Wild in the Moonlight

Six

Violet understood that she couldn’t postpone dealing with the touchy lavender problem forever, but just then she was saved by the bell-or the ring, as it happened. Barbara yelled from the Herb Haven that there was an overseas telephone call for her. That meant Daisy had to be on the line-and there was no way she wanted to postpone a chance to talk with her sister.

She sent Cam up to the house for lunch. It was an easy way to get him out of listening range. Suggest food and men always moved. Once in her broom-closet-size office in the Herb Haven, she closed the door and listened to Daisy’s perky greeting.

“So. He got there. What’d you think of him?”

Violet briefly held the phone away from her ear to stare at it, then clapped it back tight. “Wait a minute. What is this?”

“What’s what?”

“You know what. What I think of him should have nothing to do with a lavender deal. His being here is supposed to be about oil. Lavender oil. And for the record, all the legal stuff sounds like a nightmare.”

“It is,” Daisy said cheerfully. “But don’t worry about it. Just leave all that junk to Cam. He’s straight as an arrow. With any luck, you’re going to make a fortune, kiddo. And in the meantime, you’ll have a chance to forget that bubble-brain you finally got divorced from.”

Violet closed her eyes and prayed for patience. She loved both her sisters, even if both of them could be total pains. Camille was the youngest, though, so she was more easily suckered. If Violet wanted Camille to do something, she just nurtured and fed and mothered until Camille either gave in or begged for mercy. Getting Daisy to behave was a far tougher challenge.

Daisy was the beauty of the family. God knew how Mom had named her for the common flower, when she was the exotic tropical blossom of the clan, with a model’s figure and that kind of style and élan. Daisy also had guts-enough guts to take off for France and live a wild, free lifestyle like everybody dreamed of but nobody ever really did. Unfortunately nobody could bully Daisy. Daisy could exhaust the whole family with her sneaky, take-charge, bossy ways.

“Something smells really, really rotten here,” Violet said darkly. “How long have you been planning this? You didn’t send Cameron Lachlan over here just for the lavender. You were thinking about setting me up. Damn it, you twerp. You didn’t think I’d fall for Cameron, did you?”

“Come on. He’s adorable.”

“He’s a lot of things, but adorable isn’t one of them. Good-looking, yeah. Rough and tough, yeah. Independent, yeah. Great eyes, yeah. But adorable is a word for boys.”

“Exactly. You don’t need any more boys in your life. About time you had a man scale your walls.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I don’t know for sure what that bozo did to you, and neither does Camille. But we both know something was bad at the end. So, fine. Broken bones take six weeks in a cast. Broken hearts taken longer. But you were made to be married, Vi. It’s time to take another chance.”

“You’re out of your mind. And I’m going to tell Mom you did this to me.”

“Are you kidding? Mom’s in on it.”

“You’re low. Lower than a skunk. Lower than an earthworm. I thought you were my favorite sister, but not anymore.”

“Uh-huh.” Daisy yawned through this threat. All three sisters regularly pulled the “favorite sister” jealousy thing on each other. But something happened then. As clear as the connection to France was, something seemed different-as if Daisy put her hand over the mouthpiece-and when she suddenly came back on, her voice changed. The real humor in her tone now sounded forced. “Listen, you, it’s your turn for some happiness. You don’t have to tell me what happened before the divorce-”

“What’s wrong?” Violet said.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Violet wasn’t the maternal sister for nothing. Her job in the family was to be the caretaker, the one who made chicken soup when the other two were dumped, the one who cleaned up their scrapes and listened to stuff they couldn’t tell their mother. “The last four times you’ve called, something hasn’t been right in your voice. Is the romance fading with Monsieur Picasso? You tired of living in France?”

“What could be wrong? The romantic French countryside, a hot summer sun, bougainvillea outside my window, breezes off the Mediterranean, freedom, a country where men really know how to appreciate a woman-”

Now Violet started to get really worried. “Quit with the horse spit. He hasn’t hurt you, has he?”

“No. And quit turning the subject around. We’re talking about you. You and love. You and sex. You and Cameron. Just think about it, would you? He’s not the marrying kind. But he’s a good man. The kind who’ll be honest. And good to you. A good guy to get your feet wet in the love pool again, without having to make any major risky dives. Besides which, he really is an answer for your lavender problem.”

