Black Rose - NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

They’d be a gift for Stella, for her new house, her new life.

It pleased her to be able to pass this sentimental piece of her heritage along to a woman who’d understand, to someone Roz had come to love.

One day she’d do the same for her sons when they married, and give to them this living piece of her heritage. She would love the women they chose because they did. If she was lucky, she’d like the women they married.

Daughters-in-law, she mused. And grandchildren. It didn’t seem quite possible that those events weren’t far around her next corner. Odder still that she was beginning to yearn for them. And that, she decided, had its roots in having Stella and Hayley and the children in the house.

Still, she could wait. She accepted change, but that didn’t mean she was in a hurry for it.

Right now her life was in pretty good order. Her business was flourishing, and that was not only a personal triumph, it was an intense relief.

She’d risked a great deal by starting In the Garden. But it was a risk she’d had to take—for herself, and for her heritage.

Harper House, and she would never give it up, cost a great deal to maintain. She was well aware there were people who believed she had money to burn, but while she certainly wasn’t at the point where she needed to pinch every penny, she was hardly rolling in it.

She’d raised three children, clothed and fed them, educated them. Her legacy had allowed her to stay home with them rather than seek outside employment, and her own canniness with investments had added a cushion.

But three college educations and medical school for Mason hadn’t come cheap. And when the house demanded new plumbing, new paint, a new roof, she was obliged to see it got what it needed.

Enough so that she’d discreetly sold some things over the years. Admittedly, paintings or jewelry she hadn’t cared for, but it had still given her a little twinge of guilt to sell what had been given to her.

Sacrificing pieces to preserve the whole.

There’d come a time when she’d been confident her sons’ futures were seen to, as best she could, and the house was secure. But money was needed nonetheless. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered finding a job—considered very briefly.

Mitch was right, she didn’t care to take orders. But she was, without question, very adept at giving them. Play to your strengths, after all, she thought with a glimmer of a smile. That’s just what she’d done.

It had been a choice between gathering her courage to start her own business, or swallowing her pride to work for someone else.

For Roz, it was no contest.

She’d piled a great deal of her eggs into that single basket, and the first two years had been touch and go. But it had grown. She and Harper had made it grow.

She’d taken a hit with the divorce. Stupid, stupid mistake. While Bryce had gotten very little out of the deal—and only what she’d permitted him to get—it had cost her dearly in pride and in money to shed herself of him.

But they’d weathered it. Her sons, her home, her business were thriving. So she could think, a little, of changes. Of expansions on both her business and personal fronts. Just as she could enjoy the successful present.

She moved from the African violets to her bromeliads, and by the time she’d finished dividing, she decided Stella was going to get one of these, too. Pleased, she worked another hour, then shifted to check the spring bulbs she was forcing. She’d have narcissus blooming in another week.

When she was satisfied, she carted everything she wanted in the house inside, arranging, as she preferred them, a forest of plants in the solarium, then placing other pots throughout the house.

Last, she carried a trio of bulbs in forcing bottles to the kitchen.

“And what have you brought me?” David asked.

“David, I despair of teaching you anything about horticulture. They’re very obviously tulips.” She arranged them on the windowsill beside the banquette. “They’ll bloom in a few weeks.”

“I despair of teaching you anything about the choices of stylish gardening wear. How long have you owned that shirt?”

“I have no idea. What are you doing in here?” She pulled open the refrigerator, took out the pitcher of cold tea that was always there. “Shouldn’t you be starting your primping marathon for tonight’s party?”

“I’m making you up a nice platter of cold cuts and sides, as you refuse to come out and play with us tonight. And as I treated myself to a few hours at the day spa today while you were grubbing in dirt, my primping has already started.”

“You don’t have to go to any trouble with platters, David. I can find the makings for a sandwich myself.”

“Nicer this way, especially when you have company.” He chuckled. “The professor’s in the library, and I put a couple of bottles of champagne in to chill so the two of you can—let’s say—pop a cork.”

“David.” She gave him a light cuff on the side of the head before she poured the tea. “I’m not popping anything with anyone. I’m minding the baby.”

“Babies sleep. Roz, my treasure, he’s gorgeous , in that sexily rumpled academic sort of way. Jump him. But for God’s sake, change your clothes first. I set out your white cashmere sweater, and those black pants I talked you into—the ones with lots of lycra, and those fabulous Jimmy Choo’s.”

“I’m certainly not wearing white cashmere, skintight pants—which I’d never have bought if you hadn’t hypnotized me or something—or a pair of five-inch heels when I’m babysitting for a seven-month-old. It’s not even a date.”

“Don’t you just love those horn-rims? What is it about a man in horn-rim glasses?”

She took an olive out of the bowl he’d filled. “You’re certainly wound up tonight.”

He covered the bowls and the tray he’d prepared with plastic. “There now. You’re going to have yourself a nice New Year’s Eve picnic with the horn-rimmed hunk.”

“David, why in the world do you think I need a man?”

“My darling Roz, we all need a man.”

SHE DID CHANGE, but brutally rejected David’s choices in favor of a simple cotton shirt and jeans, and her favored wool socks in lieu of shoes. Still, she had enough vanity to do her makeup.

In the nursery, she listened patiently to all of Hayley’s nervous-mother instructions, assured, and reassured, swore an oath she would call if there was any sort of a problem. And finally nudged the girl out and on her way.

She waited, watching from the window until she saw the car drive away. Then, grinning, she turned to where Lily gurgled in her bouncy chair.

“I’ve got you all to myself now. Come on up here to Aunt Roz, ’cause I’ve just got to eat you right up like a bowl of sugar.”

In the library, Mitch pretended to read, took sketchy notes, and listened to the baby monitor that stood on a table on the lower level.

Every room had one, at least every room he’d been in, he thought. Since the experiences last spring, he thought that was a wise and basic precaution.

But he wasn’t thinking of safety or precautions now. He was simply charmed and amused, listening first to Hayley’s anxiety-filled departure, and now Roz’s verbal love affair with the baby.

He’d never heard that tone in her voice before, hadn’t known it could soften like that, like fragrant wax under low heat. Nor had he expected her to dote, as she so obviously doted, on a child.

She talked nonsense, cooed, laughed, made the silly noises adults habitually made around babies and, from the sounds of Lily’s response, made the baby as happy as the sitter.

It was another angle to a woman he’d seen as formidable, confident, a little aloof, and oddly direct. All those facets had already combined into a woman he found smoothly sexy. Now this . . . softness, he supposed, was a surprising icing on an already desirable cake.