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A flush started somewhere within Lisa, a hint of pleasure mixed with a dose of embarrassment because she hadn’t been fishing for compliments. Conversely, she didn’t exactly mind being on the receiving end of a delightful flirtation. A flirtation that made her want to smile more than she had in several years.
“Well, guys, if you don’t have any more questions?” Lisa arched a brow to Emma.
Emma patted her notebook. “We’re good. Thank you, Lisa.”
“You’re most welcome. I’ll see you soon.”
“Yes.”
Lisa moved down the new brick walkway, a recent project designed to showcase the various applications of brick, stone and grass for garden paths. She felt his eyes watching her, wondering...considering...
But she refused to turn and see if her suspicions were correct, because as good as it felt to smile and trade quips with a strong-talking, gently spoken man like Alex Steele, she had no idea how to go about explaining what she’d been through. That she wasn’t exactly the average woman next door anymore. If she was, she’d still be married and maybe have a few rug rats of her own running around the garden.
But she didn’t and wouldn’t most likely, even though the fertility clinic had harvested and frozen a clutch of her eggs before chemotherapy could destroy the tender information stored within them.
She was closing in on her five-year mark, a big deal in cancer circles. Five years cancer-free meant you might have really, truly won the war, battle by battle.
Each and every day she prayed that was true, right after telling God “Thy will be done” in the Lord’s Prayer.
Where lay the truth? Was she all right with God’s will if it meant succumbing to cancer? Or was her earnest prayer for continued good health the more realistic side of her?
She didn’t know. But she cared. Oh, yes. She cared a great deal.
Chapter Two
“Hey, Dad.” Lisa hailed her father as one of the college guys maneuvered a watering hose up and down the aisles, giving the plants a much-needed drink while the sun banked west. “Amazing sales today.”
“You’re right.” Her father slung an arm around her shoulders and gave her a half hug. “Mostly due to your efforts.”
“Oh, please.”
He squeezed again, lighter this time. “You’ve picked up a lot of slack around here this year, between losing your mom and my absent-mindedness.”
“It’s okay to grieve, Dad.”
“I know that.” He paused and let his gaze wander the pretty sight of the well-kept nursery. “This was her doing, you know.”
Lisa had heard this all before, but if Dad wanted to tell the story again, she’d let him.
“I thought we’d do well with beef cattle. And we did, to a point. But then your mother branched out from gardening to plant production. Those first greenhouses...” He smiled, remembering. “You were just a baby and Adam wasn’t born yet, but your mother and I fashioned them by wrapping metal poles around the silo with the tractor to get a perfect curvature. Then Uncle Dave welded them to the base frame. We added plastic sheeting covers and an old wood stove to maintain temperatures overnight, and a new business was born.”
“It may have been Mom’s idea, but your hand helps stir every pot on the place, Dad.”
“Because I’m no fool,” he declared, laughing. “And when you took after your mother, with that knack for growing things and promotional planning, I realized I’d be smart to be the brawn of the operation and let you two be the brains.”
“I like the sound of that.” She pointed to the back area, where piles of mulch outlined a large, curved loading area. “Which mulches do I need to replenish?”
“Black, red and natural.”
She nodded and moved inside. “I’ll email the order over so we have delivery by Monday. And we’re okay on bagged varieties?”
“For now I’d hold off on the pre-bags.”
“Gotcha. Hey, I’m going to the nine o’clock service in the morning.”
He turned, puzzled, because the choir sang at the ten-thirty service and Lisa sang with the choir. “Because?”
“I’m stopping by the old Ramsey place for a consult after church and I want to get back here early. If today was any indication, tomorrow will be cranking busy and I want to have time to meet people. Talk with them.”
“Just like your mother.”
He smiled when he said it, but Lisa understood the ache inside. The upcoming holiday would be their first Mother’s Day without Maggie Fitzgerald. Lisa didn’t want to think about it, and if keeping busy at the garden center kept the loss of her energetic mother off her mind, all the better, but it was hard when every flower she touched, every order she placed, every display she arranged reminded her of where her talent came from.