When Violet hung up, she thought, what’s wrong with me has nothing to do with lavender. And it can’t be fixed.

She hustled to the house to grab some lunch-but there was no further serious talking with Cameron, because he was the one to get a phone call that time. One of his daughters kept his ear pinned for almost a half hour.

She was dying to ask him some questions about that conversation, but about the time he hung up, she saw the roofer’s truck bounce into the yard. Par for the course, the roofers were late, so she ran over to the cottage to raise hell.

Just when she tried to track down Cameron again, the lady from the White Hills Gazette showed up with her sunny face and her legal pad-Violet remembered the interview, didn’t she? No, she hadn’t remembered, and she hadn’t had time to put on lipstick in hours now, but publicity for the Herb Haven was too important to pass up.

An hour later, she glanced up to see Cameron in the doorway, listening to her rant on about the events and products and courses she’d scheduled for the summer. He lifted his hand in the air, showing her what looked to be an oatmeal raisin cookie. Thank God. If she didn’t get some sugar and junk food soon, she was probably going to fade out altogether.

After the interview, she leveled the plate of cookies he’d brought-but he’d disappeared by then. She searched until she found him on her back porch, talking with Filbert Green.

Filbert was the farmer her father had hired to caretake the farm after her parents retired to Florida. The idea was for Filbert to put in corn and soybeans or whatever, to keep the land in shape, until one of the Campbell daughters realized how much they belonged on the Vermont homestead and settled down to have some kids.

Camille had just gotten married, but she had no need for the land, and heaven knew when or if Daisy was coming back from France. So when Violet had limped home after the divorce, the house had been empty and everyone happy she was going to stay there. She’d let Filbert go. She wanted to wallow on the land in peace and quiet. Now, though, she saw Filbert hunkered down on her porch with Cam hunkered down next to him, both of them drawing plans with sticks like two smudge-nosed boys in a sandbox. They were talking about her lavender. Talking about the harvest. What needed doing, who’d do it, how. She needed to listen, needed to actively participate, only, damnation if there wasn’t another interruption.

Kari was the interruption, and actually it occurred to Violet by then that the girl had been shadowing her around for some time. A job interview, she recalled. Kari wanted a job, and God knew Violet was so behind she could barely catch her own tail. The girl was hardly out of diapers, but damn, she could talk spreadsheets like a true computer geek.

“Okay. These are the rules. Take ’em or leave ’em. I don’t give a damn what you wear, as long as you don’t show up naked. I don’t care if you’re late or early as long as the work gets done. But you have to like cats. And I need accurate records. I can’t work with someone who’s careless with numbers. So. Are we square or not?”

Kari of the shy smile and hopelessly baby blue eyes suddenly turned shrewd. “How much you gonna pay me?”

“How much you want?”

“Ten bucks an hour. I’m worth it.”

“This is your first job. Don’t you think that’s a little high?”

“Beats me. That’s what my dad told me to ask for, first try.”

“Okay, then you got it, first try. I love guts in a girl.”

Once she put the girl on the payroll, by a miracle, she caught a thirty-second break. In those thirty seconds, she remembered those kisses of Cameron’s from last night, how she’d felt-how he’d felt-and whether she dared entertain the extraordinary fantasy of making love with him.

Cripes, it was one of those days when she could barely find time to pee, so considering a love affair seemed the height of lunacy. But her sister’s phone call had helped promote the lunacy. Daisy had pointed out that Cameron had a uniquely perfect qualification for a lover-he didn’t want to settle down.

For another woman, that would obviously be a disadvantage. But for her… For three years now, she’d been afraid of attracting a man who’d want a normal, married type of life with her. Cameron was the first guy where she was dead sure he wouldn’t want something from her that she couldn’t give.

On top of which, she couldn’t even remember feeling this level of lust and longing for a man she’d barely met. There was something dangerous about that man. Something wicked. Something that made her dream about dumb things she knew she couldn’t have.

Thankfully, the insane day just kept getting worse. There were no more thirty-second breaks. Around four, she gulped down two glasses of water before she keeled over from heat exhaustion, remembered she had a killer bee sting, babied it with some honey, then abruptly heard raised voices from inside the shop.

