“Oh, God, please make this interesting soon, before I nod off….”

So she gave him the bullet points—she had started growing specialty, hard-to-find fruits and vegetables, the exotic kind that garnished meals at fancy restaurants, not something just any gardener could do.

“You going to grow in summer, read sex novels in winter?” he asked.

“You told me to relax and think. Some people go on cruises, some play golf even with a bad knee, some people go to the lake or the beach for the summer. Some even sky-dive for fun! And me? I’m going to spend the summer in the garden. And I’m not only relaxed, I’m having a blast! If I’m still here after September, I might buy smudge pots and experiment with a winter crop. I’m planting a lot of stuff right now just to see what works, what’s strong, what’s weak. I’ll have an idea what’s possible by late summer. I might end up with a wide variety or just a few special items. Then I’ll have to decide why I’m doing this.”

“Organic? What about bugs and worms?”

“Harry, you know about gardening?”

“Not a damn thing. These seem like obvious questions.”

She had to chuckle. This was how he’d gotten so far—he knew a little bit about a lot of things and a lot about a few things. Brilliant man. “I’m doing a lot of research and, so far, things are going well. We’re even making our own mulch now….”

“We?”

“I hired a hand. And I sold my town house—my goods will be delivered soon. I’m putting a little money into the garden. Call it research and development, but this is actually a low-cost operation.”

When she paused, so did he. The silence stretched out. Finally, in his gruff voice he said, “You sound good, Jill.”

“I am good, Harry. Is BSS doing all right?”

“All right. Stock’s up. Board’s a pain in my ass. One software product f**kup and recall but that’s only one of our many products and we can afford to eat it.” Another silence. “He’s not here anymore, Jill.”

“I didn’t ask,” she said.

“He’s—”

“I’d like it on the record that I didn’t ask,” she said emphatically.

“He couldn’t take the heat. He knew he was up against an enemy in me. Plus there was the incidental fact that he’s completely incompetent. I gave him a sterling recommendation to help him out of here—the only thing that could have made it sweeter is if it had been to one of our competitors. He skipped, got a title and a pay raise. And is blessedly gone.”

She actually dropped her chin and rubbed her temples. “I’m sorry. Feeling completely stupid once more.”

“Aw, give yourself a break. He probably drugged your herbal tea or some damn thing. I told you, Jill—you gotta have a little balance in your life. Work hard but have some good times. Drink a few martinis here and there, have men in your life sometimes so you don’t run the risk of getting lonesome, so the wrong one can’t come along and trip you up.”

“No chance of that up here,” she said.

“Well, he’s gone and we both know he’s not gonna make it. He’s gonna fall so hard he’ll leave a very big hole where he lands…. And you’re happy—just do the happy dance and come to see us. Come to the house, have a big meal, tell us about the gardens….”

“You’ll be on a cruise,” she said, feeling a little emotional. “Or off carbs…”

“Seriously, you’re ready for your own company. You always have been. I started my first when I was twenty-eight. Didn’t go that well, but I was ready and the experience was good for me. You should try it. Now’s the time.”

“For right now, it’s time to garden. It’s the strangest thing—it makes me feel…I don’t know…like I’m really part of something that never stops. Year after year, the cycle of life kind of thing. In a perfect world I’d work six months a year and garden from spring to fall. Could you get into that, Harry? Put me to work from October to April?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if you made a business out of it. I always expected you to start your own company. I didn’t think you’d do tomatoes, but what the hell, huh? There’s money all over this world—you just have to have a nose for it. Those tomatoes smell like money, Jillian?”

She laughed through the feeling of tears that had gathered in her throat. “Sometimes they do.”

“Hah! I knew it! When they’re ripe, send me some, will you?”

“Sure.”

“And Jill? There’s one more thing and I am absolutely not supposed to discuss this. A couple of the women from Corporate Communications who stood as witnesses in his case came to me—they realized their mistake, realized they’d been had and tricked into believing you exploited him. They now have guilt. They see the light and know they were used. They’re sorry.”

“Tell them to go to hell,” she said, bitter.

He laughed so loud and hard it triggered a coughing fit. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, I couldn’t say it, but I thought it. Too little too late, huh?”

“How can I be such a hard-ass,” she amended. “He tricked me, after all.”

“Let him go. He’s so over, the body is getting cold. Hey, if you don’t come down here, I might come up there, see what you got.”

“You’ll be on a cruise.”

“We could compromise,” he said. “Three-day cruise, three-day trip to the veggie farm, three days at Pebble Beach. You know what, Matlock? I miss the hell out of you. It was time for you to take on the world, but that doesn’t make it easy.”

“I love you, Harry.”

“Yeah, yeah… Every broad I ever gave a few million to has said that.”

She laughed into the phone.

“Godspeed, kid,” he said.

“God bless, Harry,” she said.

Jillian’s town house had been a small two bedroom—around sixteen hundred square feet. Perfect for one single woman. Therefore it hadn’t held a lot of furniture. Denny helped her move the bed Colin had purchased out of the maid’s quarters to one of the second-floor bedrooms. When her furniture arrived, the office furniture that had been in her second bedroom went into the maid’s quarters. She moved her computer and recliner from the kitchen into that room.

