted with cotton instead of houses.”

Because Stella’s mouth was too dry to speak, she only nodded. The main house wasn’t visible from here. A wedge of natural woods shielded it from view and kept the long, low outbuildings, the center itself, and, she imagined, most of the greenhouses from intruding on any view from Harper House.

And just look at that gorgeous old ruby horse chestnut!

“This section’s open to the public twelve months a year,” Roz continued. “We carry all the sidelines you’d expect, along with houseplants and a selection of gardening books. My oldest son’s helping me manage this section, though he’s happier in the greenhouses or out in the field. We’ve got two part-time clerks right now. We’ll need more in a few weeks.”

Get your head in the game, Stella ordered herself. “Your busy season would start in March in this zone.”

“That’s right.” Roz led the way to the low-slung white building, up an asphalt ramp, across a spotlessly clean porch, and inside.

Two long, wide counters on either side of the door, Stella noted. Plenty of light to keep it cheerful. There were shelves stocked with soil additives, plant foods, pesticides, spin racks of seeds. More shelves held books or colorful pots suitable for herbs or windowsill plants. There were displays of wind chimes, garden plaques, and other accessories.

A woman with snowy white hair dusted a display of sun catchers. She wore a pale blue cardigan with roses embroidered down the front over a white shirt that looked to have been starched stiff as iron.

“Ruby, this is Stella Rothchild. I’m showing her around.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

The calculating look told Stella the woman knew she was in about the job opening, but the smile was perfectly cordial. “You’re Will Dooley’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“From ... up north.”

She said it, to Stella’s amusement, as if it were a Third World country of dubious repute. “From Michigan, yes. But I was born in Memphis.”

“Is that so?” The smile warmed, fractionally. “Well, that’s something, isn’t it? Moved away when you were a little girl, didn’t you?”

“Yes, with my mother.”

“Thinking about moving back now, are you?”

“I have moved back,” Stella corrected.

“Well.” The one word said they’d see what they’d see. “It’s a raw one out there today,” Ruby continued. “Good day to be inside. You just look around all you want.”

“Thanks. There’s hardly anywhere I’d rather be than inside a nursery.”

“You picked a winner here. Roz, Marilee Booker was in and bought the dendrobium. I just couldn’t talk her out of it.”

“Well,
shit
. It’ll be dead in a week.”

“Dendrobiums are fairly easy care,” Stella pointed out.

“Not for Marilee. She doesn’t have a black thumb. Her whole arm’s black to the elbow. That woman should be barred by law from having anything living within ten feet of her.”

“I’m sorry, Roz. But I did make her promise to bring it back if it starts to look sickly.”

“Not your fault.” Roz waved it away, then moved through a wide opening. Here were the houseplants, from the exotic to the classic, and pots from thimble size to those with a girth as wide as a manhole cover. There were more accessories, too, like stepping-stones, trellises, arbor kits, garden fountains, and benches.

“I expect my staff to know a little bit about everything,” Roz said as they walked through. “And if they don’t know the answer, they need to know how to find it. We’re not big, not compared to some of the wholesale nurseries or the landscaping outfits. We’re not priced like the garden centers at the discount stores. So we concentrate on offering the unusual plants along with the basic, and customer service. We make house calls.”

“Do you have someone specific on staff who’ll go do an on-site consult?”

“Either Harper or I might go if you’re talking about a customer who’s having trouble with something bought here. Or if they just want some casual, personal advice.”

She slid her hands into her pockets, rocked back and forth on the heels of her muddy boots. “Other than that, I’ve got a landscape designer. Had to pay him a fortune to steal him away from a competitor. Had to give him damn near free rein, too. But he’s the best. I want to expand that end of the business.”

“What’s your mission statement?”

Roz turned, her eyebrows lifted high. There was a quick twinkle of amusement in those shrewd eyes. “Now, there you are—that’s just why I need someone like you. Someone who can say ‘mission statement’ with a straight face. Let me think.”

With her hands on her hips now, she looked around the stocked area, then opened wide glass doors into the adjoining greenhouse. “I guess it’s two-pronged—this is where we stock most of our annuals and hanging baskets starting in March, by the way. First prong would be to serve the home gardener. From the fledgling who’s just dipping a toe in to the more experienced who knows what he or she wants and is willing to try something new or unusual. To give that customer base good stock, good service, good advice. Second would be to serve the customer who’s got the money but not the time or the inclination to dig in the dirt. The one who wants to beautify but either doesn’t know where to start or doesn’t want the job. We’ll go in, and for a fee we’ll work up a design, get the plants, hire the laborers. We’ll guarantee satisfaction.”

“All right.” Stella studied the long, rolling tables, the sprinkler heads of the irrigation system, the drains in the sloping concrete floor.

