In the Garden Trilogy (50 page)

“And at the end of the day, something I’ll enjoy having.”

“I wonder if there’s a place I could work in your house. I’d do the bulk in my apartment, but it might be helpful if I had some space on site. The house plays a vital part in the research, and the results.”

“That wouldn’t be a problem.”

“For the Amelia portion of the project, I’d like a list of names. Anyone who’s had any sort of contact with her I’ll need to interview.”

“All right.”

“And the written permission we talked about before, for me to access family records, birth, marriage, death certificates, that sort of thing.”

“You’ll have it.”

“And permission to use the research, and what I pull out of it, in a book.”

She nodded. “I’d want manuscript approval.”

He smiled at her, charmingly. “You won’t get it.”

“Well, really—”

“I’ll be happy to provide you with a copy, when and if, but you won’t have approval.” He picked up a short, thick breadstick from the wide glass on the table and offered it to her. “What I find, I find; what I write, I write. And
if
I write a book, sell it, you owe me nothing for the work.”

She leaned back, drew air deep. His casual good looks, that somewhat shaggy peat-moss brown hair, the charming smile, the ancient high-tops, all disguised a clever and stubborn man.

It was a shame, she supposed, that she respected stubborn, clever men. “And if you don’t?”

“We go back to the original terms we discussed at our first meeting. The first thirty hours are gratis, and after that it’s fifty an hour plus expenses. We can have a contract drawn up, spelling it all out.”

“I think that would be wise.”

When the appetizer was served, Roz declined a second glass of wine, absently selected an olive from the plate. “Won’t you need permission from anyone you interview as well, if you decide to publish?”

“I’ll take care of that. I want to ask, why haven’t you done this before? You’ve lived in that house your whole life and never dug down to identify a ghost who lives there with you. And, let me add, even after my experience, it’s hard to believe that sentence just came out of my mouth.”

“I don’t know exactly. Maybe I was too busy, or too used to her. But I’ve started to wonder if I wasn’t just, well, inoculated. The family never bothered about her. I can give you all sorts of details on my ancestors, strange little family
anecdotes, odd bits of history, but when it came to her, nobody seemed to know anything, or care enough to find out. Myself included.”

“Now you do.”

“The more I thought about what I didn’t know, the more, yes, I wanted to find out. And after I saw her again, for myself, that night last June, I need to find out.”

“You saw her when you were a child,” he prompted.

“Yes. She would come into my room, sing her lullaby. I was never afraid of her. Then, as happens with every child who grows up at Harper House, I stopped seeing her when I was about twelve.”

“But you saw her again.”

There was something in his eyes that made her think he was wishing for his notebook or a tape recorder. That intensity, the absolute focus that she found unexpectedly sexy.

“Yes. She came back when I was pregnant with each of my boys. But that was more of a sensation of her. As if she were close by, that she knew there was going to be another child in the house. There were other times, of course, but I imagine you want to talk about all that in a more formal setting.”

“Not necessarily formal, but I’d like to tape the conversations we have about her. I’m going to start off with some basic groundwork.
Amelia
was the name Stella said she saw written on the window glass. I’ll check your family records for anyone named Amelia.”

“I’ve already done that.” She lifted a shoulder. “After all, if it was going to be that simple, I thought I might as well wrap it up. I found no one with that name—birth, death, marriage, at least, not in any of the records I have.”

“I’ll do another search, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Suit yourself. I expect you’ll be thorough.”

“Once I get started, Rosalind, I’m a bloodhound. You’ll be good and sick of me by the end of this.”

“And I’m a moody, difficult woman, Mitchell. So I’ll say, same goes.”

He grinned at her. “I’d forgotten just how beautiful you are.”

“Really?”

Now he laughed. Her tone had been so blandly polite. “It shows what a hold Baudelaire had on me. I don’t usually forget something like that. Then again, he didn’t have complimentary things to say about beauty.”

“No? What did he say?”

