In the Garden Trilogy (96 page)

She lowered her lips to his.

Soft and smooth, that’s how she felt with him. Lovely and loose. And most of all, loved. Whatever tried to darken her heart, whatever brewed in the night, she could, she would, hold off and have this time with him.

Safe, secure. Seduced.

She could trust him to hold her, as he did now, with their bodies warm, their lips tender. She could trust herself to be strong with the taste of him teasing her tongue.

They moved together, slow and easy, while the rain drummed musically on the stones of the terrace. Her heart drummed, too. Pleasure and anticipation. She knew him so well. Friend and partner, now lover. Husband.

Overcome, she laid her cheek on his. “I love you, Harper. It seems like I’ve already loved you forever.”

“We’ve still got forever.”

He brushed his fingers over her face, her cheeks, her temples, into her hair. He could see her in the gloomy dark, the shape of her, the gleam of her eyes. Witchy and mysterious in this storm light, but nonetheless his. He could look at her and see the long roll of the future. Touch her, and know the simple beauty of the now.

He sampled her lips, skin, the long line of her throat, the subtle curve of her breast. Her heart beat under it, steady as the rain. And quickened as his mouth possessed.

Slowly, guided by her sighs, he took his hands and lips over her. The narrow torso, so white, so delicate in the dim light, and the jump of muscles as he passed, the quivers, told him she was roused.

He laid his lips, gently, so gently, on her belly, and laid his cheek there just a moment, in wonder of what grew in her. Her hand brushed over his hair, stroked.

“Its middle name has to be Harper,” she murmured. “Boy or girl, whatever we choose for the first name, it’s important we pass the Harper name on.”

He turned his head to press another kiss over their child. “How about Cletis? Cletis Harper Ashby.”

He fought to keep his lips from curving against her skin when her hand stilled. “That’s a joke, right?”

“Little Cletis, or Hermione, if it’s a girl. You just don’t see enough Hermiones these days.”

He kissed his way back up until his lips hovered over hers.

“You’d be sorry if I fell in love with those names and insisted on them. Wouldn’t be so funny then, would it?”

“Maybe Clemm.” He dropped little kisses at the corners of her mouth. “Or Gertrude.”

Her fingers drilled into his ribs. “Looks like I’m going to have to be sure I’m the one filling out the birth certificate. Especially since I’m thinking we’ll stick with flower names. Begonia’s my personal favorite.”

“But what if it’s a girl?”

She grabbed both of his ears and pulled, then gave up on a laugh.

And was laughing when he slipped inside her.

S
HE WAS SO
warm, so content, snuggled up beside him, drifting off to sleep. The patter of rain was music, a lullabye to float away to dreams on.

She imagined herself walking toward him, her long white dress shimmering in the sunlight, lilies, bold and red lying in the crook of her arm, like a child. He would wait for her, wait to take her hand, to make promises. Take the vows that meant forever.

Till death do you part.

No. She shifted with the quiver under her heart. She wanted no mention of death on the day they married. No promises tied to it.

Death brought shadows, and shadows blocked the sun.

Empty promises. Words spoken by rote and never meant to be kept. Clouds over the sun, and the rain turning her white gown to dull, dingy gray.

It was cold, bleak. But there was such heat in her. Hate was a furnace, rage the fire that stoked it.

How strange, how extraordinary that she should feel so alive, so viciously
alive
at last.

The house was dark. A tomb. They were all dead inside. Only her child lived, and would always, ever. Endless. She and her son would live forever, be together until the end of days while the rest rotted.

This was her vengeance. Her only task now.

She had given life. She had grown it inside her own body, had pushed it into the world with a pain akin to madness. It would not be stolen from her. It was hers to keep.

She would bide in that house with her son. And she would be the true mistress of Harper House.

After this night, she and James would never be parted again.

The rain drenched her as she walked, humming her tune as the hem of her soaked nightdress waded through mud.

They would play in the gardens in the bright spring. How he would laugh. Flowers blooming, birds singing, only for them. Tea and cakes, yes, tea and cakes for her precious boy.

Soon, very soon now, an endless spring for them.

She walked through the rain, wading through the crawl of fog. Now and then she thought she heard some sound—voices, laughter, weeping, shouting.

Now and then, she thought she saw some movement out of the corner of her eye. Children playing, an old woman sleeping in a chair, a young man planting flowers.

