Authors: Leila Meacham
Roses
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Leila Meacham
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
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ISBN: 978-0-446-55810-5
For Janice Jenning Thomson… a friend for all seasons
And here I prophesy: this brawl today,
Grown to this faction in the Temple garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.
—Earl of Warwick in
William Shakespeare’s
Henry VI
,
part 1, Act II, scene iv
Contents
M
y thanks, first, to Louise Scherr for bringing the novel to the attention of David McCormick, superb literary agent, who,
with his fine staff, made wonderful things happen for me. Among them was placing the book in the hands of Deb Futter, editor
in chief of Grand Central Publishing, and her assistant, Dianne Choie. Deb led me through the revisions and Dianne the maze
of publishing wickets with such humor and courtesy and understanding that those usually dreaded tasks turned into a happy
experience for me.
Thanks, too, to Nancy Johanson, freelance copy editor extraordinaire, whose keen editorial eye and generous assistance were
invaluable to me early on, and to Clint Rodgers, computer whiz, who answered my every (and frequent) SOS cheerfully.
And, as always, thanks to my loving husband for the many years of being there for me.
Finally—from the place where my everlasting awe resides—I give thanks for and to the friends who lined the road and cheered
me on. Because of you, I reached the finish line. You know who you are.
H
OWBUTKER
, T
EXAS
, A
UGUST
1985
A
t his desk, Amos Hines turned over the last sheet of the two-page legal document he’d been instructed to read. His mouth had
gone dry as wheat chaff, and for a moment he could only blink in dazed disbelief at his client and longtime friend seated
before his desk, a woman he had admired—revered—for forty years and had thought he knew. He searched her expression for indications
that age had finally affected her faculties, but she stared back with all the clear-eyed acuity for which she was renowned.
Working saliva into his mouth, he asked, “Is this codicil for real, Mary? You’ve sold the farms and changed your will?”
Mary Toliver DuMont nodded, the waves of her coiffed white head catching the light from the French windows. “Yes to both,
Amos. I know you’re shocked, and this isn’t a nice way to repay all your years of service and devotion, but you’d have been
deeply hurt if I’d put this business in the hands of another attorney.”
“Indeed I would have,” he said. “Another attorney would not have tried to talk you into rethinking this codicil—at least the
part that can be revised.” There was no rescuing Toliver Farms, Mary’s enormous cotton holdings that she’d sold in secret
negotiations the past month, a fact concealed from her great-niece sitting in ignorance out in Lubbock, Texas, as manager
of Toliver Farms West.
“There’s nothing to revise, Amos,” Mary said with a trace of asperity. “What’s done is done, and there’s no changing my mind.
You’d waste your time and mine by trying.”
“Has Rachel done something to offend you?” he asked evenly, swiveling his chair around to a credenza. He reached for a carafe
and noticed his hand shook as he poured two glasses of water. He would have preferred something stronger, but Mary never touched
alcohol. “Is that why you sold the farms and amended your will?”
“Oh, good Lord, no,” Mary said, sounding horrified. “You must never believe that. My great-niece has done nothing but be who
she is—a Toliver through and through.”
He found beverage napkins and rotated to hand Mary her glass. She’d lost weight, he decided. Her couture suit hung on her
somewhat, and her coddled face—still striking at eighty-five—looked thinner. “This business” had taken a toll on her, as it
damn well should, he thought, a shaft of anger shooting through him. How could she do this to her great-niece—dispossess her
of everything she’d expected to inherit—the land and house of her forebears, her right to live in the town they’d helped to
found? He took a long swallow of the water and tried to keep the outrage from his voice when he observed, “You make that sound
like a flaw.”
“It is, and I’m correcting it.” She turned up her glass and drank thirstily, patting the napkin to her lips afterward. “That’s
the purpose of the codicil. I don’t expect you to have a clue as to what that purpose is, Amos, but Percy will when the time
comes. So will Rachel once I’ve explained it.”
“And when do you plan to do that?”
“I’m flying to Lubbock tomorrow in the company plane to meet with her. She doesn’t know I’m coming. I’ll tell her about the
sale and the codicil then and hope that my arguments convince her I’ve done what’s best for her.”
Best for her?
Amos peered over his glasses at her in incredulous wonder. Mary would have better luck selling celibacy to a sailor. Rachel
would never forgive her for what she’d done, of that he was certain. He leaned forward and held her with a determined eye.
“How about trying your arguments on me first, Mary? Why would you sell Toliver Farms, which you’ve worked most of your life
to build? Why leave Somerset to Percy Warwick, of all people? What use is a
cotton
plantation to him? Percy is a
lumberman,
for God’s sake. He’s ninety years old! And bequeathing the Toliver mansion to the Conservation Society is… well, it’s the
final slap. You know that Rachel has always regarded that house as her home. She’s planning on spending the rest of her life
in it.”
“I know. That’s why I’ve deprived her of it.” She appeared unmoved, sitting ramrod straight with her hand curved over the
crook of her anchored cane, looking for all the world like a queen on her throne and the cane her scepter. “I want her to
make her own home somewhere else, start over on new ground,” she said. “I don’t want her staying here and living out her life
according to the gospel of the Tolivers.”
“But… but I don’t understand.” Amos spread his hands in frustration. “I thought that’s what you’d prepared her for all these
years.”
“It was a mistake—a very selfish mistake. Thank God I realized the tragedy of my error before it was too late and had the
gumption and…
wisdom
to correct it.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Save your energy and mine in trying to convince me to explain, Amos. It’s a
puzzle, I know, but keep your faith in me. My motives could not be purer.”
Bewildered, he tried another tack. “You haven’t done this out of some misguided notion of what you feel you owe her father,
William, have you?”
“Absolutely not!” A spark of temper flashed in her eyes. They were known as the “Toliver eyes”—green as rare emeralds, a feature
inherited from her father’s side of the family along with her once black hair and the dimple in the center of her chin. “I’m
sure my nephew might see it that way—or rather, that wife of his will,” she said. “To her mind, I’ve done what’s right and
proper by giving William what has justly been his all along.” She gave a little snort. “Let Alice Toliver have her illusion
that I sold the farms out of guilt over what I owe her husband. I didn’t do any of this for him, but for his daughter. I believe
he’ll realize that.” She paused, her finely lined face pensive, doubtful, and added in a less confident tone, “I wish I could
be as sure of Rachel….”