Black Rose - NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

 “I’m not nervous anymore, not even a little jump in the belly.” Stella pressed a hand to it as she blinked tears back. “I think about Kevin, my first wedding, the years we had together, the children we made together. And I know, in my heart, I know he’s okay with this. Logan’s a good man.”

 “A very good man.”

 “I made him wait almost a year.” She let out a laughing breath. “Time’s up. Roz, thank you for all you’ve done.”

 “You’re welcome. Ready to get married?”

 “I’m absolutely ready.”

 It was sweet, Roz thought, and it was lovely. The man and woman, the young boys, coming together in the gardens of the home they’d share. Logan, big and strong and handsome in his suit, Stella, bright and beautiful in her bride dress, and the children grinning even when Logan kissed the bride.

 The guests broke into spontaneous applause as Logan swept Stella off her feet and spun her in a circle. And Harper topped off the moment by popping the first bottle of champagne.

 “I don’t know when I’ve seen a happier couple,” Mitch commented, and tapped his glass to Roz’s. “Or a prettier family. You do good work.”

 “I didn’t do anything.”

 “It’s like a family tree. These two come from one of your branches. May not be blood, but it comes to the same. It’s their connection to you that brought them together. They did the rest, but the connection started it.”

 “That’s a nice thought. I’ll take it.” She lifted her glass, sipped. “There’s something I want to talk to you about a little later. I wanted to wait to bring it up until after Stella had her day. A wedding day, by rights, belongs to the bride.”

 “What’s it about?”

 “I guess you could say it’s about connections.” She rose on her toes to kiss him. “We’ll talk about it after we go home. Fact is, I’ve got to run back real quick. With all this commotion I forgot the special bottle of champagne I have back home for the bride and groom and their wedding night.”

 “I can run get it.”

 “No, it’ll be quicker if I do. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

 As she got to the car, she stopped as Hayley called her.

 “Roz! Hold up. Is it okay if we ride with you?” A little breathless, she stopped at the car with a crying Lily in her arms. “I’ve got a cranky girl here, needs a little nap. But she won’t go down. Car ride’ll do the trick. We can take mine, it has the car seat.”

 “Sure. It’s going to be a quick run, though.”

 “That’s all right.” She walked to her own car, battled an objecting Lily into the seat. “Rides always calm her down, and if she goes to sleep, I can just sit out here with her until she wakes up. Then we’ll both have a better time at the party.”

 As advertised, the crying stopped, and Lily’s head began to droop before they were down the lane to the main road.

 “Works like a charm,” Hayley said.

 “Always did with mine, too. She looks so sweet in her pink party dress.”

 “Everything looked so beautiful. If I ever get married, I want it to be just like that. Springtime, flowers, friends, shiny faces. I always thought I wanted a big church extravaganza, but this was so romantic.”

 “Just right for them. It’s nice to—Slow down. Stop the car!”

 “What? What’s the . . . oh, my God.”

 They looked over at In the Garden. Roz had closed for the day so everyone could enjoy the wedding. But someone, she could see, had been there. Someone, she thought, still was.

 Several of her outdoor displays were overturned, and a car was parked sideways, crushing one of her beds.

 “Call the police,” Roz snapped and was already out of the car. “You and the baby get out of here now. Go back to Logan’s right now.”

 “Don’t. Don’t go in there now.”

 “This is my place.” And she was already running.

 Her flowers, she thought. Plants she’d started from seed or cutting, babied along, nurtured and loved. Destroyed, beaten down, ripped to pieces.

 Innocent, she thought as she took only a moment to grieve for the loss and waste. Innocent beauty crushed to nothing.

 There would be payment made.

 She heard glass shatter, and charged around the back of the main building. She saw Bryce, swinging a baseball bat at another window.

 “You son of a bitch.”

 He whirled. She saw the shock first, then the rage. “Thought you were busy today. Figured I’d be done before you came by.”

 “You figured wrong.”

 “Doesn’t matter a damn.” He slammed the bat into the next window. “Time you learned a lesson. You think you can humiliate me in public? Set the cops on me?”

