Black Rose - NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

“And didn’t tell anybody?” Hayley glowered at him as she strapped Lily in her high chair.

“Actually, I was waiting for all to be present and accounted for before I brought it up. Ah, here comes Harper now. I told him his presence was required at breakfast this morning.”

“Really, David, it’s no big deal, and I need to get ready for work.”

“On the contrary.” Shaking his head over his coffee, Mitch looked around the table. “It was extraordinary. The woman,” he said with a long look at Roz, “is extraordinary.”

Under the table she took his hand, gave it a warm squeeze. A silent thanks for letting this play out without any of last night’s horror marring the mood.

“What’s up?” Harper demanded. “We’re having omelettes? How come we’re having omelettes?”

“Because your mama likes them, and she needs to recharge her energies after hauling out her can of Whoop Ass last night.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Roz replied, even as a chuckle tickled the back of her throat.

“What about last night? What Whoop Ass?”

“See what you miss when you don’t go to the club?” David told Harper.

“If somebody doesn’t fill in the blanks soon, I’m going to go crazy.” Hayley gave Lily a sip-cup of juice and plopped down. “Spill, every deet.”

“There’s not that much to tell,” Roz began.

“I’ll tell it.” Mitch returned Roz’s bland look equably. “She’ll leave stuff out. Now, some of this I pried out of her, because I wasn’t there at the time, and some of the other I got from my son. But I’ll tell it all in one piece—more impact.”

He started with the brief stop by the Forresters’ table, then moved to the bathroom scene, then dramatized the altercation between Roz and Bryce outside the lounge area.

“Oh, my God, they walked out while you were talking to that . . .” Hayley cleared her throat, amended her first thought as she remembered the children. “Man.”

“His back was to them,” Mitch filled in. “It was perfectly staged.”

Hayley fed Lily bits of egg and gaped at Roz. “It’s so cool. Like, I don’t know, a sting.”

“The timing was exquisite,” Mitch agreed. “You should’ve seen your mother, Harper, cool and slick as an iceberg, and just as dangerous.”

“This kitchen is full of metaphors this morning,” Roz commented. “Isn’t anyone going to work?”

“Seen her like that.” Harper scooped up some omelette. “Scary.”

“It happened I was in a position to see the reaction of the ladies behind them,” Mitch said, “and it was beautiful. He’s mouthing off, bragging about how he can keep screwing around, the phone calls, the credit cards, and so on, and nobody’ll pin him. He’s insulting Quill, calling Mandy stupid. Utterly full of himself, and Roz just stands there—he doesn’t even know she’s just brought the ax down on his neck. She doesn’t flick an eyelash, just keeps prompting him to say more and more until the son of a . . .” He remembered the kids. “. . . gun is buried in his own words. Then, then, when it’s done, she just waves a hand, so he turns and sees they’re behind him. And she strolls away. It was beautiful.”

“I hope they fell on him like dogs,” Stella said under her breath.

“Close enough. Apparently, he tried to talk his way out of it, convince them that it was all a mistake, but the blonde, she’s hysterical. Screaming, crying, slapping at him. The other goes straight to her husband, fills him in, so he knows it was Bryce’s vindictiveness that lost him one of his top clients. He loses it—according to my son—and bulls his way to Bryce and punches him. People are jumping up, glasses are crashing, the blonde jumps on Clerk and starts biting and scratching.”

“Holy cow,” Gavin whispered, awed.

“They had to drag her off, and while they were, Quill took another shot, and they had to drag him off.”

“I wish I’d seen that.” Harper rose to get his choice of morning caffeine and came back to the table with a can of Coke. “I really do.”

“People were running for cover, or pushing to get closer to the action,” Mitch continued. “Slipping on olives from martinis, sliding around in salmon mousse or whatever, knocking over tables. They were at the point of calling the cops when in-house security broke it up.”

“Where were you?” Hayley wondered.

“I was on the terrace making out with Roz. Dancing with Roz,” he corrected with a wink. “We had a decent view through the doors and windows.”

“It’ll be the talk of the town for some time,” Roz concluded. “As far as I’m concerned, all of them got just what they deserved. A bellyful of embarrassment. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve got to get to work.”

“Wait, wait, what about Bryce?” Hayley forked up some eggs for herself. “You can’t leave us hanging.”

“I couldn’t say, but I suspect he’ll scamper out of Shelby County with his tail between his legs. I don’t think he’ll be around anymore.”

“That’s it?” Hayley wondered. “You’re not going to—” She broke off, wiped Lily’s face. “That’s good. It’s good he’s gone.”

Roz ruffled both boys’ hair, then got up to lay a kiss on the top of Lily’s head. “I’ll be giving the police my statement regarding possible charges for fraud this afternoon, as will Mitch, who heard everything Bryce said. I imagine they’ll speak with the others who heard him flapping. Then we’ll see what happens next.”

“Even better,” Hayley said with a smile. “Even much better.”

“I don’t punch or kick people in the face, at least not to date. But I don’t get pushed around for long, either.”

She walked out, pleased, even comforted, that the day had begun with laughter instead of worry.

ROZ STOOD ONthe little slope at the edge of her woods and studied the spread and form of In the Garden. There were wonderful blocks of color, tender spring green, bold pinks, exotic blues, cheery yellows, and hot, hot reds.

The old, time-faded brown tables were full of those colors, displaying bedding plants in flats and pots. The ground itself erupted with it, blooming in an enthusiastic celebration of the season. The buildings looked fresh and welcoming, the greenhouses industrious. There were planters exploding with color and shape, hanging baskets dripping with them.

From this vantage she could see slices of the shrub area, and the ornamental trees, and all the way back to the field-grown, with its ruler-straight rows and muscular machines.

Everywhere she looked there were people, customers and staff, bustling or browsing. Red wagons chugged along like little trains carrying their hopeful cargo. Flatbeds bumped over the gravel paths, and out to the parking area where their loads could be transferred into cars and trucks.

She could see the mountains of mulch, loose and bagged, the towers of pavers, the rails of landscape timbers.

Busy, busy, she thought, but with the charm she’d always envisioned in homey touches. The arbor already twined with morning glory vines, the curved bench strategically placed by a bubbling garden fountain, the flashy red of a hummingbird feeder dangling from a branch, the music of a wind chime circling gently in the breeze.

She should be down there, of course, doing some bustling herself, babying her stock, calculating inventory. Having a manager—even an exceptional one like Stella—didn’t mean she shouldn’t have her finger on every pulse.

But she’d wanted the air, the movement of it around her after hours in the denseness of the propagation house. And she wanted this view of what she’d built. What she’d worked for, gambled on.

Today, under a sky so freshly blue it might have been painted on glass, it was beautiful. And every hour she’d spent over all these years sweating, worrying, calculating, struggling was worth it.