Wild Man Creek (6 page)

She jumped up on the stool beside Colin. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” she said and nodded hello to Dan.

“Whew,” he said. “You clean up
good.
You don’t look like the same girl.”

She frowned right before she laughed. “Do women usually thank you for saying things like that?”

Jack was instantly in front of her, slapping down a napkin. “How’s it going, Jillian?” he asked.

“Great, Jack. What can you give me in a nice, woody Chardonnay?”

“Screw top or cork?”

“Oh, let’s go crazy and go with the cork.” He reached in his cooler and pulled out an opened bottle of Mondavi, showing it to her. “Perfect,” she said.

“You two already know each other?” Jack asked as he poured.

“I caught him painting out on the property, back behind that stand of trees.”

“Meet Dan Brady,” Jack said. “Dan, Jillian Matlock
rents Hope’s old house. You did some work on that house, didn’t you?”

Dan gave her a nod. “I never painted so much in my life. How many people live with you out there?” he asked.

“Just me,” she said, taking a sip of her wine.

Dan leaned an elbow on the bar. “What in the world are you doing out there?”

“She’s gardening and thinking,” Colin answered for her.

“Gardening?” Dan asked. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Because I can. I learned as a little girl. I’m very good at it. We have some farmer’s chromosome in the family, I think.”

“What are you growing?” Dan asked.

“Salad,” she said with smile. “I got the root vegetable seeds in first, then the lettuce—three kinds. Swiss chard. Scallions, leeks, cucumbers, beans. Next I’ll sow the squashes, but I’m nursing along some tomato starters up on the porch. My great-grandmother started everything from seed, but she’d always start certain ones like tomatoes in little trays on the back porch until they were strong before they went in the ground.”

“Sounds nice,” Dan said. “And what are you thinking about that brings you out our way?”

“Well, I’m taking a leave from a corporate PR job and I intended to think about what I’d like to do next, where I’d like to work next, but all I can think about is gardening.” She got a wistful look on her face. “I’m growing the standard stuff, but you can’t imagine the stuff my nana grew! White asparagus, cherry peppers, red brussels sprouts, tomatillo, red romaine… Oh, there was Purple Cape and baby eggplant. She grew a tomato called Russian Rose that was so delicious we ate them like apples—they could get up to two pounds. The ones we didn’t eat she stewed
and canned. She was French and Russian but could make the most amazing Italian sauce—the neighbors bought it from her sometimes.”

Colin made a face and shivered. “The only thing worse than green brussels sprouts would have to be red ones….”

“What the hell is Purple Cape?” Dan asked.

“Purple cauliflower.”

“My mother gardened like mad, made all of us weed, but as far as I know no one got the bug,” Colin said. “I’ve never even seen the stuff you mentioned.”

She shook her head. “You don’t see it every day, that’s for sure. You’d see some of that stuff in five-star restaurants. They garnish their meals with them. They’re grown in small, special, commercial gardens and come at a high price. They’re always organic like my great-grandmother’s garden was and dining patrons know that if the chef is using them he or she has knowledge, skill, creativity and style. I’d give anything to grow some of that stuff.”

“Why don’t you?” Dan asked.

She laughed at him. “They don’t have seeds for that stuff at the Eureka garden shop. They’re pretty much limited to the stuff you see every day. My nana brought her first seeds from her own garden in France and reproduced them from her fruit and vegetables every year.”

“You just haven’t looked far enough,” Dan informed her. “Do you use a computer?”

“
Use
one?” she asked with a laugh. “The job I just left was as a corporate officer for a software manufacturer!”

“Research those seeds,” he said. “Trust me, someone has them. And if they can grow pot year-round up here, they can find a way to grow special tomatoes. A sheriff’s deputy once told me that if the same energy was put into
hybrid vegetables as was put into pot, we’d have fifty-pound watermelons.”

“Pot?” she asked. “They grow pot year-round up here?”

“Sheltered,” Dan said with a nod. “Irrigated, grow lights run on generator, fertilized with chicken shit.” He grinned. “Organic!”

“Boy, you know a lot about growing pot.”

“That’s a fact. Did time, too,” he said. “I wasn’t a full-time gardener, however. I was strictly a businessman.” He drained his beer. “Wish I’d heard about these high-dollar veggies. That might’ve been a smarter move. They even sell greenhouses on the internet, but you don’t want to be growing your pot in a glass house.” Then he smiled, obviously not embarrassed at all by his experience growing illegal drugs.

