Suzanna's Surrender, Page 3

  The bedroom was tiny, almost an afterthought that jutted out from the main structure. He liked lying in bed at night and listening to rain drumming on the tin roof. The stairs to his grandfather's studio had been reinforced, as well as the railing that skirted along the open balcony. He climbed up now, to look at the wide, airy space, dim with twilight.

  Now and then he thought about putting skylights in the angled roof, but he never considered refinishing the floor. The dark old wood was splattered with paint that had dripped from brush or palette. There were streaks of carmine and turquoise, drops of emerald green and canary yellow. His grandfather had pre­ferred the vivid, the passionate, even the violent in his work.

  Against one wall, canvases were stacked, Holt's legacy from a man who had only begun to find critical and financial success in his last years. They would, he knew, be worth a hefty sum. Yet as he never con­sidered sanding the paint from the floors, he had never considered selling this part of his inheritance.

  Crouching down, he began to look through the paintings. He knew them all, had studied them count­less times, wondering how he could have come from a man with such vision and talent. Holt turned over the portrait, knowing that was why he had come up here.

  The woman was as beautiful as a dream-—the fine-featured oval face, the alabaster skin. Rich red-gold hair was swept up off a graceful neck. Full, soft lips were curved, just a little. But it was the eyes that drew Holt, as they always had. They were green, like a misty sea. It wasn't their color that pulled at him, but the expression in them, the look, the emotion that had been captured by his grandfather's brush and skill.

  Such quiet sadness. Such inner grief. It was almost too painful to look at, because to look too long was to feel. He had seen that expression today, in Suzan­na's eyes.

  Could this be Bianca? he wondered. The resem­blance was there, in the shape of the face, the curve of the mouth. The coloring was certainly wrong and the similarities slight. Except the eyes, he thought. When he looked at them, he thought of Suzanna.

  Because he was thinking of her too much, he told himself. He rose, but he didn't turn the portrait back to the wall. He stood staring at it for a long time, wondering if his grandfather had loved the woman he'd painted.

  It was going to be another hot one, Suzanna thought. Though it was barely seven, the air was al­ready sticky. They needed rain, but the moisture hung in the air and stubbornly refused to fall.

  Inside her shop, she checked on the refrigerated blooms and left a note for Carolanne to push the car­nations by selling them at half price. She checked the soil in the hanging pots of impatiens and geraniums, then moved on to the display of gloxinia and bego­nias.

  Satisfied, she took her sprayer out to drench the flats of annuals and perennials. The rosebushes and peonies were moving well, she noted. As were the yews and junipers.

  By seven-thirty, she was checking on the green­house plants, grateful that her inventory was dwin­dling. What didn't sell, she would winter over. She would also take cuttings for next year's plants. But winter, and that quiet work, was months away.

  By eight her pickup was loaded, and she was on her way to Seal Harbor. She would put in a full day's work there on the grounds of a newly constructed home. The buyers were from Boston, and wanted their summer home to have an established yard, com­plete with shrubs, trees and flower beds.

  It would be hot, sweaty work, Suzanne mused. But it would also be quiet. The Andersons were in Boston this week, so she would have the yard to herself. She liked nothing better than working with the soil and living things, tending something she had planted and watching it grow and thrive.

  Like her children, she thought with a smile. Her babies. Every time she put them to bed at night or watched them run in the sunlight, she knew that noth­ing that had happened to her before, nothing that would happen to her in the future would dim that glow of knowing they were hers.

  The failed marriage had left her shaken and uncer­tain, and there were times she still had terrible doubts about herself as a woman. But not as a mother. Her children had the very best she could give them. The bond nourished her, as well as them.

  Over the past two years, she'd begun to believe that she could be a success in business. Her flair for gar­dening had been her only useful skill and had been a kind of salvation during the last months of her dying marriage. In desperation she had sold her jewelry, taken out a loan and had plunged into Island Gardens.

  It had made her feel good to use her maiden name. She hadn't wanted any frivolous or clever name for the business, but something straightforward. The first year had been rough—particularly when she'd been pouring every cent she could spare into legal fees to fight a custody suit.

  The thought of that, the memory of it, still made her blood run cojd. She couldn't have lost them.

  Bax hadn't wanted the children, but he'd wanted to make things difficult for her. When it had been over, she'd lost fifteen pounds, countless hours of sleep and had been up to her neck in debt. But she had her children. The ugly battle had been won, and the price meant nothing.

  Gradually she was pulling out. She'd gained back a few of the pounds, had caught up a bit on her sleep and was slowly, meticulously hacking away at the debt. In the two years since she'd opened the busi­ness, she'd earned a reputation as dependable, rea­sonable and imaginative. Two of the resorts had tried her out, and it looked as though they'd be negotiating long-term contracts.