But they were not of her world, not of the world she sought.

In her world, they would be the shadows.

She walked the paths, or trod over the winter beds, her feet bare and filthy. Her eyes mad moonbeams.

She saw the silhouette of the stables. What she needed would be there, but so would others. Servants, rutting stablehands, dirty grooms.

Instead, she tapped a finger on her lips, as if for silence, but a rolling laugh escaped. Maybe she should burn the stables, set a fire that would rise up in the sky. Oh, how the horses would scream and the men run.

A toasty blaze on an ice-cold night.

She felt that she could light fires with a thought. And thinking, whirled to face Harper House. She could burn it to ash with her mind. Every room bursting with heat. And he, the great Reginald Harper, and all who had betrayed her would perish in the hell she created.

But not the child. No, no, not the child. She pressed both hands to her mouth, banished the thought before the spark flew. It was not the way for her son.

He must come with her. Be with her.

She walked toward the carriage house. Her hair,
tangled around her face, dripped into her eyes, but she walked unhurried.

No locks here, she thought at the wide doors. Who would dare trespass on Harper land?

She would.

The door creaked as she pulled it open. Even in the gloom, she could see the shine of the carriages. No dull wheels for the great master. Big, glossy carriages to carry him and his whore-wife, his mewling daughters, wherever they chose to go.

While the mother of his son, the creator of
life,
drove in a stolen wagon.

Oh, he would pay.

She stood in the open doorway, swaying as her mind rolled in circles, buzzing rings of rage and confusion and terrible love. She forgot where she was, what she was, why. Then the purpose looped around once more.

Could she risk a light? Dare she? She must, she must. She couldn’t see in the dark.

Not yet.

Though her fingers shook with cold as she lighted a lamp, she didn’t feel it. The heat still burned through her, and made her smile as she saw the hank of rope.

There now, that would do, that would do nicely.

She left the lamp burning, the door open as she walked back out into the rain.

W
HEN
H
ARPER TURNED
, reached for her, she wasn’t there. He half woke, stretching his arm out farther, expecting to meet her skin.

“Hayley?”

He murmured her name, pushed onto his elbow. His first
thought was that she’d gone in to Lily, but he heard nothing from the bedside monitor.

It took him a few seconds longer to realize what he did hear.

The rain was too loud. Pushing up quickly he saw the terrace doors were open. He rolled out, grabbing his jeans.

“Hayley!” He dragged on his jeans, bolted for the door. He saw nothing but the rain and the dark.

Rain pelted him, his heart constricted to an ice chip in his chest. On a panicked oath, he rushed back inside, and into Lily’s room.

The baby slept, peacefully. Her mother wasn’t there.

He strode back to the bedroom, grabbed the monitor, and, shoving it in his back pocket, went out to find her.

Calling for her, he bolted down the steps. The carriage house, he thought. He’d always believed Amelia had gone there. The night he’d seen her in the garden when he’d been a child, he’d been sure that’s where she’d been going.

Her gown had been wet and muddy, he remembered as he ran. As if she’d been in the rain.

He knew his way, even in the dark. There was no turn of the path that wasn’t familiar to him. He saw his front door hanging open, felt a trip of relief.

“Hayley!” He slapped on the light as he rushed in.

The floor was wet, and muddy footprints crossed the room, into the kitchen. He knew the house was empty even before he called for her again, before he ran through it, heart thundering, looking for her.

This time he grabbed the phone, speed-dialing as he ran back out.

“Mama, Hayley’s gone. She went outside. I can’t find her. She’s—oh Jesus, I see her. Third floor. She’s on the third floor terrace.”

He tossed the phone aside and kept running.

She didn’t turn when he shouted her name, but continued to cross the terrace like a wraith. His feet skidded on wet stone, and flowers were crushed as he leaped off the path into beds to cut to the stairs leading up.

Lungs burning, heart screaming, he bounded up.

He reached the third level as she flung open a door.

She hesitated when he called out to her, and slowly turned her head to face him. And smiled. “Death for life.”

“No.”

He made the last leap, grabbed her arm and jerked her inside out of the rain. “No,” he said again, and wrapped his arms around her. “Feel me. You know who I am. You know who you are. Feel me.”

He tightened his grip when she struggled. Held her close and warm even as her head whipped from side to side and her teeth snapped like a wild dog’s.

