Blue Dahlia (In the Garden 1)

He continued to work, using his knife to cut a shoot from the joint of a scion plant. He had beautiful hands, she noted. Long, artistic fingers. "Apical-wedge, then? Tricky, but probably best with that specimen because of the flat stems. Are you creating a standard, or hybridizing?"

He made his vertical slit into the vascular bundle and still didn't answer.

"I'm just wondering because - " She set her hand on his shoulder, and when he jumped and let out a muffled shout, she stumbled back and rammed into the table behind her.

"Shit!" He dropped the knife and stuck the thumb it had nicked in his mouth. "Shit!" he said again, around his thumb, and tugged headphones off with his free hand.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! How bad are you cut? Let me see. "

"It's just a scratch. " He took it out of his mouth, rubbed it absently on his grimy jeans. "Not nearly as fatal as the heart attack you just brought on. "

"Let me see the thumb. " She grabbed his hand. "You've got dirt in it now. "

He saw her gaze slide over toward the alcohol and ripped his hand out of hers. "Don't even think about it. "

"Well, it should at least be cleaned. And I really am sorry. I didn't see the headphones. I thought you heard me. "

"It's okay. No big. The classical's for the plants. If I listen to it for too long, my eyes get glassy. "

"Oh?" She picked up the headphones, held one side to one ear. "Metallica?"

"Yeah. My kind of classical. " Now he looked warily at her clipboard. "What's up?"

"I'm hoping to get an idea of what you'll have ready in here to put out for our big spring opening next month. And what you have at the stage you'd want it moved out to the stock greenhouse. "

"Oh, well. . . " He looked around. "A lot of stuff. Probably. I keep the staging records on computer. "

"Even better. Maybe you could just make me a copy. Floppy disk would be perfect. "

"Yeah, okay. Okay, wait. " He shifted his stool toward the computer.

"You don't have to do it this minute, when you're in the middle of something else. "

"If I don't, I'll probably forget. "

With a skill she admired, he tapped keys with somewhat grungy fingers, found what he was after. He dug out a floppy, slid it into the data slot. "Look, I'd rather you didn't take anything out when I'm not here. "

"No problem. "

"How's, um, Hayley working out?"

"An answer to a prayer. "

"Yeah?" He reached for a can of Coke, took a quick drink. "She's not doing anything heavy or working around toxics. Right?"

"Absolutely not. I've got her doing bulb planters right now. "

"Here you go. " He handed her the floppy.

"Thanks, Harper. This makes my life easier. I've never done a Christmas cactus graft. " She clipped the floppy to her board. "Can I watch?"

"Sure. Want to do one? I'll talk you through. "

"I'd really like to. "

"I'll finish this one up. See, I cut a two-, maybe two-and-a-half-inch shoot, straight through the joint. I've cut the top couple inches from the stem of the stock plant. And on the way to slicing my finger - "

"Sorry. "