  That would mean buying another truck, hiring on full-time labor. And maybe, just maybe, that trip to Disney World.

  She pulled up in the driveway of the pretty Cape Cod house. Now, she reminded herself, it meant get­ting to work.

  The grounds took up about a half acre and were gently sloped. She had had three in-depth meetings with the owners to determine the plan. Mrs. Anderson wanted plenty of spring flowering trees and shrubs, and the long-term privacy factor of evergreens. She wanted to enjoy a perennial bed that was carefree and full of summer color. Mr. Anderson didn't want to spend his summers maintaining the yard, particularly the side portion, which fell in a more dramatic grade. There, Suzanna would use ground covers and rock­eries to prevent erosion.

  By noon, she had measured off each area with stakes and strings. The hardy azaleas were planted. Two long-blooming fairy roses flanked the flagstone walk and were already sweetening the air. Because Mrs. Anderson had expressed a fondness for lilacs, Suzanna placed a trio of compact shrubs near the master bedroom window, where the next spring's breezes would carry the scent indoors.

  The yard was coming alive for her. It helped her ignore the aching muscles in her arms as she drenched the new plants with water. Birds were chirping, and somewhere in the near distance, a lawn mower was putting away.

  One day, she would drive by and see that the fast-growing hedge roses she had planted along the fence had spread and bloomed until they covered the chain link. She would see the azaleas bloom in the spring and the maple leaves go red in the fall, and know that she'd been part of that.

  It was important, more important than she could admit to anyone, that she leave a mark. She needed that to remind herself that she wasn't the weak and useless woman who had been so callously tossed aside.

  Dripping with sweat, she picked up her water bottle and shovel and headed around to the front of the house again. She'd put in the first of the flowering almonds and was digging the hole for the second when a car pulled into the driveway behind her truck. Resting on her shovel, Suzanna watched Holt climb out.

  She let out a little huff of breath, annoyed that her solitude had been invaded, and went back to digging.

  “Out for a drive?” she asked when his shadow fell over her.

  “No, the girl at the shop told me where to find you. What the hell are you doing?”

  “Playing canasta.” She shoveled some more dirt. “What do you want?”

  “Put that shovel down before you hurt yourself. You've got no business digging ditches.”

&n
bsp; “Digging ditches is my business—more or less. Now, what do you want?”

  He watched her dig for another ten seconds before he snatched the shovel away from her. “Give me that damn thing and sit down.”

  Patience had always been her strong point, but she was hard-pressed to find it now. Working at it, she adjusted the brim of the fielder's cap she wore. “I'm on a schedule, and I have six more trees, two rose­bushes and twenty square feet of ground cover to plant. If you've got something to say, fine. Talk while I work.”

  He jerked the shovel out of her reach. “How deep do you want it?” She only lifted a brow. “How deep do you want the hole?”

  She skimmed her gaze down, then up again. “I'd say a little more than six feet would be enough to bury you in.”

  He grinned, surprising her. “And you used to be so sweet.” Plunging the shovel in, he began to dig. “Just tell me when to stop.”

  Normally she repaid kindness with kindness. But she was going to make an exception. “You can stop right now, I don't need any help. And I don't want the company.”

  “I didn't know you had a stubborn streak.” He glanced up as he tossed dirt aside. “I guess I had a hard time getting past that pretty face.” That pretty face, he noted, was flushed and damp and had shad­ows of fatigue under the eyes. It annoyed the hell out of him. “I thought you sold flowers.”

  “I do. I also plant them.”

  “Even I know that thing there is a tree.”

  “I plant those, too.” Giving up, she took out a bandanna and wiped at her neck. “The hole needs to be wider, not deeper.”

  He shifted to accommodate her. Maybe he needed to do a little reevaluating. “How come you don't have anybody doing the heavy work for you?”

  “Because I can do it myself.”

  Yes, there was stubbornness in the tone, and just a touch of nastiness. He liked her better for it. “Looks like a two-man job to me.”

  “It is a two-man job—the other man quit yesterday to be a rock star. His band got a gig down in Brighton Beach.”

  “Big time.”

  “Hmm. That's fine,” she said, and turned to heft the three-foot tree by its balled roots. As Holt frowned at her, she lifted it, then set it carefully in the hole.

  “Now I guess I fill it back in.”

  “You've got the shovel,” she pointed out. As he worked, she dragged a bag of peat moss closer and began to mix it with the soil.

  Her nails were short and rounded, he noted as she dug her already grimed fingers into the soil. There was no wedding ring on her finger. In fact, she wore no jewelry at all, though she had hands that were meant to wear beautiful things.

