Blue Dahlia

decided ... or I haven’t decided ... anything.”
    “Woman’s entitled to some time to make up her mind, isn’t she? I’d better warn you, honey, when that boy sets his mind on something, he’s like a damn bulldog. He said you wanted to meet his family before you said yes or no. I think that’s a sweet thing. Of course, with us living out here now, it’s not so easy, is it? But we’ll be coming back sometime during the holidays. Probably see Logan for Thanksgiving, then our girl for Christmas. Got grandchildren in Charlotte, you know, so we want to be there for Christmas.”
    “Of course.” She had no idea, no idea whatsoever what to say. How could she with no time to prepare?
    “Then again, Logan tells me you’ve got two little boys. Said they’re both just pistols. So maybe we’ll have ourselves a couple of grandchildren back in Tennessee, too.”
    “Oh.” Nothing could have touched her heart more truly. “That’s a lovely thing to say. You haven’t even met them yet, or me, and—”
    “Logan has, and I raised my son to know his own mind. He loves you and those boys, then we will, too. You’re working for Rosalind Harper, I hear.”
    “Yes. Mrs. Kitridge—”
    “Now, you just call me Trudy. How you getting along down there?”
    Stella found herself having a twenty-minute conversation with Logan’s mother that left her baffled, amused, touched, and exhausted.
    When it was done, she sat limply on the sofa, like, she thought, the dazed victim of an ambush.
    Then she heard Logan’s truck rumble up.
    She had to force herself not to dash to the door. He’d be expecting that. Instead she settled herself in the front parlor with a gardening magazine and the dog snoozing at her feet as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
    Maybe she’d mention, oh so casually, that she’d had a conversation with his mother. Maybe she wouldn’t, and let him stew over it.
    And all right, it had been sensitive and sweet for him to arrange the phone call, but for God’s sake , couldn’t he have given her some warning so she wouldn’t have spent the first five minutes babbling like an idiot?
    The kids came in with all the elegance of an army battalion on a forced march.
    “We built a whole arbor.” Grimy with sweat and dirt, Gavin rushed to scoop up Parker. “And we planted the stuff to grow on it.”
    “Carol Jessmint.”
    Carolina Jessamine, Stella interpreted from Luke’s garbled pronunciation. Nice choice.
    “And I got a splinter.” Luke held out a dirty hand to show off the Band-Aid on his index finger. “A big one. We thought we might have to hack it out with a knife. But we didn’t.”
    “Whew, that was close. We’ll go put some antiseptic on it.”
    “Logan did already. And I didn’t cry. And we had submarines, except he says they’re poor boys down here, but I don’t see why they’re poor because they have lots of stuff in them. And we had Popsicles.”
    “And we got to ride in the wheelbarrow,” Gavin took over the play-by-play. “And I used a real hammer.”
    “Wow. You had a busy day. Isn’t Logan coming in?”
    “No, he said he had other stuff. And look.” Gavin dug in his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled five-dollar bill. “We each got one, because he said we worked so good we get to be cheap labor instead of slaves.”
    She couldn’t help it, she had to laugh. “That’s quite a promotion. Congratulations. I guess we’d better go clean up.”
    “Then we can eat like a bunch of barnyard pigs.” Luke put his hand in hers. “That’s what Logan said when it was time for lunch.”
    “Maybe we’ll save the pig-eating for when you’re on the job.”
    They were full of Logan and their day through bath-time, through dinner. And then were too tuckered out from it all to take advantage of the extra hour she generally allowed them on Saturday nights.
    They were sound asleep by nine, and for the first time in her memory, Stella felt she had nothing to do. She tried to read, she tried to work, but couldn’t settle into either.
    She was thrilled when she heard Lily fussing.
    When she stepped into the hall, she saw Hayley heading down, trying to comfort a squalling Lily. “She’s hungry. I thought I’d curl up in the sitting room, maybe watch some TV while I feed her.”
    “Mind company?”
    “Twist my arm. It was lonely around here today with David off at the lake for the weekend, and you and Roz at work, the boys away.” She sat, opened her shirt and settled Lily