“I will have my son!”

“You have a daughter. You have Lily. Lily’s sleeping. Hayley, stay with us.”

And swept her up in his arms when her body sagged.

“I’m cold. Harper, I’m cold.”

“It’s all right. You’re all right.” He carried her across the wide ballroom with its ghostly dust sheets as rain lashed windows.

Before he reached the door, Mitch shoved it open. After one quick glance, Mitch let out a breath. “Your mother went to check on Lily. What happened?”

“Not now.” With Hayley shivering in his arms, Harper moved by Mitch. “We’ll deal with it later. She needs to get warm and dry. The rest will have to wait.”

H
E HAD HER
bundled in a blanket from neck to toe, and sat behind her on the bed drying her hair with a towel.

“I don’t remember getting up. I don’t remember going out.”

“Are you warm enough?”

“Yeah.” Except for the sheen of ice inside her bones. She wondered if any heat would ever reach that deep in her again. “I don’t know how long I was out there.”

“You’re back now.”

She reached back, laid a hand over his. He needed warmth and comfort as much as she did. “You found me.”

He pressed a kiss to her damp hair. “I always will.”

“You took Lily’s monitor.” And that, she thought, meant even more. “You remembered to take it. You didn’t leave her alone.”

“Hayley.” He wrapped his arms around her, pressed his cheek to hers. “I won’t leave either of you alone.” Then laid a hand on her belly. “Any of you. I swear it.”

“I know. She doesn’t believe in promises, or faith, or love. I do. I believe in us, with everything I’ve got.” She turned her head so her lips could brush his. “I didn’t always, but I do now. I have everything. She has nothing.”

“You can feel sorry for her? After this? After everything?”

“I don’t know what I feel for her. Or about her.” It felt so wonderful to be able to lean her head back, rest it on his good, strong shoulder. “I thought I understood her, at least a little. We were both in a kind of similar situation. I mean, getting pregnant, and not wanting the baby at first.”

“You’re nothing alike.”

“Harper, erase the personalities, and your feelings for just a minute. Look at it objectively, like you do at work. Look at the situation. We were both unmarried and pregnant. Not loving the father, not wanting to see our lives changed, burdened even. Then coming to want the baby. In different ways, for different reasons, but coming to want the baby so much.”

“Different ways and different reasons,” he repeated. “But all right, I can see that, on the surface, there’s a pattern.”

The door opened. Roz came in with a tray. “I’m not going to disturb you. Harper, you see that she drinks this.” After setting the tray at the foot of the bed, Roz skirted around to the side. She took Hayley’s face in her hand, kissed her cheek. “You get some rest.”

Harper reached out, took Roz’s hand for a moment. “Thanks, Mama.”

“You need anything, you call.”

“She didn’t have anyone to take care of her,” Hayley said quietly when the door closed behind Roz. “No one to care about her.”

“Who did she care about? Who did she care for? Obsession isn’t caring,” he added before Hayley could speak. He eased away to get up, pour the tea. “What was done to her sucked big-time. No argument, no debate. But you know what? There aren’t any heroes in her sad story.”

“There should be. There should always be heroes. But no.” She took the tea. “She wasn’t heroic. Not even tragic, like Juliet. She’s just sad. And bitter.”

“Calculating,” he added. “And crazy.”

“That, too. She wouldn’t have understood you. I think I know her well enough now to be sure of that. She wouldn’t have understood your heart, or your honesty. That’s sad, too.”

He walked to the doors. He was getting the soaker he’d wished for and could stand there, watch the earth drink in the rain.

“She was always sad.” He reached inside, beyond his anger and found the pity. “I could see it even when I was a kid, and she’d be in my room, singing. Sad and lost. Still I felt safe with her, the way you do when you’re with someone you know cares about you. She cared, on some level, for me, for my brothers. I guess that has to count for something.”

“She still cares, I feel that. She just gets confused. Harper, I can’t remember.”

She lowered the cup, and emotion swam into her eyes. “Not like I could the other times it happened. I could see, at least a part of me could. I don’t know how to explain. But this time, it’s mixed up, and I can’t see. Not all of it. Why was she going into the ballroom? What did she do there?”

He wanted to tell her to relax, not to think. But how could she? Instead he came back, sat by her. “You went to
the carriage house. You must have. The door was open, and I could see where you’d walked back to the kitchen. The floor was wet.”

