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It was, all things considered, a pleasant evening Neither of her kids threw any food ornoises Always a plus, in Stella&039;s book Conversation was polite, even lively - particularly when the boys learned Logan&039;s first name - the same name used by the X-Men&039;s Wolverine

It was instant hero status, given polish when it was discovered that Logan shared Gavin&039;s obsession with coan see to her sons than her was probably another plus

"If, you know, the Hulk and Spider-Man ever got into a fight, I think Spider-Man would win"

Logan nodded as he cut into rare roast beef "Because Spider-Man&039;s quicker, and ht him, Spidey&039;d be toast"

Gavin speared a tiny new potato, then held it aloft on his fork like a severed head on a pike "If he was under the influence of souy, like"

"Maybe Mr Hyde"

"Yeah! Mr Hyde, then the Hulk could be forced to go after Spider-Man But I still think Spidey would win"

"That&039;s why he&039;s areed, "and the Hulk&039;s incredible It takes otta be smart and brave and stuff"

"Peter Parker&039;s the smartest" Luke emulated his brother with the potato head

"Bruce Banner&039;s pretty sh, Harper hoisted a potato, wagged it

"He always et new clothes after he reverts from Hulk form"

"If he was really sure out a way to make his clothes stretch and expand"

"You scientists," Logan said with a grin for Harper "Never thinking about the mundane"

"Is the Mundane a supervillain?" Luke wanted to know

"It means the ordinary," Stella told him "As in, it&039;s more mundane to eat your potatoes than to play with the to do at the table"

"Oh" Luke smiled at her, an expression somewhere between sweet and wicked, and chomped the potato off the fork "Okay" After the meal, she used the excuse of the boys&039; bedtime to retreat upstairs There were baths to deal with, the usual thousand questions to answer, and all that end-of-day energy to burn off, which included one or both of the around mostly naked

Then came her favorite time, when she drew a chair between their beds and read to thean to snore at her feet The current pick was Mystic Horse, and when she closed the book, she got the expected moans and pleas for just a little more

&039;Tomorrow, because now I&039;m afraid it&039;s time for sloppy kisses"

"Not sloppy kisses" Gavin rolled onto his belly to bury his face in the pillow "Not that!"

"Yes, and you must succumb" She covered the back of his head, the base of his neck with kisses while he giggled

"And now, for ether

"Wait, wait!" He threw out his hand to ward off the attack "Do you think my tooth will fall out tomorrow?"

"Let&039;s have another look" She sat on the side of his bed, studying soberly as he wiggled the tooth with his tongue "I think it just ht"

"Can I have a horse?"

"It won&039;t fit under your pillow" When he laughed, she kissed his forehead, his cheeks, and his sweet, sweettheht "Only fun dreaet a horse, because dreaht now"

She walked back to her room, heard the whispers from bed to bed that were also part of the bedtime ritual

It had become their ritual, over the last two years Just the three of thehttiood, she thought, as a few giggles punctuated the whispers

Soht, every , for what had been And she&039;d colanced at her laptop, thought about the work she&039;d ear Instead, she went to the terrace doors

It was still too cool to sit out, but she wanted the air, and the quiet, and the night

Iht in January And not freezing Though the forecasters were calling for raced with a sliver of ht she could see a ca to add to the plus pile about ht of spring, when the air would be wararden-scented

She wanted to be here in the spring, to see it, to be part of the awakening She wanted to keep her job She hadn&039;t realized how much she wanted to keep it until Roz&039;s firm, no-nonsense sit-down before dinner

Less than teeks, and she was already caught up Maybe too ht, she adan, she needed to finish Stella&039;s religion, her mother called it

But this was more She was emotional about the place A mistake, she knew She was half in love with the nursery, and with her own vision of how it could be She wanted to see tables alive with color and green, cascading flowers spilling fro the aisles to , filling the wagons and flatbeds with containers

And, of course, there was that part of her that wanted to go along with each one of the should be planted But she could control that

She could ad systes

And whether he liked it or not, she intended to visit soet a feel for that end of the business

That was supposing he didn&039;t talk Roz into firing her

He&039;d gotten slapped back, too, Stella ade

In any case, she wasn&039;t going to be able to work, or relax, or think about anything else until she&039;d straightened things out

She would go downstairs, on the pretext of one, she&039;d try to have a minute with Roz