“ ‘With snow for flesh, with ice for heart, I sit on high, an unguessed sphinx begrudging acts that alter forms; I never laugh, I never weep.’ ”

“What a sad man he must have been.”

“Complicated,” Mitch said, “and inherently selfish. In any case, there’s nothing icy about you.”

“Obviously, you haven’t talked with some of my suppliers.” Or, she thought, her ex-husband. “I’ll see about having that contract drawn up, and get you the written permissions you need. As far as work space, I’d think the library would work best for you. Whenever you need it, or want something, you can reach me at one of the numbers I’ve given you. I swear, we all have a hundred numbers these days. Failing that, you can speak with Harper, or David, with Stella or Hayley, for that matter.”

“I’d like to set something up in the next few days.”

“We’ll be ready. I really should be getting home. I appreciate the drink.”

“My pleasure. I owe you a lot more for helping me out with my niece.”

“I think you’re going to be a hero.”

He laid some bills on the table, then rose to take her hand before she could slide out of the booth on her own. “Is anybody going to be home to help you haul in all that loot?”

“I’ve hauled around more than that on my own, but yes, David will be there.”

He released her hand, but walked her out to her car. “I’ll be in touch soon,” he said when he opened the car door for her.

“I’ll look forward to it. You’ll have to let me know what you come up with for your sister for Christmas.”

Pain covered his face. “Oh, hell, did you have to spoil it?”

Laughing, she shut the door, then rolled down the window. “They have some gorgeous cashmere sweaters at Dillard’s. Any brother who sprang for one of those for Christmas would completely erase a forgotten birthday.”

“Is that guaranteed? Like a female rule of law?”

“From a husband or lover, it better glitter, but from a brother, cashmere will do the trick. That’s a promise.”

“Dillard’s.”

“Dillard’s,” she repeated, and started the engine. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

She pulled out, and as she drove away glanced in the rearview mirror to see him standing there, rocking on his heels with his hands in his pockets.

Hayley was right. He was hot.

O
NCE SHE GOT
home, she pulled the first load out, carried it in the house and directly up the stairs to her wing. After a quick internal debate, she piled bags into her sitting room, then went down for more.

She could hear Stella’s boys in the kitchen, regaling David with the details of their day. Better that she got everything inside by herself, upstairs and hidden away before anyone knew she was home.

When she was finished, she stood in the middle of the room, and stared.

Why, she’d gone crazy, obviously. Now that she saw everything all piled up, she understood why Mitch had goggled. She could, easily, open her own store with what she’d bought in one mad afternoon.

How the hell was she going to wrap all of this?

Later, she decided after dragging both hands through her hair. She’d just worry about that major detail later. Right now she was going to call her lawyer, at home—the benefit of knowing him since high school—and get the contract done.

And because they’d gone to high school together, the conversation took twice as long as it might have. By the time she’d finished, put some semblance of order back into her sitting room, then headed downstairs, the house was settled down again.

Hayley, she knew, would be up with Lily. Stella would be with her boys. And David, she discovered, when she found the note on the kitchen counter, was off to the gym.

She nibbled on the potpie he’d left for her, then took a quiet walk around her gardens. The lights were on in Harper’s cottage. David would have called him to let him know he’d made potpie—one of Harper’s favorites. If the boy wanted some, he knew where to find it.

She slipped back inside, then poured herself another glass of wine with the idea of enjoying it in a long, hot bath.

But when she went back upstairs, she caught a movement in her sitting room. Her whole body tightened as she went to the door, then loosened again when she saw Stella.

“You got my juices up,” Roz said.

It was Stella who jolted and spun around with a hand to her heart. “God! You’d think we’d all stop jumping by now. I thought you’d be in here. I came by to see if you’d like to go over the weekly report, and saw this.” She swept a hand toward the bags and boxes lining the wall. “Roz, did you just buy the mall?”

“Not quite, but I gave it a good run. And because I did, I’m not much in the mood for the weekly report. What I want is this wine and a long, hot bath.”

“Obviously well deserved. We can do it tomorrow. Ah, if you need help wrapping some of this—”

“Sold.”

