User - NRoberts - G1 Blue Dahlia

Since Nature had deigned to give him a good, clear day, he was taking it to deal with his personal project. It meant he had to work alone—he liked that better in any case— and carve out time to swing by the job site and check on his two-man crew.

It meant he had to get over to Roz's place, pick up the trees he'd earmarked for his own use, haul them back to his place, and get them in the ground before noon.

Or one. Two at the latest.

Well, he'd see how it went.

The one thing he couldn't afford to carve out time for was this new manager Roz had taken on. He couldn't figure out why Roz had hired a manager in the first place, and for God's sake a Yankee. It seemed to him that Rosalind Harper knew how to run her business just fine and didn't need some fast-talking stranger screwing with the system.

He liked working with Roz. She was a woman who got things done, and who didn't poke her nose into

his end of things any more than was reasonable. She loved the work, just as he did, had an instinct for it. So when she did make a suggestion, you tended to listen and weigh it in.

She paid well and didn't hassle a man over every detail.

He could tell, just tell, that this manager was going to be nothing but bumps and ruts in his road.

Wasn't she already leaving messages for him in that cool Yankee voice about time management, invoice systems, and equipment inventory?

He didn't give a shit about that sort of thing, and he wasn't going to start giving one now.

He and Roz had a system, damn it. One that got the job done and made the client happy.

Why mess with success?

He drove his full-size pickup through the parking area, wove through the piles of mulch and sand, the landscape timbers, and around the side loading area.

He'd already eyeballed and tagged what he wanted— but before he loaded them up, he'd take one more look around. Plus there were some young evergreens in the field and a couple of hemlocks in the balled and burlapped area that he thought he could use.

Harper had grafted him a couple of willows and a hedgerow of peonies. They'd be ready to dig in this spring, along with the various pots of cuttings and layered plants Roz had helped him with.

He moved through the rows of trees, then turned around and backtracked.

This wasn't right, he thought. Everything was out of place, changed around. Where were his dogwoods? Where the hell were the rhododendrons, the mountain laurels he'd tagged? Where was his goddamn frigging magnolia?

He scowled at a pussy willow, then began a careful, step-by-step search through the section.

It was all different. Trees and shrubs were no longer in what he'd considered an interesting, eclectic mix of type and species, but lined up like army recruits, he decided. Alphabetized, for Christ's sweet sake.

In frigging Latin.

Shrubs were segregated, and organized in the same anal fashion.

He found his trees and, stewing, carted them to his truck. Muttering to himself, he decided to head into the field, dig up the trees he wanted there. They'd be safer at his place. Obviously.

Bur first he was going to hunt up Roz and get this mess straightened out.

* * *

Standing on a stepladder, armed with a bucket of soapy water and a rag, Stella attacked the top of the shelf she'd cleared off. A good cleaning, she decided, and it would be ready for her newly planned display. She envisioned it filled with color-coordinated decorative pots, some mixed plantings scattered among them. Add other accessories, like raffia twine, decorative watering spikes, florist stones and marbles, and so on, and you'd have something.

At point of purchase, it would generate impulse sales.

She was moving the soil additives, fertilizers, and animal repellents to the side wall. Those were basics, not impulse. Customers would walk back there for items of that nature, and pass the wind chimes she was going to hang, the bench and concrete planter she intended to haul in. With the other changes, it would all tie together, and with the flow, draw customers into the houseplant section, across to the patio pots, the garden furniture, all before they moved through to the bedding plants.

With an hour and a half until they opened, and if she could shanghai Harper into helping her with the heavy stuff, she'd have it done.

She heard footsteps coming through from the back, blew her hair out of her eyes. "Making progress,"

she began. "I know it doesn't look like it yet, but..."

She broke off when she saw him.

Even standing on the ladder, she felt dwarfed. He had to be six-five. All tough and rangy and fit in faded jeans with bleach stains splattered over one thigh. He wore a flannel shirt jacket-style over a white T-shirt and a pair of boots so dinged and scored she wondered he didn't take pity and give them a decent burial.

His long, wavy, unkempt hair was the color she'd been shooting for the one time she'd dyed her own.

She wouldn't have called him handsome—everything about him seemed rough and rugged. The hard mouth, the hollowed cheeks, the sharp nose, the expression in his eyes. They were green, but not like Kevin's had been. These were moody and deep, and seemed somehow hot under the strong line of brows.

No, she wouldn't have said handsome, but arresting, in a big and tough sort of way. The sort of tough that looked like a bunched fist would bounce right off him, doing a lot more damage to the puncher

than the punchee.

She smiled, though she wondered where Roz was, or Harper. Or somebody.

"I'm sorry. We're not open yet this morning. Is there something I can do for you?"

Oh, he knew that voice. That crisp, cool voice that had left him annoying messages about functional organizational plans and production goals.

He'd expected her to look like she'd sounded—a usual mistake, he supposed. There wasn't much cool

and crisp about that wild red hair she was trying to control with that stupid-looking kerchief, or the wariness in those big blue eyes.

"You moved my damn trees."

"I'm sorry?"

"Well, you ought to be. Don't do it again."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She kept a grip on the bucket—just in case—and stepped

down the ladder. "Did you order some trees? If I could have your name, I'll see if I can find your

order. We're implementing a new system, so—"

"I don't have to order anything, and I don't like your new system. And what the hell are you doing in here? Where is everything?"

His voice sounded local to her, with a definite edge of nasty impatience. "I think it would be best if you came back when we're open. Winter hours start at ten a.m. If you'd leave me your name..." She edged toward the counter and the phone.

"It's Kitridge, and you ought to know since you've been nagging me brainless for damn near a week."

"I don't know ... oh. Kitridge." She relaxed, fractionally. "The landscape designer. And I haven't been nagging," she said with more heat when her brain caught up. "I've been trying to contact you so we

could schedule a meeting. You haven't had the courtesy to return my calls. I certainly hope you're not

as rude with clients as you are with coworkers."

"Rude? Sister, you haven't seen rude."

"I have two sons," she snapped back. "I've seen plenty of rude. Roz hired me to put some order into

her business, to take some of the systemic load off her shoulders, to—"

"Systemic?" His gaze rose to the ceiling like a man sending out a prayer. "Jesus, are you always going

to talk like that?"

She took a calming breath. "Mr. Kitridge, I have a job to do. Part of that job is dealing with the landscaping arm of this business. It happens to be a very important and profitable arm."

"Damn right. And it's my frigging arm."