Yanecia - Nora Roberts- Garden Trilogy - Red lily

“Don’t you look sassy,” Ruby commented.

“I feel sassy.” She ran her fingers through her short shaggy hair, then let it fall again. “I haven’t done anything new with my hair in a year. More. I almost forgot what it was like to sit in a beauty parlor and have somebody do me.”

“Things do slide with a new baby. How’s our best girl doing?”

“Fussy last night after her shots. But she bounced back this morning. My butt was dragging. Pumped now though.” To prove it, she flexed her arms to show little bumps of biceps.

“Good thing. Stella wants everything watered, and I do mean everything. And we’re waiting on a big delivery of new planters. They’ll need to be stickered and shelved once they come in.”

“I’m your girl.”

She started outside in the thick, drowsy heat, soaking the bedding plants, the annuals and perennials who’d yet to find a home. They made her think of those awkward kids in school who never got picked for the team. As a result, she had a soft spot for them and wished she had a place where she could dig them into the soil, let them bloom, let them find their potential.

One day she would have a place. She’d plant gardens, take what she’d learned here and put it to use. Make something beautiful, something special. There would have to be lilies, naturally. Red lilies, like the ones Harper brought to her when she was in labor with Lily. A big, splashy pool of red lilies, bold and fragrant that would come back year after year and remind her how lucky she was.

Sweat trickled down the back of her neck, and water dampened her canvas skids. The gentle spray annoyed the gang of bees covering the sedum. So, come back when I’m finished, she thought as they flew off with an annoyed buzz. We’re all after the same thing here.

She moved slowly, half dreaming, down the tables holding the picked-over stock.

And if one day she had a garden, and there was Lily playing on the grass. With a puppy, she decided. There should be a puppy, all fat and soft and frisky. If she was able to have all that, couldn’t she add a man? Someone who loved her and Lily, someone funny and smart who made her heart beat just a little faster when he looked at her?

He could be handsome. What was the point of a fantasy if the guy wasn’t great-looking? Tall, he would be tall, with good shoulders and long legs. Brown eyes, deep delicious brown, and lots of thick dark hair she could get her hands into. Good cheekbones, the kind you just wanted to nibble your way along until you got to that strong, sexy mouth. And then—

“Jesus, Hayley, you’re drowning that coreopsis.”

She jerked, whipping the sprayer, then on a little yip of distress whipped it back again. But not before the water hit Harper dead-on.

Gut shot, she thought, torn between embarrassment and inappropriate giggles. He looked down at his soaked shirt, his jeans with a kind of grim resignation.

“Got a license for that thing?”

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. But you shouldn’t sneak up behind me that way.”

“I didn’t sneak anywhere. I walked.”

His voice was aggravated, but so Memphian, she thought, where she knew hers hit twang when she was excited or upset. “Well, walk louder next time. I really am sorry though. I guess my mind was wandering.”

“This kind of heat, it’s easy for the mind to wander, then lie down to take a nap.” He pulled the wet shirt away from his belly. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he narrowed them. “What did you do to your hair?”

“What?” Instinctively she reached up, pulled her fingers through it. “I had it cut. Don’t you like it?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s fine.”

Her finger itched on the trigger of the sprayer. “Please, stop. That kind of flattery’ll just go to my head.”

He smiled at her. He had such a great smile—sort of slow, so that it shifted the angles of his face and lit up in those deep, dark brown eyes—she nearly forgave him.

“I’m heading home, for a bit anyway. Mama’s back.”

“They’re back? How are they? Did they have a good time? And you don’t know yet because you haven’t been home. Tell them I can’t wait to see them, and that everything’s fine over here, and Roz shouldn’t worry and come over and start in working when she’s barely walked in the door. And—”

He cocked his hip, hooked a thumb in the front pocket of his ancient jeans. “Should I be writing any of this down?”

“Oh, go on then.” But she laughed as she waved him away. “I’ll tell them myself.”

“See you later.”

He walked off, the man of her daydreams, dripping a little.

She really had to get her mind off Harper, she warned herself. Get it off and keep it off. He wasn’t for her, and she knew it. She walked over to give the potted shrubs and climbers a good soak.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted anybody to be for her—right now, anyway. Lily was number one priority, and after Lily came her job. She wanted her baby happy, healthy, and secure. And she wanted to learn more, do more at the nursery. The more she learned, the less it would be a job, and the more it would be a career.

Pulling her weight was fine, but she wanted to do more.

After Lily, her work, and the family she’d made here, came the fascinating and spooky task of identifying Amelia, the Harper Bride—and laying her to rest.

Most of that fell to Mitch. He was the genealogist, and along with Stella the most organized mind of the bunch. And wasn’t it cool that he and Roz had found each other, fallen in love, after Roz had hired him to research the family tree to try to find where Amelia fit in? Not that Amelia had cared for the falling-in-love part. Boy, she’d been a stone bitch about it.

She might get mean again, too, Hayley thought. Now that they were married and Mitch was living at Harper House. She’d been quiet for a while, but it didn’t mean she’d stay quiet.

If and when the whirlwind resumed, Hayley intended to be ready for it. two

HAYLEY WALKED INTO Harper House—ah, the blessed cool —with Lily on her hip. She set Lily on her feet, then dumped her purse and the diaper bag on the bottom step so they’d be handy for her to carry up. Up’s where she wanted to go. She wanted to shower for, oh, two or three days ought to do it, then drink an ice cold beer, straight down.

But before she did anything, she wanted Roz.

Even as she thought it, Roz came out of the parlor. She and Lily gave mutual cries of delight. Lily changed direction, and as she headed toward Roz, Roz closed the distance and scooped her up.

“There’s my sweet potato.” She gave Lily a fierce hug, nuzzled her neck, then with a grin for Hayley, looked back at the baby and listened with amazement to the excited and incomprehensible babbling. “Why, I can’t believe all that happened in just one week! Don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here to catch me up on all the local gossip.” She grinned at Hayley again. “And how’s your mama?”

“I’m fine. I’m great.” Hayley dashed over to lock them both in a hug. “Welcome home. We missed you.”

“Good. I like being missed. And look at this.” She flipped her fingers over Hayley’s hair.

“I just did it. Just today. Woke up with a bug up my butt. Oh, you look so beautiful.”

“Listen to you.”

But it was true, always true. And now a weeklong honeymoon in the Caribbean had added a dewy glow to innate beauty. Sun had turned the creamy skin pale gold so that Roz’s long, dark eyes seemed even deeper. The short, straight hair capped a face with the sort of classic, timeless beauty Hayley knew she could only envy.