Jennifer Greene - Wild in the Moonlight

“I beg your pardon.”

“I don’t know for sure what that bozo did to you, and neither does Camille. But we both know something was bad at the end. So, fine. Broken bones take six weeks in a cast. Broken hearts taken longer. But you were made to be married, Vi. It’s time to take another chance.”

“You’re out of your mind. And I’m going to tell Mom you did this to me.”

“Are you kidding? Mom’s in on it.”

“You’re low. Lower than a skunk. Lower than an earthworm. I thought you were my favorite sister, but not anymore.”

“Uh-huh.” Daisy yawned through this threat. All three sisters regularly pulled the “favorite sister” jealousy thing on each other. But something happened then. As clear as the connection to France was, something seemed different-as if Daisy put her hand over the mouthpiece-and when she suddenly came back on, her voice changed. The real humor in her tone now sounded forced. “Listen, you, it’s your turn for some happiness. You don’t have to tell me what happened before the divorce-”

“What’s wrong?” Violet said.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Violet wasn’t the maternal sister for nothing. Her job in the family was to be the caretaker, the one who made chicken soup when the other two were dumped, the one who cleaned up their scrapes and listened to stuff they couldn’t tell their mother. “The last four times you’ve called, something hasn’t been right in your voice. Is the romance fading with Monsieur Picasso? You tired of living in France?”

“What could be wrong? The romantic French countryside, a hot summer sun, bougainvillea outside my window, breezes off the Mediterranean, freedom, a country where men really know how to appreciate a woman-”

Now Violet started to get really worried. “Quit with the horse spit. He hasn’t hurt you, has he?”

“No. And quit turning the subject around. We’re talking about you. You and love. You and sex. You and Cameron. Just think about it, would you? He’s not the marrying kind. But he’s a good man. The kind who’ll be honest. And good to you. A good guy to get your feet wet in the love pool again, without having to make any major risky dives. Besides which, he really is an answer for your lavender problem.”

When Violet hung up, she thought, what’s wrong with me has nothing to do with lavender. And it can’t be fixed.

She hustled to the house to grab some lunch-but there was no further serious talking with Cameron, because he was the one to get a phone call that time. One of his daughters kept his ear pinned for almost a half hour.

She was dying to ask him some questions about that conversation, but about the time he hung up, she saw the roofer’s truck bounce into the yard. Par for the course, the roofers were late, so she ran over to the cottage to raise hell.

Just when she tried to track down Cameron again, the lady from the White Hills Gazette showed up with her sunny face and her legal pad-Violet remembered the interview, didn’t she? No, she hadn’t remembered, and she hadn’t had time to put on lipstick in hours now, but publicity for the Herb Haven was too important to pass up.

An hour later, she glanced up to see Cameron in the doorway, listening to her rant on about the events and products and courses she’d scheduled for the summer. He lifted his hand in the air, showing her what looked to be an oatmeal raisin cookie. Thank God. If she didn’t get some sugar and junk food soon, she was probably going to fade out altogether.

After the interview, she leveled the plate of cookies he’d brought-but he’d disappeared by then. She searched until she found him on her back porch, talking with Filbert Green.

Filbert was the farmer her father had hired to caretake the farm after her parents retired to Florida. The idea was for Filbert to put in corn and soybeans or whatever, to keep the land in shape, until one of the Campbell daughters realized how much they belonged on the Vermont homestead and settled down to have some kids.

Camille had just gotten married, but she had no need for the land, and heaven knew when or if Daisy was coming back from France. So when Violet had limped home after the divorce, the house had been empty and everyone happy she was going to stay there. She’d let Filbert go. She wanted to wallow on the land in peace and quiet. Now, though, she saw Filbert hunkered down on her porch with Cam hunkered down next to him, both of them drawing plans with sticks like two smudge-nosed boys in a sandbox. They were talking about her lavender. Talking about the harvest. What needed doing, who’d do it, how. She needed to listen, needed to actively participate, only, damnation if there wasn’t another interruption.

Kari was the interruption, and actually it occurred to Violet by then that the girl had been shadowing her around for some time. A job interview, she recalled. Kari wanted a job, and God knew Violet was so behind she could barely catch her own tail. The girl was hardly out of diapers, but damn, she could talk spreadsheets like a true computer geek.

“Okay. These are the rules. Take ’em or leave ’em. I don’t give a damn what you wear, as long as you don’t show up naked. I don’t care if you’re late or early as long as the work gets done. But you have to like cats. And I need accurate records. I can’t work with someone who’s careless with numbers. So. Are we square or not?”

Kari of the shy smile and hopelessly baby blue eyes suddenly turned shrewd. “How much you gonna pay me?”

“How much you want?”

“Ten bucks an hour. I’m worth it.”

“This is your first job. Don’t you think that’s a little high?”

“Beats me. That’s what my dad told me to ask for, first try.”

“Okay, then you got it, first try. I love guts in a girl.”

Once she put the girl on the payroll, by a miracle, she caught a thirty-second break. In those thirty seconds, she remembered those kisses of Cameron’s from last night, how she’d felt-how he’d felt-and whether she dared entertain the extraordinary fantasy of making love with him.

Cripes, it was one of those days when she could barely find time to pee, so considering a love affair seemed the height of lunacy. But her sister’s phone call had helped promote the lunacy. Daisy had pointed out that Cameron had a uniquely perfect qualification for a lover-he didn’t want to settle down.

For another woman, that would obviously be a disadvantage. But for her… For three years now, she’d been afraid of attracting a man who’d want a normal, married type of life with her. Cameron was the first guy where she was dead sure he wouldn’t want something from her that she couldn’t give.

On top of which, she couldn’t even remember feeling this level of lust and longing for a man she’d barely met. There was something dangerous about that man. Something wicked. Something that made her dream about dumb things she knew she couldn’t have.

Thankfully, the insane day just kept getting worse. There were no more thirty-second breaks. Around four, she gulped down two glasses of water before she keeled over from heat exhaustion, remembered she had a killer bee sting, babied it with some honey, then abruptly heard raised voices from inside the shop.

She hiked out to find Boobla near tears, being railed on by an unsatisfied customer. Wilhelmena wanted a cure for age. There wasn’t one. It seemed she’d bought some chamomile and clover and mint and parsley and primrose a few weeks ago, believing the combination of products would clear up her wrinkles and fix her dry skin, and now she wanted a refund because they didn’t work.

Violet gently stepped in front of her clerk. “Those are all good ideas for dry skin, but I don’t know why you had the impression they’d fix wrinkles.”