Her mother. Gone in her mid-fifties from debilitating heart disease caused by a blood infection. Who would have thought such a thing possible?
Not Lisa. Not after her mother had championed Lisa through two rounds of chemo, multiple surgeries and weeks of exhausting radiation. Maggie had been a go-getter who raised two kids and looked forward to teaching her grandchildren the ins and outs of the gardening business she loved. She’d lived just long enough to see Rosie take her first steps, a new generation of Fitzgeralds on the run.
And then she passed away, just after Christmas.
Lisa shoved the encroaching melancholy aside and forced herself to remember the good times. Her mother was a staunch Christian, and a determined adversary of people who let obstacles mar their paths. Maggie’s motto? Go for it. Get it done.
Lisa felt the same way, but that didn’t ease the sense of loss. Still, keeping Gardens & Greens booming was the best way to salute her mother’s memory and keep her father’s grief sidelined.
* * *
Sunday morning chaos. How could someone who commanded a troop of officers manage to mess things up repeatedly on Sunday mornings?
And just when Alex thought they might get out the door for the early service at Good Shepherd, the doorbell rang. He looked out the window. His hopes for a quick getaway plummeted.
Jenny’s mother. Here. In Allegany County. And of course the house looked like an F-2 tornado had just raced through, leaving a path of total devastation in its wake. And here was Nancy Armstrong, her new luxury vehicle parked behind his SUV, looking like she might be ready to move in.
Murphy’s Law resounded in his brain: if something can go wrong, it will, and at the worst possible time.
He opened the door, wishing Josh and Becky hadn’t picked that moment to mushroom their verbal argument into full-scale hand-to-hand mortal combat. “Hey. Stop it, you guys! Becky, let go of him.”
“He took my game!”
“I wanna play Super Power Rangers!”
“Find yours!”
“You lost mine!”
“Did not!”
“Did—”
“Josh. Stop. Now.” Alex plucked the scrappy boy up from the carpet and kept him out of Becky’s reach, but it wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Becky had grown, which meant a shopping trip and the ensuing arguments over clothing. Emma couldn’t care less about what she wore, and if someone saved her the trouble of shopping so she could get lost in a book, all the better.
Becky?
Her word was law in the kids’ department.
“Give it to me.”
Alex plucked the electronic game system from Josh and held it up. “That’s not how you ask for things, Becky.”
“I shouldn’t have to ask for it,” Becky screeched. “It’s mine! He took it!”
“I need it!” wailed Josh.
“Well, you can’t have it. It’s mine.” Becky stomped her foot, arms crossed tightly over her chest. “And no one...” she angled a scathing look up, a glare that included her father and brother “...has my permission to use it.”
Nancy’s quick intake of breath screamed disappointment in him and her grandchildren’s behavior.
Becky’s decision to make a hard-line stance right now was a big mistake. Huge. First to mouth off to her father, but second to do it in front of her disapproving grandmother. Nancy had suggested in the past that he would most likely muck up raising her daughter’s children. The current scene gave him little room for argument.
She’d also opposed his decision to move the family to the more rustic, rural Troop A area. She’d accused him of running away. What she didn’t get was how soul-tired weary a guy could get fighting crime in the city. Surrounded by need and want, desperation and dejection. Losing Jenny left enough sadness in his life.
He’d opted for this new setting purposely, a fresh start. Trees and hills. Peace and quiet.
Well, okay, that last was purely subjective, considering the battle of wills raging between his kids now.
He trained his gaze firmly on Becky, hoping she wouldn’t pick this moment to dig her heels in. “Go to your room.”
“No.” She folded her hands tighter, thrust her chin farther into the air and tapped a foot. At that point she might have wanted to thank her grandmother for showing up unexpectedly because the kid had no idea how close to death she might be.
