Bücher online kostenlos Kostenlos Online Lesen
Black Rose

Black Rose

Titel: Black Rose Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Nora Roberts
Vom Netzwerk:
about the shrubs and trees? Would the sidelines compliment the plants or detract from those sales?
    Were the mulch colorants she’d decided to carry a mistake, or would her customer base enjoy the variety?
    She left a great deal of this in Stella’s hands; that’s why she’d hired a manager. Roz wanted to compartmentalize many of the details—in someone else’s compartment. But In the Garden was still her baby, and she experienced all the pride and worry a mother might over any growing child.

    She could enjoy the crowds and confusion, the customers wheeling their wagons or flatbeds around the tables, over gravel and concrete to select just the right plants for their gardens or patio pots. She could and did enjoy consulting and recommending, and used that to balance out the little pang she experienced at the start of high season when she watched the plants she’d nurtured ride off to new homes.
    At this time of year she often lectured herself about being sentimental over what she’d grown. But they weren’t, and never could be, merely products to her. The weeks, months, often years spent nurturing specimens formed a connection for her that was very personal.
    For the first few days of every spring season, she mourned the parting. Then she got down to business.
    She was in the propagation house, taking a break from those crowds and calculating which plants to move into the retail area next when Cissy burst in.
    “Roz, I’m desperate.”
    Roz pursed her lips. The usually meticulously groomed Cissy had more than one highlighted hair out of place, and a panicked gleam in her eyes. “I can see that. Your hairdresser retire? Your masseuse run off with a musician?”
    “Oh, don’t joke. I’m serious.” She hustled down the tables to where Roz worked. “My in-laws are coming to visit.”
    “Oh.”
    “Just dropped that bomb on me this morning. And they’re coming in two days. I hate when people just assume they’re welcome.”
    “They are family.”
    “Which only makes it worse, if you ask me. You know she picks on me. She’s picked on me for twenty-six years. If they hadn’t moved to Tampa, I’d be a crazy woman by now, or in jail for murder. I need your help, Roz.”
    “I’m not going to kill your mother-in-law for you, Cissy. There are limits to friendship.”

    “I bet you could.” Eyes narrowed, she took a long and calculating look around. “I bet there are all sorts of interesting poisons around here I could slip into her martini, and end this personal hell. I’ll just hold that one in reserve. You know what she said to me?”
    “No, but I guess I’m going to hear it.”
    “She said she supposed I hadn’t replaced the carpet in the dining room yet, and how she’d just love to go out while she’s here and find just the right thing. Not to worry about the time it took her, she had plenty now that she and Don have retired. And how I’d find that out for myself soon, since I’m reaching that age. I’m reaching that age . Can you imagine?”
    “Seeing as you and I are about the same age, I might find some poison around here.”
    “Oh, and that’s not the half of it. I’d be here all day if I got started, and I can’t because I’m under the gun. She started snooting at me about the gardens and the lawn, and how she wondered I didn’t do more than I did with mine, why I didn’t take more pride in the home her son has provided me with.”
    “You have a lovely yard.” Not that it reached its potential, but it was, in Roz’s opinion, well kept and pretty enough.
    “She just pushed my buttons—like she always does—and I just blurted out how I’d been slaving away, and put in new beds and whatnot. I just blathered, Roz, and now, unless you help me out, she’s going to see I was lying through my teeth.”
    “If you want Logan, we can ask Stella what his schedule’s like, but—”
    “I hit her on the way back. He’s booked—solid, she says—for the next two weeks.” She clasped her hands together, as if in prayer. “I’m begging you, Roz. Begging you. Pull him off something and give him to me. Just two days.”
    “I can’t yank him off another job—but wait,” she said when tears gathered in Cissy’s eyes. “We’ll figure this out. Two days.” Roz blew out a breath. “It’s gonna cost you.”
    “I don’t care. Money’s the least of it. My life’s at stake here. If you don’t help me, I’ll just have to fly down to Tampa on the sly and murder her in

Weitere Kostenlose Bücher