Нора Робертс - Red lily

He simply stepped up to her, cautiously nudging the watering wand aside and kissed her. “Guess you’re wrong.”

“Guess I am. Lucky for me.”

“Just come on over when you’re done. I already let Stella know I was stealing you for a while.”

He spent the time setting up for the work, lining up the tools, the plants he wanted to use. He logged the species, the cultivar, the name and characteristics of the desired plant in his files.

Since headphones wouldn’t be an option as he wouldn’t be working alone, he switched Beethoven for Loreena McKennitt. He figured his plants would like it fine, and he’d be a lot happier.

When Hayley came in, he was digging out a Coke, so he pulled out two.

“This is pretty exciting.”

He handed her the can. “Tell me what you know about hybridizing first.”

“Well, it’s like you have a mama and a daddy, the parents. Two different plants—they can be the same type or two different . . . What is it?”

“Genera.”

“Right. So you want ones with stable characteristics and you cross them by hand-pollinating. Like pollen from one, seed from the other—like sex.”

“Not bad. We’re going to use this miniature I’ve been screening as a parent plant. And this variegated will be the other, the seed parent. See I’ve had it protected with a bag—that keeps insect pollinators from messing with it, and we’re going to remove the stamens now, before it can self-pollinate. I potted these up, brought them in last winter so they could develop.”

“You’ve been thinking about doing this for a while.”

“Yeah, since she was born, more or less. Anyway, we work with the pollen parent today. You know how?”

“Roz did it before. I really just watched.”

“This time, you try it. I cut this one already, just above the node, see? It’s been in water and it’s fully open now. See how the anthers are split? They’re ready for pollen.”

“So, you did the foreplay.”

“One of my little skills.”

She gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Tell me about it.”

“You go next.”

“Oh man. I have to pull the petals off, right?”

“Quick, gentle twists, work inward until you see the anthers.”

“Here goes.”

“That’s good,” he said as he watched her. “Just be careful to leave the anthers intact. Yeah, nice work, good hands.”

“I’m nervous. I hate screwing up.”

“You’re not.” Her fingers were quick and precise as they twisted the petals away. “And if you do, we’ll pick another.”

“Is that right? Is that okay?”

“What do you see?”

She bit her lip. “The little anthers are all naked.”

“Next step.” He picked up a clean camel-hair brush. “You need to collect the pollen. Use this, brush it over the anthers. We’ll store it in this dish, keep it dry. See, it’s fluffy, so it’s ripe. I’ll label the dish.”

“This is fun. You wouldn’t believe how totally I sucked in high school chemistry.”

“Just needed a better lab partner. All mine aced. Now we’re going to prep the seed parent. See this?” He held up the lily he’d chosen. “We don’t want her fully open. We’re looking for well-developed but with immature anthers—before self-pollination can happen. We take petals and anthers off her.”

“Strip her right down.”

“So to speak. No fragments left, they can cause rot fungi, then you’re screwed. What we’re after is nice exposed stigmas.”

“You do that part. Then it’s like a team.”

“Okay.” He twisted off the petals, then reached for his tweezers, skillfully plucking out the anthers. “Now she waits until tomorrow for the pollen. That gives her stigmas time to get sticky. Then we’ll transfer the ripe pollen onto the stigmas. You can use a brush, but I like using my finger. There.”

He stepped back.

“That’s it?”

“That’s the first one. Let’s do the next. We’ve got a good dozen seed parents on here. I think we’ll try a couple of pollen parents on her. See what we get.”

They took turns with the steps. A nice, companionable rhythm, Hayley thought, and a satisfying one. “How did you pick the plants to work with?”

“I’ve been scoping them out awhile, tracking growth habits and form, color patterns.”

“Since she was born.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Harper, you know how I said if things don’t work out with us, I’ll hate you for the rest of my life?”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Well, I will, but I’ll suck it in—mostly—because I know you love her. You really do.”

“She’s got me wrapped. I gotta admit. Tomorrow, we’ll pollinate, label, log. Then we’ll keep an eye on her. Probably take about a week before we see the ovary swelling, if we’re successful here.”

“Swelling ovaries. Takes me back.”

He grinned, kept working. “Couple weeks more, the pod should be formed, then it takes about a month more for the seed to ripen. We’ll know it has when the top begins to split.”

“Yeah, déjà vu.”

“Cut it out. That’s just weird.”

He moved to his computer, his long fingers tapping keys as he input data. “What we’ll do is take the seeds, dry them and plant them late fall. I like to do it that way so it won’t germinate until spring.”

“We plant them outside?”

“No, in here. Mama’s potting soil, four-inch pots, then we put them out. When they’re big enough, we’ll put them in nursery beds. It’ll take another year before they bloom and we see what we’ve really got.”

“Fortunately, I know nothing about a two-year pregnancy.”

“Yeah, women get by with nine little months. Blink of an eye.”

“You try it, pal.”

“I’m a fan of the way things work. So. I’ve got the records logged, and if things work out, we should eventually see some new flowers, and some of them should have characteristics of each parent.” He glanced over the work, nodded. “We’ll get what we’re after, or if not exactly, hopefully something close enough that we can do another generation, or try a different parent.”

“In other words, this could take years.”

“Serious hybridizing isn’t for weenies.”

“I like it. And I like that it’s not an overnight kind of deal. You have all this anticipation. And maybe you won’t get exactly what you had in mind, but something else. Something, not necessarily better, but just as beautiful.”

“Now you’re talking the talk.”

