“Actually, I was waiting for all to be present and accounted for before I brought it up. Ah, here comes Harper now. I told him his presence was required at breakfast this morning.”
“Really, David, it’s no big deal, and I need to get ready for work.”
“On the contrary.” Shaking his head over his coffee, Mitch looked around the table. “It was extraordinary. The woman,” he said with a long look at Roz, “is extraordinary.”
Under the table she took his hand, gave it a warm squeeze. A silent thanks for letting this play out without any of last night’s horror marring the mood.
“What’s up?” Harper demanded. “We’re having omelettes? How come we’re having omelettes?”
“Because your mama likes them, and she needs to recharge her energies after hauling out her can of Whoop Ass last night.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Roz replied, even as a chuckle tickled the back of her throat.
“What about last night? What Whoop Ass?”
“See what you miss when you don’t go to the club?” David told Harper.
“If somebody doesn’t fill in the blanks soon, I’m going to go crazy.” Hayley gave Lily a sip-cup of juice and plopped down. “Spill, every deet.”
“There’s not that much to tell,” Roz began.
“I’ll tell it.” Mitch returned Roz’s bland look equably. “She’ll leave stuff out. Now, some of this I pried out of her, because I wasn’t there at the time, and some of the other I got from my son. But I’ll tell it all in one piece—more impact.”
He started with the brief stop by the Forresters’ table, then moved to the bathroom scene, then dramatized the altercation between Roz and Bryce outside the lounge area.
“Oh, my God, they walked out while you were talking to that . . .” Hayley cleared her throat, amended her first thought as she remembered the children. “Man.”
“His back was to them,” Mitch filled in. “It was perfectly staged.”
Hayley fed Lily bits of egg and gaped at Roz. “It’s so cool. Like, I don’t know, a sting.”
“The timing was exquisite,” Mitch agreed. “You should’ve seen your mother, Harper, cool and slick as an iceberg, and just as dangerous.”
“This kitchen is full of metaphors this morning,” Roz commented. “Isn’t anyone going to work?”
“Seen her like that.” Harper scooped up some omelette. “Scary.”
“It happened I was in a position to see the reaction of the ladies behind them,” Mitch said, “and it was beautiful. He’s mouthing off, bragging about how he can keep screwing around, the phone calls, the credit cards, and so on, and nobody’ll pin him. He’s insulting Quill, calling Mandy stupid. Utterly full of himself, and Roz just stands there—he doesn’t even know she’s just brought the ax down on his neck. She doesn’t flick an eyelash, just keeps prompting him to say more and more until the son of a . . .” He remembered the kids. “. . . gun is buried in his own words. Then, then, when it’s done, she just waves a hand, so he turns and sees they’re behind him. And she strolls away. It was beautiful.”
“I hope they fell on him like dogs,” Stella said under her breath.
“Close enough. Apparently, he tried to talk his way out of it, convince them that it was all a mistake, but the blonde, she’s hysterical. Screaming, crying, slapping at him. The other goes straight to her husband, fills him in, so he knows it was Bryce’s vindictiveness that lost him one of his top clients. He loses it—according to my son—and bulls his way to Bryce and punches him. People are jumping up, glasses are crashing, the blonde jumps on Clerk and starts biting and scratching.”
“Holy cow,” Gavin whispered, awed.
“They had to drag her off, and while they were, Quill took another shot, and they had to draghim off.”
“I wish I’d seen that.” Harper rose to get his choice of morning caffeine and came back to the table with a can of Coke. “I really do.”
“People were running for cover, or pushing to get closer to the action,” Mitch continued. “Slipping on olives from martinis, sliding around in salmon mousse or whatever, knocking over tables. They were at the point of calling the cops when in-house security broke it up.”
“Where were you?” Hayley wondered.
“I was on the terrace making out with Roz. Dancing with Roz,” he corrected with a wink. “We had a decent view through the doors and windows.”
“It’ll be the talk of the town for some time,” Roz concluded. “As far as I’m concerned, all of them got just what they deserved. A bellyful of embarrassment. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve got to get to work.”
“Wait, wait, what about Bryce?” Hayley forked up some eggs for herself. “You can’t leave us hanging.”
“I couldn’t say, but I suspect he’ll scamper out of Shelby County with his tail between his legs. I don’t think he’ll be around anymore.”
