“I only have about an hour’s worth of work left on that tree. I’d rather get it done tonight.”
“You know, as hard as you’re working, you’d think I was paying you top dollar.”
For a moment, his eyes met hers. Lordy, his eyes were sure blue. They reminded her of the color of the bluebonnets that covered the fields and roadsides in the spring.
“You are,” he answered quietly. “You’re giving me an opportunity to learn about growing roses.”
For the briefest moment, his statement caused a frisson of alarm to snake through her. Was that his angle? He wanted to learn about growing roses so he could go into competition with her? But as quickly as the thought had come, it disappeared. So what if he did have some idea like that? He’d soon find out how hard this life was. Lots of people like him, who knew nothing about roses, only saw the romance of the end product. But it didn’t take them long to get educated. Growing roses was just like growing corn or growing wheat or growing anything else. It was hard work. It was so hard, in fact, it would suck the life out of you if you weren’t careful. A person could work seven days a week, twelve and sixteen hours at a stretch, and there would still be mountains of work left to be done. Not to mention the fact that you were constantly battling something: too much rain, too little rain, grasshoppers, a downturn in the economy. “Well, if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get,” she said lightly. “’Cause if I know anything, I know about growing roses.”
He nodded. “Guess I’ll get on out there, then.”
“All right.”
“When I’m done, I’ll head back to the motel, but I’ll be here early in the morning.”
“Okay. Plan to have breakfast with us.”
“You don’t—”
She cut him off. “I insist. We eat at seven, because Matthew’s bus comes at seven forty-five.”
He reached for the handle of the screen door. “Okay. Thanks again for supper.”
“You’re welcome.”
Almost exactly an hour later, as she sat at the kitchen table going over Matthew’s spelling words with him while Amy carefully colored a picture of kittens playing with a ball of yarn, Beth heard the sound of Jack’s truck starting, followed by the crunch of gravel as he turned the vehicle around and drove away down the driveway.
“Jack’s leaving,” Matthew said.
“Yes.”
“I like him.”
“I like him, too,” Amy said. “He’s nice.”
“I wish I didn’t have to go to school tomorrow,” Matthew added. “Then I could help him. Can I stay home, Mama?”
“No, Matthew. It’s your job to go to school and learn a lot so when you grow up you’ll be able to take care of yourself.”
“But you said when I grow up I’m gonna grow roses. I can’t learn about that in school.” This last was said triumphantly.
“Yes, that’s true, but in order to run a farm like this, you also have to know how to read and write. You have to know math and computers and all kinds of things.”
“Are we gonna get a computer?” Matthew asked excitedly, zeroing in on the most important point just the way kids always seemed to.
“A ’puter!” Amy exclaimed. “Brittany has a ’puter, and they have the Rugrats game. When I go to her house, I gets to play it.” Brittany was her best friend Dee Ann’s daughter—three years older and Amy’s idol.
Beth tried to make her voice upbeat, even though it broke her heart to constantly disappoint her children. “We can’t get a computer right away, but I promise, we will get one.” She’d been wanting a computer for the business, too, but it was way down on her list of priorities, because you had to have something to sell before you needed to keep records, and the way things had been going the past couple of years, all her financial resources were needed just to keep her head above water. Still…she could buy a secondhand computer for the kids. Oh, yeah, sure. If she could find a secondhand computer for sale for ten dollars, then maybe she could afford it. Fat chance.
“It’s okay, Mama,” Matthew said, reaching out to touch her hand. “I don’t need a computer.”
“Yeah,” Amy said loyally. “We don’t need one.”
Beth swallowed against the lump in her throat. Getting up, she kissed them both in turn, saying softly, “What did I ever do to deserve two kids as wonderful as you?”
Jack got back to the motel after nine. As he drove past the office, he saw a woman inside. Mr. Temple was obviously gone for the day. Jack parked outside Unit Seven, noticing as he did that there were only two other cars in the parking lot. If that’s all the business they did, he wondered how they stayed afloat. Of course, this was a weeknight. Maybe they did better on weekends, although it wasn’t like this place was on a major highway. He couldn’t imagine that anyone coming through Rose Hill would go anywhere else. Rose Hill would pretty much have to be your destination.
He locked his truck and walked over to his room. Just as he inserted his key into his door, a voice said, “You been gone a long time. You must have got to see some farms today.”
Jack whirled around, automatically falling into a crouch and reaching for his gun. It took a moment before he realized where he was and that he had no gun. All his guns were safely locked up back at the mansion. Alarmed by his lapse, he hoped the old man—whom he belatedly realized was sitting in the shadows outside Unit Five—hadn’t noticed his odd reaction.
“I didn’t see you sitting there,” Jack said, walking over to where the motel owner sat.
“Not many people do. That’s why I like settin’ here. I can see ever’thing goin’ on, but nobody can see me. It’s in’erestin’.”
From what Jack could tell, there wasn’t anything going on. Unless you count the fact you tried to shoot Mr. Temple when he spoke to you.
“So did you get to see some farms?” the old man repeated curiously.
“Yes, I’ve been out at the Johnson place.” And then, because he knew the motel owner would find out about him working for Beth, anyway, Jack decided he might as well tell him. “I’m going to be working there for a while.”
“Is that a fact? I guess Bethie must have scrounged up some money from somewhere, then, ’cause she was sayin’ just last week how she didn’t know what she was gonna do this season. I told her she could try and get a loan from the First National, but she said her granny would roll over in her grave if she mortgaged the farm. Her granny didn’t believe in bein’ beholden to anyone. Course, most folks in these parts feel that way, leastwise the older folks, like me. We was growin’ up durin’ the Depression, and we remember how so many folks lost ever’thin’ to those banks, many of our parents included.”
He kept on in this vein for a good ten minutes. When he wound down, Jack used the opportunity to change the subject a bit, because something had him curious. “How long has Mrs. Johnson been on her own out there? You mentioned her cousin who quit, but what about her husband?”
“That good-for-nothin’! He’s long gone, and good riddance, I say. Eben died a year ago June when he had a losin’ argument with an eighteen-wheeler. Drunk as a skunk, he was. Course that wasn’t nothin’ new. Eben, he liked the bottle more ’n just about anything.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, folks around here, we were sure sorry for Bethie. Her granny, one of the most sensible women you’d ever meet, tried to warn her about him, but you