User - NRoberts - G1 Blue Dahlia

"You could give it to me now."

"Have to work it up. I take time to work it up, we're not going to get the frigging mulch down today. Client won't be happy."

She used her forearm to swipe at her forehead. "Fortunately for you I don't have the energy to nag."

"Been busy."

"There's no word for what we've been. It's great. I'm betting we broke records. My feet feel like a

couple of smoked sausages. By the way, I was thinking I'd like to come by, see your house."

His eyes stared into hers until she felt fresh pricks of heat at the base of her spine. "You could do that. I've got time tonight."

"I can't tonight. Maybe Wednesday, after we close? If Roz is willing to watch the boys."

"Wednesday's no problem for me. Can you find the place all right?"

"Yeah, I'll find it. About six-thirty?"

"Fine. See you."

As he walked back to his truck, Stella decided it was the strangest conversation she'd ever had about sex.

* * *

That evening, after her kids were fed, and engaged in their play hour before bed, Stella indulged in that long shower. As the aches and fatigue of the day washed away, her excitement over it grew.

They'd kicked ass she thought.

She was still a little concerned about overstock in some areas, and what she saw as understock in others. But flushed with the day's success, she told herself not to question Roz's instincts as a grower.

If today was any indication, they were in for a rock-solid season.

She pulled on her terry-cloth robe, wrapped her hair in a towel, then did a kind of three-step boogie out

of the bathroom.

And let out a short, piping scream at the woman in her bedroom doorway.

"Sorry. Sorry." Roz snorted back a laugh. "Flesh and blood here."

"God!" Since her legs had gone numb, Stella sank onto the side of the bed. "God! My heart just about stopped."

"I got something that should start it up again." From behind her back, Roz whipped out a bottle of champagne.

"Dom Perignon? Woo, and two hoos! Yes, I think I detect a beat."

"We're going to celebrate. Hayley's across in the sitting room. And I'm giving her half a glass of this.

No lectures."

"In Europe pregnant women are allowed, if not encouraged, to have a glass of wine a week. I'm willing

to pretend we're in France if I get a full glass of that."

"Come on over. I sent the boys down to David. They're having a video game contest."

"Oh. Well, I guess that's all right. They've got a half hour before bath and bed. Is that caviar?" she

asked when she stepped into the sitting room.

"Roz says I can't have any." Hayley leaned over and sniffed the silver tray with its silver bowl of glossy black caviar. "Because it's not good for the baby. I don't know as I'd like it, anyway."

"Good. More for me. Champagne and caviar. You're a classy boss, Ms. Harper."

"It was a great day. I always start off the first of the season a little blue." She popped the cork. "All my babies going off like that. Then I get too busy to think about it." She poured the glasses. "And by the

end I'm reminded that I got into this to sell and to make a profit—while doing something I enjoy doing. Then I come on home and start feeling a little blue again. But not tonight."

She passed the glasses around. "I may not have the figures and the facts and the data right at my fingertips, but I know what I know. We've just had the best single day ever."

'Ten percent over last year." Stella lifted her glass in a toast. "I happen to have facts and data at my fingertips."

"Of course you do." With a laugh, Roz stunned Stella by throwing an arm around her shoulders, squeezing once, then pressing a kiss to her cheek. "Damn right you do. You did a hell of a job. Both

of you. Everyone. And it's fair to say, Stella, that I did myself and In the Garden a favor the day I

hired you."

"Wow!" She took a sip to open her throat. "I won't argue with that." Then another to let the wine fizz on her tongue before she went for the caviar. "However, as much as I'd love to take full credit for that ten percent increase, I can't. The stock is just amazing. You and Harper are exceptional growers. I'll take credit for five of the ten percent."

"It was fun," Hayley put in. "It was crazy a lot of the time, but fun. All those people, and the noise, and carts sailing out the door. Everybody seemed so happy. I guess being around plants, thinking about

having them for yourself, does that."

"Good customer service has a lot to do with those happy faces. And you"—Stella tipped her glass to Hayley—"have that knocked."

"We've got a good team." Roz sat, wiggled her bare toes. They were painted pale peach today. "We'll take a good overview in the morning, see what areas Harper and I should add to." She leaned forward

to spread caviar on a toast point. "But tonight we'll just bask."

"This is the best job I've ever had. I just want to say that." Hayley looked at Roz. "And not just because

I get to drink fancy champagne and watch y'all eat caviar."

Roz patted her arm. "I should bring up another subject. I've already told David. The calls I've made

about Alice Harper Doyle's death certificate? Natchez," she said. "According to official records, she

died in Natchez, in the home she shared with her husband and two children."

"Damn." Stella frowned into her wine. "I guess it was too easy."

"We'll just have to keep going through the household records, noting down the names of the female servants during that time period."

"Big job," Stella replied.

"Hey, we're good." Hayley brushed off the amount of work. "We can handle it. And, you know, I was thinking. David said they saw her going toward the old stables, right? So maybe she had a thing going

with one of the sta-blehands. They got into a fight over something, and he killed her. Maybe an accident, maybe not. Violent deaths are supposed to be one of the things that trap spirits."

"Murder," Roz speculated. "It might be."

"You sound like my stepmother. I talked to her about it," Stella told Roz. "She and my father are willing and able to help with any research if we need them. I hope that's all right."

"It's all right with me. I wondered if she'd show herself to one of us, since we started looking into it. Try to point us in the right direction."

"I had a dream." Since it made her feel silly to talk about it, Stella topped off her glass of champagne.

"A kind of continuation of one I had a few weeks ago. Neither of them was very clear—or the details of them go foggy on me. But I know it—they—have to do with a garden I've planted, and a blue dahlia."

"Do dahlias come in blue?" Hayley wondered.

"They do. They're not common," Roz explained, "but you can hybridize them in shades of blue."

"This was like nothing I've ever seen. It was ... electric, intense. This wildly vivid blue, and huge. And

she was in the dream. I didn't see her, but I felt her."

"Hey!" Hayley pushed herself forward. "Maybe her name was Dahlia."

'That's a good thought," Roz commented. "If we're researching ghosts, it's not a stretch to consider that

a dream's connected in some way."

"Maybe." Frowning, Stella sipped again. "I could hear her, but I couldn't see her. Even more, I could

feel her, and there was something dark about it, something frightening. She wanted me to get rid of it.

She was insistent, angry, and, I don't know how to explain it, but she was there. How could she be in

a dream?"

"I don't know," Roz replied. "But I don't care for it."

"Neither do I. It's too ... intimate. Hearing her inside my head that way, whispering." Even now, she shivered.

"When I woke up, I knew she'd been there, in the room, just as she'd been there, in the dream."