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.
It was solid and successful, and very much the sprawling garden she’d wanted to create. A business, yes, a business first and foremost, but a lovely one. One that reflected her style, her vision, her legacy.
If some insisted on seeing it as her hobby, let them. If some, even most, thought of her as the woman who’d glided around the country club in a gold gown and diamonds, that was fine. She didn’t mind slipping on the glamour now and again. In fact, she could enjoy it.
But the truth of her, the core of her, was standing here, wearing ancient jeans and a faded sweatshirt, a ballcap over her hair and scarred boots on her feet.
The truth of her was a working woman with bills to pay, a business to run, and a home to maintain. It was that woman she was proud of when she took the time to be proud. The Rosalind Harper of the country club and society set was a duty to her name. This, all the rest, was life.
She took a breath, braced herself, and deliberately pushed her mind in a specific direction. She would see what happened, and how both she and Amelia would deal with it.
So she thought: If this was life, hers to live, why couldn’t she gamble yet again? Expand that life by taking into it, fully, the man who excited and comforted her, who intrigued and amused her?
The man who had somehow strolled through the maze that grief and work and duty and pride had built around her heart.
The man she loved.
She could live her life alone if need be, but what did it prove? That she was self-sufficient, independent, strong, and able. She knew those things, had been those things—and would always be those things.
And she could be courageous, too.
Didn’t it take courage, wasn’t it harder to blend one life with another, to share and to cope, to compromise than to live that life alone? It was work to live with a man, to wake up every day prepared to deal with routine, and to be open to surprises.
She’d never shied away from work.
Marriage was a different kettle at this stage of life. There would be no babies made between them. But they could share grandchildren one day. They wouldn’t grow up together, but could grow old together.
They could be happy.
Roz stood in the same spot, on a gentle rise at the edge of the woods. But In the Garden was gone. There were fields, stark with winter, barren trees, and the feel of ice on the air.
“Not all men,” Roz said quietly. “Not always.”
She walked across the fields, insubstantial as the mist that began to spread, a shallow sea, over the bare, black ground. Her white gown was filthy, as were her naked feet. Her hair was a tangle of oily gold around a face bright with madness.
Fear blew through Roz like a sudden, vicious storm. But she planted her feet. She’d ride it out.
The light had gone out of the day. Heavy clouds rolled over the sky, smothering the blue with black, a black tinged with violent green.
“I’ve lived longer than you,” Roz said, and though she couldn’t stop the shudder as Amelia approached, she stood her ground.
“Love matters.”
There was a laugh, a wet chortle that screamed across Roz’s nerves.
Pity stirred under the fear. “Who betrayed you? Who brought you to this?”
“Did they force you? Did—”
She slammed both fists into her belly, and the force of the rage, the grief, and the fury knocked Roz back two full steps.
Here was the storm, spewing out of the sky, bursting out of the ground, swirling though the fog and into the filthy air. It clogged Roz’s lungs as if she were breathing mud.
She heard the crazed screams through it.