 “You humiliated yourself, and if you don’t put that down and get the hell off my property, I’m going to do more than set the cops on you.”

 “Such as? Just you and me now, isn’t it?” He slapped the bat against his palm, took a step toward her. “Do you know what you cost me?”

 “I’ve got a general idea, and it’s going to be more. Trespassing, destruction of property.”

 He didn’t use the bat, though she saw in his eyes, just for an instant, that he considered it. But he swung out with his hand, cracking her across the cheekbone and sending her sprawling.

 That was all it took. She was up like a flash and launching herself at him. She didn’t use nails and teeth as Mandy had. She used her fists, and took him so by surprise, he fell to his knees before he managed to block her, and strike out at her again.

 But the blow didn’t land.

 The wind came up so fast, so cold, so furious, that it flung Roz back against the building. Her head rapped sharply against wood so she had to shake it clear.

 When she did, she saw Amelia sweeping across the ground, dirty white gown flying, hands curled like lethal claws. Murder in her eye.

 And so did Bryce.

 He screamed, a single high-pitched shriek of terror before he began to claw at his throat and gasp for air.

 “Don’t. For God’s sake.” Roz tried to push forward, but was slapped back by the pressure of the wind. “Don’t kill him. It’s enough, it’s enough! He can’t hurt me. He won’t hurt me.”

 Gravel spat and spun, and the figure in white circled, vulturelike, over the man collapsed on the ground raking his own throat bloody.

 “Stop. Amelia, stop. Great-grandmama.”

 Amelia’s head lifted, turned, and her eyes met Roz’s.

 “I know. I know I come from you. I know you’re trying to protect me. It’s all right. He won’t hurt me now. Please.” She pushed forward again, managed two steps with an effort that sucked her breath out of her lungs. “He’s nothing!” she shouted. “A bug. But he taught me some important lessons. And I’m going to teach him some hard ones. I want him to live so he pays.”

 She fought forward another step, holding her hands out, palms up. “There will be payment, I swear to you. For me, and on the blood we share, I swear there’ll be payment for you.”

 He was breathing again, Roz noted, short, harsh breaths, but air was wheezing in and out of Bryce’s white, white lips. She crouched down, spoke calmly. “Looks like it wasn’t just you and me after all.”

 The wind began to die, and through it she heard shouts and running feet. When she straightened, Amelia was gone.

 She staggered back on rubbery legs as Harper flew around the side of the building two strides ahead of Mitch.

 “I’m all right. I’m fine.” Though she felt her head circle like a carousel. “But this one might need a little medical attention.”

 “Fuck him. Mama.” Harper grabbed her, feathered his hands over her face. “Jesus Christ. Jesus, he hit you?”

 “Sucker punched me, but I got him back, believe me. Got him worse. And Amelia finished him off. I’m all right, baby, I promise you.”

 “Cops are on their way.” She looked over at the tremble in Mitch’s voice, and saw from his face it was partly from fear, partly from rage. “Hayley called them on her cell on the way back to get us.”

 “Good. Good.” She wasnot going to faint again. No matter what. “Well, we’re just going to press all sorts of charges.” She brushed at her hair, then her dress, and noticed a tear on the skirt. “Goddamn it, I bought this especially for today. Allsorts of charges.”

 She drew in a breath, struggling with temper and giddiness. “Harper, honey, will you do me a favor and take this worthless piece of trash around front, you and Mitch wait for the police. I don’t want to see him for a minute or two. I might finish what Amelia started.”

 “Let me haul him up first.” Mitch bent down, yanked Bryce up on his buckling legs. Then with eyes burning green, he glanced toward Roz.

 “Sorry,” he said before he plowed his fist into Bryce’s face and sent him sprawling again. “Hope you don’t mind.”

 “Not a bit,” Roz told him, and despite the churning in her belly found her lips spreading into a wide, wide grin. “Not a damn bit. Harper, you mind taking it from here? I’d like a word with Mitch.”

 “Happy to.” He dragged Bryce off, and shot a look over his shoulder. “Mama, you sure can kick ass.”

 “Yeah.” She drew in a breath, let it out. “If it’s all the same to you,” she said to Mitch, “I’m just going to sit down right here until I get my feet back under me. That ass-kicking took something out of me.”

