Yanecia - Nora Roberts- Garden Trilogy - Red lily

“She was always sad.” He reached inside, beyond his anger and found the pity. “I could see it even when I was a kid, and she’d be in my room, singing. Sad and lost. Still I felt safe with her, the way you do when you’re with someone you know cares about you. She cared, on some level, for me, for my brothers. I guess that has to count for something.”

“She still cares, I feel that. She just gets confused. Harper, I can’t remember.”

She lowered the cup, and emotion swam into her eyes. “Not like I could the other times it happened. I could see, at least a part of me could. I don’t know how to explain. But this time, it’s mixed up, and I can’t see. Not all of it. Why was she going into the ballroom? What did she do there?”

He wanted to tell her to relax, not to think. But how could she? Instead he came back, sat by her. “You went to the carriage house. You must have. The door was open, and I could see where you’d walked back to the kitchen. The floor was wet.”

“That’s where she went that night, the night she died here. She had to have died here that night. Nothing else makes sense. We saw her that time, you and me. Standing out on the terrace, wet and muddy. She had a rope.”

“There could’ve been rope in the carriage house. Probably was.”

“Why would she need a rope to get the baby? To tie up the nursemaid?”

“I don’t think that’s why she wanted rope.”

“She had that sickle thing, too.” Bright and gleaming, she remembered. Sharp. “Maybe she was going to kill anyone who tried to stop her. But the rope. What would she do with rope besides tie somebody up?”

Her eyes widened and she set the cup down with a rattle when she read the look in his eyes.

“Oh my God. To kill herself? To hang herself, is that what you’re thinking? But why? Why would she come all the way out here? Why would she drag herself through the rain, and hang herself in the ballroom?”

“The nursery was on the third floor back then.”

What little color had come back into her cheeks drained again. “The nursery.”

No, she thought as the image played in her mind, she might never be truly warm again.

ON HER DAYS off, Hayley was used to the hours flying by. The time was so crowded with chores—shopping, laundry, organizing what had gotten disorganized during workdays, caring for Lily and the myriad tasks that turned up—she barely remembered what it was like to have what those who didn’t have full-time jobs and a toddler called free time.

Who knew she liked it that way?

Finding herself with time on her hands left her feeling broody and restless. But when the boss ordered you to take the day off, there was no arguing. At least not when the boss was Rosalind Harper.

She’d been banished to Stella’s house for the day without even Lily as a distraction. She’d been told to rest, and she’d tried. Really she had. But her usual delight in reading didn’t satisfy her; the stack of DVDs Stella had handed her didn’t entertain, and the quiet, empty house kept her counting the minutes rather than lulling her into a nap.

She passed some of the time roaming the rooms, rooms she’d helped paint. Stella and Logan had turned it into a home, mixing Stella’s flair for detail and style with Logan’s sense of space. And the boys, of course, she thought as she paused outside of the room Gavin and Luke shared with its bunk beds and shelves loaded with comic books and trucks. It was a home created with children in mind, lots of light and color, the big yard that bumped right up to kiss the woods. Even with the elegance of gardens—and how could the landscaping be anything but beautiful here—it was a yard where kids and a dog could romp around.

She picked up Parker—the dog had been her only company through the day—and nuzzled him as she walked back downstairs.

Would she be as clever as Stella with a home and family? As loving and smart and sane?

She’d never planned it this way. Stella was the one for plans. She’d just cruised along, happy enough with her job at the bookstore, helping her father tend the little house they shared. Now and again she’d thought about taking a few extra classes in business—to prepare for the vague dream of opening her own bookstore. One day.

She’d thought about falling in love—one day. Most girls did, she imagined. But she hadn’t been in any hurry for it, for the big love, and what followed. Permanency, home, kids. The whole minivan, soccer-mom routine had been distant as the moon in her head. Years off. Light-years off.

But things had happened that had pushed her in directions she’d never expected to go. So here she was, not yet twenty-six, pregnant with her second child, working in a field she’d known next to nothing about two years before.

And so stupidly in love she was all but breathing valentines.

Just to ice that cake, a cryptic and certainly psychopathic spirit had decided to borrow her body from time to time.

When Parker wiggled, she set him down, then followed him into the kitchen where he parked himself by the back door and stared holes through it.

“Okay, okay, out you go. Guess I’m not the most sparkling company today.”

