Julianna Morris - Undercover In Glimmer Creek

Jamie’s eyes filled with delight at the mention of her boyfriend. “Isn’t he wonderful?”

Tessa smiled, though she didn’t know a great deal about the young man her dad had hired several months earlier, other than what Jamie had told her.

Lance Beckley was one of the Poppy Gold employees who hadn’t grown up in the area. He’d shown up on his motorcycle, wandered around town a couple of days and then applied for a job in the maintenance department. Pop had hired him to clear brush and dig rocks from the area where they hoped to plant two additional orchards. Tessa had been concerned when she heard he was the biker who’d invaded Poppy Gold, roaring up and down the streets, but he hadn’t caused any problems since then.

When her cousin had gone back to work, Tessa made calls to several clients, booking a destination wedding for a CEO’s daughter, along with three corporate retreats and a class reunion.

At 1:00 p.m. she got up to do her usual quick walk through Old City Hall and around the grounds. At the Mayfair Mansion she stopped and watched Gabe McKinley working in the garden. The lawn at the nearby Calaveras House was already smartly groomed, so he’d obviously started there first.

His shirt stretched over his shoulders, his muscles flexing as he lifted a load of clippings onto a cart, and she felt an unwelcome warmth in her abdomen. She didn’t want to be attracted to a guy like Gabe, even in passing.

He noticed her and bobbed his head without stopping his work. Then she noticed he was about to yank one of the plants from behind the sundial.

“No, wait,” Tessa cried, dashing over. “That’s supposed to be there.”

* * *

GABE STARED AT the plant he’d been about to pull. It was supposed to stay? He hadn’t touched the flowerbeds since Liam Connor had told him to work on the lawns, but this thing had looked too weedy to leave behind. The gardens in general seemed chaotic, with masses of different flowers crowded together. He guessed it was attractive, but it wouldn’t do any harm to impose some order.

Tessa crouched and patted the ground around the base of the weed he’d grabbed, though she seemed to avoid touching the plant itself. “Uh...Pop must have forgotten to say you shouldn’t do anything on the flowerbeds until you receive some training.”

“Oh.” Gabe’s instructions from the elder Connor had been distracted, to say the least; Liam gave the impression that his thoughts were somewhere else entirely. Age-related memory problems were also a possibility, despite him seeming too young for senility. “This isn’t a weed?”

“No, it’s foxglove. This one has already flowered, but wait until you see it next year. I’m not sure foxglove belongs in a true Victorian garden, but we love it.”

“Are you a horticulturist, too?”

“Just an enthusiastic amateur. My mother did the research and designed all our gardens and...er...planted most of the perennials and biennials herself. She liked the natural style of the late-Victorian era. Formal gardens wouldn’t suit Poppy Gold nearly as well.”

Liked. Past tense.

That must mean Liam was a widower. While it was information, it wouldn’t have much bearing on his investigation. Gabe shifted restlessly. He preferred direct action to covert activity, but this was something he had to do for Rob. A part of him still felt guilty for escaping to the navy and leaving his younger brother alone with their parents.

“So, what did you study in college?” Gabe asked, trying to make the question sound casual. Apparently he didn’t succeed, because Tessa became guarded again.

“Business. It looks as if you’re almost done here. Since it’s your first day, I’m sure Pop won’t mind if you take the rest of the afternoon off. Just return the equipment to Maintenance.”

“I can’t quit early. You know what they say—a day’s work for a day’s pay. I’ll find something to keep me occupied.” Gabe was elated. With Liam gone, he would have an ideal chance to poke around and get a better lay of the land.

Her lips tightened. “All right, but don’t do anything to the garden beds. I need to get back to my office.”

Gabe was almost amused. The only thing he’d learned for certain was that Tessa Connor was protective of the plants her mother had put in the ground. He couldn’t imagine being sentimental that way himself, but it was Tessa’s business. Of course, his own mother had been pickled with alcohol for most of his childhood, so he was unlikely to get maudlin about her mementos.

The truth was, he knew too much about the dark side of human nature, yet he still found most people incomprehensible.

CHAPTER TWO

TESSA RETURNED TO her office, still not sure what to make of Gabe McKinley. He obviously worked hard—the lawns around the two houses had been cut and trimmed with military precision, without a blade of grass or speck of dirt out of place. Yet she also had the feeling he didn’t know anything about the kind of work he’d been hired to do.

There was nothing unusual about having an inexperienced employee, particularly in grounds maintenance, but normally Pop was fierce about warning new staff not to touch his wife’s Victorian flowerbeds until they’d been properly trained.

Tessa’s stomach rolled.

Fifteen months ago her father had called to say the business was falling apart and he was considering selling Poppy Gold. Though he hadn’t asked her to come back, she’d immediately gone to her grandfather’s office and resigned. She still didn’t know if it had been the right decision... There were so many memories that haunted Liam at Poppy Gold. But she’d been certain he would regret selling the place where he’d fallen in love and spent so many years restoring.

It had also been a little selfish. Tessa couldn’t bear the thought of losing Poppy Gold; she missed her mother terribly, and the place was a connection both to Meredith Connor and her own childhood.

The rest of the afternoon passed slowly, and by four o’clock Tessa was on edge, wondering if her father was back from Stockton, and if he was, why he hadn’t called. He got depressed, and this time of year was a tough one for him—her parents’ thirty-second wedding anniversary was rapidly approaching.

It wasn’t fair.

People weren’t supposed to die of pneumonia. With modern medicine and all the antibiotics available, it shouldn’t have happened. Meredith Connor should still be here, making everyone happy, especially her husband.

Tessa rubbed her aching forehead. She’d always hoped to fall in love like her parents and have children, but after watching her father’s agony, she was wary about feeling that much. Not that it mattered—at the moment she was far too busy for romance. She couldn’t take the chance that Poppy Gold might fail; too many people depended on them.

Not that she had anything against romance. She’d dated in college and occasionally in San Francisco, though never to the point of genuinely committing her heart. One of her old boyfriends had complained she was rushing too fast toward her future to think about the present, but she didn’t agree. There was so much to do, and she didn’t see any harm in graduating high school and college early.

A short time later her father walked in, looking more tired than usual. He sat down with a groan. “Sorry about being late. I got a flat tire. I would have called but my phone was dead.”

“That’s okay, Pop. Sorry about the tire.”

Tessa made a mental note to check the charge on his cell phone when he was taking a day trip out of town, especially if he was taking the 1928 AA truck. He never used to be absentminded, but a lot had changed in the past eighteen months. It was even possible that he’d spent part of the time down in Stockton just staring into space. The occasions she found him zoned out completely were less frequent now, but they still happened.