 “Wait.” He peeled off his jacket, spread it on the ground. “No point in messing up that dress any more than it is.”

 She sat down, then tipped her head onto his shoulder when he joined her. “My hero,” she declared.

 EPILOGUE

SHE SAT QUIETLYuntil her heart rate slowed to normal, until the tangle of nerves, of rage, of reaction in her belly eased a little.

 Broken glass glittered in the sunlight. Glass could be replaced, she reminded herself. She’d mourn her flowers, but she’d save some of the wounded, and she’d grow more.

 She’d grow an abundance of more.

 “How’s your hand?” she asked Mitch.

 “Fine. Good.” He all but spat it out. “He’s got a chin like a marshmallow.”

 “Big strong man.” She turned to wrap her arms around him, and didn’t mention Mitch’s raw, scraped knuckles.

 “He must’ve gone crazy to think he could get away with this.”

 “A little, I guess. I imagine he planned to be done wrecking my place before the reception was over. He’d figure we’d blame it on kids—or the police would. And all I’d have was a mess on my hands. A man like that doesn’t have any respect for women, doesn’t believe one can best him.”

 “One did.”

 “Well, two. One live one, one dead one.”

 Since the faintness had passed, she got to her feet, held out a hand for his. “She was like fury, Mitch. Flying over the ground, through tables, and so fast. Wicked, wicked fast,” she stated. “He saw her, Bryce saw her coming at him, and he screamed. Then she was choking him. Or, I think, making him believe he was choking. Her hands weren’t on him, but she was strangling him.”

 She rubbed her arms, then clutched gratefully at the lapels of his jacket, drawing them tight when he draped it over her shoulders. She didn’t know if her bones would ever be warm again.

 “I can’t describe it. I can hardly believe it happened. Everything so fast and wild.”

 “We could hear you shouting,” he explained. “You cost both me and your son several years of our lives. I’m going to say this once.”

 He turned, took the lapels himself to hold her still and facing him. “And you’re going to hear it. I respect and admire your steely will, Rosalind, and appreciate your temper and your capability. But the next time you so much as think about taking on some lunatic with a bat on your own,I’m doing some ass-kicking. And it’s going to be your ass with the bull’s-eye painted on it.”

 She angled her head, studied his face, and saw he meant exactly what he said. Son of a gun.

 “You know, if I hadn’t already decided on this thing I’m about to ask you, that would’ve done it. How could I resist a man who lets me fight my own battles, then when the moment’s right, steps in and cleans house? After the dust is clear he gives me a good piece of his mind for being an idiot. Which I was, no question, no argument.”

 “Glad we agree on that.”

 She took the last step toward him, lifted her arms, and hooked them around his neck. “I really love you.”

 “I really love you back.”

 “Then you won’t have a problem marrying me.”

 She felt his body jerk, just a little, just once, then it settled in against her, warm and true. “I don’t see a problem with that. You’re sure?”

 “Couldn’t be more sure. I want to go to bed with you at night, wake up with you in the morning. I want to sit and have coffee with you whenever I please. Know you’re there for me, and I’m there for you. I want you, Mitch, for the rest of my life.”

 “I’m ready to get started on that.” He kissed her bruised cheek, her uninjured one, her brow, her lips. “I’m going to learn how to tend at least one flower. A rose. My black rose.”

 She leaned on him. She could lean on him—and trust him to step back when she needed to stand on her own.

 Everything inside her calmed, even when she looked at the destruction of what was hers. She would fix it, save what could be saved, accept what couldn’t.

 She would live her life, and plant her gardens—and walking hand-in-hand with the man she loved, watch both bloom.

 And in the gardens of Harper House, someone walked, and raged, and grieved. With mad eyes burning into the candy-blue sky.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 Black Rose

 AJove Book / published by arrangement with the author

 All rights reserved.

 Copyright ©2005 byNora Roberts

 This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

 For information address:

 The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

http://www.penguinputnam.com

 ISBN:0-7865-5613-7

 AJOVE BOOK®

 JoveBooks first published by The Jove Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 JOVEand the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.