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The paceturned lushly green and teh suarden-happy custoht, to browse for an hour or so and chat with the staff and other customers as for the stock

Still, every day flats of bedding plants, pots of perennials, forests of shrubs and ornamental trees strolled out the door

She watched the field stock bagged and burlapped, and scurried to plug holes on tables by adding greenhouse stock As hs were snapped up, she created more

She made countless calls to suppliers for rass seed,

With her clipboard and careful eye she checked inventory, adjusted, and begged Roz to release soer stock

"It&039;s not ready Next year"

"At this rate, we&039;re going to run out of columbine, astilbes, hostas - " She waved the board "Roz, we&039;ve sold out a good thirty percent of our perennial stock already We&039;ll be lucky to get through May with our current inventory"

"And things will slon" Roz babied cuttings fro plants out before they&039;re ready, the custo to be happy"

"But - "

"These dianthus won&039;t bloom till next year Custo it in while it&039;s flowering or about to They don&039;t want to wait until next year for the gratification"

"I do know Still"

"You&039;re caught up" With her gloved hand, Roz scratched an itch under her nose "So&039;s everyone else Lord, Ruby&039;s beaain, and Steve wants to high-five me every time I see him"

"They love this place"

"So do I The fact is, this is the best year we&039;ve ever had Weather&039;s part of it We&039;ve had a pretty spring But we&039;ve also got ourselves an efficient and enthusiasticBut end of the day, quality&039;s still the byword here Quantity&039;s second"

"You&039;re right Of course you&039;re right I just can&039;t stand the thought of running out of so to send a customer somewhere else"

"Probably won&039;t coh to lead thehed "Right again"

"And if we do need to recommend another nursery "

"The customers will be pleased and impressed with our efforts to satisfy them And this is why you&039;re the owner of a place like this, and I&039; born and bred right here In a fewseason will be over Anyone who co mostly for supplies, or sidelines, maybe a basket or planter alreadythat&039;s died or bloo to want to be putting e&039;ve got left of spring and su the fall stock"

"And in Michigan, you&039;d be taking a big risk to put anything in before s "You miss it?"

"I want to say yes, because it seems disloyal otherwise But no, not really I didn&039;t leave anything back there except memories"

It was the ood life, with a man she&039;d loved When she&039;d lost him that life had shattered - under the surface It had left her shaky and unstable inside She&039;d kept that life together, for her children, but in her heart had been rief There&039;d been fear

She&039;d fought the fear, and embraced the memories

But she hadn&039;t just lost her husband Her sons had lost their father Gavin&039;s memory of him was dimmer - di to remember his father clearly It seemed so unfair If she an while her boys were still so young

It was a little like no longerhome, she supposed It seemed disloyal

As she walked into the showroo the tables, and Hayley hunkering down to lift a large strawberry pot already planted

"Don&039;t!"

Her sharp coh the curious and, slapping her hands on her hips, glared at Hayley "Just what do you think you&039;re doing?"

"We sold the point-of-purchase planters I thought this one here would be good out by the counter"

"I&039;nant you are?"

Hayley glanced down at her basketball belly "Kind of hard to miss"

"You want to move a planter, then you ask so as an ox"

"And eight nant"

"You listen to her, honey" One of the customers patted Hayley on the arm "You don&039;t want to take chances Once that baby pops out, you&039;ll never stop hauling things around Now&039;s the tie of your condition and let people spoil you a little bit"

"I&039;ve got to watch her like a hawk," Stella said "That lobelia&039;s wonderful, isn&039;t it?"

The woman looked down at her flatbed "I just love that deep blue color I was thinking I&039;d get soo beside it, maybe back it up with cos and colorful, with a whole season of blooot some more room in the back of the bed, but I&039;m not sure what to put in" She bit her lip as she scanned the tables loaded with options "I wouldn&039;t ot the time"

"That&039;s e&039;re here for We&039;ve got soo behind the cosmos And if you want to back up the salvia, I think those olds there would be fabulous And have you seen the perilla?"

"I don&039;t even knohat it is," the woh

Stella showed her the deep-purple foliage plant, had Hayley gatherup several good olds Between thelad you ith the alyssum, too See the way the white pops the rest of your colors? Actually, the arrangeood idea what you&039;ll have in your garden" Stella nodded toward the flatbeds "You can just see the way those plants will coet thereen with envy"

"Just send them to us"

"Wouldn&039;t be the first ti here since you opened Used to live about a o It&039;s fifteenspecial here, so I keep co back"

"That&039;s so nice to hear Is there anything else Hayley or I can help you with? Do you need any starter, mulch, fertilizer?"