It was quiet, and she had a sudden sinking feeling that they&039;d gone up to bed She didn&039;t want that picture in her head Tiptoeing into the front parlor, she peeked out theThough she didn&039;t see his truck, it occurred to her she didn&039;t knohere he&039;d parked, or what he&039;d driven in the first place

She&039;d leave it for , she would ask for a shortback in place Better to sleep on it, to plan exactly what to say and how to say it

Since she was already downstairs, she decided to go ahead and make that tea Then she would take it upstairs and focus on work Things would be better when she was focused

She walked quietly back into the kitchen, and let out a yelp when she saw the diure yelped back, then slapped at the switch beside the stove

"Just draw and shoot next ti a hand to her heart

"I&039; into the city tonight and I didn&039;t think anyone was back here"

"Justsome coffee"

"In the dark?"

"Stove light was on I knoay around You coerator?"

"What? No No!" She was hardly that cooing to make some tea to take up while I do a little work"

"Go ahead Unless you want some of this coffee"

"If I drink coffee after dinner, I&039; here in the quiet house, just the two of theht, her kitchen, even her quiet She wasn&039;t a guest, but an eht be, everything around thee leave?"

"You can call hian, Stella You only sound pissy otherwise"

"Sorry I don&039;tfoot, that&039;s all, and I oh, thanks," she said when Roz handed her the teakettle "I realize I shouldn&039;t have complained about hi she&039;d thought through what she wanted to say Practiced it a few times

"Because?" Roz prompted

"Well, it&039;s hardly constructive for your ner to start in on each other after one run-in, and less so to whine to you about it"

"Sensible Mature" Roz leaned back on the counter, waiting for her coffee to brew Young, she thought She had to reirl was er than she And a bit tender yet

"I try to be both," Stella said, and put the kettle on to boil

"So did I, once upon a ti to start my own business"

Stella pushed back her hair Who was this wohts? Who spoke frank words in that debutante-of-the-southern-aristocracy voice and wore ancient wool socks in lieu of slippers? "I can&039;t get a handle on you I can&039;t figure you out"

"That&039;s what you do, isn&039;t it? Get handles on things" She shifted to reach up and behind into a cupboard for a coffee ht be irritating on a personal level"

"You wouldn&039;t be the first" Stella let out a breath "And on that personal level, I&039;d like to add a separate apology I shouldn&039;t have said those things about Logan to you First off, because it&039;s bad form to fly off about another employee And second, I didn&039;t realize you were involved"

"Didn&039;t you?" The moment, Roz decided, called for a cookie She reached into the jar David kept stocked, pulled out a snickerdoodle "And you realized it when "

"When we came downstairs - before dinner I didn&039;t mean to eavesdrop, but I happened to notice "

"Have a cookie"

"I don&039;t really eat sweets after - "

"Have a cookie," Roz insisted and handed one over "Logan and I are involved He works for h he doesn&039;t quite see it that way" An amused smile brushed over her lips "It&039;s more a with me fro as the work gets done, the money comes in, and the customers are satisfied We&039;re also friends I like hiether We&039;re not, in any way, romantically involved"

"Oh" This time she huffed out a breath "Oh Well, I&039;ve used up my own, so I&039;ll have to borrow someone else&039;s foot to stuff in my mouth"

"I&039;m not insulted, I&039;m flattered He&039;s an excellent, speciht about him in that way"

"Why?"

Roz poured her coffee while Stella took the sputtering kettle off the burner "I&039;ve got ten years on hilanced back, a little flicker of surprise running over her face, just ahead of huht That doesn&039;t, or shouldn&039;t, apply However, I&039;ve been ood One was bad, very bad I&039;ht now Too daood, they take a lot of ti all that tiet lonely?"

"Yes Yes, I do There was a ti lonely Raisingaround, the lanced around the kitchen, as if surprised to find it quiet, without the noise and debris generated by young boys "When I&039;d raised them - not that you&039;re ever really done, but there&039;s a point where you have to step back - I thought I wanted to share my life, h her expression stayed easy and pleasant, her tone went hard as granite "I corrected it"

"I can&039;t ie is a balancing act, isn&039;t it? Especially when you toss in careers, fale When John was alive, it was home, kids, hihter when it was justthat," she said after a sip of coffee "It was the way I wanted things The business, the career, that started late for me I admire women who can handle all those balls"

"I think I was good at it" There was a pang at re, a sweet little slice in the heart "It&039;s exhausting work, but I hope I was good at it Now? I don&039;t think I have the skill for it any with someone every day, at the end of it" She shook her head "I can&039;t see it I could always picture Kevin and es I can&039;t picture anyone else"

"Maybe he just hasn&039;t come into the viewfinder yet" Stella lifted a shoulder in a little shrug "Maybe But I could picture you and Logan together"

"Really?"