  She worked patiently, her head down, her cap shielding her eyes. He could see the nape of her neck and wondered what it would be like to press his lips there. Heir skin would be hot now, and damp. Then she rose, switching on the garden hose to drench the dirt.

  “You do this every day?”

  “I try to take a day or two in the shop. I can bring the kids in with me.” With her feet, she tamped down the damp earth. When the tree was secure, she spread a thick lawyer of mulch, her moves competent and practiced. “Next spring, this will be covered with blooms.” She wiped the back of her wrist over her brow. The little tank top she wore had a line of sweat down the front and back that only emphasized her fragile build. “I really am on a schedule, Holt. I've got some aspens and white pine to plant out in back, so if you need to talk to me, you're going to have to come along.”

  He glanced around the yard. “Did you do all this today?”

  “Yes. What do you think?”

  “I think you're courting sunstroke.”

  A compliment, she supposed, would have been too much to ask. “I appreciate the medical evaluation.” She put a hand on the shovel, but he held on. “I need this.”

  “I'll carry it.”

  “Fine.” She loaded the bags of peat and mulch into a wheelbarrow. He swore at her, tossed the shovel on top then nudged her away to push the wheelbarrow himself.

  “Where out back?”

  “By the stakes near the rear fence.”

  She frowned after him when he started off, then followed him. He began digging without consulting her so she emptied the wheelbarrow and headed back to her truck. When he glanced up, she was pushing out two more trees. They planted the first one to­gether, in silence.

  He hadn't realized that putting a tree in the ground could be soothing, even rewarding work. But when it stood, young and straight in the dazzling sunlight, he felt soothed. And rewarded.

  “I was thinking about what you said yesterday,” he began when they set the second tree in its new home.

  “And?”

  He wanted to swear. There was such patience in the single word, as if she'd known all along he would bring it up. “And I still don't think there's anything I can do, or want to do, but you may be right about the connection.”

  “I know I'm right about the connection.” She brushed mulch from her hands to her jeans. “If you came out here just to tell me that, you've wasted a trip.”

  She rolled the empty wheelbarrow to the truck. She was about to muscle the next two trees out of the bed when he jumped up beside her.

  “I'll get the damn things out.” Muttering, he filled the wheelbarrow and rolled it back to the rear of the yard. “He never mentioned her to me. Maybe he knew her, maybe they had an affair, but I don't see how that helps you.”

  “He loved her,” Suzanna said quietly as she picked up the shovel to dig. “That means he knew how she felt, how she thought. He might have had an idea where she would have hidden the emeralds.”

  “He's dead.”

  “I know.” She was silent a moment as she worked.

  “Bianca kept a journal—at least we're nearly certain she did, and that she hid it away with the necklace. Christian might have kept one, too.”

  Annoyed, he grabbed the shovel again. “I never saw it.”

  She suppressed the urge to snap at him. However much it might grate, he could be a link. “I suppose most people keep a private journal in a private place. Or he might have kept some letters from her. We found one Bianca wrote him and was never able to send.”

  “You're chasing windmills, Suzanna.”

  “This is important to my family.” She set the white pine carefully in the hole. “It's not the mone­tary value of the emeralds. It's what they meant to her.”

  He watched her work, the competent and gentle hands, the surprisingly strong shoulders. The delicate curve of her neck. “How could you know what they meant to her?”

  She kept her eyes down. “I can't explain that to you in any way you'd understand or accept.”

  “Try me.”

  “We all seem to have some kind of bond with her—especially Lilah.” She didn't look up when she heard him digging the next hole. “We'd never seen the emeralds, not even a photograph. After Bianca died, Fergus, my great-grandfather, destroyed all pic­tures of her. But Lilah...she drew a sketch of them one night. It was after we'd had a séance.”

  She did look up then and caught-his look of amused disbelief. “I know how it sounds,” she said, her voice stiff and defensive. “But my aunt believes in that sort of thing. And after that night, I think she may be right to. My youngest sister, C.C. had an...experience dur­ing the séance. She saw them—the emeralds. That's when Lilah drew the sketch. Weeks later, Lilah's fiancé found a picture of the emeralds in a library book. They were exactly as Lilah had drawn them, exactly as C.C. had seen them.”

  He said nothing for a moment as he set the next tree in place. “I'm not much on mysticism. Maybe one of your sisters saw the picture before, and had forgotten about it.”

  “If any of us had seen a picture, we wouldn't have forgotten. Still, the point is that all of us feel that finding the emeralds is important.”

  “They might have been sold eighty years ago.”