“Just tap me any evening after the kids are in bed. Ah, Hayley mentioned you were having drinks with Mitch Carnegie.”

“Yeah. We ran into each other, as it seems everyone in Tennessee does eventually, at Wal-Mart. He’s finished his book and appears to be raring to go on our project. He’s going to want to interview you, and Hayley among others. That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

“No. I’m raring, too. I’ll let you get started on that bath. See you in the morning.”

“ ’Night.”

Roz went into her bedroom, closed the door. In the adjoining bath she ran water and scent and froth, then lit candles. For once she wouldn’t use this personal time to soak and read gardening or business literature. She’d just lie back and veg.

As an afterthought, she decided to give herself a facial.

In the soft, flickering light, she slipped into the perfumed water. Let out a low, lengthy sigh. She sipped wine, set it on the ledge, then sank nearly to the chin.

Why, she wondered, didn’t she do this more often?

She lifted a hand out of the froth, examined it—long, narrow, rough as a brick. Studied her nails. Short, unpainted. Why bother painting them when they’d be digging in dirt all day?

They were good, strong, competent hands. And they looked it. She didn’t mind that, or the fact there were no rings on her fingers to sparkle them up.

But she smiled as she raised her feet out. Her toenails now, they were her little foolishness. This week she’d
painted them a metallic purple. Most days they’d be buried in work socks and boots, but she knew she had sexy toes. It was just one of those silly things that helped her remember she was female.

Her breasts weren’t as perky as they’d once been. She could be grateful they were small, and the sagging hadn’t gotten too bad. Yet.

While she didn’t worry too much about the state of her hands—they were, after all, tools for her—she was careful about her skin. She couldn’t stop all the lines, but she pampered it whenever she could.

She wasn’t willing to let her hair go to salt-and-pepper, so she took care of that, too. Just because she was being dragged toward fifty didn’t mean she couldn’t dig her heels in and try to slow down the damage time insisted on inflicting.

She had been beautiful once. When she’d been a young bride, fresh and innocent and radiantly happy. God, she looked at those pictures now and it was almost like looking at a stranger.

Who had that sweet young girl been?

Nearly thirty years, she thought. And it had gone by in the snap of a finger.

How long had it been since a man had looked at her and told her she was beautiful? Bryce had, certainly, but he’d told her all manner of lies.

But Mitch had said it almost offhand, casually. It made it easier to believe he’d meant it.

And why did she care?

Men. She shook her head and sipped more wine. Why was she thinking of men?

Because, she realized with a half laugh, she had no one to share those sexy toes with. No one to touch her as she liked to be touched, to thrill her. To hold her in the night.

She’d done without those things, and was content. But every now and again, she missed having someone. And maybe she was missing it now, she admitted, because she’d spent an hour talking with an attractive man.

When the water turned tepid, she got out. She was humming as she dried off, creamed her skin, performed her nightly ritual with her moisturizer. Wrapped in her robe, she started into her bedroom.

She felt the chill even before she saw the figure standing in front of her terrace doors.

Not Stella, not this time. The Harper Bride stood in her simple gray gown, her bright hair in a crown of curls.

Roz had to swallow once, then she spoke easily. “It’s been some time since you’ve come to see me. I know I’m not pregnant, so that can’t be it. Amelia? Is that your name?”

There was no answer, nor had she expected one. But the Bride smiled, just a brief shadow of a smile, then faded away.

“Well.” Standing, Roz rubbed the warmth back into her arms. “I guess I’ll assume that’s your way of letting me know you approve that we’re getting back to work.”

She went back to the sitting room and took a calendar she’d begun keeping over the last winter out of her desk. She noted down the sighting on the day’s date.

Dr. Carnegie, she assumed, would be pleased she was keeping a record.

H
E
’
D NEVER BEEN
much of a gardener. Then again, he’d lived in apartments most of his life. Still, he liked the look of plants and flowers, and had an admiration for those who knew what to do with them.

Rosalind Harper obviously knew what to do with them.

