It didn’t change the outcome.
Well, still pregnant, she thought. There was no crying this time, no cursing fate. She simply tucked the stick back in her pocket, opened the door, and prepared to do what needed to be done next. She had to tell Harper.
Why? Why did he have to know? She could go away now, she thought. Pack up and go. The baby was hers.
He was rich, he was powerful. He would take the child and toss her aside. Take her son. For the glory of the great Harper name he would use her like a vessel, then rip away what grew in her.
He had no right to what was hers. No right to what she carried inside her.
“Hayley.”
“What?” She jolted like a thief, then blinked at Stella.
She was standing among the shade plants, surrounded by hostas green as Ireland. Yards away from the restroom.
How long had she been standing there, thinking thoughts not her own?
“Are you all right?”
“A little turned around.” She drew in a long breath. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“It’s all right.”
“I’ll make it up. But I need . . . I have to talk to Harper. Before I get started I need to talk to him.”
“In the grafting house. He wanted to know when you got in. Hayley, I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”
“I need to talk to Harper first.” Before she lost her nerve, or her mind.
She hurried away, walking quickly between the tables of plants, across the asphalt skirt, past the greenhouses. Business was picking up, she noted, after the high summer slump. Temperatures were easing off, just a little, and made people think about their fall plantings. Stella’s boys were going back to school. Days were getting shorter.
The world didn’t stop just because she had a crisis on her hands.
She hesitated outside of the grafting house, struck by the fact that her mind—so full a moment before—was now a complete blank.
There was only one thing to do, she decided. That was to go in.
The house was warm and full of music. It so well suited him, full of plants in various stages of growth and development, smelling of soil and green.
She didn’t know the music that played, something with harps and flutes. But she knew whatever it was wouldn’t be playing through his headphones.
He was down at the far end, and it seemed like the longest walk of her life. Even when he turned, saw her, and flashed a grin.
“Hey, just who I wanted to see.” He made a come-ahead gesture with one hand as he drew his headset off with the other. “Take a look.”
“At what?”
“Our babies.”
Since he shifted to the plants, he didn’t see her jerk in response. “They’re right on schedule,” he continued. “See, the ovary sections have already swelled.”
“They’re not the only ones,” she mumbled, but moved forward to stand beside him and study the plants they’d grafted a few weeks before.
“See? The pods are fully formed. We give them another three, four weeks for the seeds to ripen. The top’ll split. We’ll gather the seeds, plant them in pots. Keep ’em outdoors, exposed. And in the spring, they’ll germinate. Once they’re about three inches, we’ll plant them out in nursery beds.”
It wasn’t procrastinating to stand there talking about a mutual project. It was . . . polite. “Then what?”
“Usually we’ll get blooms the second season. Then we’ll study and record the differences, the likenesses, the characteristics. What we’re hoping for is at least one—and I’m banking on more—mini with a strong pink color, and that blush of red. We get that, we’ve got Hayley’s Lily.”
“If we don’t.”
“Pessimism isn’t the gardener’s friend, but if we don’t, we’ll have something else cool. And we’ll try again. Anyway, I thought you might want to work with me on a rose, for my mother.”
“Oh, um . . .” If it was a girl, should they name her Rose? “That’d be nice. Sweet of you.”
“Well, it’s Mitch’s idea, but the guy couldn’t grow a Chia Pet. He wants to try for a black. Nobody’s ever managed a true black rose, but I thought we could play around and see what we came up with. It’s the right time of year—time to wash down, disinfect, air and dry out this place. Hygiene’s a big for this kind of work, and roses are pretty fussy. They’re time-consuming, too, but it’d be fun.”
He looked so excited, she thought, at the idea of starting something new. Just how would he look when she told him they already had?
“Um, when you do all this, you pick the parents—the pollen plant, the seed plant. Deliberate selection, for specific characteristics.”
Her blue eyes, Harper’s brown. His patience, her impulse. What would you get?
“Right. You’re trying to cross them, to create something with the best—or at least the desired characteristics—of both.”
His temper, her stubbornness. Oh God. “People don’t work that way.”
“Hmm.” He turned to his computer, keying data into a file. “No, guess not.”
“And with people, they can’t always—or don’t always—plan it all out like this. They don’t always get together and say, hey, let’s hybridize.”
He shot a laugh over his shoulder. “Now that’s a line I never thought to use in a bar, picking up a girl. I’d put it in the file, but since I’ve already got a girl, it’d be wasted.”
“You never used a line on me,” she told him. “Anyway, hybridizing’s about creating something, a separate something. Not just about the fun and games.”
“Hmm. Hey, did I show you the viburnum? Suckering’s been a problem, but I’m pretty happy with how it’s coming along.”
“Harper.” Tears wanted to spurt and spill again. “Harper, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not a big,” he said absently. “I know how to deal with suckering.”
“I’m pregnant.”
There, she thought. She said it. Fast and clean. Like ripping a bandage off a wound.
“You said what?” He stopped typing, slowly swiveled on his stool.
She didn’t know how to read his face. Maybe it was because her own vision seemed blurry and half blind. She couldn’t read the tone of his voice, not with the roaring going on in her ears.
“I should’ve known. I should have. I’ve been so tired, and I missed my period—I just forgot about it—and I’ve been queasy on and off, and so damn moody. I thought, I didn’t think. I thought it was what was happening with Amelia. I didn’t put it together. I’m sorry.”
The entire burst came out in a disjointed ramble that she could barely comprehend herself. She dropped into silence when he held up a hand.
“Pregnant. You said you were pregnant.”
“God, do I have to spell the word out for you?” Not sure if she wanted to weep or rage, she yanked the test stick out of her pocket. “There, read it yourself. P-R-E—”
“Hold it.” He took the stick from her, stared at it. “When did you find out?”
“Just today, now. A little while ago. I was in Wal-Mart, getting some things. I forgot Lily’s diapers and bought mascara. What kind of a mother am I?”
“Quiet down.” He rose, took her shoulders and nudged her onto the stool. “You’re all right? I mean it doesn’t hurt or anything.”
“Of course it doesn’t hurt. For Christ’s sake.”
“Look, don’t crawl up my ass.” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck as he studied her. Much, she thought, as he did his plants-in-progress. “It’s my first day on the job. How much are you pregnant?”
“Pretty much all the way.”
“Damn it, Hayley, I mean how far along, or whatever you call it?”
“I think about six weeks. Five or six.”
“How big is it in there?”
She dragged a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. About as big as a kernel of rice.”
“Wow.” He stared at her belly, laid a hand on it. “Wow. When does it start to move around? When does it get, like, fingers or toes?”
“Harper, can we focus here?”