Chapter Four

Rich slept like a stone. If it wasn’t for Estella standing beside his bed and speaking in a cheerful chirpy voice about needing breakfast and wanting to go outside to explore as he promised her at bedtime yesterday, he would have crawled back under the covers for another seven hours. Then, when he remembered Lucille Smith was planning to stop by in the morning, he dragged himself out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans, and hurried barefoot and shirtless to the kitchen to put the coffee on. He was helping Estella with a bowl of cereal when the elderly woman arrived, using the back entrance, knocking on the first set of French doors opening into the kitchen.

With a basket on her arm, Lucille Smith took in Rich’s bare chest and feet in one sweeping glance and shook her head, then his hand, and murmured a curt hello. Like a bee zoning in on a flower, she headed straight to the kitchen. She was a little woman with a face wrinkled like a raisin, and her gray hair was braided and wound on top of her head. She wore a turquoise blouse, a red skirt, and a clean, pressed, bright yellow apron over the outfit. Well, at least they wouldn’t lose her, Rich decided, as she set her basket on the counter and pulled out a plate full of freshly baked blueberry muffins. She had both Estella’s and his attention immediately.

The little girl rose from the table. “I’m Estella,” she politely said.

“And I’m Lulu Smith,” Lucille said. “Pleased to meet you.” She looked around the kitchen and let out an appreciative grunt. “A person could do some good cooking in a kitchen this fancy.”

“What we need,” Rich said and waved a hand in the air, “is someone for a few hours each day. Someone to help keep us tidy, fix a lunch, and possibly make a dinner I could re-warm. We’d even work around any hours you might have for appointments or personal matters.” He bit his lip. “You see, I’m planning to do legal work for my Dallas office in the mornings. I have research to do, and I need to get this house renovated and ready to sell. It could use some sprucing up. It’s no wonder Marlene can’t sell it. Also, I need someone to help with Estella while I work.”

“And you aren’t exactly Emeril Lagasse, I understand,” Lulu said, her little wizened eyes sizing him up.

“Bam!” he replied with a devilish smile.

“I’m guessing you had a housekeeper when you were in Texas?”

“Yes, ma’am. And a cleaning service which Marlene hired for this house as well. You’ll need to instruct them on what you want done.”

The little woman rose to her full four-feet-ten-inch height, but this time surveyed him with a motherly stare. “Well, when do you want me to start?” Her gaze dropped to his bare feet. “It looks like you’ve already run out of shirts and socks and need clothes laundered.”

“Don’t you want to discuss an hourly rate?” Red-faced, he glanced at his sockless feet. “I wasn’t expecting you to arrive this early or I would have been dressed and presentable.”

“Whatever you think is fair.” She shrugged.

“What do you think, Estella?” Rich asked.

The little girl took a step forward. “Can you iron, Mrs. Smith? My daddy can iron wrinkles into any piece of clothing. It’s a real talent of his.”

“Estella.”

“But it’s true,” the little girl said. “And can you do a French braid? My daddy doesn’t know anything about fixing hair.”

“Estella!”

“I can do both.” Lulu chuckled. “But you must call me Lulu.” She pulled out Estella’s chair, motioned for her to sit, and placed a muffin on her plate. “We need to make a list of what foods you both like. Then you and I can go grocery shopping later today.” She waved Rich into a seat opposite his daughter, handed him a muffin, and refilled his coffee cup.

Rich took a bite, swallowed, and felt like he was going to swoon. The muffin had just the right amount of sweetness, and the cinnamon and sugar topping was outrageously delicious. It sure beat cold cereal. It was going to be a fine day. He was sure of it.

****

Torrie took a deep breath and strode up the walk to Gertrude Redman’s residence with the purple toy giraffe in her hand. It was as good an excuse as any to stop in and get acquainted with Rich and Estella. She would be seeing a lot of them when she came to tend the flower gardens out back, and she needed to tell him about his SUV, which her brother and Henry had towed to the garage.

