Red Lily

and flutes. But she knew whatever it was wouldn’t be playing through his headphones.
    He was down at the far end, and it seemed like the longest walk of her life. Even when he turned, saw her, and flashed a grin.
    “Hey, just who I wanted to see.” He made a come-ahead gesture with one hand as he drew his headset off with the other. “Take a look.”
    “At what?”
    “Our babies.”
    Since he shifted to the plants, he didn’t see her jerk in response. “They’re right on schedule,” he continued. “See, the ovary sections have already swelled.”
    “They’re not the only ones,” she mumbled, but moved forward to stand beside him and study the plants they’d grafted a few weeks before.
    “See? The pods are fully formed. We give them another three, four weeks for the seeds to ripen. The top’ll split. We’ll gather the seeds, plant them in pots. Keep ’em outdoors, exposed. And in the spring, they’ll germinate. Once they’re about three inches, we’ll plant them out in nursery beds.”
    It wasn’t procrastinating to stand there talking about a mutual project. It was . . . polite. “Then what?”
    “Usually we’ll get blooms the second season. Then we’ll study and record the differences, the likenesses, the characteristics. What we’re hoping for is at least one—and I’m banking on more—mini with a strong pink color, and that blush of red. We get that, we’ve got Hayley’s Lily.”
    “If we don’t.”

    “Pessimism isn’t the gardener’s friend, but if we don’t, we’ll have something else cool. And we’ll try again. Anyway, I thought you might want to work with me on a rose, for my mother.”
    “Oh, um . . .” If it was a girl, should they name her Rose? “That’d be nice. Sweet of you.”
    “Well, it’s Mitch’s idea, but the guy couldn’t grow a Chia Pet. He wants to try for a black. Nobody’s ever managed a true black rose, but I thought we could play around and see what we came up with. It’s the right time of year—time to wash down, disinfect, air and dry out this place. Hygiene’s a big for this kind of work, and roses are pretty fussy. They’re time-consuming, too, but it’d be fun.”
    He looked so excited, she thought, at the idea of starting something new. Just how would he look when she told him they already had?
    “Um, when you do all this, you pick the parents—the pollen plant, the seed plant. Deliberate selection, for specific characteristics.”
    Her blue eyes, Harper’s brown. His patience, her impulse. What would you get?
    “Right. You’re trying to cross them, to create something with the best—or at least the desired characteristics—of both.”
    His temper, her stubbornness. Oh God. “People don’t work that way.”
    “Hmm.” He turned to his computer, keying data into a file. “No, guess not.”
    “And with people, they can’t always—or don’t always—plan it all out like this. They don’t always get together and say, hey, let’s hybridize.”
    He shot a laugh over his shoulder. “Now that’s a line I never thought to use in a bar, picking up a girl. I’d put it in the file, but since I’ve already got a girl, it’d be wasted.”

    “You never used a line on me,” she told him. “Anyway, hybridizing’s about creating something, a separate something. Not just about the fun and games.”
    “Hmm. Hey, did I show you the viburnum? Suckering’s been a problem, but I’m pretty happy with how it’s coming along.”
    “Harper.” Tears wanted to spurt and spill again. “Harper, I’m sorry.”
    “It’s not a big,” he said absently. “I know how to deal with suckering.”
    “I’m pregnant.”
    There, she thought. She said it. Fast and clean. Like ripping a bandage off a wound.
    “You said what?” He stopped typing, slowly swiveled on his stool.
    She didn’t know how to read his face. Maybe it was because her own vision seemed blurry and half blind. She couldn’t read the tone of his voice, not with the roaring going on in her ears.
    “I should’ve known. I should have. I’ve been so tired, and I missed my period—I just forgot about it—and I’ve been queasy on and off, and so damn moody. I thought, I didn’t think. I thought it was what was happening with Amelia. I didn’t put it together. I’m sorry.”
    The entire burst came out in a disjointed ramble that she could barely comprehend herself. She dropped into silence when he held up a hand.
    “Pregnant. You said you were