For a moment Jillian was lost in thought and she wasn’t paying attention to the rest of the conversation. She knew her eyes got a little round and thought her mouth might be standing open. She absently shook Dan’s hand and said it was a pleasure to meet him, but Colin said something to her that she didn’t even hear. An onslaught of information and ideas ran through her brain so fast her eyes almost rolled back in her head. Could she actually find her great-grandmother’s seeds and grow those things very few people managed to grow?

“Hey,” Colin said, giving her arm a jiggle. “You all right?”

She shook herself and refocused. “Yeah. Fine. Jack?” she called. He came right over. “That guy? Dan?” she asked in a near whisper. “He did time for growing pot?”

Jack gave the bar a wipe. “Yup. Had some serious family crisis and needed emergency money, so he dove in. It must’ve been a bad situation to make him do something
like that because he’s a real stand-up guy. But you gotta admire the guy—he did his time and got himself a legit life. He’s well liked around here.”

“Wow. How about that.”

“Lots of stories in this naked city…”

“He doesn’t seem real shy or embarrassed about it…”

“Well, first off, everyone knows, so no point in pretending. Second, I think there’s a part of him that kind of enjoys being infamous.” Jack smiled. “Notorious. When you get down to it, though, he’s just a real good guy. Lot of us have those rough patches, catch us doing things we wouldn’t ordinarily do.”

“Tell me about it,” she said thoughtfully. “Hmm. Listen, I’m going to need a hand. Like handyman help, out at the house…”

“Aw. Jillian, I’d love to help, but—”

“No,” she said with a laugh. “I want to
hire
someone! I’m not looking for a favor!”

“Oh. Well in that case…” Jack walked down to the end of the bar, spoke briefly with a handsome young man in his early twenties who was sitting there, then brought him back behind the bar to face Jillian. He introduced him as Denny Cutler. “Denny’s been looking for something permanent around here. He’s a friend of mine and I can vouch for him.”

“Nice to meet you, Denny,” Jill said, putting out her hand.

“Ma’am,” he said.

“I need some help with a few things. I have to buy a truck first of all, preferably an old truck that runs well. I’m going to need to haul things for the yard and garden. Know anything about trucks?” she asked.

“Some,” he said, flashing her an engaging grin.

“When you say that, I hope it means you know enough.
I’m also thinking about cutting down some trees and making a path to a back meadow. Oh, and I have to erect a fence to keep the deer and rabbits out of the lettuce. It’ll be a long fence.”

“Wow,” he said. “Sounds like stuff I can get done, but I don’t have the equipment.”

“Can the equipment be rented?” she asked.

“I can certainly find out. I worked for a landscaper one summer in high school. Worked me to death, but I learned a couple of things. Thing is, it’s been a long time, so I might not be as fast as you want.”

“Do you work hard?”

“That I do,” he said with a nod. “There’s another thing—it would have to be temporary. Like Jack said, I’m looking for a good full-time position. I have résumés and applications out there, but it’s a tough job market. I could use a project, but if I get a call…”

“Understood,” she said. “What’s your fee?”

He looked a little thunderstruck. “I have no idea, ma’am.”

“Okay, that’s going to have to stop. I’m Jillian or Jill or Miss Matlock if you’re feeling very formal, but I’m thirty-two years old and ma’am kind of rubs me the wrong way. How’s sixteen an hour? That’s double minimum wage.”

“Whoa!” Colin and Denny said at once.

“What?” she asked.

Denny grinned largely. “Yeah. I mean, yes, ma’am, that’ll work.”

“Jillian. It’s Jillian. I’ll see you tomorrow morning by eight. Jack can give you directions. And would you mind telling him I’ll need a dinner to go?”

“You bet, ma’—Jillian. Thanks. I’ll do my best.” And he walked away to speak to Jack.

She turned to find Colin leaning his head into his
hand, elbow resting on the bar. “That was almost unbelievable.”

“I’m good at delegating,” she said, lifting her wineglass. Then she shook her head. “What the heck was I thinking? Or not thinking? Seeds on the internet? Why not?”

“Maybe you were too busy digging in the dirt?” he suggested.

“No, that’s not it. My mind was in the past, not the future. I was thinking about the old garden, not the new garden.”

“Time for a fence?” he asked.

