Red Lily

start something, and ruin everything.
    “Yeah. It’s not like she’s mad at me or anything. No reason to be. We’re good, we’re fine. You’d better go down, fill the others in.”
    “You get spooked in the night, call. I’ll come.”
    “Good to know. Thanks.”
    She slid her hand out of his, eased back, and slipped into her own room.
    No, Amelia had no reason to be mad at her, Hayleyconsidered. She had no boyfriend, no husband, no lover. The only man she wanted was off-limits.
    “So you can relax,” she murmured. “Looks like I’ll be going solo for the next little while.

three
    H E HUNTED HER up the next day, mid-morning. But he had to be sly about it. He knew her well enough to be sure if she thought he was trying to help, to get her mind off things, to give her any sort of break, she’d brush him off.
    Hayley Phillips was the original I’m-fine-don’t-worry-about-me girl.
    Nothing wrong with that, Harper thought. In her place, a lot of women would have been happy to take advantage of his mother’s generosity, or at least to take that generosity for granted. Hayley did neither, and he respected that. He could admire her stand—to a point. But plenty of times, to his mind, that point tripped over into just mule-headed stubborn.
    So he kept it casual, even when he had to poke into two greenhouses, work his way to the main buildingbefore he found her setting up a new display of houseplants.
    She was wearing one of the nursery’s bib aprons over black camp shorts and a V-necked tank. There was damp soil on the apron, and on her forearm. Only repressed lust could be responsible for him finding it so absurdly sexy.
    “Hey, how’s it going?”
    “Not too bad. Had ourselves a little run on dish gardens. Customer just came in and bagged five as centerpieces for her sorority reunion lunch. And I talked her into taking the sago palm for her own sunroom.”
    “Nice going. Guess you’re busy then.”
    She glanced over her shoulder. “Not too. Stella wants to make up more dish gardens, but she’s tied up with Logan, which isn’t as sexy as it sounds. Big job came in, and she’s locked him in the office until she gets all the details for the contract. Last I walked by, he wasn’t all that happy about it.”
    “Ought to be at it for a while then. I was going to do some chip-budding. Could use some help, but—”
    “Really? Can I do it? I can take one of the two-ways in case Ruby or Stella need me.”
    “I could use another pair of hands.”
    “Mine’ll be right back. Hold on.”
    She dashed through the double glass doors, and was back in thirty seconds, shed of the apron and hitching a two-way to her waistband. And giving him a quick peek at smooth belly skin.
    “I read up some, but I can’t remember which is the chip-budding.”
    “It’s an old method,” he told her as they started out. “More widely used now than it used to be. What we’re going to do is work some of the field stock, some of the ornamentals. Mid-summer’s the time for it.”
    Heat hit like a wet wall. “This sure is mid-summer.”
    “We’ll start on magnolias.” He picked up a bucket ofwater he’d left outside the door. “They never stop being popular.”
    They walked over gravel, between greenhouses, and headed out to the fields. “Things stay quiet last night?”
    “Not a peep after that little show we were treated to. I’m hoping she doesn’t plan an encore of that trick. Gross, you know?”
    “She sure knows how to get your attention anyway. Okay, here’s what we do first.” He stopped in front of a tall, leafy magnolia. “I’m going to pick some ripe shoots, this season’s wood. You want one not much thicker than a pencil with well-developed buds. See this one?”
    With an ungloved hand, he reached up, gently drew a shoot down.
    “Okay, then what?”
    “I clip it off.” He drew pruners out of his tool bag. “See here, where the base is starting to go woody? That’s what we’re looking for. You don’t want green shoots, they’re too weak yet.”
    After he’d cut it, Harper put the shoot in the water bucket. “We keep it wet. If it dries out, it won’t unite. Now you pick one.”
    She started to move around the tree, but he caught her hand. “No, it’s better to work on the sunny side of the tree.”
    “Okay.” She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth as she searched, selected. “How about this one?”
    “Good. Here, make the cut.”
    She took the pruners, and since he was close