"Those I can handle on my own But actually" - she smiled at Hayley - "since this cart&039;s full, if you&039;d have one of those strong young boys cart that pot out to the counter - and on out to e that for you" Stella gave Hayley a last telling look "And you, behave yourself"

"Y&039;all sisters?" the woman asked Hayley

"No She&039;s my boss Why?"

"Reuess I still scold my baby sister the way she did you, especially when I&039;m worried about her"

"Really?" Hayley looked off tohere Stella had gone "I guess we sort of are, then"

While she agreed that exercise was good for expectantto have Hayley work all day and then walk close to half a roused, but every evening Stella herded her to the car and drove her hoet ho to eat, you can take a nice walk around the gardens But you&039;re not walking all that way, and through the woods alone, onme like this for the next four weeks?"

"I absolutely aht all those annuals we helped her with?"

"Mht ere sisters because you give ht that was nice Now, it&039;s irritating"

"That&039;s a sha care of myself"

"Yes, and so a , people&039;ll start thinking she&039;s lanced down to see Hayley slip her feet out of her shoes "Feet hurt?"

"They&039;re all right"

"I&039;ve got this wonderful foot gel Why don&039;t you use it e get home, and put your feet up for a few minutes?"

"I can&039;t hardly reach theish," Stella finished

"And stupid and bitchy" She pushed back her daht about whacking all her hair off "And hot and nasty"

When Stella reached over, buan to sting with re so sweet to me - everyone is - and I don&039;t even appreciate it And Ijust feel like I&039;ve been pregnant nant forever"

"I can promise you won&039;t"

"And I Stella, when they showed that video at birthing class and atched that woh it? I don&039;t see how I can do that I just don&039;t think I can"

"I&039;ll be there with you You&039;ll be just fine, Hayley I&039;oing to be exciting, too Thrilling"

She turned into the drive And there were her boys, racing around the yard with the dog and Harper in what seeame of Wiffle ball

"And so worth it," she told her "The minute you hold your baby in your arine being acloser, I just can&039;t"

"Of course you can&039;t Nobody can really iine a miracle You&039;re allowed to be nervous You&039;re supposed to be"

"Then I&039;ood job"

When she parked, the boys ran over "Mo Wiffle Olympics, and I hit the ball a million times"

"A million?" She widened her eyes at Luke as she climbed out "That must be a record"

"Corabbed her hand as Parker leaped up to paw at her legs "Please!"

"All right, but I don&039;t think I can hit the ball a et to Hayley&039;s side His hair curled damply frorass and dirt "Need soet her feet back in her shoes They felt hot and swollen and no longer hers Cranky tears flooded her throat "I&039;nant," she snapped, "not handicapped"

She left her shoes on the led out Before she could stop herself, she slapped at Harper&039;s offered hand "Just leave me be, will you?"

"Sorry" He stuffed his hands in his pockets

"I can&039;t breathe with everybody hovering aroundhard not to waddle

"She&039;s just tired, Harper" Whether it was hovering or not, Stella watched Hayley until she&039;d gotten inside "Tired and out of sorts It&039;s just being pregnant"

"Maybe she shouldn&039;t be working right now"

"If I suggested that, she&039;d explode Working keeps heran eye on her to make sure she doesn&039;t overdo, which is part of the probleine"

"Mom!"

She held up a hand to her impatient boys "She&039;d have snapped at anybody who offered her a hand just then It wasn&039;t personal"

"Sure Well, I&039;ve got to go clean up" He turned back to the boys, ere already squabbling over the plastic bat "Later And next ti you both down"

The afternoon was sultry, a sly hint of the summer that waited just around the corner Even with the air-conditioning, Stella sweltered in her little office As a surrender to the weather, she wore a tank top and thin cotton pants She&039;d given up on her hair and had bundled it as best she could on top of her head

She&039;d just finished outlining the next week&039;s work schedule and was about to update one of her spreadsheets when someone knocked on her door

"Come in" Automatically, she reached for the ther And her heart gave a little jolt when Logan stepped in "Hi I thought you were on the Fields job today"

"Got rained out"

"Oh?" She swiveled around to her tinythe sheets of rain "I didn&039;t realize"

"All those nu"

&039;To soood day to play hookey Why don&039;t you come out and play in the rain, Red?"

"Can&039;t" She spread her arms to encompass her desk "Work"

He sat on the corner of it "Been a busy spring so far I don&039;t figure Roz would blink if you took a couple hours off on a rainy afternoon"

"Probably not But I would"

"Figured that, too" He picked up an oddly shaped and obviously child-made pencil holder, exae seven"