Black Rose

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.

SEVEN

    WITH THE NURSERY closing 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