User - NRoberts - G1 Blue Dahlia

"Oh, well..." He looked around. "A lot of stuff. Probably. I keep the staging records on computer."

"Even better. Maybe you could just make me a copy. Floppy disk would be perfect."

"Yeah, okay. Okay, wait." He shifted his stool toward the computer.

"You don't have to do it this minute, when you're in the middle of something else."

"If I don't, I'll probably forget."

With a skill she admired, he tapped keys with somewhat grungy fingers, found what he was after. He dug out a floppy, slid it into the data slot. "Look, I'd rather you didn't take anything out when I'm not here."

"No problem."

"How's, um, Hayley working out?"

"An answer to a prayer."

"Yeah?" He reached for a can of Coke, took a quick drink. "She's not doing anything heavy or working around toxics. Right?"

"Absolutely not. I've got her doing bulb planters right now."

"Here you go." He handed her the floppy.

"Thanks, Harper. This makes my life easier. I've never done a Christmas cactus graft." She clipped the floppy to her board. "Can I watch?"

"Sure. Want to do one? I'll talk you through."

"I'd really like to."

"I'll finish this one up. See, I cut a two-, maybe two-and-a-half-inch shoot, straight through the joint.

I've cut the top couple inches from the stem of the stock plant. And on the way to slicing my finger—"

"Sorry."

"Wouldn't be the first time. I made this fine, vertical cut into the vascular bundle."

"I got that far."

"From here, we pare slivers of skin from both sides of the base of the scion, tapering the end, and exposing the central core." Those long, artistic fingers worked cleverly and patiently. "See?"

"Mmm. You've got good hands for this."

"Came by them naturally. Mom showed me how to graft. We did an ornamental cherry when I was

about Luke's age. Now we're going to insert the scion into the slit on the stock stem. We want the exposed tissues of both in contact, and match the cut surfaces as close as you can. I like to use a long cactus spine...." He took one from a tray and pushed it straight into the grafted area.

"Neat and organic."

"Uh-huh. I don't like binding with raffia on these. Weakened clothespins are better. Right across the

joint, see, so it's held firm but not too tight. The rooting medium's two parts cactus soil mix to one part fine grit. I've already got the mix. We get our new baby in the pot, cover the mix with a little fine gravel."

"So it stays moist but not wet."

"You got it. Then you want to label it and put it in an airy position, out of full sun. The two plants should unite in a couple of days. Want to give it a shot?"

"Yeah." She took the stool when he vacated it, and began, following his directions carefully. "Ah, David was telling me about the house legend this morning."

"That's good." His gaze stayed focused on her hands, and the plant. "Keep the slice really thin. Legend?"

"You know, woo-woo, ghost."

"Oh, yeah, the sad-eyed blonde. Used to sing to me when I was a kid."

"Come on, Harper."

He shrugged, took another sip of Coke. "You want?" He tipped the can from side to side. "I've got more in the cooler under'here."

"No, but thanks. You're saying a ghost used to come in your room and sing to you."

"Up until I was about twelve, thirteen. Same with my brothers. You hit puberty, she stops coming around. You need to taper the scion now."

She paused in her work only long enough to slide a glance up at his face. "Harper, don't you consider yourself a scientist?"

He smiled at her with those somewhat dreamy brown eyes. "Not so much. Some of what I do is science, and some of what I do requires knowing some science. But down at it, I'm a gardener."

He two-pointed the Coke can into his waste bin, then bent down to get another out of his cooler. "But

if you're asking if I find ghosts at odds with science, not so much either. Science is an exploration, it's experimentation, it's discovery."

"I can't argue with your definition." She went back to the work. "But—"

He popped the top. "Gonna Scully me?"

She had to laugh. "It's one thing for a young boy to believe in ghosts, and Santa Claus, and—"

"You're trying to say there's no Santa Claus?" He looked horrified. "That's just sick."

"But," she continued, ignoring him, "it's entirely another when it's a grown man."

"Who are you calling a grown man? I think I'm going to have to order you out of my house. Stella." He patted her shoulder, transferred soil, then casually brushed it off her shirt. "I saw what I saw, I know what I know. It's just part of growing up in the house. She was always ... a benign presence, at least

to me and my brothers. She gave Mom grief now and then."

"What do you mean, grief?"

"Ask Mom. But I don't know why you'd bother, since you don't believe in ghosts anyway." He smiled. "That's a good graft. According to family lore, she's supposed to be one of the Harper brides, but she's not in any of the paintings or pictures we have." He lifted a shoulder. "Maybe she was a servant who

died there. She sure knows her way around the place."

"Luke told me he saw her."

"Yeah?" His gaze sharpened as Stella labeled the pot. "If you're worried that she might hurt him, or Gavin, don't. She's, I don't know, maternal."

"Perfect, then—an unidentified yet maternal ghost who haunts my sons' room at night."

"It's a Harper family tradition."

* * *

After a conversation like that, Stella needed something sensible to occupy her mind. She grabbed a flat

of pansies and some trailing vinca from a greenhouse, found a couple of nice free-form concrete planters in storage, loaded them and potting soil onto a flatbed cart. She gathered tools, gloves, mixed up some starter solution, and hauled everything out front.

Pansies didn't mind a bit of chill, she thought, so if they got a few more frosts, they wouldn't be bothered. And their happy faces, their rich colors would splash spring right at the entry way.

Once she'd positioned the planters, she got her clipboard and noted down everything she'd taken from stock. She'd enter it in her computer when she was finished.

Then she knelt down to do something she loved, something that never failed to comfort her. Something that always made sense.

She planted.

When the first was done, the purple and yellow flowers cheerful against the dull gray of the planter, she stepped back to study it. She wanted its mate to be as close to a mirror image as she could manage.

She was half done when she heard the rumble of tires on gravel. Logan, she thought, as she glanced around and identified his truck. She saw him start to turn toward the material area, then swing back

and drive toward the building.

He stepped out, worn boots, worn jeans, bad-boy black-lensed sunglasses.

She felt a little itch right between her shoulder blades.

"Hey," he said.

"Hello, Logan."

He stood there, his thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his work pants and a trio of fresh scratches

on his forearms just below the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt.

"Picking up some landscape timbers and some more black plastic for the Dawson job."

"You're moving right along there."

"It's cooking." He stepped closer, studied her work. "Those look good. I could use them."

"These are for display."

"You can make more. I take those over to Miz Dawson, the woman's going to snap them up. Sale's a sale, Red."

"Oh, all right." She'd hardly had a minute to think of them as her own. "Let me at least finish them.

You tell her she'll need to replace these pansies when it gets hot. They won't handle summer. And if she puts perennials in them, she should cover the planters over for winter."