Monster Among the Roses

I’d only suggested one, so the fact that Isobel was willing to give up a couple of her roses made my eyebrows lift, impressed.

But she must’ve mistaken my expression as me thinking I considered her offer meager. So she sighed. “Fine. I can put together a full dozen.”

Holy shit. I hadn’t thought she’d go that far. But I smiled. “Mrs. Pan is going to love this.”

Still appearing put out, she huffed, “Which color?”

“I don’t know.” Again, this was out of my territory. “What do the different colors symbolize?”

I thought she’d give me another look that told me she had no idea about that either, but nope. When it came to roses, Isobel knew her shit. “Well, red is obviously for love, passion, beauty, courage, or respect. White roses are for purity, innocence, silence, or secrecy.”

I shook my head. “Nah, we don’t want it to be a secret admirer thing. She needs to know they’re from him.”

Nodding in agreement, Isobel ticked off another finger. “Dark pink is for appreciation and gratitude. Light pink is admiration, sympathy, grace, joy, and sweetness. Orange is fascination, desire, or enthusiasm. Peach is appreciation, closing the deal, or getting together.”

“Seriously,” I murmured, staring at her in awe. “How do you know all this?”

Isobel just kept going. “Coral is for desire. Lavender is love at first sight. Yellow with red tips are friendship and falling in love. A mix of red and white roses means—”

“Okay, okay, okay,” I cut her off, waving my hands. No way could I remember any of that. “Let’s just go with the simple red roses.”

She shrugged. “Works for me.”

Then she stood up, abandoning her meal, and started toward the door as if to go fetch the roses that very moment. I scampered to my feet and followed her until we reached the entrance of the garden. She left the door open behind her, which I probably could’ve considered an invitation, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

The “I don’t want anyone else messing around in my garden. Especially him” demand she’d given that first day had been explicit. I wasn’t going to break the rule unless I was just as explicitly told it was okay.

Rocking back onto my heels, I clasped my hands behind my back and patiently waited for her to notice I was no longer behind her. She picked up a pair of gloves and scissors, then said something I couldn’t hear, before she whirled around and scowled at me.

“What the heck are you doing out there?” she called, frowning irritably.

Feigning surprise, I pressed a hand to my chest. “Oh! Am I allowed to enter?”

Her glare was dry. “Get in here.”

I grinned, happy to get on her prickly side. Then I stepped a foot inside, only to breathe in a lungful. “Damn, it smells good in here.”

Isobel ignored my wonderment, already turning to the roses and eyeing them with a sad longing. “It’s going to have to be long-stem,” she decided.

I fluttered out an unconcerned hand. “Whichever ones you feel as if you can part with.” I refused to participate in the actual choosing. They were her babies; she was going to have to be the one to decide which left the nest.

I turned to the pink vines to my left; I swear they smelled the best.

Behind me, I heard a snip, then another. She was actually doing it. Pride filled my chest. Refusing to look, mostly because I was scared I’d lose my own nerve and make her stop if I saw any kind of tortured expression on her face, I once again clasped my hands behind my back and began to walk the row, studying all the different types.

When I noticed a couple obvious non-rose greens growing amongst the bushes, I lifted my eyebrows. “What’s this? Is this…holy shit, is there a weed in your rose garden?”

Isobel appeared at my side, only to grumble under her breath and immediately pull the weed from the ground. When I blinked at her, trying not to grin, she scowled back. “What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Just surprised you let one grow that big. The first time I was in here, everything was so immaculate and flawless. I thought it wouldn’t even be possible for a weed to—”

“I’ve been a little busy lately,” she snapped, sending me a death glare before returning to the flowers and clipping savagely. “The library never would’ve gotten renovated if I’d let you do it all by yourself.”

Since she wasn’t looking my way, I let my grin grow. To me, it was a good sign that she no longer spent every waking hour in here, perfecting her flowers. It meant she was learning to live a little. Her father would be pleased with this progress. But more importantly, I was pleased by it.

My step a little lighter and smile a little brighter, I wandered to the end of the row until I came to a shelf holding about two dozen tiny pots full of moist soil and miniature green leaves splitting out of about half of them.

“Ooh, what’re these?”

Isobel briefly glanced up from her work before turning back to her clipping. “Those are the seeds you gave me.”