She looked at the purple giraffe and thought of another child a short distance away who also adored stuffed animals. She had no idea how the giraffe had been forgotten amid the luggage last evening. Then she thought of all the many boxes, bags, and suitcases she had unloaded. It was like hauling a traveling circus. Estella should be lucky only one toy had been left behind. But Torrie knew how attached little girls could be to their fuzzy critters.

Rich answered the door with a muffin in one hand and wearing only a pair of black designer jeans. Torrie’s eyes widened when he opened the door. He was a magnificent, handsome specimen of a man, tall and fit. He reminded her of a cheetah with his tawny hair, sleek physique, and penetrating charcoal eyes fading now to a soft dusty gray. She remembered her sister telling her that Richard Redman’s patience was his virtue, but once angered, he could take down the devil with his sharp eloquent tongue.

“Torrie,” he said, “what brings you around so early in the morning?”

She held up the giraffe. “I thought Estella might be missing this. And Henry said your SUV isn’t limping along. It’s going to need a lot of work, including a new transmission. He wants to know whether you want to put more money in it or whether you’re planning to replace it.”

“Come in, come in,” he urged. He finished the last bite of muffin. “You have to taste Lucille Smith’s blueberry muffins.”

“Gosh, I don’t know,” she said. “This is my day off, and I have loads of things to do. I don’t usually do breakfast.”

From the back of the kitchen a voice called out, “Torrine Jane Larson, get in the kitchen and have a muffin and something to drink. You don’t eat breakfast? You know better. Get in here. Right now. Don’t make me come out there and grab you by the back of your neck.”

Torrie grinned. “Lulu Smith is here?”

“Yes, I hired her this morning to help with the house and Estella.”

Minutes later, seated at the table beside Estella, a purple giraffe, a half-clad man, and eating a muffin, Torrie said, “If you need a ride to see about a rental, I can drop you off.”

“No, I want a ride to a car dealership, preferably your brother’s. I need to buy a new vehicle with a warranty that assures me it will not take its last breath with me in it.” Rich rose from the table and took his plate and cup to the sink.

“Why don’t you use your grandmother’s vehicle in the garage?” Lulu suggested.

“Does it even run?” He glanced at the little woman leaning against the counter like a colorful elf with a dish towel already in her hands.

Lulu grunted.

Torrie laughed. “Run? Does it run? It purrs like a kitten. It’s a ’67 GTO convertible.”

“You’re kidding.” A devilish glint flashed in his eyes and a slow smile morphed into a wide grin. “My grandmother actually had it overhauled?”

Torrie rose and walked to the side door at the far end of the kitchen leading to the garage. Like a game show hostess, she opened the door and swept her hand through the air at the sparkling red GTO. “Black leather seats, black convertible top, the works. Runs like a charm.” Joy bubbled in her voice as she explained, “Gertie always left the keys in it. She even had shoulder harnesses installed in front and back. If you’re only making short trips to the grocery store or downtown, it’d be perfect. I’m guessing it’s a gas hog.”

“I thought she sold it.”

Lulu spoke up. “No, she put it in storage after your Grandfather Matthew died. She only brought it out a few years ago and had it tuned up. Our bridge club used to cruise around town with her. On Sundays, she and I would take it to the lake and drive around listening to the young motor heads whistle and hoot at us. Nothing like a spiffy, vintage car to get a little attention from a man, regardless of his age.”

Rich leaned on the door jam and studied the two women. “Since you ladies obviously know more about the house and property than me, can you tell me whether my grandmother ever installed Internet service? Marlene had the phones and television cable turned on, but she never mentioned the Internet.”

Torrie stared at his well-muscled chest and could feel her face grow hot. She was sure her heart skipped a beat. She cleared her throat and stuttered, “There’s a…there’s a connection in the study. I can help to get you online. Where’s your shir—laptop?”

He smiled, a warm, almost too intimate smile assuring her he caught the blunder. “In the hallway. I’ll run up and get dressed and be right back down for a lesson on connectivity.”

“Connectivity?” Torrie raised an eyebrow.

“Sure, Internet connectivity.” He looked her over seductively. “Were you thinking of something else?”

