Нора Робертс - Black Rose

“Actually, no.”

“Then, if you’re going out, maybe you wouldn’t mind if I worked.”

“I’m not going out. I’m going to take care of the baby, Hayley’s Lily. I’m scooting her out to a party, and Stella and her boys are going to have a little family party of their own at Logan’s house.”

“If you weren’t asked to a dozen parties, and didn’t have twice that many men after you for a New Year’s Eve date, I’ll eat those newspaper clippings.”

“Your numbers might be somewhat exaggerated, but the point is, I declined the parties, and the dates. I like staying home.”

“Am I going to be in your way if I work in here?”

She angled her head. “I imagine you were asked to your share of parties, and that there were a number of women eager to have you for their date.”

“I stay in on New Year’s. A tradition of mine.”

“Then you won’t be in my way. If the baby’s not restless, we can take part of the evening to start on that interview.”

“Perfect.”

“All right, then. I’ve been busy,” she said after a moment. “The house full over Christmas, all my sons home. And those are only part of the reason I haven’t brought this up before.”

“Brought what up?”

“A couple of weeks ago, Amelia left me a message.”

“A couple ofweeks ago?”

“I said I’d been busy.” Irritation edged into her voice. “And besides that, I didn’t want to think about it through the holidays. I don’t see my boys very often, and there were a lot of things I wanted to get done before they got here.”

He said nothing, simply dug out his tape recorder, pushed it closer to her, switched it on. “Tell me.”

Irritation deepened, digging a line between those dark, expressive eyebrows. “She said:Men lie. ”

“That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it. She wrote it on a mirror.”

“What mirror? Did you take a picture of it?”

“No, I didn’t take a picture.” And she could, privately, kick herself for that later. “I don’t know what difference it makes what mirror. The bathroom mirror. I’d just gotten out of the shower. A hot one. The mirror was steamy, and the message was written on it through the steam.”

“Written or printed?”

“Ah, printed, with an exclamation point at the end. Like this.” She picked up one of his pens, demonstrated. “Since it wasn’t threatening or earth-shattering information, I figured it could wait.”

“Next time don’t—figure it can wait. What had you been doing before you . . .” Don’t think about her naked in the shower, he ordered himself. “Before you went up to shower?”

“As a matter of fact, I’d been out in the garden talking to you.”

“To me.”

“Yes, that day you came by and I was mulching up branches.”

“Right after your holiday party,” he said, making notes. “I asked you out to dinner.”

“You mentioned something about—”

“No, no, I asked you out socially.” In his excitement, he came around the table, sat on it so they were closer to eye level. “Next thing you know, she’s telling you men lie. Fascinating. She was warning you away from me.”

“Since I’m not heading in your direction, there’s hardly any reason to warn me away.”

“It doesn’t seem to bother her that I’m working here.” He took off his glasses, tossed them on the table. “I’ve been waiting, actually hoping for some sort of sighting or confrontation, something. But she hasn’t bothered about me, so far. Then I make a personal overture, and she leaves you a message. She ever leave you one before?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” But he caught something flicker over her face. “What? You thought of something.”

“Just that it might be a little odd. I saw her recently right after I’d taken a long, hot bath. Shower, bath. Strange.”

Don’t think of her naked in the tub. “What had you been doing before the bath?”

“Nothing. Some work, that’s all.”

“All right. What were you thinking while you were in the tub?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything. It was the night that I did that insane bout of Christmas shopping. I was relaxing.”

“You’d been with me that day, too.”

“Your ego looks a little heavy, Mitch. Need any help with it?”

“Facts are facts. Anyway, she might have been interested, or upset, by what you were thinking. If she could get into Stella’s dreams,” he said when she started to brush that aside, “why couldn’t she get into your waking thoughts?”

“I don’t like that idea. I don’t like it at all.”

“Neither would I, but it’s something to consider. I’m looking at this project from two ends, Roz. From what’s happening now, and why, to what happened then, and why. Who and why and what. It’s all of a piece. And that’s the job you hired me to do. You have to let me know when something happens. And not a couple weeks after the fact.”

“All right. Next time she wakes me up at three in the morning, I’ll give you a call.”

He smiled. “Don’t like taking orders, do you? Much too used to giving them. That’s all right. I can’t blame you, so why don’t I just ask, politely, if I could take a look at your bathroom.”

“Not only does that seem downright silly at this point, but aren’t you supposed to be meeting your son?”

“Josh? Why? Oh, hell, I forgot. I’ve got to go.” He glanced back at the table. “I’m going to just leave this—do me a favor and don’t tidy it up.”

“I’m not obsessed with tidy.”

“Thank God.” He grabbed his jacket, remembered his reading glasses. “I’ll be back Thursday. Let me know if anything happens before then.”

He hurried toward the door, then stopped and turned. “Rosalind, I have to say, you were a lovely bud at seventeen, but the full bloom? It’s spectacular.”

She gave a half laugh and leaned back on the table herself when she was alone. Idly she studied her ancient boots, then her baggy work pants, currently smeared with dirt and streaks of drying concrete. She figured the flannel shirt she was wearing over a ragged tee was old enough to have a driver’s license.

Men lie, she thought, but occasionally, it was nice to hear.

WITH THE NURSERYclosing early for the holiday, Roz earmarked the time to deal with her own houseplants. She had several that needed repotting or dividing, and a few she wanted to propagate for gifts.

