Blue Dahlia

fine where it is. It’s just a different plan.
    But before she could answer Logan, there was another voice, cold and hard in her mind.
    His plan. Not yours. His wants. Not yours. Cut it down, before it spreads.
    No, it wasn’t her plan. Of course it wasn’t. This garden was meant to be a charming spot, a quiet spot.
    There was a spade in her hand, and she began to dig.
    That’s right. Dig it out, dig it up.
    The air was cold now, cold as winter, so that Stella shuddered as she plunged the spade into the ground.
    Logan was gone, and she was alone in the garden with the Harper Bride, who stood in her white gown and tangled hair, nodding. And her eyes were mad.
    “I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to give it up.”
    Dig! Hurry. Do you want the pain, the poison? Do you want it to infect your children? Hurry! It will spoil everything, kill everything, if you let it stay.
    She’d get it out. It was best to get it out. She’d just plant it somewhere else, she thought, somewhere better.
    But as she lifted it out, taking care with the roots, the flowers went black, and the blue dahlia withered and went to dust in her hands.
     
    KEEPING BUSY WAS THE BEST WAY NOT TO BROOD. And keeping busy was no problem for Stella with the school year winding down, the perennial sale at the nursery about to begin, and her best saleswoman on maternity leave.
    She didn’t have time to pick apart strange, disturbing dreams or worry about a man who proposed one minute, then vanished the next. She had a business to run, a family to tend, a ghost to identify.
    She sold the last three bay laurels, then put her mind and her back into reordering the shrub area.
    “Shouldn’t you be pushing papers instead of camellias?”
    She straightened, knowing very well she’d worked up a sweat, that there was soil on her pants, and that her hair was frizzing out of the ball cap she’d stuck on. And faced Logan.
    “I manage, and part of managing is making sure our stock is properly displayed. What do you want?”
    “Got a new job worked up.” He waved the paperwork, and the breeze from it made her want to moan out loud. “I’m in for supplies.”
    “Fine. You can put the paperwork on my desk.”
    “This is as far as I’m going.” He shoved it into her hand. “Crew’s loading up some of it now. I’m going to take that Japanese red maple, and five of the hardy pink oleanders.”
    He dragged the flatbed over and started to load.
    “Fine,” she repeated, under her breath. Annoyed, she glanced at the bid, blinked, then reread the client information.
    “This is my father.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “What are you doing planting oleander for my father?”
    “My job. Putting in a new patio, too. Your stepmama’s already talking about getting new furniture for out there. And a fountain. Seems to me a woman can’t see a flat surface without wanting to buy something to put on it. They were still talking about it when I left the other night.”
    “You—what were you doing there?”
    “Having pie. Gotta get on. We need to get started on this if I’m going to make it home and clean up before this dinner with the professor guy tonight. See you later, Red.”
    “Hold it. You just hold it. You had your mother call me, right out of the blue.”
    “How’s it out of the blue when you said you wanted us to meet each other’s families? Mine’s a couple thousand miles away right now, so the phone call seemed the best way.”
    “I’d just like you to explain ...” Now she waved the papers. “All this.”
    “I know. You’re a demon for explanations.” He stopped long enough to grab her hair, crush his mouth to hers. “If that doesn’t make it clear enough, I’m doing something wrong. Later.”
     
    “THEN HE JUST WALKED AWAY, LEAVING ME STANDING there like an idiot.” Still stewing hours later, Stella changed Lily’s diaper while Hayley finished dressing for dinner.
    “You said you thought you should meet each other’s families and stuff,” Hayley pointed out. “So now you talked to his mama, and he talked to your daddy.”
    “I know what I said, but he just went tromping over there. And he had her call me without letting me know first. He just goes off, at the drop of a hat.” She picked up Lily, cuddled her. “He gets me stirred up.”
    “I kinda miss getting stirred up that way.” She turned sideways in the mirror, sighed a little over the post-birth pudge she was carrying. “I guess I thought, even though the books said