My lips parted in awe. But shit, it was thrilling to realize she hadn’t thrown them out, and even more exciting to learn she’d actually gotten them to grow.

“Really?” I stepped closer. “Holy shit. They’re actually growing. I can’t believe it. Look at those cute little baby leaves.” I wiggled my pointer finger at them as if to tickle their stems, even though I didn’t dare to actually touch them in fear I might kill one.

“Those cute little baby leaves are called cotyledons.”

Of course she would know that. I grinned, amused by her formality. “Well, whatever they’re called, I just want to bounce them on my knee and smoosh their chubby little leaf cheeks. They’re freaking adorable.”

Isobel laughed. Honest-to-God laughed. “You’re so strange.”

As long as she was laughing in true amusement, she could call me anything she wanted. I shrugged, grinning even wider and feeling like I was on top of the world. “I can’t wait to see the roses. Black with blue tips sound pretty cool.”

Isobel went back to studying the red roses before she clipped another for Mrs. Pan. I could tell she was trying to pick the best, and that made my chest expand. She had such a good heart.

Then she said conversationally, “You know there’s no such thing as black with blue-tipped roses, right?”

My mouth sagged open, before I blinked and shook my head, unable to believe what I’d just heard. “Say what again?”

“Roses only come in shades of white, red, yellow and purples or variations and mixes between those. Anything else is artificially created.”

Still slowly shaking my head back and forth in adamant denial, I said, “No…no, that can’t be right.”

My absolute unwillingness to believe such a thing amused her. “It is.” She clipped another rose for Mrs. Pan.

I gaped at her. “But…” Spinning wildly, I found a rose that was an exception to her rule. “There!” I pointed. “You have a black rose, right there.”

Her lips tightened as she held in a smile. “Look again, Hollander.”

I stormed to the rosebush in question and knelt to its level before the redness of it began to show through. “I’ll be damned,” I murmured in awe. “It’s not black; it’s just a dark, dark red.”

When she laughed for the second time in the last minute, getting a kick out of my shock, I looked over at her. “Wait, then…those seeds?” I whirled to take in the buds sprouting from the tiny starter pods.

“Whatever they are, they aren’t midnight supreme roses, that’s for sure,” Isobel admitted, “because there’s no such thing as a black and blue rose.”

I gulped, shocked and mortified that my gift had been…it’d been… “But the lady who worked in the flower shop said…she said…”

Sending me a wince of genuine sympathy, Isobel murmured, “Whatever she said was a scam. She had to have known black and blue roses weren’t possible.”

“But…” I shook my head, feeling like a big gullible idiot. “I read all these rose books on roses, and I didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t either. Maybe—”

“Wow,” Isobel murmured, watching me kind of sadly. “You just can’t believe anything bad about anyone, can you?” It looked as if she felt sorry for me—me—so I scowled defensively.

“She might not have known,” I cried. “She was so nice and helpful, and—” I threw up my hand, remembering. “She gave me a discount. What kind of scammer gives a discount?”

Isobel wrinkled her nose before saying, “Probably all of them, to convince suckers like you that they’re kind and benevolent souls.”

I scowled at her moodily, wanting to argue my case. But there wasn’t much to say except, yeah, I was a total idiot sucker who’d gotten taken in by a freaking scammer. I hissed out a huff. “I can’t believe this.” My gaze strayed to the baby rose plants. “I wonder what color they’ll turn out, then? Or if they’re even rose plants.”

“Oh, they’re definitely roses,” she assured me. “But your guess is as good as mine on the color.”

Reaching out, I just barely grazed one of the new leaves with my fingertip. “I guess our babies are going to grow up and surprise us all.” Grinning tenderly, I added, “I kind of like the sound of that. You grow big and strong, baby roses. Show the world you’re better than any fake midnight supreme rose bush.”

I glanced toward Isobel to share the joke with her, but she was gazing at me with the strangest expression. “What?” I asked, immediately reviewing what I’d just said in my head. Yeah, it’d been strange, but all just teasing fun, until I remembered the words, our babies, as if we were their parents.

An immediate heat stirred through me. The idea of raising anything with Isobel, even just a rose, was intimate and bonding. I gazed back at her, wondering if she felt the same connection stirring between us.

