Red Lily (In the Garden 3)

Bastard.

Then he waved her off before strolling around the side of the building like he wasn’t a low-life cheating scum. Worse, the sort that did his low-life cheating right in front of her face.

You’d think he’d have the courtesy, the good breeding, to at least do it behind her back.

Well, that was just fine. She wasn’t going to let it matter. She wasn’t going to give a single wrinkled, balled-up damn.

And she wasn’t going outside to kick him in his two-timing balls either. She was just going out to see if any customers needed her assistance.

That’s what she got paid for. Not for flirting, not for spending half the day reminiscing. And certainly not for kissing customers before she waved bye-bye.

She was nearly to the grafting house when she saw him out in the field. He was already crouched down, examining grafts on the magnolias she’d helped him graft and plant weeks before.

He flicked her a glance and a smile as she approached. “Take a look. These are coming along. Couple of weeks we can remove the tape.”

“If you say so.”

“Yeah, they’re looking good. I need to check some of the other ornamentals. I think we’re going to have some nice weeping pears and cherries for next season. Have I shown you the fruiting pears I did? The dwarfs?”

“No. Did your friend get what she was after?”

“Hmm. Yeah.” He rose, walked across to check the balance of the canopies on his weepers. “Kept it simple,” he said absently as he studied the tre

e. “Low maintenance. What I did here was use pyrus communis for stock—three-year-olds, and grafted three pendulas. You gotta make sure you get the spacing right, so you produce a nice shape.”

“And you know all about shapes.”

“Yeah. I like chip-budding these. I did these two springs ago, and these this spring. See how they develop?”

“I see how a lot of things develop. I was surprised you didn’t go with her, carry the plants to her door.”

“Who? Oh, Dory?” He flipped Hayley an absent look as sarcasm sailed, visibly, over his head. “She’ll be able to handle it. A couple trips.”

He continued to walk, continued to examine.

“Here? For these weeping cherries, I used a semi-dwarfing rootstock. Should make a nice specimen tree for smaller spaces. ’Round October, I’m going to take some ripe shoots from the Colt stock. What you do is bundle them, and drop them root-end down in a trench in the nursery bed, and hill ’em up so they’re about three-quarters buried. Then next spring, we’ll lift the bundles, plant the cuttings, and by summer they’ll be ready to use for rootstocks.”

“That’s all just fascinating, Harper. Did you spend all that time with Dory lecturing her on how to make a damn rootstock?”

“Huh.” His distraction was evident on his face as he glanced around. “She’s not interested in this kind of work. She’s in public relations.”

“Private ones from what I saw.”

“What?”

“I was about to come back and suggest the two of you get a room. You ought to know better than to make out in one of the retail areas.”

This time his mouth dropped open. “What? We weren’t. We were just—”

“Those doors are glass, Harper, in case you’ve forgotten. I saw you, and you ought to have more respect for your workplace than to fool around in one of the public areas during working hours. But as you’re the boss, I guess you can do what the hell you like.”

“My mother’s the boss, and I wasn’t fooling around anywhere. Dory and I are old friends. We were just—”

“Kissing, touching, flirting, making dates. It’s unprofessional, in my opinion, to do that during work hours. But it’s downright rude to do it in front of me.”

“Behind your back would be better?”

Because it echoed her own nasty thoughts, her eyes went hot, searing like suns. “Let me just say, fuck you, Harper.”