Nora's Pride by Carol Stephenson

Author:Carol Stephenson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2002-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

With a Swiss Army knife clenched in his teeth, Connor double-checked his watch. Five-twenty. Enough time to unpack this last shipment before heading over to the pottery shop to pick up Nora and Abby for his first date with his daughter. Along the way, he might figure out how to apologize to Nora for his bad temper this morning.

If she was still speaking to him.

Connor removed the knife from his mouth before he could do serious harm to himself. If he thought that he could mend this latest rift with a few smooth lines, then he had a few acres of Everglades swampland to sell himself.

In the faint hope of establishing a momentary truce for Abby’s sake, he’d spent the better part of an hour cleaning and polishing his truck and then another thirty minutes slicking himself up. He had planned to stay inside afterward, but the nursery, with its new arrivals, had beckoned him. If he was careful, only his hands would need washing.

Right.

With a ferocious smile, he sliced the blade through a package. The carton fell away, revealing a potted rose. “Hello, sweetheart,” he crooned softly. With a critical eye, Connor examined the pruned bush for any breakage. He then checked the greenness of the slender canes and tested the dryness of the potting material.

He moved on to the next mummified bundle on the workbench. Ten minutes later he had five slender rosebushes freshly watered, fertilized and set up in their new home. Hooking his heel on the leg of a stool, Connor pulled it up to the bench and sat down. He folded his arms and looked around him.

Chaos might reign outside the botanical gardens, but here in his conservatory—the soul of his operation—everything was working. He inhaled deeply of the incense of plants—the fecund smell of soil and moss intermingled with the pungent scent of fertilizer and pesticide.

Connor sighed with contentment and gave himself up to his sanctuary.

The newly activated heating pipes murmured their prayers in the hush of the night. Already, droplets of steam had formed on the wind-chilled glass, baptizing the walls. The aluminum supports arched overhead, dark skeletal fingers holding up the crystal dome. Along its crown a rosary of reflector lamps reverentially illuminated the greenhouse. All around him, the frosty veil of the glazed glass transformed the black night to a platinous brilliance—the color of Nora’s eyes in the moonlight.

Connor’s gaze rested on the roses in front of him.

Twelve long years, and his dream was finally coming to fruition. Ever since he had landed a job at that nursery in Loxahatchee, Florida, he had been drawn to the painstaking process of creating new roses through cultivation and crossbreeding. When he had completed his daily tasks, he had worked late into the night to learn how to cross-pollinate. It had been years of trial and error to create his masterpiece.

Now he was finally home, the only home he had ever wanted, for the final leg of his long journey: having his own cultivar recognized and listed.

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