Face flushing, she cleared her throat and suddenly looked away, focusing on the roses in her hands. “Get your ass over here, Hollander,” she said, “and help me pick off the leaves and thorns. This was your idea.”

“Right.” I cleared my throat and made my way to her. “Do we really have to take off the thorns?”

She sent me a look as if that were a stupid question. “We want it to appear as if he really likes her, right? Taking off the thorns is a sign he’s serious. If he’s willing to go through all the work of stripping the stems to protect her valuable fingers from getting pricked—”

“Okay, I’m sold,” I told her, lifting a hand. “The thorns gotta go.”

“Here.” She held out the roses she’d already picked out and plucked. “There’s another set of gloves in the—”

But I was already reaching out with my bare hand, and yep, pricked myself right in the thumb with a damn thorn. “Ouch! Shit.”

I plunged the injured appendage into my mouth and sucked the blood away. Isobel sighed as if dealing with a misbehaving child. “Gloves,” she repeated. “Right there.”

I fetched the gloves, but soon found out they weren’t my friends either. I had no idea how Isobel worked with these clunky things on. I couldn’t get a good grip on the flower because it felt as if I was crushing it if I held it too hard, and it was damn near impossible to slip gloved fingers into the handles of the scissors and then get them to work properly. I glanced repeatedly toward Isobel to see how in the world she was handling them with such aplomb, but it was something I just couldn’t master. I was more of a hands-on kind of guy, I guess.

“I’ll just deal with the thorns,” I finally muttered, ripping the gloves off and picking up the shears with much more ease.

Isobel snickered to herself but said nothing. I scowled her way, except she looked so content and at home snipping flowers that all my grouch dissolved. It didn’t even bother me—much—when I pricked my finger again thirty seconds later.

We worked in comfortable silence until the flowers were ready. Then Isobel bundled them together and found a yellow ribbon on her shelves to tie them with.

“Should we leave a note with them?” I asked. “So she knows they’re from him?”

Isobel gazed at the roses a moment before nodding. “Yes. Definitely.”

So we trekked back to the library to find some paper and a pen, where Isobel immediately handed me both. “You write it.”

“No way.” I shoved the paper back at her. “I have awful penmanship.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s probably more male than mine. Mrs. Pan would never believe Lewis wrote the note if we left it in my looping, feminine scrawl.”

“Good point.” I made a face. “Dammit.” Taking the pen and paper from her, I grumbled, “What do I say?”

She shrugged.

I sighed and wiped the back of my hand across my forehead, already feeling too stressed to deal with this task. “Okay, fine. What’s Mrs. Pan’s first name?”

A blush lit her cheeks before she confessed, “I have no idea.”

“Oh, Jesus.” We were doomed. Until an idea hit me. “Ooh, I got it.” I bent to set the note on the table and began to write, “To the best cook and mother I know. Thank you for being you. You make coming to work each day less about income and more about getting to see you. Lewis.”

When I glanced up, eyebrows lifted, to gauge what she thought of that, I caught my breath when I saw the look on her face. She stared at me as if I’d written some of those parts about me and her instead of about Lewis and Mrs. Pan.

The scariest thing was, I had.

I swallowed and straightened before folding the note and extending it her way. We never took our eyes off each other as she slowly received it and brought it to the bundle of roses she was still holding to her chest.

“Thank you,” she murmured as if thanking me for writing those words to her and not for handing her the note.

I nodded, unable to speak.

Another moment of intense staring continued before we both glanced away.

She cleared her throat. I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Maybe, we should, uh…” I fumbled awkwardly before motioning toward the door. “I mean, do you think it’s a good time to plant the surprise now? She shouldn’t be in the kitchen at this time of day.”

“What?” Isobel’s lips parted as her blue eyes met my brown. Then she blinked rapidly and glanced down at the roses. “Oh…right.” She shook her head from the trance she’d been in. “Yeah…I mean, yes, now’s a good time.”

So we stealthily stole our way to the kitchen. I led the expedition, checking around each corner first before waving her to follow with the roses. The kitchen was indeed empty, though the most lovely baked bread smell floated from the oven where it appeared Mrs. Pan was cooking homemade loaves.

I motioned Isobel into the room. She hurried to me, her eyes wide. I swear I could hear her heartbeat thumping as fast as mine was. We were such nerds, getting this big of a kick out of planting romantic gifts for other people. But hell…it was fun.