“That’s it?” Hayley wondered. “You’re not going to—” She broke off, wiped Lily’s face. “That’s good. It’s good he’s gone.”
Roz ruffled both boys’ hair, then got up to lay a kiss on the top of Lily’s head. “I’ll be giving the police my statement regarding possible charges for fraud this afternoon, as will Mitch, who heard everything Bryce said. I imagine they’ll speak with the others who heard him flapping. Then we’ll see what happens next.”
“Even better,” Hayley said with a smile. “Even much better.”
“I don’t punch or kick people in the face, at least not to date. But I don’t get pushed around for long, either.”
She walked out, pleased, even comforted, that the day had begun with laughter instead of worry.
ROZ STOOD ONthe little slope at the edge of her woods and studied the spread and form of In the Garden. There were wonderful blocks of color, tender spring green, bold pinks, exotic blues, cheery yellows, and hot, hot reds.
The old, time-faded brown tables were full of those colors, displaying bedding plants in flats and pots. The ground itself erupted with it, blooming in an enthusiastic celebration of the season. The buildings looked fresh and welcoming, the greenhouses industrious. There were planters exploding with color and shape, hanging baskets dripping with them.
From this vantage she could see slices of the shrub area, and the ornamental trees, and all the way back to the field-grown, with its ruler-straight rows and muscular machines.
Everywhere she looked there were people, customers and staff, bustling or browsing. Red wagons chugged along like little trains carrying their hopeful cargo. Flatbeds bumped over the gravel paths, and out to the parking area where their loads could be transferred into cars and trucks.
She could see the mountains of mulch, loose and bagged, the towers of pavers, the rails of landscape timbers.
Busy, busy, she thought, but with the charm she’d always envisioned in homey touches. The arbor already twined with morning glory vines, the curved bench strategically placed by a bubbling garden fountain, the flashy red of a hummingbird feeder dangling from a branch, the music of a wind chime circling gently in the breeze.
She should be down there, of course, doing some bustling herself, babying her stock, calculating inventory. Having a manager—even an exceptional one like Stella—didn’t mean she shouldn’t have her finger on every pulse.
But she’d wanted the air, the movement of it around her after hours in the denseness of the propagation house. And she wanted this view of what she’d built. What she’d worked for, gambled on.
Today, under a sky so freshly blue it might have been painted on glass, it was beautiful. And every hour she’d spent over all these years sweating, worrying, calculating, struggling was worth it.
It was solid and successful, and very much the sprawling garden she’d wanted to create. A business, yes, a business first and foremost, but a lovely one. One that reflected her style, her vision, her legacy.
If some insisted on seeing it as her hobby, let them. If some, even most, thought of her as the woman who’d glided around the country club in a gold gown and diamonds, that was fine. She didn’t mind slipping on the glamour now and again. In fact, she could enjoy it.
But the truth of her, the core of her, was standing here, wearing ancient jeans and a faded sweatshirt, a ballcap over her hair and scarred boots on her feet.
The truth of her was a working woman with bills to pay, a business to run, and a home to maintain. It was that woman she was proud of when she took the time to be proud. The Rosalind Harper of the country club and society set was a duty to her name. This, all the rest, was life.
She took a breath, braced herself, and deliberately pushed her mind in a specific direction. She would see what happened, and how both she and Amelia would deal with it.
So she thought: If this was life, hers to live, why couldn’t she gamble yet again? Expand that life by taking into it, fully, the man who excited and comforted her, who intrigued and amused her?
The man who had somehow strolled through the maze that grief and work and duty and pride had built around her heart.
The man she loved.
She could live her life alone if need be, but what did it prove? That she was self-sufficient, independent, strong, and able. She knew those things, had been those things—and would always be those things.
And she could be courageous, too.
Didn’t it take courage, wasn’t it harder to blend one life with another, to share and to cope, to compromise than to live that life alone? It was work to live with a man, to wake up every day prepared to deal with routine, and to be open to surprises.
She’d never shied away from work.
Marriage was a different kettle at this stage of life. There would be no babies made between them. But they could share grandchildren one day. They wouldn’t grow up together, but could grow old together.
They could be happy.
They always lie. They’re never true.