“If the wildlife gets into my radishes and lettuce, no big deal. But I won’t sacrifice Purple Calabash, tomatillo or Russian Rose! Besides, there’s a couple of apple trees on the property—the deer will be fine. Well fed, in fact.”

“And the rabbits?”

“I’m afraid they’re on their own.”

“Thirty-two, huh?” he asked. “I woulda put you at about twenty-five.”

She laughed at him. “I guess that’s better than having you ‘put me’ at forty-five!”

Jack wandered over and she asked, “Can I get something to go, Jack? Anything? I have to get home.”

“House on fire, Jillian?” he asked.

“I hope not. I just got a tip about seeds from your local expert, Dan, and I want to get on the computer.”

“Let me go dish you up a little something,” he said, heading for the kitchen.

She took another sip of her wine, smiling.

“Just how long
is
your rental lease?” Colin asked.

She turned toward him excitedly. “Don’t you get it? If I can find the seeds and make it work, that’s all I need to know. I can do that in a few months, but I have that house and land through the summer. And you can’t imagine how
happy it would make me to grow some of that rare stuff my nana used to grow.”

Colin left the second half of his beer on the bar and stood to leave. “Good luck with that,” he said, smiling at her. “Ma’am.”

J
illian talked Jack out of what remained of that opened Chardonnay and took it home along with some of Preacher’s wonderful meat loaf, garlic mashed, green beans, bread, a small container of tomato gravy and a slice of chocolate cake. She ate the cake first with another glass of Chardonnay while browsing online, researching seeds and plants. Damn if Dan Brady wasn’t right! Specialty seed catalogues by the dozens! Of course she had no idea how authentic the seeds were or how the finished fruit or vegetables would taste, but this was the first step—seeds were available. And while they were slightly more expensive than ordinary garden shop seeds, they were still priced low.

That night, after talking with Dan, was the first of many such nights. Jillian, like Hope McCrea before her, lived in the kitchen with the fireplace, her computer and desk. From her recliner she could eat on a tray, surf the Net and see that vast garden through the kitchen windows.

That first night, though, she was up almost all night, researching, shopping, ordering, reading gardening blogs. She finally nodded off in the recliner at about 4:00 a.m. only to wake at around six, before the sun. Taking a closer
look Jill realized there would be no sun this morning—it was drizzling.
Perfect!
she thought. She had important errands.

The best part about this climate was that the drizzle didn’t stop her from working in the garden, and there was seldom a heavy, driving rain. But it was so deliciously wet, it would quench the thirst of a garden so well!

Denny arrived at seven-forty-five, and she loved that he was early and ready to work. Jillian was also ready to roll. He came to the front door and she invited him in; she took him through the empty living room, dining room and into the kitchen. “Want a cup of coffee for the road?” she asked.

“Sure. Thanks. Where are we going?”

“First, to get a truck. I need a truck to carry supplies too large for my Hybrid. How do you take your coffee?”

When he didn’t answer immediately, she looked up to see him staring at her living quarters. Her quilt was draped in the recliner, there was a tray for eating there, a pillow for sleeping, a newly purchased small TV, computer, necessities. “Denny?” she said.

He looked back at her. Although he frowned in some confusion she couldn’t help but notice he was a tall, handsome youth. He had short-cropped hair, expressive brown brows over deep chocolate eyes. Eyes that were showing concern at the moment. “I hope you have a bed somewhere, Miss Matlock. That doesn’t look real comfortable.”

“Are you kidding? It’s fantastic! I don’t think I’ve ever been more comfortable. And it’s probably better for my back, neck and whatever…. Coffee?”

“Black,” he said. Then he just shook his head and she laughed.

By noon they had a truck—an ’02 Ford with a nice big bed. They had gone to the fencing company together to
order chain-link fencing for her big garden. They loaded up the posts in the truck bed, but the rest of the chain link would be delivered in a couple of days. She sent Denny off in the truck to take care of renting equipment, a crew or both to take down some trees and grade a level passage to the back meadow. While they were off doing chores in separate vehicles, she went about the business of buying some garden supplies. She had found a company online that would test her soil for chemicals and bought the appropriate containers for shipping. Hopefully, there had been no pesticides in that dirt for many, many years. She needed to know the pH, which nutrients were present or missing, all the sort of thing the company promised to provide.

She visited more than one lawn and garden store and asked about pure poultry manure fertilizer for organic gardening and was rather surprised by the smiles and lifted eyebrows. “I’m growing tomatoes, not marijuana,” she informed the clerks who helped her.