“Where?” She whispered the word, glancing around the kitchen for the perfect spot.

I started to shrug, but stopped short when I heard a sound at the back door.

“Shit! Here she comes,” I hissed, probably whispering too loud as I grabbed Isobel’s arm and hauled her out of the kitchen with me. She squeaked out her worry and surprise, tossed the roses on the table, and stumbled after me.

We tripped to a halt just outside the entrance at the same time and stared at each other with wide eyes, silently communicating how glad we were that we hadn’t gotten caught when I realized I was holding her wrist of the scarred hand. The skin was rough against my thumb and I wanted to explore more, shift my finger further along her flesh to investigate all the unique ridges, but she didn’t seem to realize what I was touching, and I didn’t want to bring it to her attention in case it freaked her out. So I held my breath and stayed as still as possible as I watched her face, while she listened to Mrs. Pan’s footsteps move through the kitchen.

We could tell the moment she saw her present. A gasp filled the kitchen and spilled out into the hallway where we were hiding.

“Well…” she breathed, clearly pleased. “I’ll be.” The quiet shuffling told us she’d probably scooped the flowers into her arms. “Oh, God. They smell so good.”

Isobel and I shared an excited, gritted-teeth grin. I tried to sneak a peek into the room to see the cook’s expression, but Isobel caught the sleeve of my shirt and jerked me back out of sight.

I grinned at her just as the back door opened and Mrs. Pan suddenly raged, “Lewis, you stupid old fool, what have you done?”

Okay, that didn’t sound pleased or appreciative at all. I shared a confused glance with my cohort, only to find she looked as stunned and worried as I felt.

“What?” Lewis asked, his voice full of the same confusion. “What’d I do?”

“You stole roses from Miss Nash’s garden? Are you insane? If she found out about this, she’d have her father fire you for sure. I can’t believe you were such an idiot.”

My mouth fell open and so did Isobel’s. We hadn’t foreseen this kind of problem. But the shit was about to hit the fan, and it was all our fault. Our experiment was supposed to nudge Lewis and Mrs. Pan together, not push them apart.

“What do we do?” I mouthed, frantic worry flooding my veins.

“I didn’t steal any flowers,” Lewis claimed, the tone in his voice saying he was scowling and ready to put the cook in her place.

Setting her hand against her heart, Isobel rushed past me and flew into the kitchen. I started after her, ready to confess all to Lewis and Mrs. Pan, but what she said stalled me in my shoes. “Mr. Lewis, I’ve decided I don’t want cash for the flowers you purchased from me. I’ll just have my father deduct the amount from your paycheck. All right?”

“I…uh…” A blank-faced Lewis stuttered and gaped a moment before he glanced at the roses in Mrs. Pan’s arms and then back to Isobel.

The cook flushed a deep, embarrassed red before gushing, “Oh Lord, Lewis. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you’d actually bought them for me. That’s so considerate. I love them.” She hugged them to her face so she could take a deep whiff of them. Then she smiled at the groundskeeper appreciatively. “And you even took all the thorns off. Thank you.”

Lewis’s Adam’s apple bobbed before he gave a slow nod and just as sluggishly answered, “You’re…well, you’re mighty welcome, Mrs. Pan. It was my pleasure.” Then he sent a grateful, flush-faced nod to Isobel. “Thank you, Miss Nash.”

Isobel gave a short, businesslike nod and whirled on her heel before briskly stalking from the kitchen.

She strode right past me, but it didn’t take me long to pick my jaw up off the floor and hurry to catch up with her. We were nearly to the library before I managed to say, “That…that was brilliant.”

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to drag her into my arms and hug her before kissing the breath straight from her lungs. She’d made the entire situation completely real by remaining her haughty, high-brow self, and Mrs. Pan hadn’t had a clue at all that it’d been a setup. Then Lewis had fallen into place perfectly, knowing when to save his hide and impress his gal. I wanted to pull Isobel into my arms and laugh and dance with her.

Instead, I offered her a huge grin and a high five. “You rock. You so totally rock.”

Her lips finally tipped into a smile and her blue eyes glowed with triumph before she slapped her palm against mine.

And that was the moment I’m pretty sure I fell flat in love with her.