Roz stood in the same spot, on a gentle rise at the edge of the woods. But In the Garden was gone. There were fields, stark with winter, barren trees, and the feel of ice on the air.
“Not all men,” Roz said quietly. “Not always.”
I’ve known more than you.
She walked across the fields, insubstantial as the mist that began to spread, a shallow sea, over the bare, black ground. Her white gown was filthy, as were her naked feet. Her hair was a tangle of oily gold around a face bright with madness.
Fear blew through Roz like a sudden, vicious storm. But she planted her feet. She’d ride it out.
The light had gone out of the day. Heavy clouds rolled over the sky, smothering the blue with black, a black tinged with violent green.
“I’ve lived longer than you,” Roz said, and though she couldn’t stop the shudder as Amelia approached, she stood her ground.
And learned so little. You have all you need. A home, children, work that satisfies you. What do you need with a man?
“Love matters.”
There was a laugh, a wet chortle that screamed across Roz’s nerves.Love is the biggest lie. He will fuck you, and use you, and cheat and lie. He will give you pain until you are hollow and empty, until you are dried up and ugly. And dead.
Pity stirred under the fear. “Who betrayed you? Who brought you to this?”
All. They’re all the same. They’re the whores, though they label us so. Didn’t they come to me, ram their cocks into me, while their wives slept alone in their saintly beds?
“Did they force you? Did—”
Then they take what’s yours. What wasmine!
She slammed both fists into her belly, and the force of the rage, the grief, and the fury knocked Roz back two full steps.
Here was the storm, spewing out of the sky, bursting out of the ground, swirling though the fog and into the filthy air. It clogged Roz’s lungs as if she were breathing mud.
She heard the crazed screams through it.
Kill them all! Kill them all in their sleep. Hack them to bits, bathe in their blood. Take back what’s mine. Damn them, damn them all to hell!
“They’re gone. They’re dust.” Roz tried to shout, but could barely choke out the words. “Am I what’s left?”
The storm stopped as abruptly as it began, and the Amelia who stood in the calm was one who sang lullabies to children. Sad and pale in her gray dress.
You’re mine. My blood. She held out a hand, and red welled in the palm.My bone. Out of my womb, out of my heart. Stolen, ripped away. Find me. I’m so lost.
Then Roz was alone, standing on the springy grass at the edge of the woods with what she’d built spread out below her.
SHE WENT BACKto work because work steadied her. The only way she could wrap her mind around what happened at the edge of the woods was to do something familiar, something that kept her hands occupied while her brain sorted through the wonder of it.
She kept to herself because solitude soothed her.
Through the afternoon she divided more stock plants, rooted cuttings. Watered, fed, labeled.
When she was done, she walked home through the woods and raided her personal greenhouse. She planted cannas in a spot she wanted to dramatize, larkspur and primroses where she wanted more charm. In the shade, she added some ladybells and cranesbill for serenity.
Her serenity, she thought, could always be found here, in the gardens, in the soil, in the shadow of Harper House. Under that fresh blue sky she knelt on the ground, and studied what was hers.
So lovely with its soft yellow stone, its sparkling glass, its bridal white trim.
What secrets were trapped in those rooms, in those walls? What was buried in this soil she worked, season after season, with her own hands?
She had grown up here, as her father had, and his father, and those who’d come before. Generation after generation of shared blood and history. She had raised her children here, and had worked to preserve this legacy so that the children of her children would call this home.
Whatever had been done to pass all of this to her, she would have to know. And then accept.
Settled again, she replaced her tools, then went into the house to shower off the day.
She found Mitch working in the library.
“Sorry to interrupt. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Good, I need to talk to you, too.” He swiveled away from his laptop, found a file in the piles on the desk.
“You go first,” she told him.
“Hmm? Oh, fine.” He scooped a hand through his hair, took off his glasses. Gestures she knew now meant he was organizing his thoughts.
“I’ve done just about all I can do here,” he began. “I could spend months more on your family history, filling in details, moving back generations. In fact, I plan to do just that. But regarding the purpose for which you hired me, I’m at an impasse. She wasn’t family, Roz. Not a Harper,” he amended. “Not by birth, not through marriage. Absolutely none of the data—names, dates, births, marriages, deaths—nothing I have places a woman named Amelia in this house, or in the Harper family. No woman of her approximate age died in this house during the time period we’ve pinpointed.”
