Нора Робертс - Blue Dahlia

"Is that so!" Her face brightened like the sun, with her eyes wide and avid with curiosity. "Why, that's

just marvelous. You come on back and have some pie."

"He didn't say if she'd said yes," Will pointed out.

"Since when does Stella say anything as simple as yes?" Logan demanded, and had Will grinning.

"That's my girl."

They sat down, ate pie, drank coffee, and circled around the subject at hand with small talk about his mother, Stella, the new baby.

Finally, Will leaned back. "So, am I supposed to ask you how you intend to support my daughter and grandsons?"

"You tell me. Last time I did this, the girl's father'd had a couple of years to grill me. Didn't figure I'd have to go through this part of it again at my age."

"Of course you don't." Jolene gave her husband a little slap on the arm. "He's just teasing. Stella can support herself and those boys just fine. And you wouldn't be here looking so irritated if you didn't

love her. I guess one question, if you don't mind me asking, is how you feel about being stepfather

to her boys."

"About the same way, I expect, you feel being their step-grandmother. And if I'm lucky, they'll feel

about me the way they do about you. I know they love spending time with you, and I hear their Nana

Jo bakes cookies as good as David's. That's some compliment."

"They're precious to us," Will said. "They're precious to Stella. They were precious to Kevin. He was

a good man."

"Maybe it'd be easier for me if he hadn't been. If he'd been a son of a bitch and she'd divorced him instead of him being a good man who died too young. I don't know, because that's not the case. I'm glad for her that she had a good man and a good marriage, glad for the boys that they had a good father who loved them. I can live with his ghost, if that's what you're wondering. Fact is, I can be grateful to him."

"Well, I think that's just smart." Jolene patted Logan's hand with approval. "And I think it shows good character, too. Don't you, Will?"

On a noncommittal sound, Will pulled on his bottom lip. "You marry my girl, am I going to get landscaping and such at the family rate?"

Logan's grin spread slowly. "We can make that part of the package."

"I've been toying with redoing the patio."

"First I've heard of it," Jolene muttered.

"I saw them putting on one of those herringbone patterns out of bricks on one of the home shows.

I liked the look of it. You know how to handle that sort of thing?"

"Done a few like it. I can take a look at what you've got now if you want."

"That'd be just fine." Will pushed back from the table.

Stella chewed at it, stewed over it, and worried about it. She was prepared to launch into another discussion regarding the pros and cons of marriage when Logan came to pick up the boys at noon.

She knew he was angry with her. Hurt, too, she imagined. But oddly enough, she knew he'd be by—somewhere in the vicinity of noon—to get the kids. He'd told them he would come, so he

would come.

A definite plus on his side of the board, she decided. She could, and did, trust him with her children.

They would argue, she knew. They were both too worked up to have a calm, reasonable discussion over such an emotional issue. But she didn't mind an argument. A good argument usually brought all the facts and feelings out. She needed both if she was going to figure out the best thing to do for all involved.

But when he hunted them down where she had the kids storing discarded wagons—at a quarter a wagon—he was perfectly pleasant. In fact, he was almost sunny.

"Ready for some man work?" he asked.

With shouts of assent, they deserted wagon detail for more interesting activities. Luke proudly showed him the plastic hammer he'd hooked in a loop of his shorts.

"That'll come in handy. I like a man who carries his own tools. I'll drop them off at the house later."

"About what time do you think—"

"Depends on how long they can stand up to the work." He pinched Gavin's biceps. "Ought to be able

to get a good day's sweat out of this one."

"Feel mine! Feel mine!" Luke flexed his arm.

After he'd obliged, given an impressed whistle, he nodded to Stella. "See you."

And that was that.

So she chewed at it, stewed over it, and worried about it for the rest of the day. Which, not being a

fool, she deduced was exactly what he'd wanted.

* * *

The house was abnormally quiet when she got home from work. She wasn't sure she liked it. She showered off the day, played with the baby, drank a glass of wine, and paced until the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi there, is this Stella?"

"Yes, who—"

'This is Trudy Kitridge. Logan's mama? Logan said I should give you a call, that you'd be home from work about this time of day."

"I... oh." Oh, God, oh, God. Logan's mother!

"Logan told me and his daddy he asked you to marry him. Could've knocked me over with a feather."

"Yes, me, too. Mrs. Kitridge, we haven't decided... or I haven't decided ... anything."

"Woman's entitled to some time to make up her mind, isn't she? I'd better warn you, honey, when that boy sets his mind on something, he's like a damn bulldog. He said you wanted to meet his family before you said yes or no. I think that's a sweet thing. Of course, with us living out here now, it's not so easy, is it? But we'll be coming back sometime during the holidays. Probably see Logan for Thanksgiving, then our girl for Christmas. Got grandchildren in Charlotte, you know, so we want to be there for Christmas."

"Of course." She had no idea, no idea whatsoever what to say. How could she with no time to prepare?

"Then again, Logan tells me you've got two little boys. Said they're both just pistols. So maybe we'll

have ourselves a couple of grandchildren back in Tennessee, too."

"Oh." Nothing could have touched her heart more truly. "That's a lovely thing to say. You haven't even met them yet, or me, and—"

"Logan has, and I raised my son to know his own mind. He loves you and those boys, then we will, too. You're working for Rosalind Harper, I hear."

"Yes. Mrs. Kitridge—"

"Now, you just call me Trudy. How you getting along down there?"

