NRoberts - G1 Blue Dahlia - User

For tonight—at least for tonight—it was over.

When she closed her eyes, she drifted to sleep.

Dreamlessly.

She expected Logan to come by the nursery the next day. But he didn't. She was certain he would come by the house before dinner. But he didn't.

Nor did he call.

She decided that after the night before he'd needed a break. From her, from the house, from any sort

of drama. How could she blame him?

He'd pounded his hands, his big, hard hands, bloody from trying to get to her boys, then to her. She

knew all she needed to know about him now, about the man she'd grown to love and respect.

Knew enough to trust him with everything that was hers. Loved him enough to wait until he came to her.

And when her children were in bed, and the moon began to rise, his truck rumbled up the drive to

Harper House.

This time she didn't hesitate, but dashed to the door to meet him.

"I'm glad you're here." She threw her arms around him first, held tight when his wrapped around her.

"So glad. We really need to talk."

"Come on out first. I got something in the truck for you."

"Can't it wait?" She eased back. "If we could just sit down and get some things aired out. I'm not sure

I made any sense last night."

"You made plenty of sense." To settle it, he gripped her hand, pulled her outside. "Seeing as after you scared ten years off my life, you said you were going to marry me. Didn't have the opportunity to

follow through on that then, the way things were. I've got something to give you before you start

talking me to death."

"Maybe you don't want to hear that I love you."

"I can take time for that." Grabbing her, he lifted her off her feet and circled them both to the truck.

"You going to organize my life, Red?"

"I'm going to try. Are you going to disorganize mine?"

"No question about it." He lowered her until her lips met his.

"Hell of a storm last night—in every possible sense," she said as she rested her cheek against his.

"It's over now."

"This one is. There'll be others." He took her hands, kissed them, then just looked down at her in the dusky light of the moon.

"I love you, Stella. I'm going to make you happy even when I irritate the living hell out of you. And the boys ... Last night, when I saw her in there with them, when I couldn't get to them—"

"I know." Now she lifted his hands to kiss his raw, swollen knuckles. "One day, when they're older, they'll fully appreciate how lucky they are to have had two such good men for fathers. I know how

lucky I am to love and be loved by two such good men."

"I figured that out when I started falling for you."

"When was that?"

"On the way to Graceland."

"You don't waste time."

"That's when you told me about the dream you'd had."

Her heart fluttered. "The garden. The blue dahlia."

"Then later, when you said you'd had another, told me about it, it just got me thinking. So ..." He

reached into the cab of the truck, took out a small pot with a grafted plant. "I asked Harper if he'd

work on this."

"A dahlia," she whispered. "A blue dahlia."

"He's pretty sure it'll bloom blue when it matures. Kid's got a knack."

Tears burned into her eyes and smeared her voice. "I was going to dig it up, Logan. She kept pushing

me to, and it seemed she was right. It wasn't what I'd put there, wasn't what I'd planned, no matter

how beautiful it was. And when I did, when I dug it up, it died. It was so stupid of me."

"We'll dig this one in instead. We can plant this, you and me, and the four of us can plant a garden

around it. That suit you?"

She lifted her hands, cupped his face. "It suits me."

'That's good, because Harper worked like a mad scientist on it, shooting for a deep, true blue. I guess we'll wait and see what we get when it blooms."

"You're right." She looked up at him. "We'll see what we get."

"He gave me the go-ahead to name it. So it'll be Stella's Dream."

Now her heart swirled into her eyes. "I was wrong about you, Logan. You're perfect after all."

She cradled the pot in her arm as if it were a child, precious and new. Then taking his hand, she linked fingers so they could walk in the moon-drenched garden together.

In the house, in the air perfumed with flowers, another walked. And wept.

Turn the page for a look at BLack Rose the second book in the In the Garden trilogy.

Coming in June from Jove Books.

Chapter One

Harper House

December,

Dawn, the awakening promise of it, was her favorite time to run. The running itself was just something that had to be done, three days a week, like any other chore or responsibility. Rosalind Harper did what had to be done.

She ran for her health. A woman who'd just had—she could hardly say celebrated at this stage of her life—her forty-fifth birthday had to mind her health. She ran to keep strong, as she desired and needed strength. And she ran for vanity. Her body would never again be what it had been at twenty, or even thirty, but by God, it would be the best body she could manage at forty-five.

She had no husband, no lover, but she did have an image to uphold. She was a Harper, and Harpers

had their pride.

But, Jesus, maintenance was a bitch.

Wearing sweats against the dawn chill, she slipped out of her bedroom by the terrace door. The house was still sleeping. Her house that had been too empty was now occupied again, and rarely completely quiet any longer.

There was David, her surrogate son, who kept her house in order, kept her entertained when she needed entertaining, and stayed out of her way when she needed solitude.

No one knew her moods quite like David.

And there was Stella and her two precious boys. It had been a good day, Roz thought as she limbered

up on the terrace, when she'd hired Stella Rothchild to manage her nursery.

Of course, Stella would be moving before much longer and taking those sweet boys with her. Still, once Stella was married to Logan—and wasn't that a fine match—they'd only be a few miles away.

Hayley would still be here, infusing the house with all that youth and energy. It had been another stroke of luck, and a vague and distant family connection, that had Hay-ley, then six months pregnant, landing on her doorstep. In Hayley she had the daughter she'd secretly longed for, and the bonus of an honorary grandchild with the darling little Lily.

