Black Rose Read Free

of exercise, she started reviewing her list of things to do that day.
    She had some good seedlings going for annuals that should be ready to have their seed leaves removed. She needed to check all the seedlings for signs of damping off. Some of the older stock would be ready for pricking off.
    And, she remembered, Stella had asked for more amaryllis, more forced-bulb planters, more wreaths and poinsettias for the holiday sales. Hayley could handle the wreaths. The girl had a good hand at crafting.
    Then there were the field-grown Christmas trees and hollies to deal with. Thank God she could leave that end to Logan.
    She had to check with Harper, to see if he had any more of the Christmas cacti he’d grafted ready to go. She wanted a couple for herself.
    She juggled all the nursery business in her mind even as she passed In the Garden. It was tempting—it always was—to veer off the road onto that crushed-stone entryway, to take an indulgent solo tour of what she’d built from the ground up.
    Stella had gone all out for the holidays, Roz noted with pleasure, grouping green, pink, white, and red poinsettias into a pool of seasonal color in the front of the low-slung house that served as the entrance to the retail space. She’d hung yet another wreath on the door, tiny white lights around it, and the small white pine she’d had dug from the field stood decorated on the front porch.
    White-faced pansies, glossy hollies, hardy sage added more interest and would help ring up those holiday sales.
    Resisting temptation, Roz continued down the road.
    She had to carve out some time, if not today, then certainly later this week, to finish up her Christmas shopping. Or at least put a bigger dent in it. There were holiday parties to attend, and the one she’d decided to give. It had been awhile since she’d opened the house to entertain in a big way.
    The divorce, she admitted, was at least partially to blame for that. She’d hardly felt like hosting parties when she’d felt stupid and stung and more than a bit mortified by her foolish, and mercifully brief, union to a liar and a cheat.
    But it was time to put that aside now, she reminded herself, just as she’d put him aside. The fact that Bryce Clerk was back in Memphis made it only more important that she live her life, publically and privately, exactly as she chose.
    At the mile-and-a-half mark, a point she judged by an old, lightning-struck hickory, she started back. The thin fog had dampened her hair, her sweatshirt, but her muscles felt warm and loose. It was a bitch, she mused, that everything they said about exercise was true.
    She spotted a deer meandering across the road, her coat thickened for winter, her eyes on alert by the intrusion of a human.
    You’re beautiful, Roz thought, puffing a little on that last half mile. Now, stay the hell out of my gardens. Another note went in her file to give her gardens another treatment of repellant before the deer and her pals decided to come around for a snack.
    Roz was just making the turn into the drive when she heard muffled footsteps, then saw the figure coming her way. Even with the mists she had no trouble identifying the other early riser.
    They both stopped, jogged in place, and she grinned at her son.
    “Up with the worms this morning.”
    “Thought I’d be up and out early enough to catch you.” He scooped a hand through his dark hair. “All that celebrating for Thanksgiving, then your birthday, I figured I’d better work off the excess before Christmas hits.”
    “You never gain an ounce. It’s annoying.”
    “Feel soft.” He rolled his shoulders, then his eyes, whiskey brown like hers, and laughed. “Besides, I gotta keep up with my mama.”
    He looked like her. There was no denying she’d stamped herself on his face. But when he smiled, she saw his father. “That’ll be the day, pal of mine. How far you going?”
    “How far’d you?”
    “Three miles.”
    He flashed a grin. “Then I’ll do