Jennifer Greene - Wild in the Moonlight

Fluffball-her biggest cat, and the one with the brazen-honky-tonk-woman character-draped over his lap and exposed her entire belly for his long, slow stroking fingers. “Maybe you did it for fun, but it’s more than fun to Jeunnesse. The lavender ground around Provence has become problematic for the perfume growers. It’s not a matter of depleted soil or anything like that, because you can always add or subtract nutrients from a soil. But nematodes and diseases build up when the same crop is grown year after year, decade after decade. So now the company seeks to acquire long-term contracts with people across the world who have the right growing situation for lavender.”

Before he could continue the educational lecture, she lifted a finger to interrupt. “Cameron. You don’t have to talk to me as if I were quite that dumb. I know most of this,” she said impatiently.

For a second she forgot how hard she’d worked to give him the impression she was a dotty flake, but he continued without a blink. “Then you also know that lavender isn’t hard to grow. It doesn’t need the pampering that lots of plants require. There are also already hundreds of strains of lavender across Europe and America and South America.”

She knew that, too, but this time she didn’t dare interrupt.

“So…now you come to my role in this. I’m one of Jeunnesse’s agricultural chemists. What that amounts to is that I have a fancy degree that gives me a chance to travel and get my hands dirty at the same time. My job is to study new lavender strains. To evaluate how they work in a perfume equation. In fact, it literally took months for our lab to complete an analysis of the lavender you sent.”

“And-”

“And it’s incomparable. It’s sturdy. It’s strong. The scent is strong and true, hardy. But more than all the growing characteristics I could test, your strain of lavender has the magic.”

“The magic?”

Cameron lifted his hands-annoying the cat when he stopped petting her. “I don’t know how else to explain it. There’s a certain chemical ingredient and reaction in lavender that makes it critical to the fine perfumes. It’s not the lavender smell that’s so important. It’s how the lavender works chemically with the other ingredients. To say it simplistically, I’d call it ‘staying power.’ And I can explain that to you in more depth another time. The point is that your lavender has it. We think. I think.”

She’d never grown the strains of lavender for profit. Or for a crop. Or for its perfume potential. She’d started puttering in the green houses after her divorce, when she’d first come home and had nowhere to go with all the anger, all the loss. Growing things had been renewing. But hearing Cameron talk, seeing the sunset glow on his face, feeling his steady, dark eyes as night came on, invoked a shiver of excitement and interest she’d never expected. “All right.”

“Initially, Jeunnesse just wants to buy your crop. However you planned to harvest it, I’ll either take charge or work alongside you, whichever you want. Obviously, your twenty acres are no big deal in themselves, it takes five hundred pounds of flowers to make an ounce of lavender oil. But I can easily get enough to analyze the quality and nature and characteristics of your lavender. Enough for me to extract some oil, my own way, under my own control, so we’ll know for sure what we could have.”

She’d stopped rocking. Stopped nursing her bee-stung foot. In fact, she’d completely forgotten about her bee-stung foot. “And then what happens?”

“Then, at the end of the harvest, we make some decisions. If your strain is as unique as I think it is, you have several choices. No matter what, you want to get started on patenting your strain. Then, if you want to grow it yourself-and can buy or rent the acreage to do it-then Jeunnesse would offer you a long-term contract. Another choice would be for you to sell the rights to Jeunnesse for a period of years. We’re talking a long-term commitment, worth a great deal of money on both sides-that is, assuming your strain of lavender lives up to its potential. But we have to see what this mysterious strain of yours can do before making any promises.”

Violet wasn’t asking for promises-from him, from Jeunnesse. When it came down to it, she wasn’t asking for any promises from anyone anymore. She’d stopped believing in luck-or that anyone would be there for her-the day she’d caught Simpson in bed with his fertile little bimbo.

Now, though, she felt old, rusty emotions trying to emerge from her heart’s cobwebs. For the lavender, she thought. It’s not that she really believed she was suddenly going to get ridiculously lucky over something so chancy as her playing around in the greenhouse. It was just that there was no reason not to go along with Cameron’s plan. Whether she got rich or not didn’t matter. She had nothing to lose-and a lot of fun and interest to be had-just to see if this crazy thing came true.

For the lavender, she’d take a chance.

Not for the man.

But then, she’d never thought for a minute that Cameron Lachlan was a threat to her heart, so that wasn’t even worth a millisecond’s worry.

The moonless night was silent as a promise. Cameron lay on his back on the open sleeping bag, trying to fathom why he felt so strangely moody and restless. He wasn’t remotely moody by nature. Normally he’d have inhaled a special night like this. Clouds were building, stealing in from the west, concealing the moon but also bringing tufts of cooler air. God knew he was tired, and when he closed his eyes he could smell the sweet summer grass, the lavender in the distance, the blooms whispering out of Violet’s garden.

The lights had gone off in the upstairs bedroom an hour ago. Vi had told him he could sleep inside-in the spare room, on the living room couch, on the porch, wherever he wanted. But Cam had sensed she was uncertain around him. If sleeping outside might make her feel safer, it was sure no hardship for him.

Any other time, he’d have treasured the night. He’d found some wild mint growing near her mailbox, rubbed it on his neck and arms, enough to chase off the mosquitoes and bugs. No dew tonight, so the grass was warm and dry. He heard the hoot of a barn owl, the cry of crickets. Fireflies danced as if Violet’s long lawn were their personal ballroom.

He owned the world on nights like this-or that’s how he’d always felt before. Instead the frown on his forehead seemed glued there. It made no sense. He loved his freedom, loved the smells and scents of a night this breathless, this private. He’d never been prey to loneliness. Something just seemed off with him lately. Especially tonight.

After Violet had gone inside, he’d walked all over her family farm. She had a pretty piece of land-but he’d seen pretty pieces of land before and never felt inclined to plunk down roots.

Cameron had long realized he had an allergy to roots, or any other possessions that could tie him down. His father had built up millions, running a company that-as far as Cam was concerned-had taken over his dad’s life. Peter Lachlan had died before the age of fifty-five, with a son who never knew him, a wife who’d slept alone most of their marriage and fabulous possessions that didn’t do much more than collect dust. Even as a young boy, Cameron had refused to follow in his father’s footsteps. He’d carved his own, and if his independence and vagabond ways weren’t everyone’s choice, he’d loved his life.

It was just tonight that a weird, unsettled restlessness seemed to hem his mood, nipping at his consciousness, stealing his peace.

A sudden brisk wind brushed his hair. The cats, who’d been purring relentlessly at his side, stood up and shot toward the house. The black sky suddenly started moving, clouds being whipped like cake batter. The fireflies disappeared.