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"What do you use on the Christ his knife to cut a shoot from the joint of a scion plant He had beautiful hands, she noted Long, artistic fingers "Apical-wedge, then? Tricky, but probably best with that speci a standard, or hybridizing?"

He made his vertical slit into the vascular bundle and still didn&039;t answer

"I&039; because - " She set her hand on his shoulder, and when he jumped and let out a muffled shout, she stumbled back and rammed into the table behind her

"Shit!" He dropped the knife and stuck the thuain, around his thued headphones off with his free hand

"I&039;m sorry I&039;m so sorry! How bad are you cut? Let me see"

"It&039;s just a scratch" He took it out of his rimy jeans "Not nearly as fatal as the heart attack you just brought on"

"Let ot dirt in it now"

He saw her gaze slide over toward the alcohol and ripped his hand out of hers "Don&039;t even think about it"

"Well, it should at least be cleaned And I really aht you heardThe classical&039;s for the plants If I listen to it for too long, lassy"

"Oh?" She picked up the headphones, held one side to one ear "Metallica?"

"Yeah My kind of classical" Now he looked warily at her clipboard "What&039;s up?"

"I&039;et an idea of what you&039;ll have ready in here to put out for our big spring opening next e you&039;d want it reenhouse"

"Oh, well" He looked around "A lot of stuff Probably I keep the staging records on computer"

"Even better Maybe you could just make me a copy Floppy disk would be perfect"

"Yeah, okay Okay, wait" He shifted his stool toward the computer

"You don&039;t have to do it thiselse"

"If I don&039;t, I&039;ll probably forget"

With a skill she aders, found what he was after He dug out a floppy, slid it into the data slot "Look, I&039;d rather you didn&039;t take anything out when I&039;m not here"

"No proble out?"

"An answer to a prayer"

"Yeah?" He reached for a can of Coke, took a quick drink "She&039;s not doing anything heavy or working around toxics Right?"

"Absolutely not I&039;ve got her doing bulb planters right now"

"Here you go" He handed her the floppy

"Thanks, Harper This makes raft" She clipped the floppy to her board "Can I watch?"

"Sure Want to do one? I&039;ll talk you through"

"I&039;d really like to"

"I&039;ll finish this one up See, I cut a two-, h the joint I&039;ve cut the top couple inches fro er - "

"Sorry"

"Wouldn&039;t be the first time I made this fine, vertical cut into the vascular bundle"

"I got that far"

"From here, we pare slivers of skin fro the end, and exposing the central core" Those long, artistic fingers worked cleverly and patiently "See?"

"Mood hands for this"

"Caraft We did an ornae Noe&039;re going to insert the scion into the slit on the stock stem We want the exposed tissues of both in contact, and match the cut surfaces as close as you can I like to use a long cactus spine" He took one frorafted area

"Neat and organic"

"Uh-huh I don&039;t like binding with raffia on these Weakened clothespins are better Right across the joint, see, so it&039;s held fir rit I&039;ve already got the et our new baby in the pot, cover the ravel"

"So it stays ot it Then you want to label it and put it in an airy position, out of full sun The two plants should unite in a couple of days Want to give it a shot?"

"Yeah" She took the stool when he vacated it, and began, following his directions carefully "Ah, David was telling "

"That&039;s good" His gaze stayed focused on her hands, and the plant "Keep the slice really thin Legend?"

"You knooo, ghost"

"Oh, yeah, the sad-eyed blonde Used to sing to me when I was a kid"

"Coed, took another sip of Coke "You want?" He tipped the can froot more in the cooler under&039;here"

"No, but thanks You&039;re saying a ghost used to co to you"

"Up until I was about twelve, thirteen Sa around You need to taper the scion now"

She paused in her work only long enough to slide a glance up at his face "Harper, don&039;t you consider yourself a scientist?"