“That’s where she went that night, the night she died here. She had to have died here that night. Nothing else makes sense. We saw her that time, you and me. Standing out on the terrace, wet and muddy. She had a rope.”

“There could’ve been rope in the carriage house. Probably was.”

“Why would she need a rope to get the baby? To tie up the nursemaid?”

“I don’t think that’s why she wanted rope.”

“She had that sickle thing, too.” Bright and gleaming, she remembered. Sharp. “Maybe she was going to kill anyone who tried to stop her. But the rope. What would she do with rope besides tie somebody up?”

Her eyes widened and she set the cup down with a rattle when she read the look in his eyes.

“Oh my God. To kill herself? To hang herself, is that what you’re thinking? But why? Why would she come all the way out here? Why would she drag herself through the rain, and hang herself in the ballroom?”

“The nursery was on the third floor back then.”

What little color had come back into her cheeks drained again. “The nursery.”

No, she thought as the image played in her mind, she might never be truly warm again.

O
N HER DAYS
off, Hayley was used to the hours flying by. The time was so crowded with chores—shopping, laundry, organizing what had gotten disorganized during workdays, caring for Lily and the myriad
tasks that turned up—she barely remembered what it was like to have what those who didn’t have full-time jobs and a toddler called free time.

Who knew she liked it that way?

Finding herself with time on her hands left her feeling broody and restless. But when the boss ordered you to take the day off, there was no arguing. At least not when the boss was Rosalind Harper.

She’d been banished to Stella’s house for the day without even Lily as a distraction. She’d been told to rest, and she’d tried. Really she had. But her usual delight in reading didn’t satisfy her; the stack of DVDs Stella had handed her didn’t entertain, and the quiet, empty house kept her counting the minutes rather than lulling her into a nap.

She passed some of the time roaming the rooms, rooms she’d helped paint. Stella and Logan had turned it into a home, mixing Stella’s flair for detail and style with Logan’s sense of space. And the boys, of course, she thought as she paused outside of the room Gavin and Luke shared with its bunk beds and shelves loaded with comic books and trucks. It was a home created with children in mind, lots of light and color, the big yard that bumped right up to kiss the woods. Even with the elegance of gardens—and how could the landscaping be anything but beautiful here—it was a yard where kids and a dog could romp around.

She picked up Parker—the dog had been her only company through the day—and nuzzled him as she walked back downstairs.

Would she be as clever as Stella with a home and family? As loving and smart and sane?

She’d never planned it this way. Stella was the one for plans. She’d just cruised along, happy enough with her job at the bookstore, helping her father tend the little house
they shared. Now and again she’d thought about taking a few extra classes in business—to prepare for the vague dream of opening her own bookstore. One day.

She’d thought about falling in love—one day. Most girls did, she imagined. But she hadn’t been in any hurry for it, for the big love, and what followed. Permanency, home, kids. The whole minivan, soccer-mom routine had been distant as the moon in her head. Years off. Light-years off.

But things had happened that had pushed her in directions she’d never expected to go. So here she was, not yet twenty-six, pregnant with her second child, working in a field she’d known next to nothing about two years before.

And so stupidly in love she was all but breathing valentines.

Just to ice that cake, a cryptic and certainly psychopathic spirit had decided to borrow her body from time to time.

When Parker wiggled, she set him down, then followed him into the kitchen where he parked himself by the back door and stared holes through it.

“Okay, okay, out you go. Guess I’m not the most sparkling company today.”

She let him out, and he pranced across the yard, into the woods as if he had an appointment to keep.

She wandered out herself. It was a pretty day. The rain had freshened things, cooled the air a little. She could take a walk, do some weeding. Or she could stretch out on the patio chaise and see if being outdoors was more conducive to napping.

Without much hope, she cocked the chair back, thought about going back in for a book. And was asleep in minutes.

S
HE WOKE A
little fuzzy in the brain to the sound of snoring. Baffled, she pressed a hand to her mouth, but the
sound continued. There was a light cotton throw tossed over her, and the table umbrella had been cocked to shade her.

The snoring came from Parker who was flopped on his back beside her chaise, his feet straight up in the air so he looked like a toy dog that had been knocked off its perch.

Her life might’ve been strange at the moment, but she didn’t think a dog could have moved the umbrella or brought her a blanket.