“Yes…no. Yes! I mean, yes, I’ll meet you in a few minutes to help with the Internet,” she stammered. She brushed past him heading for the study. What was she thinking? She remembered the promise she had made to herself six years ago. She would make no space in her life for men. She was finished with this thing called love and all its fickle disappointments. She wasn’t going to risk her heart again, especially to someone as good-looking as Rich Redman.

“And while you two fool around with wires, innuendos, and eye signals, Estella and I are going to the grocery store,” Lulu announced. “We’re going to get dressed, get our hair combed, and make a list of our favorite foods, aren’t we darlin’? Maybe Estella can tell me some favorite foods you might like, Richard.” She looked at the little girl and winked.

“Can we get ice cream?” Estella asked. “Daddy likes beer and peanuts.”

“Any flavor you want,” Lulu replied. “But I think we’ll skip the beer today. I’ll give some serious thought to the peanuts.”

Rich sighed. “You’re a gem, Lulu. And I use Rich now, not Richard Lee Junior any longer.”

“Goodness sakes,” Lulu said. “But you’ll always be Richard Lee to me.”

Minutes later, as she waited in the study with the laptop booted up, Torrie looked up as Rich strode into the study. He was incredibly suave. His expensive gray slacks flaunted his well-built physique. Wearing a crisp white shirt rolled up to his elbows, he looked like he could really be a GQ model. The Ferragamo loafers on his feet must have cost more than a week of her wages. He had shaved and he smelled heavenly. She’d bet his aftershave cost a bundle of bills, too. His no nonsense, in-charge demeanor only added to his sexual appeal.

“You’re connected,” Torrie said. She pointed to a corner of the desk. “I took the liberty of piling some of the papers and books into stacks so we could have room to work. The password is rosa alba.”

He shrugged like he didn’t care how she had rearranged the desk. “How did you figure out the password?” He leaned over her shoulder, so near she got a better whiff of his to-die-for aftershave lotion. His breath ruffled the hair at her ear when he asked, “Rosa alba? White rose?”

“Yes, your Latin is good.”

“Not good enough if Gertie is using Latin for all her online passwords. Is there a notebook my grandmother kept with all this information?”

He was too close for her to shake her head. Much too close. “No, but Gertie and I used to post pictures of our roses and other flowers on our Garden Club’s Facebook site so I’m quite familiar with her computer and her line of reasoning.”

“My grandmother was on Facebook?”

When he eased away, she quickly slid out from the chair and skidded a few feet away. This was a man she could not get involved with. He was a big city lawyer who was headed back to Dallas as soon as his legal obligations to his deceased grandmother were completed. And he had a child to raise. He certainly didn’t need another one.

She spoke, “Yes, and I really have to leave. If the modem needs to be reset, the password is on the box on the shelf underneath it. All numbers.”

“But you wanted to show me the gardens and flowerbeds.” He moved closer, his smoke gray eyes so compelling they made her pulse skitter.

“Okay.” She checked her watch. “I guess I can spare a few minutes.” Unnerved by his nearness, she whirled and headed toward the French doors at the back of the house. Outside, she led him to the edge of the patio and onto a walk ending at the gardens in the corner of the yard. Beside them a ramshackle chicken coop had been beefed up and converted into a potting shed, but farther up, the old gazebo looked like it was crumbling before their eyes.

Torrie hoped with all her heart what she was about to explain about the flowers would not cause problems in selling the house. She wondered whether she should tell him that she and Gertie had started all the many flowerbeds so she could do floral arranging using homegrown perennial flowers during the spring, summer, and fall. She had started adding them last year into her floral bouquets and arrangements, and already she had a healthy local clientele. Growing her own flowers helped keep the costs down, and her buyers liked the idea of using seasonal flowers they could recognize. It also enhanced business for the landscape center where she designed them.

Unfortunately, she was in debt. She and her oldest brother, Finn, had taken out a loan to start the partnership. But she had her own set of problems neither Finn nor her family knew about. She owed Ivan Winters, president of the downtown bank, money for a personal loan he’d given her to pay off the remainder she owed for land acquired in New York. She and Daniel Forrester, her long-time boyfriend, had purchased it seven years ago with the intent to build a house and settle there. The loan was hanging around her neck like a poisonous snake, ready to strike at a moment’s notice whenever Ivan grew weary of her stonewalling his amorous advances.

