not just that,” Lilly interrupted again. “You know when I was little—”
“As compared to your being an old lady now?”
“Quit it, Dad. We’re having a talk. No joking.”
“Okay, okay.”
“When I was little, I remember the neighbor who came over for Christmas. Mom said she was alone because she lost her husband. So she asked her over for Christmas dinner. Mom said, and then you said, that Christmas isn’t just about presents. It’s about people being together. Sharing something good.”
“Sometimes you two worry me. You have this tendency to use things I’ve said against me.”
“Come on, Dad. We can take Rosemary a tree tomorrow, right?”
Whit couldn’t imagine how they could just show up at Rosemary’s back door with a tree out of the complete blue. But at least temporarily, he couldn’t figure out a way to say no that would make sense to the girls.
* * *
Rosemary bent over the corkboard. Heaven knew how she’d gotten hung up on the sex life of wild orchids in South Carolina. The subject would undoubtedly bore most people to tears. But when she needed her mind off stress, she’d always been able to concentrate on work.
Her stomach growled. She ignored it. She was pretty sure she’d ignored it a couple times before this.
It had taken quite a while to completely fill the corkboard on the coffee table. She’d pinned photos of local orchids—and their names and location—until the entire space was filled. Some of the names were so fun. Little lady’s Tresses. Small whorled pogonia. Yellow fringed orchid. Crested coralroot. Downy rattlesnake plantain.
Absently, she picked up her coffee mug. It was cold, and since it was also the last in the pot, it was thicker than mud. She still swallowed a slug.
She’d never planned on turning into an egghead. It was all sort of a mistake. When she’d cancelled the wedding, escaped from George (as she thought of it now) the two-year grant from Duke had struck her as a godsend. She could make a living—or enough of a living—and seclude herself up here.
The goal hadn’t been to get a Ph.D. She’d never wanted a Ph.D. She just wanted to work so hard she could forget about everything else for a while. Until she put her head back together. Until she figured out what to do with her life. Until she could analyze exactly what had gone so bad, so wrong, with George.
Mostly she had to figure out how she could have been so stupid.
She leaned forward, studying the photo of the small whorled pogonia. A white lip hung above the five green leaves. The species was teensy. It was hard to find, hard to notice. And it was probably the rarest orchid near the eastern coastline—which made it one of her treasures.
That was the thing. It wasn’t about academics. Or getting a Ph.D. It was about...survival. Why did some species fail and others thrive? How could a fragile, vulnerable orchid like this conceivably survive in such a hostile environment?
Not that she thought of herself as vulnerable. Or that she feared she couldn’t survive the mess she was in.
It was just that everybody believed the old adage that only the strong survived. Because it always seemed to be true. Except with these fragile orchids.
There had to be a reason. A logical explanation. Something in delicate orchids that enabled them to survive, when far tougher species died out.
A sudden knock on the door almost made her jump sky-high. A spit of coffee landed on her sweatshirt; she set the mug down, went to the door.
The twins huddled together like bookends, a platter in their hands covered with tin foil. “Hi, Rosemary. We can’t stay. We can’t bother you.”
“But we made some brownies to thank you for saving our lives yesterday.”
Clearly their opening lines had been prepared.
“The brownies,” Pepper added, “have some mints and some cherries on the inside. We didn’t sample any of these, but we’ve made them this way before. Honest, they’re really good. Although we usually put in marshmallows, only this time, we didn’t have any marshmallows so we couldn’t.”
Lilly’s turn. “We were trying to make it red and green on the inside. You know. Like to be Christmasy.” She took a breath. “Dad said we absolutely can’t bother you. So we’re leaving right now, this very instant.”
She noticed the golf cart behind them. Saw the hope on their faces, no matter what they said. “You can’t even come in to sample a brownie? That’s an awful lot for just me to eat by myself.”
“I don’t think we can. No matter how much we want to.” Pepper let out a massive sigh.
“Hmm. What if I call your dad and asked him myself if you could stay awhile?”
“Oh.” Both girls lit up like sparklers. “Yeah. If you call him, it’ll be okay.”
There ended her bubble of solitude. She called Whit first, so he knew the girls were safely with her, said they wanted to share a brownie with her, and she’d have the girls call when they were headed home. It wouldn’t be long.
Just that short conversation invoked symptoms she’d suffered when she met him yesterday. It was as if she’d been exposed to a virus. She felt oddly achy and restless, hot—when there was no excuse in the universe to react like a dimwit toward a perfect stranger.
But the girls distracted her from thinking any more about their father. The first priority was testing the brownies—which were fabulous. Both girls could somehow eat and talk nonstop at the same time.
Pepper went first. “Our dad thought we couldn’t handle Christmas at home. But we both know he’s the one who can’t. He hasn’t been out one single time since mom died. You know what that means?”
Rosemary was afraid to answer. “How about if you tell me what you think it means.”
“It means that he’s trying to be there for us 24/7. Rosemary, he’s driving us nuts. He wants us to do things together all the time.”
“And that’s bad?” She might not have a chance to think about Whit in connection with herself, but if the conversation was going to be all about him...well there’s not much she can do about it. She reached for a second brownie, feeling self-righteous as the devil herself.
“It’s not bad. Because we love him. But can you picture a pajama party with seven girls and my dad trying to fit in?”
“Um...no.”
“Everybody in our class at school likes going to the movies. It’s like a couple miles, though, so if the weather’s good, we walk. Otherwise one of the moms drive. But Dad, when it was his turn, he wanted to go inside with us. He sat in the back. Like the kids wouldn’t know he was there?”
“Um...” Rosemary eyed a third brownie.
“We know he’s lonely. He really loved our mom. He just can’t seem to get over it. But it’s been a year. I mean,