There was such huot any sense of aardness and just laughed "Not that way Or I started to, then engaged the iether So attractive and easy I thought it was nice It&039;s nice to have someone you can be easy with"

"And you and Kevin were easy together"

"We were Sort of flowed on the same current"

"I wondered You don&039;t wear a wedding ring"

"No" Stella looked at her bare finger "I took it off about a year ago, when I started dating again It didn&039;t seeht to wear it when I ith another uess"

At the half question, Roz nodded "Yes, I know"

"So, What would Kevin say about this Or, What would Kevin do, or think, or want So I took offhim"

"I took mine off on my fortieth birthday," Rozit as a tribute It had becoainst relationships So I took it off on that black-letter day," she said with a half smile "Because we move on, or we fade away"

"I&039;m too busy to worry about all of this et into it now I only wanted to apologize"

"Accepted I&039;"

"All right Good night"

Feeling better, Stella finished , she decided as she carried it upstairs She&039;d get a good chunk of the reorganizing done, she&039;d talk with Harper and Roz about which cuttings should be added to inventory, and she&039;d find a way to get along with Logan

She heard the singing, quiet and sad, as she started down the hall Her heart began to trip, and china rattled on the tray as she picked up her pace She was all but running by the tiot to the door of her sons&039; room

There was no one there, just that same little chill to the air Even when she set her tea down, searched the closet, under the bed, she found nothing

She sat on the floor between the beds, waiting for her pulse to level The dog stirred, then cli hi between her boys while they slept

On Sunday, she went to her father&039;s for brunch She was more than happy to be handed a mimosa and ordered out of the kitchen by Jolene

It was her first full day off since she&039;d started at In the Garden, and she was scheduled to relax

With the boys running around the little backyard with Parker, she was free to sit doith her father

"Tell o straight through brunch, into dinner, and right into breakfast tohts How do you like Rosalind?"

"I like her a lot She htforward and slippery I&039;m never quite sure where I stand with her, but I do like her"

"She&039;s lucky to have you And being a sht be just a tiny bit biased"

"Just a bit"

He&039;d always loved her, Stella knew Even when there had been months between visits There&039;d always been phone calls or notes, or surprise presents in the ht now Whereas her ed a bitter and protracted ith the years, Will Dooley had made his truce with theray now, and his bony frah lines around his eyes and lasses perched on his nose

His face was ruddy froolf

"The boys seem happy," he commented

"They love it there I can&039;t believe how much I worried about it, then they just slide in like they&039;ve lived there all their lives"

"Sweetheart, if you weren&039;t worrying about so"

"I hate that you&039;re right about that Anyway, there are still a few bu the new kids, but they like the house, and all that room And they&039;re crazy about David You know David Wentworth?"

"Yeah You could say he&039;s been part of Roz&039;s household since he was a kid, and now he runs it"

"He&039;s great with the kids It&039;s a weight off knowing they&039;re with soh I don&039;t see much of him"

"Boy&039;s always been a loner Happier with his plants Good looking," he added

"He is, Dad, but we&039;ll just stick with discussing leaf-bud cuttings and cleft grafting, okay?"

"Can&039;t blahter settled"

"I am settled, for the moment" More, she realized, than she would have believed possible "At so to want my own place I&039;m not ready to look yet - too much to do, and I don&039;t want to rock the boat with Roz But it&039;s onin the same school district when the tiain"

"You&039;ll find what you&039;re after You always do"

"No point in finding what you&039;re not after But I&039;ve got ti That&039;s probably an exaggeration I&039; Stock, paperwork, display areas"

"And having the tihed, stretched out her ars "I really am Oh, Dad, it&039;s a terrific place, and there&039;s so much untapped potential yet I&039;d like to find somebody who has a real head for sales and custoe of that area while I concentrate on rotating stock, keep ahead of the paperwork, and juggle in some of my ideas I haven&039;t even touched on the landscape area Except for a head butt with the guy who runs that"

"Kitridge?" Will smiled "Met him once or twice, I think Hear he&039;s a prickly sort"

"I&039;ll say"