****

Rich followed Torrie out into the bright sunlight. What looked like one gigantic flowerbed yesterday in the dark was actually a series of beds, each exactly the same size, but separated with paths between them for easy access to the flowers for weeding, watering, or picking the blooms. Torrie motioned for him to follow her until they reached a midway point among a row of beds.

“Do all these flowers and plants have something to do with how you make your living?” Rich watched her wander over to what looked like a bed of roses and bend to check the stalk on one of the plants. Her slim fingers touched it lightly, almost caressing it. Clad only in a pair of khaki cargo shorts, tank top, and sturdy hiking shoes, she appeared oblivious of her natural beauty. Her pale yellow hair was twisted up on the top of her head in some sort of fancy knot, but tendrils had already dislodged themselves and fanned her face in a halo.

Another wave of attraction, verging on lust, rushed over him, and he backed up a step, forcing himself to concentrate on their conversation.

She squinted up at him from her squatting position and shaded her eyes against the sun, unaware her sunglasses were perched on her head. “Yes, my brother, Finn, and I started a landscape and nursery two years ago. It’s called Larson’s Landscaping.”

“A novel name.”

“And for a purpose. It’s our family name, and the double letter L lends itself to a keen-looking logo and allows our advertising to be in the upper half of the alphabet for listings on the Internet and in the Yellow Pages. We’re just getting off the ground this year, and I have to admit, we’re mowing a lot of lawns until we can get some better revenue with landscaping contracts and sales from the nursery. But the summer is just beginning here.”

She stood, slapping her hands together to brush off the dirt. She waved at the plants in the bed beside her. “Your grandmother and I were trying our hand at grafting and saving this particular type of rose. This original white vintage rose is from the last and only surviving bush from the clippings your Great Grandmother Hilda carried out of Austria before the First World War, sometime in the early 1900s. It’s beside the potting shed. We’re trying to get healthy rose stock started here so we can graft them. We’ve also taken clippings to root.”

She pursed her lips and looked up at him with those mesmerizing aquamarine eyes. “You realize these roses are over a hundred years old? They’re one of a kind, and if we don’t save the line, they’ll be lost forever. Gertie was an amateur gardener and she was—and I still am—a member of the American Rose Society headquartered in Shreveport, Louisiana. It’s one of many organizations in the World Federation of Rose Societies. These roses aren’t just old. They are rare. They are fragile. I’d like to be able to continue working with the beds here, if possible. I know you want to sell the house.”

Rich shook his head and surveyed the sky. It was going to be a perfect day with mild temperatures. Cotton-like clouds floated along a sea of blue. He lowered his gaze. “I don’t know what to say. Let me think about this. My grandmother sure left me a lot of headaches and a lot of things to consider. I don’t suppose the flowers in these beds could be removed and replanted somewhere else?”

Torrie let out a long audible sigh. She shook her head. “I’m afraid we’d lose too much. What you see here is over five years of work. I doubt some of the roses would hold up well to replanting.” From her pocket, she pulled out a ring with a key. “Before I forget, this is the key to the sheds and the garage door. I’d like to be able to come over, water, weed, fertilize, monitor, and work the flower beds until you decide what you’re going to do with the house and land.”

She followed his gaze across the beds to the gazebo. “Your grandmother loved that ragged old gazebo your grandfather built. We used to take a break in it and have a glass of lemonade after we weeded the flowerbeds. It has a romantic touch and nostalgic aura.”

“It looks like it needs to be firewood.”

“Oh, no. Maybe some paint and new screening would help?” Torrie offered him a hopeful expression. “You grandmother told me she used to carry dinner out there on Sunday evenings, and Matthew and she would eat by candlelight.”

From behind them, in a bed of Shasta daisies, a whirligig started up in the light breeze. It was a whimsical cat, the yellow scarf around its neck flying out behind it. It was riding in a vintage, red convertible car. But instead of the sign saying Route 66, someone had blackened out one of the sixes to make it Route 6 in an attempt to replicate the road into Hickory Valley. Torrie looked at it and laughed. The sound of her voice was like the tinkling of tiny bells—light and joyful. “It was a present from her bridge club on her eighty-fifth birthday,” she told him.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit audacious?”