“I feel good.” She stepped back from the worktable. “I was having such a bad day. I kept thinking about what happened last night, circling around and around it, and just feeling sick about the whole thing.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know—in my head. But somewhere in there I wondered if we’d be able to be easy together again—or at least this soon. If you’d be, I don’t know, uncomfortable and I’d be jittery. It seemed like the chance we had to just be in love might’ve been spoiled.”

“Nothing’s changed for me.”

“I know.” They stood side-by-side at the workbench and she tilted her head onto his shoulder. “And I feel calmer knowing it.”

“I better let you know I told Mitch what happened.”

“Oh.” She sucked in a breath, winced. “I guess it had to be done, and better you than me. Was it awful?”

“No. Just a little weird. We spent a lot of time talking about it without making any eye contact.”

“I’m not going to think about it,” Hayley decided. “I’m just not.” She turned just enough to kiss him. “I’d better get on with the work I really get paid for. I’ll see you back home.”

AS SHE HUMMED her way through the rest of the day, Stella passed by, then stopped to put her hands on her hips. “Hybridizing certainly agrees with you.”

“Feel great. Step two tomorrow.”

“Well, good. You looked a little draggy this morning.”

“Didn’t sleep very well, but I’ve got my second wind, and then some.” She glanced around to be sure no one was within hearing distance. “We’re in love.” Grinning, she used the index fingers of both hands to draw a heart in the air. “Me and Harper. Together.”

“Wow. News flash.”

With a laugh, Hayley continued hauling bags of potting soil from cart to shelf. “I mean really in love. So we said the L word to each other.”

“I’m happy for you.” She gave Hayley a hug. “Seriously.”

“I’m happy for me, too. But there’s this . . . I have to tell you about this thing that happened.” Cautious, Hayley took another look around, and related the incident to Stella in undertones.

“My God. Are you all right?”

“It was awful, so awful, it still makes my stomach churn. I didn’t know how we’d get past it. That was almost worse than the experience itself. But we have. We did. I can’t imagine how he must’ve felt, but he didn’t pull back from me.”

“He loves you.”

“He does. He really does.” Miracles everywhere, she thought. “Stella, I always believed I’d fall in love one day, but I never knew it could be like this. Now that I know, I can’t imagine not keeping it. You know?”

“I do. You should be happy. You should know this other thing is separate from that. And you and Harper should enjoy this bliss stage because it’s very precious.”

“I feel like everything in my life has been leading up to this, to him. The good and the bad. I can take the bad because I know we’ve found something in each other that really matters. I guess that sounds lame, but—”

“It does not. It sounds happy.”

THE SECONDHAND LAPTOP was a good buy, and using it made Hayley feel she was doing something active. An hour or two in research mode may not have garnered her a great deal of new information, at least as applied to her situation, but it assured her she wasn’t alone.

There were a lot of people out there who at least believed they’d had experience with ghosts and hauntings. She was already documenting an essential piece of advice from every website she’d visited. But at least with the computer she could type her reports instead of scrawling them in a notebook.

And it was fun to be able to e-mail friends back in Little Rock.

Of course she got caught up in surfing the web, much as she got caught up when scanning books. There was just so much information, so many interesting things. And one invariably led to another so that if she wasn’t careful, she’d be up past midnight hunched over the keyboard.

She had her chin propped on her elbow, her mind focused on an on-line report from Toronto of a ghost baby crying, when a hand brushed her shoulder.

She didn’t jump, held back a scream. Instead she closed her eyes and spoke in a nearly normal tone. “Please tell me that’s a real hand.”

“I hope it is as it’s attached to my wrist.”

“Roz.” Hayley let out her breath slowly. “Points for me, right, for not jumping up to cling to the ceiling like a cartoon cat.”

“That might’ve been entertaining.” She narrowed her eyes to read the screen. “Ghosthunters dot com?”

“One of many,” Hayley told her. “And really, there’s some pretty cool stuff. Did you know that one of the traditional ways to discourage ghosts from coming into a room was to stick pins or hammer iron nails around the door? It’s like they’d get caught on them and couldn’t get in. Of course, if you did it while they were already in, then they couldn’t get out.”

“I catch you nailing anything into my woodwork, I’ll skin you.”

“Already figured that. Plus I don’t see how it could work.” She scooted around, away from the screen. “They say you should talk to the ghost, politely, just ask it to leave. Like: Hey, sorry about your bad luck being dead and all that, but this is my house now and you’re disturbing me, so I wonder if you’d mind just moving on.”

“I’d say we’ve tried variations of that.”

“Yeah, no go.” When Roz sat on the sofa in the sitting room, Hayley understood she hadn’t come by just to chat about Amelia. Nerves began to drum. “Of course, they say you should document everything, but Mitch already has us doing that. And take photographs. You can hire a ghost hunter, but I don’t guess you want a bunch of strangers in the house.”

“You guess right.”

“Or you can ask a minister or a priest to bless the house. That couldn’t hurt.”

“You’re afraid.”

“More than I was, yeah. But I know this stuff”—she tapped the screen—“isn’t really helpful because what we’re doing, what we always planned to do was find out who, what, why. And if we did manage just to boot her out, we wouldn’t know it all. But I like, well, harvesting information.”

“You and Mitch, peas in a pod. Have you documented what happened the other night, with you and Harper?”

“Yes.” Heat burned her cheeks. “I haven’t, ah, given it to Mitch yet.”

“It’s very personal. I wouldn’t like sharing that sort of personal experience with an outsider.”

“You’re not. I mean, he’s not. Neither of you.”