Alex set Josh down. Josh immediately tried to grab the gaming device, missed and managed to rake his nails across his father’s chin instead.
“Oh, he’s bleeding!” Nancy exclaimed. Her hand flew to her mouth as though taken aback by the level of violence. “Alex, what have you done?”
“He’s not bleeding,” Alex replied, disgusted with himself for letting things get out of hand. “I am. Becky. Room. Now.”
She glared at him, her expression mulish, her profile taut, as if she had a choice.
She didn’t.
“Becky, maybe if you apologize to your father...” Nancy’s unwelcome entreaty interrupted the emotional scene.
“Go to your room. If I have to carry you, you lose privileges for the week.”
“The week!” Stomp! Stomp! “Because he’s a brat? Because he takes things that don’t belong to him? I get punished because my brother’s a brat?”
“And we’re done.” Alex swooped down, picked her up, carried her upstairs to her room and left her alone to pitch a fit, which meant they’d be lucky to make the mid-morning service in ninety minutes. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Something sailed off the door. Alex reminded himself to be grateful for antique solid oak doors and hoped it was a softcover book. Hardcovers left bigger marks.
* * *
Engaging.
The Federal-style brick home epitomized grace, thought Lisa as she stepped out of her Gardens & Greens SUV. White-rimmed windows stood out against aged red brick. Evergreen shutters flanked sparkling glass, and each shutter featured Americana-styled inset stars separating the panels. A slate gray roof complemented the tones beneath, and shade trees, newly leafed, would offer welcome respite from summer heat.
Delightful.
Right until the front door burst open and a shrieking wildcat of a girl raced out, yelling naughty things over her shoulder. Delightful downgraded to wretched normalcy in the blink of an eye.
“Rebecca Eileen! Get back in here this instant, or I’ll—”
Alex caught sight of Lisa. Surprise and chagrin mixed on his features. His shoulders sagged. He stopped, ran a hand across his chin and frowned, but was the frown from his forgetfulness or the current melodrama?
Lisa wasn’t sure, but the look on his face said the morning couldn’t possibly get worse.
Except it had with her arrival.
Which only made the situation funnier in Lisa’s book. “Good morning, Alex. That, I take it—” she hooked a thumb to the right where a stubborn little girl, pigtails bouncing, strode down the street “—is Becky.”
“That’s her, all right.”
Memories split Lisa’s sympathies. She’d been the bullheaded one in the family, the scrapper, the fighter. Luckily she’d grown out of it, but maybe that doggedness helped her in her fight against cancer. Who could say?
Alex’s expression said he hated being caught with out-of-control kids. Embarrassment and irritation painted stress lines on features that had looked pretty serene yesterday. Lisa moved closer and made a face of sympathy. “I’ll come back another time. After you’ve had time to dispose of the body properly.”
“What!”
Another voice entered the melee, a female voice, shocked and chagrined.
Surprised, Lisa stopped.
Alex turned.
A little boy voice whined, “Do I have to stay in these stupid clothes another whole hour?” Only he stretched the word hour into four elongated syllables.
“Nancy, this is Lisa Fitzgerald from the nursery Emma was telling you about.” Alex offered the introduction through the screen door, so Lisa had no idea who Nancy was, but figured she must belong to the yacht-length elegant car in the driveway.
“Lisa!” Emma came around the side of the house, ran to Lisa’s side and hugged her around the waist. “I’m so glad you came. Becky’s acting like a—”
“Emma.”
“Well, she is, Dad. And Grandma’s here and we’ve missed church unless Dad makes us go to the other church where the screechy old lady sings songs I don’t know so we’ve just about ruined Sunday.”
Lisa looked at her watch. “You’ve got ten minutes to make it to Good Shepherd. Go.”
“Go?” Alex looked at her, confused. A questioning look took in the wayward child two houses down.
“Yes, go. If Becky wants to come, I’ll drive her over. If not, she can stew and be left behind. I guarantee she won’t like that scenario.”
“You’re right,” Alex admitted.