He’d seen some of the gardens on her estate this past June. But even their graceful beauty had paled next to his encounter with the Harper Bride. He’d always believed in the spirit of a person. Why else would he be so drawn to histories, to genealogies, to all those roots and branches of family trees? He believed that spirit could, and did, have influence and impact for generations, potentially centuries.

But he’d never believed in the tangibility, the physical presence of that spirit.

He knew better now.

It was difficult for someone with Mitch’s academic bent to rationalize, then absorb, something as fanciful as ghosts.

But he’d felt and he’d seen. He’d experienced, and there was no denying facts.

So now he was caught up. He could admit it. With his book finally put to bed, he could pour his energies and his time, his skills, into identifying the spirit that had—purportedly—walked the halls of Harper House for more than a century.

A few legalities to get out of the way, then he could dive in.

He turned into the parking area of In the Garden.

Interesting, he thought, that a place that certainly had its prime in spring and summer could look so attractive, so welcoming as December clicked away.

The sky was heavy with clouds that would surely bring a cold, ugly rain before it was done. Still there were things growing. He had no clue what they were, but they looked appealing. Rusty red bushes, lush evergreens with fat berries, silvery green leaves, brightly painted pansies. At least he recognized a pansy when he saw one.

There were industrious-looking piles of material—material he assumed one would need for gardening or landscaping. Long tables on the side that held plants he assumed could handle the chill, a small forest of trees and shrubs.

The low-slung building was fronted with a porch. He saw poinsettias and a small, trim Christmas tree strung with lights.

There were other cars in the lot. He watched a couple of men load a tree with a huge burlapped ball into the back of a truck. And a woman wheel out a red wagon loaded with poinsettias and shopping bags.

He walked up the ramp, crossed the porch to go inside.

There were a lot of wares, he noted. More than he’d expected. Pots, decorative garden stakes, tabletop trees already decorated, books, seeds, tools. Some were put together in gift baskets. Clever idea.

Forgetting his intention of seeking Roz out immediately, he began to wander. When one of the staff asked if he
needed help, he just smiled, shook his head, and continued to browse around.

A lot went into putting a place like this together, Mitch mused as he studied shelves of soil additives, time released fertilizer pellets, herbal pest repellents. Time, labor, know-how, and, he thought, courage.

This was no hobby or little enterprise indulged in by a southern aristocrat. This was serious business. Another layer to the woman, he supposed, and he hadn’t begun to get to the center of her.

Beautiful, enigmatic Rosalind Harper. What man wouldn’t want the chance to peel off those layers and know who she really was?

As it was, he owed his sister and niece a big, sloppy thanks for sending him scrambling out to shop. Running into Roz, seeing her with her shopping cart, having an hour alone with her was the most intriguing personal time he’d had in months.

Hardly a surprise he was hoping for more, and that he’d made this trip to her garden center mainly to study yet another side of her.

He wandered through wide glass doors and found an exotic mass of houseplants. There were tabletop and garden fountains as well, and baskets of ferny and viney things hanging from hooks or standing on pedestals.

Through another set of doors was a kind of greenhouse, with dozens of long wooden tables. Most were empty, but some held plants. The pansies he recognized, and others he didn’t. Though, he noted, they were labeled and billed to be winter hardy.

He was debating whether to continue on or go back and ask for Roz when her son Harper came in from the outside.

“Hi. Need some help?” As he walked toward Mitch, recognition crossed his face. “Oh, hey, Dr. Carnegie.”

“Mitch. Nice to see you again, Harper,” he said as they shook hands.

“You, too. That was some game against Little Rock last week.”

“It was. Were you there?”

“Missed the first quarter, but the second half rocked. Josh ruled.”

Pride in his son beamed through him. “He had a good game. Missouri this week. I’ll have to catch that one on ESPN.”

“Same here. You see your son, tell him I said that three-pointer in the last five minutes was a thing of beauty.”

“I’ll do that.”

“You looking for something, or someone?”