Stella found herself having a twenty-minute conversation with Logan's mother that left her baffled, amused, touched, and exhausted.

When it was done, she sat limply on the sofa, like, she thought, the dazed victim of an ambush.

Then she heard Logan's truck rumble up.

She had to force herself not to dash to the door. He'd be expecting that. Instead she settled herself in the front parlor with a gardening magazine and the dog snoozing at her feet as if she didn't have a care in the world.

Maybe she'd mention, oh so casually, that she'd had a conversation with his mother. Maybe she

wouldn't, and let him stew over it.

And all right, it had been sensitive and sweet for him to arrange the phone call, but for God's sake, couldn't he have given her some warning so she wouldn't have spent the first five minutes babbling

like an idiot?

The kids came in with all the elegance of an army battalion on a forced march.

"We built a whole arbor." Grimy with sweat and dirt, Gavin rushed to scoop up Parker. "And we

planted the stuff to grow on it."

"Carol Jessmint."

Carolina Jessamine, Stella interpreted from Luke's garbled pronunciation. Nice choice.

"And I got a splinter." Luke held out a dirty hand to show off the Band-Aid on his index finger. "A big one. We thought we might have to hack it out with a knife. But we didn't."

"Whew, that was close. We'll go put some antiseptic on it."

"Logan did already. And I didn't cry. And we had submarines, except he says they're poor boys down here, but I don't see why they're poor because they have lots of stuff in them. And we had Popsicles."

"And we got to ride in the wheelbarrow," Gavin took over the play-by-play. "And I used a real hammer."

"Wow. You had a busy day. Isn't Logan coming in?"

"No, he said he had other stuff. And look." Gavin dug in his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled five-dollar bill. "We each got one, because he said we worked so good we get to be cheap labor instead of slaves."

She couldn't help it, she had to laugh. "That's quite a promotion. Congratulations. I guess we'd better go clean up."

"Then we can eat like a bunch of barnyard pigs." Luke put his hand in hers. "That's what Logan said when it was time for lunch."

"Maybe we'll save the pig-eating for when you're on the job."

They were full of Logan and their day through bath-time, through dinner. And then were too tuckered

out from it all to take advantage of the extra hour she generally allowed them on Saturday nights.

They were sound asleep by nine, and for the first time in her memory, Stella felt she had nothing to do. She tried to read, she tried to work, but couldn't settle into either.

She was thrilled when she heard Lily fussing.

When she stepped into the hall, she saw Hayley heading down, trying to comfort a squalling Lily.

"She's hungry. I thought I'd curl up in the sitting room, maybe watch some TV while I feed her."

"Mind company?"

"Twist my arm. It was lonely around here today with David off at the lake for the weekend, and you and Roz at work, the boys away." She sat, opened her shirt and settled Lily on her breast. "There. That's better, isn't it? I put her in mat baby sling I got at the shower, and we took a nice walk."

"It's good for both of you. What did you want to watch?"

"Nothing, really. I just wanted the voices."

"How about one more?" Roz slipped in, walked over to Lily to smile. "I wanted to take a peek at her. Look at her go!"

"Nothing wrong with her appetite," Hayley confirmed. "She smiled at me today. I know they say it's just gas, but—"

"What do they know?" Roz sprawled in a chair. "They inside that baby's head?"

"Logan asked me to marry him."

She didn't know why she blurted it out—hadn't known it was pushing from her brain to her tongue.

"Holy cow!" Hayley exploded, then immediately soothed Lily and lowered her voice. "When? How? Where? This is just awesome. This is the biggest of the big news. Tell us everything."

"There's not a lot of every anything. He asked me yesterday."

"After I went inside to put the baby down? I just knew something was up."

"I don't think he meant to. I think it just sort of happened, then he was irritated when I tried to point

out the very rational reasons we shouldn't rush into anything."

"What are they?" Hayley wondered.

"You've only known each other since January," Roz began, watching Stella. "You have two children. You've each been married before and bring a certain amount of baggage from those marriages."

"Yes." Stella let out a long sigh. "Exactly."

"When you know you know, don't you?" Hayley argued. "Whether it's five months or five years. And he's great with your kids. They're nuts about him. Being married before ought to make both of you understand the pitfalls or whatever. I don't get it. You love him, don't you?"

"Yes. And yes to the rest, to a point, but... it's different when you're young and unencumbered. You can take more chances. Well, if you're not me you can take more chances. And what if he wants children and I don't? I have to think about that. I have to know if I'm going to be able to consider having another child at this stage, or if the children I do have would be happy and secure with him in the long term. Kevin and I had a game plan."

"And your game was called," Roz said. "It isn't an easy thing to walk into another marriage. I waited a long time to do it, then it was the wrong decision. But I think, if I could have fallen, just tumbled into

love with a man at your age, one who made me happy, who cheerfully spent his Saturday with my children, and who excited me in bed, I'd have walked into it, and gladly."

"But you just said, before, you gave the exact reasons why it's too soon."

"No, I gave the reasons you'd give—and ones I understand, Stella. But there's something else you and

I understand, or should. And that is that love is precious, and too often stolen away. You've got a chance to grab hold of it again. And I say lucky you."

* * *

She dreamed again of the garden, and the blue dahlia. It was ladened with buds, fat and ripe and ready

to burst into bloom. At the top, a single stunning flower swayed electric in the quiet breeze. Her garden, though no longer tidy and ordered, spread out from its feet in waves and flows and charming bumps of color and shape.