He smiled at her with those somewhat dreamy brown eyes "Not so much Some of what I do is science, and so soardener"

He two-pointed the Coke can into his waste bin, then bent down to get another out of his cooler "But if you&039;re asking if I find ghosts at odds with science, not so much either Science is an exploration, it&039;s experimentation, it&039;s discovery"

"I can&039;t argue with your definition" She went back to the work "But - "

He popped the top "Gonna Scullyfor a young boy to believe in ghosts, and Santa Claus, and - "

"You&039;re trying to say there&039;s no Santa Claus?" He looked horrified "That&039;s just sick"

"But," she continued, ignoring hirown rownto have to order you out of my house Stella" He patted her shoulder, transferred soil, then casually brushed it off her shirt "I sahat I saw, I knohat I know It&039;s just part of growing up in the house She was alwaysa benign presence, at least to rief now and then"

"What do you rief?"

"Ask Mom But I don&039;t knohy you&039;d bother, since you don&039;t believe in ghosts anyway" He s to family lore, she&039;s supposed to be one of the Harper brides, but she&039;s not in any of the paintings or pictures we have" He lifted a shoulder "Maybe she was a servant who died there She sure knows her way around the place"

"Luke told aze sharpened as Stella labeled the pot "If you&039;re worried that she ht hurt him, or Gavin, don&039;t She&039;s, I don&039;t know, maternal"

"Perfect, then - an unidentified yet ht"

"It&039;s a Harper family tradition"

After a conversation like that, Stella needed sorabbed a flat of pansies and soreenhouse, found a couple of nice free-for soil onto a flatbed cart She gathered tools, gloves,out front

Pansies didn&039;t ot a few more frosts, they wouldn&039;t be bothered And their happy faces, their rich colors would splash spring right at the entry way

Once she&039;d positioned the planters, she got her clipboard and noted down everything she&039;d taken from stock She&039;d enter it in her computer when she was finished

Then she knelt down to do so that never failed to co that always made sense

She planted

When the first was done, the purple and yelloers cheerful against the dull gray of the planter, she stepped back to study it She wanted its e

She was half done when she heard the rulanced around and identified his truck She saw hi back and drive toward the building

He stepped out, worn boots, worn jeans, bad-boy black-lensed sunglasses

She felt a little itch right between her shoulder blades

"Hey," he said

"Hello, Logan"

He stood there, his thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his work pants and a trio of fresh scratches on his forearms just below the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt

"Picking up some landscape timbers and some more black plastic for the Dawson job"

"You&039;re " He stepped closer, studied her work "Those look good I could use them"

"These are for display"

"You can oing to snap theht" She&039;d hardly had a minute to think of them as her own "Let me at least finish them You tell her she&039;ll need to replace these pansies when it gets hot They won&039;t handle summer And if she puts perennials in them, she should cover the planters over for winter"

"It happens I know so about plants myself"

"Just want to make sure the customer&039;s satisfied"

He&039;d been polite, she thought Even cooperative Hadn&039;t he coive her a materials list? The least she could do was reciprocate "If Graceland&039;s still on, I can take off some time next Thursday" She kept her eyes on the plants, her tone casual as a fistful of daisies "If that works for you"

"Thursday?" He&039;d been all prepared with excuses if she happened to bring it up Work was ja him up, they&039;d do it so on the ground, with that da it Those blue eyes, that cool Yankee voice

"Sure, Thursday&039;s good You want me to pick you up here or at the house?"

"Here, if that&039;s okay What time works best for you?"

"Maybe around one That way I can put thein"

"That&039;ll be perfect" She rose, brushed off her gloves and set theether a price for these planters, ainst the them back"

"She won&039;t Go ahead and do the paperwork" He dug a many folded note out of his pocket "On these and the ot down here I&039;ll load up"

"Good Fine" She started inside The itch had moved from her shoulder blades to just under her belly button

It wasn&039;t a date, it wasn&039;t a date, she re, really It was a gesture A goodwill gesture on both sides

And now, she thought as she walked into her office, they were both stuck with it