“Someone. Your mother, actually.” You have her eyes, he thought. Her mouth, her coloring. “I was taking a little tour before I hunted her up.” As he looked around, Mitch slipped his hands in his pockets. “This is a hell of a place you’ve got here.”

“Keeps us busy. I just left her in the propagation house. I’ll take you back.”

“Appreciate it. I guess I didn’t think this kind of business would have so much going on this late in the year.”

“Always something going on when you’re dealing with gardening and landscaping.” Mirroring Mitch’s stance, Harper scanned the area. “Holiday stuff’s big now, and we’re working on getting plants ready for March.”

When they stepped outside, Mitch stopped, hooked his thumbs in his jacket pockets. Low, long greenhouses spread, separated into two areas by a wide space where more tables stood under a screened shelter. Even now he could see a field where someone worked a machine to dig up a pine—or a spruce, or a fir. How could you tell the difference?

He caught a glimpse of a little pond, and a small stream, then the woods that shielded the business from the main house, and the main house from the business.

“I’ve got to say, wow. I didn’t expect anything this expansive.”

“Mom doesn’t do things halfway. We started a little smaller, added on two more greenhouses and an additional space in the retail area a couple years ago.”

More than a business, Mitch realized. This was a life. “It must take an incredible amount of work.”

“It does. You’ve gotta love it.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. That’s my castle over there.” Harper gestured. “Grafting house. Mostly, I deal with grafting and propagation. But I get pulled out for other things, like the Christmas tree end this time of year. In fact, I was grabbing ten before I head out to the field when I ran into you.”

As the rain began to fall, Harper nodded toward one of the greenhouses. “That’s the propagation area. Since we’ve got Stella, Mom spends most of her time in there.”

“Then I can find her from here. Why don’t you go on, catch what you’ve got left of your break.”

“Better get right out in the field.” As the rain fell, Harper pulled the bill of his cap lower on his head. “Get those trees up before the rain scares the customers away. Just go ahead in. See you later.”

Harper set off at a jog, and had made the turn toward the field when Hayley rushed up to him from the opposite direction. “Wait! Harper, wait a minute.”

He stopped, lifting the bill a bit to get a better look at her. She was wearing a short red denim jacket over jeans, and one of the In the Garden caps Stella had ordered for employees.

“Jesus, Hayley, get inside. This rain’s going to cut loose big-time any minute.”

“Was that Dr. Carnegie?”

“Yeah. He was looking for the boss.”

“You took him to the propagation house?” Her voice pitched up over the increasing drum of rain. “Are you just stupid?”

“What? He’s looking for Mom, she’s in the propagation house. I just left her there five minutes ago.”

“So you just take him there, say go right in?” She made wild gestures with both hands. “Without letting her
know
?”

“Know what?”

“That he’s here, for God’s sake. And now he’s going in, and she’s all dirty and sweaty, with no makeup on and in her grubbiest clothes. You couldn’t stall him for five damn minutes to give her some warning?”

“About what? She looks like she always does. What’s the damn difference?”

“If you don’t know, you are stupid. And it’s too late now. One of these days, Harper Ashby, you’re going to have use of the single brain men pass around among them.”

“What the hell,” he grumbled after she’d given him a punch on the arm and dashed inside again.

M
ITCH DUCKED INTO
the propagation house out of the rain. If he’d thought the houseplant section seemed exotic, it was nothing compared to this. The place seemed alive with plants in various stages of growth. The humid warmth was almost tropical, and with the rain pattering it seemed he’d walked into some sort of fantasy cave.

The air was pungent with green and brown—plants and soil. Music twined along with the scents. Not classical, he noted. Not quite New Age. Something oddly and appealingly between.

He saw tables and tools, buckets and bags. Shallow black containers holding delicate growing things.

And he saw Roz at the far end, on the side. Her back was to him as she worked.

She had a gorgeous neck. It was an odd thought, and, he admitted, probably a foolish one. But again, facts were facts. She wore her hair short and straight and to his mind, the style showed off that long, lovely neck perfectly.