“Some do,” was the response.

When she found a good price, she bought several large bags and had them held to be picked up by Denny in the truck. She bought a gas-powered tiller and put it in the back of her Lexus along with a gas can she could fill up on the way home.

Before heading back to the Victorian, she stopped off at Jack’s Bar. As she entered, he came out of the back. “Well, there’s my landlord,” she greeted, smiling at him. “I have a couple of things to run by you.”

“Something to drink while you run?” he asked.

“Cola?”

“Coming up.”

“I think you should come out to the house when you have time. I’d like you to come up to the widow’s walk
with me so we can see a lot of the acreage. You know how the drive to the house runs up the road and forks at the southeastern corner in front? Part of the drive curves to the left in front of the house and the other part goes straight along the eastern side of the house to the back.”

“It always seemed like that was the obvious place for a freestanding garage, behind the house,” Jack said.

“It’s just a gravel drive, so I was wondering something. If I extended it through the trees for access to the back meadow, would you go along with that idea?”

“Good idea,” he said. “But I’m sorry to say, I don’t think it would be responsible for me to invest any more in that house. That’s something an owner should do. Someday.”

“Well, here’s what I’m offering,” Jill said. “I want to put a couple of portable greenhouses back in that meadow, a sheltered place to start some plants. I’m going to fence the plot behind the house to keep the wildlife out, but I’m going to use that back meadow for the greenhouses. I found them online for a few hundred dollars each and they’re easily movable.”

He leaned both hands on the bar and looked at her closely, quizzically. “Jillian, aren’t you taking this gardening thing a bit far?”

“Oh, definitely. To the next level. I want to try some special fruits and vegetables back there. Denny’s out getting estimates on excavation crews and the cost of leasing equipment. I’m not talking an asphalt drive, but more of a wide path, wide enough to accommodate one vehicle and, of course, I’ll cover the cost. It’s really not going to be that expensive—we won’t have to take out more than ten trees. In fact, getting some gravel to match what’s already down on the drive will probably be the most expensive part.”

“Um, Jillian, have you considered going a little slower?
A little smaller? I mean, what you’re really doing is experimenting, and it seems like an awful big, expensive experiment.”

She smiled. “I’ve been told I can be impulsive, but it usually works for me to go with my gut instinct. Of course, I’ll be leaving the extended road when my lease is up, so it should improve the property. For right now, that’s what I need to be able to access that meadow. Oh, and thank you for Denny—bright kid. I like him. He thinks I’m a little nuts, but he’s awful cute, totally polite and he does exactly what I ask him to do. So—will you come out to the house, look over my plans and give me your approval?”

“I’ll come out after breakfast is done,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

“Great!” she said, slapping the bar.

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Jillian, where did all this come from?”

“From my great-grandmother,” she said, taking a sip of her cola. “When she was teaching us to garden, cook, read, clean, sew, she said she was preparing us for life. Well, life has changed a lot in the years since she was my age, but somehow the lessons haven’t really changed. They’ve
evolved.
And I want to be part of that.”

Jillian went home and was scooping dirt from several different sections of the garden into small plastic cups with lids and labeling them when Denny returned and came over to report on his activities and progress.

“There is not a lot of work around these days so I was able to have a tree crew come out first thing tomorrow to give you a final estimate,” he said. “I hope that works for you. It’ll take them two days to cut through those trees. I found a guy who can grade the area and level it out. You can worry about the gravel after that. And I rented a
posthole auger so I can get started on the fencing in the meantime.”

She smiled very happily at his business sense. “Perfect,” she said, sitting back on her heels in the dirt. “Will they come even if it’s kind of wet?”

He gave a nod. “Like I said, not so much work around these days. I think I got you a good price because of that. And you get a discount if you let them have the trees. They’ll process it into usable lumber.”

“Seriously?” she asked, standing up.

“Not huge, but still…”

“Did you shop around a little bit?”

“Three businesses,” he said with a nod. “They were pretty much in line. I went with the one who was available right away.” Then he got a worried look. “Was that all right? That I made a decision? And rented the post digger?”

“That’s what I expected you to do, get it done,” she said, balancing all her little containers to take them into the house. “Want to quit for the day or do you want to make a run to FedEx for me? I need to send in the soil samples.”

“I’ll work till you can’t take any more of me,” he said with a grin.

