“Your father would be so pleased.” Marisel rested her hand on his shoulder and gave him a fond look. The Guatemalan nursery worker mothered everyone at Polhemus Gardens, but especially Greg, despite the fact that he was her boss.
“Oh, he’d probably gripe about me wasting time at an art fair when we have so much work piling up.” He smiled, picturing his father in scolding mode. He’d frown and shake a finger at Greg, but his eyes would be dancing with laughter. Greg had never thought he’d miss his father’s litany of complaints, but now that the old man was gone, he found himself wishing he’d paid a little more attention to what he’d had to say.
“He would gripe, but he’d still be proud.” Marisel impaled a stack of order slips on the spindle by the register. “It’s after six o’clock on a Friday night. What are you still doing here?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He picked up a sheaf of invoices. “I’m working.”
She shook her head. “You need to hire someone to help you with all this paperwork. You can’t do everything.”
He laughed. “Are you trying to fill my father’s shoes in the griping department? You’re going to need more practice.”
She frowned. “A handsome young man like you should be out enjoying himself. Dancing. Seeing the girls.”
When had meeting women stopped being easy? He didn’t want to go hang out at bars by himself, and the buddies he used to hang with were either married and raising families or still living like frat boys, sharing apartments and living on beer and fast food. He was stuck somewhere in between, with a house of his own and a business to run, but no family to share it with.
He thought of the woman he’d met today outside the apartment, the one being evicted. Most of the women he knew would have dissolved into tears at the very thought of such public humiliation, but this one had been reading the riot act to crusty old Leon Kopetsky. Then she’d lashed out at him like a cobra.
He should have known better than to step into something that wasn’t his business, but she’d looked so alone, standing there with all her possessions piling up around her. He’d wanted to do something to help. It didn’t even matter that she didn’t want his help. There wasn’t any real heat behind her anger, only wounded pride. Too bad he didn’t have the chance to get to know her better.
He could ask Kopetsky her name, but what good would that do? It wasn’t like he had time to spend trying to track down his mystery woman.
“You should go out, meet someone nice,” Marisel prodded.
“I see plenty of women,” he said. “I was digging a new rose bed for the Lawson sisters just this morning. And Margery Rice calls me at least once a week to come over and see her.”
Marisel made a face. “The Lawson sisters are old enough to be your grandmothers and Margery Rice should be ashamed of herself, a married woman flirting like that.”
“Oh, I don’t take her seriously.” He paged through the invoices. Margery Rice was a very well-built forty-year-old who had let it be known he could leave his shoes under her bed any time, but he didn’t have any intention of taking her up on her offer. Still, it had been a while since a woman had warmed his sheets. Marisel was right; he needed to make more of an effort to find someone.
“I promise I’ll get out and circulate,” he said. “After the art show is over and I win the bid for Allen Industries.”
“If those people have any sense you’ll win the bid. But your father tried for years to get them as customers and he never could.” She shook her head. “That shows right there they aren’t too smart.”
He nodded. Yes, his father had gone after Allen Industries for years. But this year, Greg was determined to get the job. “There’s no way they can turn me down. The plan I outlined for them is exactly what they’re looking for, and no one will beat the price.”
“And then what? You’ll spend all your time making sure the job is done perfectly instead of getting out and having any kind of life.” She wagged her finger at him in a fair imitation of the old man. “You’re too young to be a hermit.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. At six-two, he towered more than a foot over Marisel, but she looked for all the world as if at any moment she’d lay him over her knee and tan his hide.
“You laugh, but don’t you know the woman for you isn’t going to fall out of the sky?”
“I was thinking I might find her hiding behind a rose bush one day.”
“Why would you think a loco thing like that?”
“Pop always said you could find all the best things in life in gardens.”
She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “I don’t think he meant women.”
“You never know. He might have.” The way things were going, Greg figured he had as much chance finding a woman in a garden as he did anywhere else. And he spent more time in gardens. He opened a drawer and shoved the invoices inside. “Come on. I’ll drop you off on my way home.”
She pulled her sweater close around her. “You don’t have to go to any trouble for me. I can take the bus.”
He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Come on. If you see any likely looking women on the way, you can point them out to me.”
She swatted at him. “You are a bad boy, Greg Polhemus.”
“Yes, ma’am. I work at it.”
He laughed as she began muttering under her breath in Spanish and led the way to the car. When he’d caught up on some of his jobs, he would make more of an effort to date. That house of his needed a family in it and he was tired of sleeping alone.
2
To dig is to discover.
LUCY COULDN’T BELIEVE she was moving back into her old bedroom at her age. She was supposed to be a strong, independent young woman. So what was she doing letting Dad rush to her rescue? She stared at the antique white bed and dresser her mother had picked out when Lucy turned ten. Her DVD player sat on the dresser next to the ballerina jewelry box Mom had given her for her thirteenth birthday. The bookcase in the corner held her collection of Sweet Valley High books and troll dolls.
She half expected her high-school best friend, Janet Hightower, to call and ask her for her notes from history, and had she seen that rad new guy in chemistry class?
She sighed and sank down onto the bed. Somehow, when she’d been planning her future, she’d thought she’d have been past all this by now. In fact, if the diary she’d kept when she was twelve had been accurate, she’d be living in a fifteen-room mansion in River Oaks with two perfect children, a millionaire husband who worshiped the ground she walked on and gave her diamonds “just because” and a silver Porsche in the driveway.
Which just goes to show that at twelve, she hadn’t known squat about real life.
She ran her hand along the end of the bed. When she bent over and pressed her nose