With the weather crisp and clear outside, she settled into the humid warmth of her personal greenhouse. She worked with one of her favorites, an enormous African violet that had come from a plantlet her grandmother had given her more than thirty years before. As Norah Jones’s bluesy voice surrounded her, she carefully selected a half dozen new leaves, taking them with their stalks for cuttings. For now, she used a stockpot, sliding the stems in around the edges. In a month they would have roots, and other plantlets would form. Then she would plant them individually in the pale green pots she’d set aside.

They’d be a gift for Stella, for her new house, her new life.

It pleased her to be able to pass this sentimental piece of her heritage along to a woman who’d understand, to someone Roz had come to love.

One day she’d do the same for her sons when they married, and give to them this living piece of her heritage. She would love the women they chose because they did. If she was lucky, she’d like the women they married.

Daughters-in-law, she mused. And grandchildren. It didn’t seem quite possible that those events weren’t far around her next corner. Odder still that she was beginning to yearn for them. And that, she decided, had its roots in having Stella and Hayley and the children in the house.

Still, she could wait. She accepted change, but that didn’t mean she was in a hurry for it.

Right now her life was in pretty good order. Her business was flourishing, and that was not only a personal triumph, it was an intense relief.

She’d risked a great deal by starting In the Garden. But it was a risk she’d had to take—for herself, and for her heritage.

Harper House, and she would never give it up, cost a great deal to maintain. She was well aware there were people who believed she had money to burn, but while she certainly wasn’t at the point where she needed to pinch every penny, she was hardly rolling in it.

She’d raised three children, clothed and fed them, educated them. Her legacy had allowed her to stay home with them rather than seek outside employment, and her own canniness with investments had added a cushion.

But three college educations and medical school for Mason hadn’t come cheap. And when the house demanded new plumbing, new paint, a new roof, she was obliged to see it got what it needed.

Enough so that she’d discreetly sold some things over the years. Admittedly, paintings or jewelry she hadn’t cared for, but it had still given her a little twinge of guilt to sell what had been given to her.

Sacrificing pieces to preserve the whole.

There’d come a time when she’d been confident her sons’ futures were seen to, as best she could, and the house was secure. But money was needed nonetheless. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered finding a job—considered very briefly.

Mitch was right, she didn’t care to take orders. But she was, without question, very adept at giving them. Play to your strengths, after all, she thought with a glimmer of a smile. That’s just what she’d done.

It had been a choice between gathering her courage to start her own business, or swallowing her pride to work for someone else.

For Roz, it was no contest.

She’d piled a great deal of her eggs into that single basket, and the first two years had been touch and go. But it had grown. She and Harper had made it grow.

She’d taken a hit with the divorce. Stupid, stupid mistake. While Bryce had gotten very little out of the deal—and only what she’d permitted him to get—it had cost her dearly in pride and in money to shed herself of him.

But they’d weathered it. Her sons, her home, her business were thriving. So she could think, a little, of changes. Of expansions on both her business and personal fronts. Just as she could enjoy the successful present.

She moved from the African violets to her bromeliads, and by the time she’d finished dividing, she decided Stella was going to get one of these, too. Pleased, she worked another hour, then shifted to check the spring bulbs she was forcing. She’d have narcissus blooming in another week.

When she was satisfied, she carted everything she wanted in the house inside, arranging, as she preferred them, a forest of plants in the solarium, then placing other pots throughout the house.

Last, she carried a trio of bulbs in forcing bottles to the kitchen.

“And what have you brought me?” David asked.

“David, I despair of teaching you anything about horticulture. They’re very obviously tulips.” She arranged them on the windowsill beside the banquette. “They’ll bloom in a few weeks.”

“I despair of teaching you anything about the choices of stylish gardening wear. How long have you owned that shirt?”

“I have no idea. What are you doing in here?” She pulled open the refrigerator, took out the pitcher of cold tea that was always there. “Shouldn’t you be starting your primping marathon for tonight’s party?”

“I’m making you up a nice platter of cold cuts and sides, as you refuse to come out and play with us tonight. And as I treated myself to a few hours at the day spa today while you were grubbing in dirt, my primping has already started.”

“You don’t have to go to any trouble with platters, David. I can find the makings for a sandwich myself.”

“Nicer this way, especially when you have company.” He chuckled. “The professor’s in the library, and I put a couple of bottles of champagne in to chill so the two of you can—let’s say—pop a cork.”

“David.” She gave him a light cuff on the side of the head before she poured the tea. “I’m not popping anything with anyone. I’m minding the baby.”

“Babies sleep. Roz, my treasure, he’sgorgeous , in that sexily rumpled academic sort of way. Jump him. But for God’s sake, change your clothes first. I set out your white cashmere sweater, and those black pants I talked you into—the ones with lots of lycra, and those fabulous Jimmy Choo’s.”

“I’m certainly not wearing white cashmere, skintight pants—which I’d never have bought if you hadn’t hypnotized me or something—or a pair of five-inch heels when I’m babysitting for a seven-month-old. It’s not even a date.”

“Don’t you just love those horn-rims? What is it about a man in horn-rim glasses?”

She took an olive out of the bowl he’d filled. “You’re certainly wound up tonight.”

He covered the bowls and the tray he’d prepared with plastic. “There now. You’re going to have yourself a nice New Year’s Eve picnic with the horn-rimmed hunk.”