She stopped in her tracks, smiled at him and said, “You’re my kind of guy, Denny.”

“And you’re my kind of boss, Miss Matlock.”

Jillian thought often about the fact that her best friend was her sister and had been since they were toddlers, yet they were complete opposites in almost every way. They didn’t even look alike, Jillian being a tall, slender brunette and Kelly, a shorter, rounder, blonde. Jill’s skin tanned nicely while Kelly’s tended to burn; Jill had always leaned
toward academics while Kelly, the chef, was more artistic. And while even Jill could admit she had a tendency to be impetuous, Kelly always cautiously planned every detail of her life.

Jill had always relied heavily on Kelly, who had a very nurturing personality. When Jill was twelve and started her period, it was Kelly who showed her the ropes. And whenever Jill’s heart was broken, whether it be by a boy or just a disappointment, it was Kelly, the more steady of the two of them, who propped her up and encouraged her.

Even while she was in Virgin River, busy with her new garden, Jillian talked to Kelly every day, usually right before Kelly went to work in the afternoon. She liked to climb up to the roof and sit on the widow’s walk where her cell reception was best and talk to Kelly, filling her in on her growing plans by the day. By the end of her third week she told Kelly, “There’s a bunch of construction equipment parked by the side of the house, a big stack of tree trunks waiting for a flatbed and the road to the back meadow is almost finished. The fencing finally arrived and Denny is working on the posts. Two ten-by-twelve-foot greenhouses are on the way and I’ve started to till the soil where they’re going to be positioned. I can plant both in the ground and in starter trays under the protective domes. It’s going to be a two-tiered operation.

“And,” Jillian went on, “I put my town house in San Jose on the market.”

“You did
what?
” Kelly nearly shrieked.

“I sent the key to my agent by FedEx along with a personal check for a cleaning crew to get it all cleaned up and spiffy. I realized I’m done with that place, Kell,” she said. “I’m not attached to it.”

“But are you staying there—in Virgin River? Is that the new plan?”

“Honestly? I don’t know.”

“But what if Harry calls you and asks you to come back to BSS?” Kelly asked.

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. For right now, I’m enjoying myself here. I don’t know when I’ve had more fun.”

“But Jill, don’t you have a plan?”

“Sort of. I want to garden through the summer. I have to see what I can grow. If I had to give up and leave now, it would break my heart! Besides, even if I ended up back in San Jose in the fall, I’d want to rent something for a while. When I think about that town house, I realize it just doesn’t feel like home. This feels more like home at the moment, and it’s not really even the house, but more the property.”

“But are you relaxing?” Kelly asked. “Taking stock of your life? Thinking about what’s next?”

Jillian laughed. “In much the same way people relax by running marathons,” she said. “I’m busy all day, researching gardens on the computer till late at night.”

“And just how do you propose to make a living?” Kelly, the practical one, asked.

“Thanks to ten good years at BSS, a nice exit package and a clever financial planner, I don’t have to worry about that right now. But I’ve been thinking about selling vegetables.”

“That sounds profitable,” Kelly said facetiously. “I was thinking something a little more long-term.”

Jillian just laughed at her. “Jealous?”

“Green!” Kelly said. They both knew that in spite of the fact that Jill was known to jump into the deep end of the pool and Kelly thought everything through with
relentless planning, Jill had made a ton of money from BSS and Kelly was a relatively poor sous-chef.

“I’m thinking of selling fancy high-end fruits and veggies, the kind your restaurant and other five-star restaurants would buy. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Right now all I want to know is if I can grow them—then I’ll think about the next step.”

“I’d better come up there,” Kelly said. “I think you’ve lost your mind….”

Jill laughed. “It’s just the opposite, Kell. I feel like I suddenly found it! You know, when was the last time I was this excited? Probably when Harry offered me a chance to work with him to start BSS! I didn’t know anything about the software industry, but I knew I could do it! And this? Kelly, I
know
about this! Nana taught us in her own garden how to grow some of this stuff. The Russian Rose! White asparagus! Purple Calabash! And I found the seeds. I already have the seedling cups ready. I bought a truckbed full of chicken shit!”

“An asparagus bed takes up to three years…”

“Then I’d better get it started,” Jillian said.

“Aren’t you spending an awful lot of money?”

“Nah. My biggest expense right now is Denny, my new assistant. But he’s such a great guy and good worker he’s helping me speed up this whole process, so he’s worth every cent.”