Even as she cleared sleep from her throat and pushed herself up, Stella came out the back door bearing two glasses of iced tea.

“Nice nap?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I slept through it. Thanks,” she added as she took a glass of tea. “What time . . . Wow.” She blinked at her own watch. “I was out for almost two hours.”

“Glad to hear it. You look better.”

“I hope to God. Where are the kids?”

“Logan picked them up after school. They like going to jobs with him. Gorgeous out, isn’t it? The perfect day for drinking tea on the patio.”

“Everything okay at the nursery? This kind of weather brings people in.”

“And it did. We were busy. Look at those crepe myrtles. I love this yard,” she said with a sigh.

“You and Logan have done an amazing job. I was thinking that before. What a good team you are.”

“Turns out. Who’d have thought a cranky disorganized know-it-all and an anal-retentive overachiever could find true love and happiness?”

“I did. Right from the start.”

“I suppose you did. Smartie. Have you eaten?”

“I wasn’t really hungry.”

Stella wagged a finger. “Somebody in there might be. I’m going to fix you a sandwich.”

“Don’t fuss, Stella.”

“PB and J?”

With a shake of her head, Hayley gave in. “No fair. You know my weaknesses.”

“Sit right there. The fresh air’s good for you. I’ll be back in a minute.”

True to her word, Stella was back not only with the sandwich, but a sprig of purple grapes, bite-size wedges of cheese. And a half a dozen Milano cookies.

Hayley looked at the plate on her lap, then up at Stella. “Will you be my mommy?”

With a laugh, Stella sat on the chaise at Hayley’s feet. And began to rub them in a way that had every muscle in Hayley’s body sighing in relief. “One of my favorite things about being pregnant was getting pampered once in a while.”

“Missed that the first few months the first time out.”

“So, you’ll make up for it with this one.” Stella patted Hayley’s leg. “How you feeling—gestating-wise?”

“Good. Tired, you know, and up and down on the emotional scale, but pretty good. Better now,” she added after another bite of the sandwich. “And I hate admitting that—a long nap, comfort food, it’s doing the job. I’m going to take care of myself, Stella, I promise. I was careful carrying Lily, and I’ll be careful this time, too.”

“I know you will. Besides, nobody’s going to give you a choice.”

“I get . . .” She moved her shoulders restlessly. “Funny when everybody’s worried about me.”

“Then you’ll have to get funny, because we can’t help it. Not with everything that’s going on.”

“Last night, it was so . . . I’ve used all the words before. Strong, strange, bizarre, intense. But this was the most of all of them. Stella, I didn’t tell Harper everything. I couldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t tell him what I felt. He’d wig, the way guys do. I’m counting on you not to.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s a feeling—and I don’t know if it’s just stress or if it’s real. But I feel. Stella, she wants the baby. This baby.” Hayley pressed a hand to her belly.

“How—”

“She can’t. No power on this earth, no power anywhere, is strong enough to push me aside. You know, because you’ve had a child inside you. Harper, he’d freak.”

“Explain this to me, so I don’t.”

“She gets mixed up is the best way I can explain it. From the here and now, to back in her own time. She wavers back and forth. When she’s in the now, she wants what I have. This child, the life, the body. Even more, wealth and privilege. She wants the sensations and the payoff. Do you understand?”

“All right, yes.”

“She’s much more frightening, much more selfish when her mind’s in the now. When it’s back, when she’s caught up in what happened to her, it’s like it
is
happening. Then she’s just angry and vindictive, so she wants someone to pay for what happened to her. Or she’s sad, and pitiable, and she just wants it all to stop. She’s tired. Harper thinks she committed suicide.”

“I know. We talked a little.”

“He thinks she hanged herself in the nursery. Right there while the baby slept. She could’ve done it. She was lost and crazy enough to have done it.”

“I know that, too.” Stella rose, walked to the edge of the patio to look out over the yard. “I’ve been having dreams again.”

“What? When?”

“Not here, not at night. Daydreams, you could say. At
work. On Harper ground. Images like before of the dahlia. The blue dahlia. Only it’s monstrous. That’s how she wants me to see it. Petals like razors, waiting to slice your fingers to ribbons if you touch it. It’s not growing out of a garden this time.” She turned back; met Hayley’s eyes. “But out of a grave. Unmarked, black dirt. The dahlia is the only thing that grows there.”