She hadn't realized how lonely she'd been, Stella thought, until those girls had come along to fill the void. With two of her own three sons moved away, the house had become too big, too quiet. And a part of her dreaded the day when Harper, her firstborn, her rock, would leave the guest house a stone's throw from the main.

But that was life. No one knew better than a gardener that life never stayed static. Cycles were necessary, for without them there was no bloom.

She took the stairs down at an easy jog, enjoying the way the early mists shrouded her winter gardens. Look how pretty her lambs ear was with its soft silvery foliage covered in dew. And the birds had yet to bother the bright fruit on her red chokeberry.

Walking to give her muscles time to warm, and to give herself the pleasure of the gardens, she skirted around the side of the house to the front.

She increased to a jog on the way down the drive, a tall, willowy woman with a short, careless cap of black hair. Her eyes, a honeyed whisky brown, scanned the grounds— the towering magnolias, the delicate dogwoods, the placement of ornamental shrubs, the flood of pansies she'd planted only weeks before, and the beds that would wait a bit longer to break into bloom.

To her mind, there were no grounds in western Tennessee that could compete with Harper House.

Just as there was no house that could compare with its dignified elegance.

Out of habit, she turned at the end of the drive and jogged in place to study it in the pearly mists.

It stood grandly, she thought, with its melding of Greek Revival and Gothic styles, the warm yellow

stone mellow against the clean white trim. Its double staircase rose up to the balcony wrapping the

second level, and served as a crown for the covered entry way on the ground level.

She loved the tall windows, the lacy woodwork on the rail of the third floor, the sheer space of it, and

the heritage it stood for.

She had prized it, cared for it, and worked for it since it had come into her hands at her parents' death. She had raised her sons there, and when she'd lost her husband, she'd grieved there.

One day she would pass it to Harper as it had passed to her. And she thanked God for the absolute knowledge that he would tend it and love it just as she did.

What it had cost her was nothing compared with what it gave, even in this single moment, standing at

the end of the drive, looking back through the morning mists.

But standing there wasn't going to get her three miles done. She headed west, keeping close to the side

of the road though there'd be little to no traffic this early.

To take her mind off the annoyance of exercise, she started reviewing her list of things to do that day.

She had some good seedlings going for annuals that should be ready to have their seed leaves removed. She needed to check all the seedlings for signs of damping off. Some of the older stock would be ready for pricking off.

And, she remembered, Stella had asked for more amaryllis, more forced bulb planters, more wreaths and poinsettia for the holiday sales. Hayley could handle the wreaths. The girl had a good hand at crafting.

Then there were the field-grown Christmas trees and hollies to deal with. Thank God she could leave

that end to Logan.

She had to check with Harper, to see if he had any more of the Christmas cacti he'd grafted ready to go. She wanted a couple for herself.

She juggled all the nursery business in her mind even as she passed In the Garden. It was tempting—it always was—to veer off the road onto that crushed stone entry-way, to take an indulgent solo tour of what she'd built from the ground up.

Stella had gone all out for the holidays, Roz noted with pleasure, grouping green, pink, white, and red poinsettias into a pool of seasonal color in front of the low-slung house that served as the entrance to the retail space. She'd hung yet another wreath on the door, tiny white lights around it, and the small white pine she'd dug from the field stood decorated on the front porch.

White-faced pansies, glossy hollies, and hardy sage added more interest and would help ring up those holiday sales.

Resisting temptation, Roz continued down the road.

She had to carve out some time, if not today then certainly later this week, to finish up her Christmas shopping. Or at least put a bigger dent in it. There were holiday parties to attend, and the one she'd decided to give. It had been awhile since she'd opened the house to entertain in a big way.

The divorce, she admitted, was at least partially to blame for that. She'd hardly felt like hosting parties when she'd felt stupid and stung and more than a bit mortified by her foolish, and mercifully brief, union to a liar and a cheat.

But it was time to put that aside now, she reminded herself, just as she'd put him aside. The fact that Bryce Clerk was back in Memphis made it only more important that she live her life, publically and privately, exactly as she chose.

At the mile-and-a-half mark, a point she judged by an old, lightning-struck hickory, she started back.

The thin fog had dampened her hair and sweatshirt, but her muscles felt warm and loose. It was a

bitch, she mused, that everything they said about exercise was true.

She spotted a deer meandering across the road, her coat thickened for winter, her eyes on alert at the intrusion of a human.

You're beautiful, Roz thought, puffing a little on the last half mile. Now stay the hell out of my gardens. Another note went in her file to give her gardens another treatment of repellant before the deer and its pals decided to come around for a snack.

She was just making the turn into the drive when she heard muffled footsteps, then saw the figure

coming her way. Even with the mists she had no trouble identifying the other early riser.

They both stopped and jogged in place, and she grinned at her son.

"Up with the worms this morning."

"Thought I'd be up and out early enough to catch you." He scooped a hand through his dark hair. "All that celebrating for Thanksgiving, then your birthday, I figured I'd better work off the excess before Christmas hits."

"You never gain an ounce. It's annoying."

"Feel soft." He rolled his shoulders, then his eyes, whiskey brown like hers, and laughed. "Besides,