“When the season starts we have tables of annuals and perennials along the side of this building. They’ll show from the front as people drive by, or in. We’ve got a shaded area for ones that need shade,” she continued as she walked through, boots slapping on concrete. “Over here we keep our herbs, and through there’s a storeroom for extra pots and plastic flats, tags. Now, out back here’s greenhouses for stock plants, seedlings, preparation areas. Those two will open to the public, more annuals sold by the flat.”

She crunched along gravel, over more asphalt. Shrubs and ornamental trees. She gestured toward an area on the side where the stock wintering over was screened. “Behind that, closed to the public, are the propagation and grafting areas. We do mostly container planting, but I’ve culled out an acre or so for field stock. Water’s no problem with the pond back there.”

They continued to walk, with Stella calculating, dissecting. And the lust in her belly had gone from tangled knot to rock-hard ball.

She could
do
something here. Make her mark over the excellent foundation another woman had built. She could help improve, expand, refine.

Fulfilled? she thought. Challenged? Hell, she’d be so busy, she’d be fulfilled and challenged every minute of every day.

It was perfect.

There were the white scoop-shaped greenhouses, work-tables, display tables, awnings, screens, sprinklers. Stella saw it brimming with plants, thronged with customers. Smelling of growth and possibilities.

Then Roz opened the door to the propagation house, and Stella let out a sound, just a quiet one she couldn’t hold back. And it was pleasure.

The smell of earth and growing things, the damp heat. The air was close, and she knew her hair would frizz out insanely, but she stepped inside.

Seedlings sprouted in their containers, delicate new growth spearing out of the enriched soil. Baskets already planted were hung on hooks where they’d be urged into early bloom. Where the house teed off there were the stock plants, the parents of these fledglings. Aprons hung on pegs, tools were scattered on tables or nested in buckets.

Silently she walked down the aisles, noting that the containers were marked clearly. She could identify some of the plants without reading the tags. Cosmos and columbine, petunias and penstemon. This far south, in a few short weeks they’d be ready to be laid in beds, arranged in patio pots, tucked into sunny spaces or shady nooks.

Would she? Would she be ready to plant herself here, to root here? To bloom here? Would her sons?

Gardening was a risk, she thought. Life was just a bigger one. The smart calculated those risks, minimized them, and worked toward the goal.

“I’d like to see the grafting area, the stockrooms, the offices.”

“All right. Better get you out of here. Your suit’s going to wilt.”

Stella looked down at herself, spied the green boots. Laughed. “So much for looking professional.”

The laugh had Roz angling her head in approval. “You’re a pretty woman, and you’ve got good taste in clothes. That kind of image doesn’t hurt. You took the time to put yourself together well for this meeting, which I neglected to do. I appreciate that.”

“You hold the cards, Ms. Harper. You can put yourself together any way you like.”

“You’re right about that.” She walked back to the door, gestured, and they stepped outside into a light, chilly drizzle. “Let’s go into the office. No point hauling you around in the wet. What are your other reasons for moving back here?”

“I couldn’t find any reason to stay in Michigan. We moved there after Kevin and I were married—his work. I think, I suppose, I’ve stayed there since he died out of a kind of loyalty to him, or just because I was used to it. I’m not sure. I liked my work, but I never felt—it never felt like my place. More like I was just getting from one day to the next.”

“Family?”

“No. No, not in Michigan. Just me and the boys. Kevin’s parents are gone, were before we married. My mother lives in New York. I’m not interested in living in the city or raising my children there. Besides that, my mother and I have ... tangled issues. The way mothers and daughters often do.”

“Thank God I had sons.”

“Oh, yeah.” She laughed again, comfortably now. “My parents divorced when I was very young. I suppose you know that.”

“Some of it. As I said, I like your father, and Jolene.”

“So do I. So rather than stick a pin in a map, I decided to come here. I was born here. I don’t really remember, but I thought, hoped, there might be a connection. That it might be the place.”

They walked back through the retail center and into a tiny, cluttered office that made Stella’s organized soul wince. “I don’t use this much,” Roz began. “I’ve got stuff scattered between here and the house. When I’m over here, I end up spending my time in the greenhouses or the field.”

She dumped gardening books off a chair, pointed to it, then sat on the edge of the crowded desk when Stella took the seat.

“I know my strengths, and I know how to do good business. I’ve built this place from the ground up, in less than five years. When it was smaller, when it was almost entirely just me, I could afford to make mistakes. Now I have up to eighteen employees during the season. People depending on me for a paycheck. So I can’t afford to make mistakes. I know how to plant, what to plant, how to price, how to design, how to stock, how to handle employees, and how to deal with customers. I know how to organize.”