Black Rose

previous spring at Logan’s request. In a couple of weeks, he’d bring the overwintered tubers into growth, and in spring take cuttings. In the Garden should be able to offer a nice supply of Stella’s Dream, the bold, deeply blue dahlia he’d created.
    Interesting the way things worked, he thought. Through Logan and tidy Stella falling in love—and Logan showing his sentimental side over the blue dahlia Stella had dreamed of. Dreamed of, Harper thought, because of the Harper Bride.
    It sort of circled around, didn’t it, back to the house, and what grew there.
    There would be no Stella’s Dream without the Bride. And no Bride without Harper House. None of it, he supposed, without his mother’s steady determination to keep the house and build the business.
    Since he was facing the door, he saw it open. And watched Hayley walk in.
    She wouldn’t be here, either, without his mother. There would have been no beautiful, pregnant woman knocking on the door of Harper House last winter looking for work and a place to live.
    When she smiled, his heart did that quick, automatic stutter, then settled back to normal again. She tapped the side of her head, and he pulled off his headset.

    “Sorry to interrupt. Roz said you had some pots mature enough for me to rotate into the houseplant stock. Stella’s looking to do a winter sale.”
    “Sure. You want me to bring them out?”
    “That’s okay. I got boxes and a flat cart outside the door.”
    “Let me check the inventory, adjust it first.” He walked down to his computer station. “Want a Coke?”
    “Love one, but I’m still watching my caffeine.”
    “Oh right.” She was nursing Lily, a concept that made him feel sort of warm and twisty inside. “Ah, got some water in the cooler, too.”
    “That’d be good. When you’ve got time, can you show me some grafting? Stella said how you do most of it, at least the field work, about this time of year. I’d really like to do something, then, you know, follow it on through.”
    “Sure, if you want.” He handed her a bottle of water. “You can try your hand on a willow. It was the first graft my mother showed me how to do, and they’re the best to practice on.”
    “That’d be great. I thought one day, when I get a place for me and Lily, I could plant something I’d made myself.”
    He sat, ordered himself to concentrate on his inventory program. The scent of her, somehow essential female, fit so perfectly with the smell of earth and growth. “You’ve got plenty of room at the house.”
    “More than.” She laughed, tried to read over his shoulder. “Been there a year, and still can’t get used to all the space. I love living there, I do, and it’s wonderful for Lily to have so many people around, and nobody, nobody could be more amazing than your mama. She’s the most awesome person I know. But sooner or later, I need to, well, plant Lily and me somewhere of our own.”
    “You know Mama loves having you there or she’d’ve nudged you along by now.”
    “Boy, that’s the truth. She really knows how to structure things, doesn’t she? Sets them up to suit her. I don’t mean that exactly the way it sounds. It’s just that she’s strong and smart, and doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything or anyone. I admire that so much.”
    “You seem to have plenty of guts and brains of your own.”
    “Guts maybe, but I’ve started to realize a lot of that came from not knowing any better.” Idly, she picked up a scrap of raffia, twisted it around her finger. “When I look back, I don’t know how I worked up to setting out six-months pregnant. Not now that I have Lily and realize, well, everything. I’m going to owe Roz for the rest of my life.”
    “She wouldn’t want that.”
    “That’s one thing she’s not going to have any choice about. My baby’s got a good, loving home. I’ve got a job that I swear I like more every day. We’ve got friends, and family. We’d’ve done all right, I’d’ve made sure of it. But we wouldn’t be where we are now, Lily and I, without Roz.”
    “Funny, I was thinking how most everything—the house, this place, even Logan and Stella wind around to my mother. Maybe even the Bride.”
    “Why the Bride?”
    “If Mama had sold the place—and there had to be times it would’ve been easier to do that—maybe the Bride wouldn’t still be there. Maybe it takes a Harper being in the house. I don’t know.” He shrugged, got up to select the plants he’d