Then again, all of her was rather long and lovely. Arms, legs, torso. At the moment that intriguing body was camouflaged in baggy pants and a shapeless sweatshirt she’d pushed up at the sleeves. But he remembered, very well, that willowy figure.

Just as he remembered, even before she heard his approach and turned, that her eyes were long as well. Long lidded and in a fascinating shade of deep, deep amber.

“I’m sorry. I’m interrupting.”

“That’s all right. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I got the paperwork, and thought I’d ride out and let you know it’s signed, sealed, and on its way back to your lawyer. Plus, it gave me a chance to see your place. I’m impressed. Even though I don’t know squat about gardening, I’m majorly impressed.”

“Thank you.”

He glanced down at her worktable. There were pots, some empty yet, some filled with soil and small green leaves. “What’s going on here?”

“I’m potting up some seedlings. Celosia—cockscomb.”

“I have no idea what that is.”

“I’m sure you’ve seen them.” She brushed a hand absently over her cheek, transferring a smudge of soil. “In bloom they’re like small feather dusters in bold colors. Red’s very popular.”

“Okay. And you put them in these little pots because?”

“Because they don’t like their roots disturbed after they’re established. I pot them young, then they’ll be blooming for our spring customers, and only have to tolerate that
last transplanting. And I don’t imagine you’re all that interested.”

“Didn’t think I would be. But this is like a whole new world. What’s this here?”

She raised her eyebrows. “All right, then. That’s matthiola, also called gillyflower or stock. It’s very fragrant. Those there with the yellowish green leaves? They’ll be double-flowered cultivars. These will flower for spring. Customers prefer to buy in bloom, so I plan my propagation to give them plenty of blooms to choose from. This section is for annuals. I do perennials back there.”

“Is it a gift, or years of study? How do you come to know what to do, how to recognize the . . . cockscomb from the gillyflower at this stage?”

“It’s both, and a love of it with considerable hands-on experience thrown in. I’ve been gardening since I was a child. I remember my grandmother—on the Harper side—putting her hands over mine to show me how to press the soil around a plant. What I remember best about her is in the gardens at Harper House.”

“Elizabeth McKinnon Harper, wife to Reginald Harper, Jr.”

“You have a good memory.”

“I’ve been skimming over some of the lists. What was she like?”

It made her feel soft, and a little sentimental, to be asked. “Kind, and patient, unless you riled her up. Then she was formidable. She went by Lizzie, or Lizzibeth. She always wore men’s pants, and an old blue shirt and an odd straw hat. Southern women of a certain age always wear odd straw hats to garden. It’s the code. She smelled of the eucalyptus and pennyroyal she’d make up into a bug repellant. I use her recipe for it still.”

She picked up another pot. “I still miss her, and she’s been gone nearly thirty years now. Fell asleep in her glider
on a hot summer day in July. She’d been deadheading in the garden, and sat down to rest. She never woke up. I think that’s a very pleasant way to pass.”

“How old was she?”

“Well, she claimed to be seventy-six, but in fact, according to the records she was eighty-four. My daddy was a late baby for her, as I was for him. I broke that Harper family tradition by having my children young.”

“Did she ever talk to you about the Harper Bride?”

“She did.” As she spoke, Roz continued with her potting. “Of course, she was a McKinnon by birth and wasn’t raised in the house. But she claimed to have seen the Bride when she’d come to live here, when my great-grandfather passed. My grandfather Harper grew up at Harper House, of course, and if we were right in dating Amelia, would have been a baby around the time she died. But he passed when I was about eight, and I don’t recall him ever speaking of her.”

“How about your parents, or other relatives?”

“Are we on the clock here, Doctor?”

“Sorry.”

“No, I don’t mind.” She labeled the new potted plant, reached for another. “My daddy never said much, now that I think about it. Maybe it’s a thing with the Harper men, or men in general. My mother was a dramatic sort of female, one who enjoyed the illusion of turmoil in her life. She claimed to have seen the Bride often, and with great stress. But then, Mama was always stressed about something.”