She let him out, and he pranced across the yard, into the woods as if he had an appointment to keep.

She wandered out herself. It was a pretty day. The rain had freshened things, cooled the air a little. She could take a walk, do some weeding. Or she could stretch out on the patio chaise and see if being outdoors was more conducive to napping.

Without much hope, she cocked the chair back, thought about going back in for a book. And was asleep in minutes.

SHE WOKE A little fuzzy in the brain to the sound of snoring. Baffled, she pressed a hand to her mouth, but the sound continued. There was a light cotton throw tossed over her, and the table umbrella had been cocked to shade her.

The snoring came from Parker who was flopped on his back beside her chaise, his feet straight up in the air so he looked like a toy dog that had been knocked off its perch.

Her life might’ve been strange at the moment, but she didn’t think a dog could have moved the umbrella or brought her a blanket.

Even as she cleared sleep from her throat and pushed herself up, Stella came out the back door bearing two glasses of iced tea.

“Nice nap?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I slept through it. Thanks,” she added as she took a glass of tea. “What time . . . Wow.” She blinked at her own watch. “I was out for almost two hours.”

“Glad to hear it. You look better.”

“I hope to God. Where are the kids?”

“Logan picked them up after school. They like going to jobs with him. Gorgeous out, isn’t it? The perfect day for drinking tea on the patio.”

“Everything okay at the nursery? This kind of weather brings people in.”

“And it did. We were busy. Look at those crepe myrtles. I love this yard,” she said with a sigh.

“You and Logan have done an amazing job. I was thinking that before. What a good team you are.”

“Turns out. Who’d have thought a cranky disorganized know-it-all and an anal-retentive overachiever could find true love and happiness?”

“I did. Right from the start.”

“I suppose you did. Smartie. Have you eaten?”

“I wasn’t really hungry.”

Stella wagged a finger. “Somebody in there might be. I’m going to fix you a sandwich.”

“Don’t fuss, Stella.”

“PB and J?”

With a shake of her head, Hayley gave in. “No fair. You know my weaknesses.”

“Sit right there. The fresh air’s good for you. I’ll be back in a minute.”

True to her word, Stella was back not only with the sandwich, but a sprig of purple grapes, bite-size wedges of cheese. And a half a dozen Milano cookies.

Hayley looked at the plate on her lap, then up at Stella. “Will you be my mommy?”

With a laugh, Stella sat on the chaise at Hayley’s feet. And began to rub them in a way that had every muscle in Hayley’s body sighing in relief. “One of my favorite things about being pregnant was getting pampered once in a while.”

“Missed that the first few months the first time out.”

“So, you’ll make up for it with this one.” Stella patted Hayley’s leg. “How you feeling—gestating-wise?”

“Good. Tired, you know, and up and down on the emotional scale, but pretty good. Better now,” she added after another bite of the sandwich. “And I hate admitting that—a long nap, comfort food, it’s doing the job. I’m going to take care of myself, Stella, I promise. I was careful carrying Lily, and I’ll be careful this time, too.”

“I know you will. Besides, nobody’s going to give you a choice.”

“I get . . .” She moved her shoulders restlessly. “Funny when everybody’s worried about me.”

“Then you’ll have to get funny, because we can’t help it. Not with everything that’s going on.”

“Last night, it was so . . . I’ve used all the words before. Strong, strange, bizarre, intense. But this was the most of all of them. Stella, I didn’t tell Harper everything. I couldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t tell him what I felt. He’d wig, the way guys do. I’m counting on you not to.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s a feeling—and I don’t know if it’s just stress or if it’s real. But I feel. Stella, she wants the baby. This baby.” Hayley pressed a hand to her belly.

“How—”

“She can’t. No power on this earth, no power anywhere, is strong enough to push me aside. You know, because you’ve had a child inside you. Harper, he’d freak.”

“Explain this to me, so I don’t.”

“She gets mixed up is the best way I can explain it. From the here and now, to back in her own time. She wavers back and forth. When she’s in the now, she wants what I have. This child, the life, the body. Even more, wealth and privilege. She wants the sensations and the payoff. Do you understand?”

“All right, yes.”

