Red Lily (In the Garden 3)

“Ought to be at it for a while then. I was going to do some chip-budding. Could use some help, but—”

“Really? Can I do it? I can take one of the two-ways in case Ruby or Stella need me.”

“I could use another pair of hands.”

“Mine’ll be right back. Hold on.”

She dashed through the double glass doors, and was back in thirty seconds, shed of the apron and hitching a two-way to her waistband. And giving him a quick peek at smooth belly skin.

“I read up some, but I can’t remember which is the chip-budding.”

“It’s an old method,” he told her as they started out. “More widely used now than it used to be. What we’re going to do is work some of the field stock, some of the ornamentals. Mid-summer’s the time for it.”

Heat hit like a wet wall. “This sure is mid-summer.”

“We’ll start on magnolias.” He picked up a bucket of water he’d left outside the door. “They never stop being popular.”

They walked over gravel, between greenhouses, and headed out to the fields. “Things stay quiet last night?”

“Not a peep after that little show we were treated to. I’m hoping she doesn’t plan an encore of that trick. Gross, you know?”

“She sure knows how to get your attention anyway. Okay, here’s what we do first.” He stopped in front of a tall, leafy magnolia. “I’m going to pick some ripe shoots, this season’s wood. You want one not much thicker than a pencil with well-developed buds. See this one?”

With an ungloved hand, he reached up, gently drew a shoot down.

“Okay, then what?”

“I clip it off.” He drew pruners out of his tool bag. “See here, where the base is starting to go woody? That’s what we’re looking for. You don’t want green shoots, they’re too weak yet.”

After he’d cut it, Harper put the shoot in the water bucket. “We keep it wet. If it dries out, it won’t unite. Now you pick one.”

She started to move around the tree, but he caught her hand. “No, it’s better to work on the sunny side of the tree.”

“Okay.” She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth as she searched, selected. “How about this one?”

“Good. Here, make the cut.”

She took the pruners, and since he was close he could smell the scent she wore—always light with a surprising kick—along with the garden green.

“How many are you doing?”

“About a dozen.” He stuck his hands in his pockets as he leaned in to watch her, smell her. And told himself he was suffering for a good cause. “Go ahead, pick another.”

“I don’t get out in the field much.” She drew down another shoot, looked toward Harper and got his nod. “It’s different out here. Different than selling and displaying, talking to customers.”

“You’re good at that.”

“Yeah, I am, but being out here, it’s getting your hands into the thing. Stella knows all this stuff, and Roz, she knows everything. I like to learn. You sell better the more you know.”

“I’d rather ram that shoot in my eye than have to sell every day.”

She smiled as she worked. “But you’re a loner at heart, aren’t you? I’d go crazy holed up in the grafting house day after day like you. I like seeing people, and having them talk to me about what they’re looking for and why. I like selling, too. ‘Here, you take this pretty thing, and give me the money.’ ”

She laughed as she put another shoot in the bucket. “That’s why you and Roz need somebody like me, so you can squirrel away in your caves and work with the plants for hours, and I can sell them.”

“Seems to be working.”

“That’s a dozen, even. What next?”