  “No. There was no record. Fergus was a maniac about keeping his fin
ances.” Unconsciously she arched her back, rolled her shoulders to relieve the ache. “Believe me, we've been through every scrap of paper we could find.”

  He let it drop, mulling it over as they planted the last of the trees.

  “You know the bit about the needle in the hay­stack?” he asked as he helped her spread mulch. “People don't really find it.”

  “They would if they kept looking.” Curious, she sat back on her heels to study him. “Don't you be­lieve in hope?”

  He was close enough to touch her, to rub the smudge of dirt from her cheek or run a hand down the ponytail. He did neither. “No, only in what is.”

  “Then I'm sorry for you.” They rose together, their bodies nearly brushing. She felt something rush along her skin, something race through her blood, and automatically stepped back. “If you don't believe in what could be, there isn't any use in planting trees, or having children or even watching the sun set.”

  He'd felt it, too. And resented and feared it every bit as much as she. “If you don't keep your eye on what's real, right now, you end up dreaming your life away. I don't believe in the necklace, Suzanna, or in ghosts, or in eternal love. But if and when I'm certain that my grandfather was involved with Bianca Calhoun, I'll do what I can to help you.”

  She gave a half laugh. “You don't believe in hope or love, or anything else apparently. Why would you agree to help us?”

  “Because if he did love her, he would have wanted me to.'' Bending, he picked up the shovel and handed it back to her. “I've got things to do.”

  Chapter Three

  Suzanna pulled up to the shop, pleased that she had to squeeze between a station wagon and a hatchback in the graveled parking area. There were a few people wandering around the flats of annuals, and a young couple deliberating over the climbing roses. A woman, hugely pregnant, strolled about, carrying a tray of mixed pots. The toddler by her side held a single geranium like a flag.

  Inside, Carolanne was ringing up a sale and flirting with the young man who held a ceramic urn of pink double begonias. “Your mother will love them,” she said, and swept her long lashes over doe-colored eyes. “There's nothing like flowers for a birthday. Or any­time. We're having a special on carnations.” She smiled and tossed her long, curling brown hair. “If you have a girlfriend.”

  “Well, no...” He cleared his throat. “Not really. Right now.”

  “Oh.” Her smile warmed several degrees. “That's too bad.” She gave him his change and a long look. “Come back anytime. I'm usually here.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” He shot a glance over his shoul­der, trying to keep her in sight, and nearly ran over Suzanna. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “That's all right. I hope your mother enjoys them.” Chuckling, she joined the pert brunette at the cash register. “You're amazing.”

  “Wasn't he cute? I love it when they blush. Well.” She turned her smile on Suzanna. “You're back early.”

  “It didn't take as long as I thought.” She didn't feel it was necessary to add she'd had unexpected and unwanted help. Carolanne was a hard worker, a skilled salesperson, and an inveterate gossip. “How are things here?”

  “Moving along. All this sunshine must be inspiring people to beef up their gardens. Oh, Mrs. Russ was back. She liked the primroses so much, she made her husband build her another window box so she could buy more. Since she was in the mood, I sold her two hibiscus—and two of those terra-cotta pots to put them in.”

  “I love you. Mrs. Russ loves you, and Mr. Russ is going to learn to hate you.” At Carolanne's laugh, Suzanna looked out through the glass. “I'll go and see if I can help those people decide which roses they want.”

  “The new Mr. and Mrs. Halley. They both wait tables over at Captain Jack's, and just bought a cot­tage. He's studying to be an engineer, and she's going to start teaching at the elementary school in Septem­ber.”

  Shaking her head, Suzanna laughed. “Like I said, you're amazing.”

  “No, just nosy.” Carolanne grinned. “Besides, people buy more if you talk to them. And boy, do I love to talk.”

  “If you didn't, I'd have to close up shop.”

  “You'd just work twice as hard, if that's possible.” She waved a hand before Suzanna could protest. “Be­fore you go, I asked around to see if anyone needed any part-time work.” Carolanne lifted her hands. “No luck yet.”

  It wasn't any use moaning, Suzanna thought. “This late in the season, everyone's already working.”

  “If Tommy the creep Parotti hadn't jumped ship—”

  “Honey, he had a chance to make a break and do something he's always wanted to do. We can't blame him for that.”

  “You can't,” Carolanne muttered. “Suzanna, you can't keep doing all the site work yourself. It's too hard.”

  “We're getting by,” she said absently, thinking of the help she'd had that day. “Listen, Carolanne, after we deal with these customers, I have another delivery to make. Can you handle things until closing?”

  “Sure.” Carolanne let out a sigh. “I'm the one with a stool and a fan, you're the one with the pick and the shovel.”

  “Just keep pushing the carnations.”