Her living room sectional went into the sunroom along with her big flat screen, bookcases and side tables and there was still more than enough room for Colin to paint. It became the most wonderful room—a den and studio all in one. She had come to love the smell of his paints.

Jillian put both leaves in her dining room table to make it longer and it still didn’t overpower the eating area of the roomy kitchen. Her patio furniture—table, chairs, two chaise lounges—went on the back porch. Her bedroom furniture went into the largest second-floor bedroom.

She bought herself a hanging rack for clothes and filled her bedroom bureau drawers. The rack went into the third empty bedroom on the second floor, which served as one big closet. The problem with these old Victorian’s—no closets. Whoever moved into this place permanently would have to invest in wardrobes.

Certain parts of the Victorian took on a look of peaceful domesticity. Colin and Jill were rarely apart and never spent a night away from each other. Colin still liked to prowl around for wildlife shots and he enjoyed painting on hilltops for a few hours here and there, but daily life saw them mostly together. In evenings, while Jill sat in the office and read the gardening blogs on the computer, Colin sat in the recliner in the same room, reading or surfing art and galleries on his laptop. Jill invited him to use her computer anytime he wished to and before long his laptop and color printer appeared to have found a permanent home in the office.

They seemed to spend most of their nights in the Victorian, which made a trip to the cabin seem like an escape out of town, a completely different environment.

“I’ve never had a relationship like this,” she said. “I’m thirty-two and this is the first time I’ve slept with a man every night. I’m kind of surprised—this is so new to me. And so natural.”

“For me, too,” Colin said. “I like it.”

“But I hardly ever had a man in my life. You’ve had lots of women—I can tell.”

He pulled her close and said, in all honesty, “Not like this, Jilly. Not like you.”

In the bright sunshine of early May, Jillian’s flowers around the house, fruits and vegetables in the open garden and flowering shrubs around the yard were in full swing. There were a few apple trees in the front of the house and the air was filled with the sweet scent of blossoms. Also bees, but for any gardener, bees were the friends who transported pollen. She’d been right about the bulbs—daffodils, tulips, lilies all bloomed in the warm sun. Jill was surprised to discover a long row of blackberry bushes along the tree line in the back meadow. When they were all ripe, there would be too many to even deal with.

It was more than a house and garden. It was a nursery.

Walking around the property she could hear the sound of the mower; Denny was running the riding mower around the expansive front lawn, a job that could take half the day. Bright sun, warm weather, plenty of rain turned the grass a dark, vivid, thick green. And plenty of it; Denny was cutting it every week. He built himself a ramp so he could load that riding lawnmower onto the back of Jillian’s truck and take it over to Jack’s for a little upkeep over there—Jack didn’t have a rider.

Just as Jack crossed her mind, she spotted his truck coming up the drive. She took off her gloves, brushed off her knees and smiled at him.

But Jack wasn’t smiling. He wore a very serious expression as he approached her. The very first thought that came to her mind was that he was bringing bad news. Her mind skittered around. Was it possible someone would call Jack to report a catastrophe involving Kelly? Had Colin had an accident? She could hear Denny’s mowing so she knew he was all right. Her hand crept to her throat and she walked toward him. “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s a surprise out of the blue, Jillian,” he said. “Caught me completely off guard. There’s interest in the house.”

She actually breathed a sigh of relief. Is that all? she thought. And then quickly following that she nearly gasped. “Interest in the house? But…?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t listed it for sale, but I mentioned to a couple of Realtors that I’ll be looking to sell eventually, probably when we have a little recovery in this god-awful economy. But real estate around here, Jillian… It’s not the usual thing. Most of us are out in the country, like this house here is, and there’s no point in a sign—no one’s gonna see it. But sometimes some Realtor from San Francisco or L.A. will call one of our Realtors and ask if there’s anything available that would work for a summer house or an oceanfront property or hunting cabin.”

“And…?” she pushed, the suspense killing her.

“A couple from the Bay Area, retiring from their big companies, kids grown, they’re looking for a bed-and-breakfast with a sizable acreage. Something they could run a few months of the year, which would leave them plenty of time to relax, have their family visit or travel. They like the idea of a few guests and maybe grounds that could be used for celebrations, like weddings and so on. He likes to garden. She loves to cook. The Realtor in Fortuna mentioned this place and they took a look at the outside—I guess you didn’t notice them. They’d like to look inside and if it suits, they’ll want to make an offer.”

“But, Jack…”

“I told them it wouldn’t be available until September. They think that’s a good idea—it would give them the winter months to get settled in, put together some ads for their B and B, have the kids and grandkids for holidays, travel. I might even be able to put them off till October, if you need the time.” He gave his chin a nod. “We’re friends and neighbors, Jillian—I’m not going to run you off. I’d appreciate it if you kept in mind… I have to do right by the trust. The house is part of the trust….”