“She’s much more frightening, much more selfish when her mind’s in the now. When it’s back, when she’s caught up in what happened to her, it’s like it is happening. Then she’s just angry and vindictive, so she wants someone to pay for what happened to her. Or she’s sad, and pitiable, and she just wants it all to stop. She’s tired. Harper thinks she committed suicide.”

“I know. We talked a little.”

“He thinks she hanged herself in the nursery. Right there while the baby slept. She could’ve done it. She was lost and crazy enough to have done it.”

“I know that, too.” Stella rose, walked to the edge of the patio to look out over the yard. “I’ve been having dreams again.”

“What? When?”

“Not here, not at night. Daydreams, you could say. At work. On Harper ground. Images like before of the dahlia. The blue dahlia. Only it’s monstrous. That’s how she wants me to see it. Petals like razors, waiting to slice your fingers to ribbons if you touch it. It’s not growing out of a garden this time.” She turned back; met Hayley’s eyes. “But out of a grave. Unmarked, black dirt. The dahlia is the only thing that grows there.”

“When did they start?”

“A few days ago.”

“Do you think Roz has had them, too?”

“We’ll need to ask her.”

“Stella, we have to go up to the old nursery.”

“Yes.” She walked back, took the hand Hayley held out to her. “We will.”

IT WAS EASY to talk without men when the announced activity was wedding planning. Men, Hayley noted, scattered like ants when terms like guest lists and color schemes were mentioned.

So they were able to sit on Stella’s patio in the balm of the evening with Lily being passed from one pair of arms to another, or playing in the grass with Parker.

“I didn’t think it would be so easy to chase Harper off,” Hayley complained. “You’d think he’d want some input into the wedding plans. He’s getting married, too.”

Roz and Stella exchanged amused looks before Roz reached over, patted Hayley’s hand. “Sweet, foolish child.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter, since that’s not what we’re doing. But still.” Annoyed with herself, Hayley waved her hands. “Anyway. Amelia’s been messing with you, too.”

“Twice,” Roz confirmed. “Both times when I was alone in the propagation house. I’d be working, and then I’d be somewhere else. It’s dark, too dark to tell where, and cold. Very cold. I’m standing over an open grave. When I look down I see her, looking back at me. Her hands are clasped over the stem of a black rose. Or it looks black in the dark.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Stella demanded.

“The same could be asked of you. I intended to tell you, and did tell Mitch. But we’ve had a few major distractions.”

Hayley hauled Lily onto her lap and admired the thick plastic bracelet she played with. “I know that when this first started and I suggested a seance everybody thought it was a joke. But maybe we should try it. The three of us have this connection to her. Maybe if we tried, really tried to communicate, she’d tell us what she wants.”

“I’m not pulling out the turban and crystal ball anytime soon,” Roz said, definitely. “In any case, I don’t think she knows. By that, I mean she wants to be found—and I think she means her grave, or her remains. But she doesn’t know where it is.”

“We can’t be a hundred percent certain it’s on Harper property,” Stella put in.

“No, we can’t. Mitch is doing all he can to find death records, burial records. We don’t think there are any for her.”

“A secret burial.” Hayley nodded. “But she always wants us to know what happened to her. It still pisses her off.” She shrugged, smiled a little. “It’s one of the things I get, pretty loud and clear. If she was killed, or killed herself, in the house, we need to find out.”

“The nursery,” Roz stated. “It was still in use when I was born.”

“You stayed up there when you were a baby?” Hayley asked.

“So I’m told. At least for the first few months, with the nursemaid. My grandmother didn’t approve, Grandmama Harper. Apparently she’d only used it when they were entertaining. She used her considerable influence on my parents until they moved me to a room on the second floor. I never used it for my boys.”

“Why?”

Roz pursed her lips and thought over Hayley’s question. “First, I didn’t want them that far away from me. And yes, I didn’t like the feel of the room. Something I couldn’t explain, and didn’t think about that much at the time.”

“The furniture in Lily’s room came from there.”

“Yes. Once Mason was out of the crib, I had everything taken back up. I took to storing the boys’ things in there when they outgrew them. We don’t use the third floor as a rule. It’s too costly to maintain, and more space than we can practically use. Though I have had parties in the ballroom in the past.”

“I’d never been up there,” Hayley commented. “Which is strange now that I think about it, because I like going through houses, seeing how they look, picturing them the way they were, that kind of thing. But I never even thought of going up there in all the time I’ve lived in the house. Stella?”