“For Gertie? Heavens, no. But if you ever want to get rid of it, I’ll take it off your hands. It makes me smile.” Torrie chuckled. “By the way, have you seen her cat?”

“A cat? A real cat? Like a domestic feline? Here on the grounds?” Rich’s voice rose in disbelief.

“Yes, her name is Sheba. She’s white. I’m not sure she’s exactly domestic. She was a stray your grandmother took in a few years ago. She stays outside and takes shelter in the front shed where there’s a hole in the back. Marlene and I take turns feeding her, which is another reason I have the key. We keep the cat food against the far wall in the garage.” She paused. “It might be a good chore for Estella while she’s here.”

He stared at her with a confused, sour gaze. “Just what I need! Estella getting hooked on a cat. She’s been hounding me for a pet for the last two years.” The corner of his mouth twisted with exasperation. “Keep the key.”

He looked around the backyard, which had become overgrown with rhododendron and other bushes he didn’t recognize. Even the trees needed trimming. “Did Gertie ever talk about family? Did she ever mention anything about another grandchild or me having a half-sister?”

Now it was Torrie’s turn to be confused. “You mean your mother had another child?”

“No, I think my father might have been less than a steadfast spouse. But then, my mother left a lot to be desired as both a mother and wife.” Rich sighed, a half-weary, half-disgusted sigh. “I have no idea how I’m supposed to find this long-lost sister. Then there’s the continuing tale from the past about jewels brought from Austria in the early 1900s, hidden, but never found.”

Torrie bit her lip. “There are old journals in the study, written by your Great Grandmother Hilda. Your problem will be her English. Gertie said she spoke it flawlessly, but sometimes when she wrote it, she threw in a few German words and phrases. If she gave any hints about the jewels, you might find them there. You’ll have to look up some words and phrases. I have an excellent German/English dictionary you can use.”

His eyes widened and he stared at her. Complete surprise and adoration washed over his face. “You know German?”

Torrie’s raised her arms, palms facing. “No. Don’t get any ideas. I took German in high school and college. Two years each.” She stepped backward. “I can read it a little, write it even less, speak it hardly at all. I’m no expert.”

“Well, you’re light years ahead of me. All I know is passable Spanish.” His gaze circled the yard again before they came to rest on her. “Are you free for dinner some night?”

“No,” she said and backed away even farther. A look of panic crossed her face. “Sorry. My week is usually full. I have Sunday and Wednesday off, but I do Henry’s payroll on Wednesday morning. I’m headed there next to pick up invoices I need to look over.” She chewed on her lower lip and looked toward the circular walk leading to the front of the house like she might escape given the chance.

“It’s not a date, Torrie,” he said quietly. “I just want to have a nice dinner somewhere and talk. Just as friends. Maybe there’s something you can tell me about my grandmother that might be helpful in getting to the bottom of all these questions. How about Sunday?”

She shook her head. “I have plans for Sunday, sorry. On weekdays, Finn and I take turns working late to accommodate customers who stop in after work to pick up shrubs for evening or weekend do-it-yourself landscaping.”

His gray eyes darkened as he held her gaze. “Come on, you’re making this difficult. How about a late dinner this Friday?”

She looked at the ground and sighed. “I guess. If we go out of town.”

“Afraid to be seen with me?”

She rubbed the back of her neck, then stared at the whirligig for a minute before speaking. “No, let’s just say I have a reputation for not dating, not getting involved, so I don’t want to run into anyone I might know and put myself in the gossip pipeline.”

“Okay.” He nodded, a thoughtful smile curving his mouth. “Fair enough. But promise me you’ll wear something that’ll knock my socks off. We’re not going on a trek out of town in a red muscle car just to eat at a burger joint.”

Her sweet melodious laugh rippled out as together they watched a breeze stir the propellers on the whirligig and send the car and cat bouncing up and down like they were racing on a highway.

“Deal,” she finally said.