She hiked out to find Boobla near tears, being railed on by an unsatisfied customer. Wilhelmena wanted a cure for age. There wasn’t one. It seemed she’d bought some chamomile and clover and mint and parsley and primrose a few weeks ago, believing the combination of products would clear up her wrinkles and fix her dry skin, and now she wanted a refund because they didn’t work.

Violet gently stepped in front of her clerk. “Those are all good ideas for dry skin, but I don’t know why you had the impression they’d fix wrinkles.”

“Because your girl told me it would.”

Violet didn’t have to ask Boobla to know the teenager never said any such thing. “If you don’t want the products, you can bring them back. I’ll give you a partial refund.”

“That isn’t good enough.”

Violet’s gaze narrowed. She knew Wilhelmena. Hell’s bells, every shopkeeper in three counties knew Wilhelmena. “I’m afraid you’ll have to sue me then, hon, because that’s as far as I’m going.”

The woman railed a little while longer. For anyone else, she’d have gone the long mile, but not for a complainer-and then there was the principle of backing up her staff. Boobla was still a baby, which was precisely the point. This was her first job. Violet wasn’t about to let anyone browbeat her just because she was a kid.

More customers came and went. In the meantime, orders for baskets still had to be filled, plants needed watering, the grass mowed. Even after hours, the phone kept ringing and a delivery truck came in.

The next time Violet looked up, somehow it was well past seven. The kids had both gone home, the closed sign was parked in the window, and Cameron was standing in the Herb Haven doorway with the fading sun behind him.

“What the hell kind of place are you running here, chére?” he murmured.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re doing the work of four men and then some. You barely had time to grab half a sandwich at lunch, and I know you had a couple of cookies. But have you had anything serious to eat since breakfast?”

Who knew? Who cared? She had no idea how long he’d been standing there, but the silence suddenly coiled around her nerves like velvet ribbons. He looked like such a shout of male next to all the flower sights and smells and fuss, especially with his leg cocked forward and his broad shoulders filling the doorway. When she met his gaze, there was no instant thunderclap, just more of those itchy-soft velvet nerves. She was just so aware that no one else was in sight or sound but her and Cam and all that golden dusk.

But then she recalled his question. He sounded as if he were accusing her of being an effective manager, so Violet instinctively defended herself. “I really don’t work very hard. All my running around is just an act-to fool people into thinking I have a head for business. I’d be in real trouble if the customers ever realized I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.”

“Sure,” Cam said, but there was a wicked glint in his eyes. She had a bad feeling he was on to her flutter-brained routine-which was a foolish fear, since every guy in the neighborhood and surrounding county had been convinced for years she was a hard-core ditz. He distracted her, though, when he lifted a white paper bag and shook it.

She smelled. “Food?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. It’s nothing like what you cook. But I made a trek into White Hills and picked up some fresh deli sandwiches, drinks, dessert. By midafternoon I figured that I’d never get you out to the lavender to talk unless I somehow wooed you away from the phone and the business. I thought you must be hungry by now.”

She wasn’t. Until she looked at him. And then realized there seemed to be something hollow inside her that had been aching for a long time.

“I don’t have long,” she said.

He nodded, as if expecting that answer, too-but shook the bag again, so she could catch the scent of a kosher dill and corned beef on rye.

“I don’t usually eat red meat,” she said twenty minutes later, as she was wolfing down her second sandwich.

“I can see you’re not into it.”

“And I never eat chips. They’re terrible for you.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, as he opened the second bag of chips and spilled them onto a napkin.

She wasn’t exactly sure how he’d conned her into this picnic, but he seemed to have pulled a Pied Piper routine-his carrying an old sheet to use as a tablecloth, and the food and his car keys and strapping her into the front seat and his driving-while she did nothing but follow the scent of food. By the time he’d unfurled the sheet to sit on, on the crest of the east hill overlooking the lavender, she’d already been diving in.

He had a kind side, she had to give him that, because he didn’t say a word when she gobbled down the second helping of chips. All that salt. All that fat. She tasted guilt with every bite, but, man, were they good. “You really ate ahead of time?” she insisted again.

“Sure did,” he said.

But she wasn’t convinced. He’d brought enough for two. She’d assumed he was diving in when she was, until she suddenly glanced up and noticed that he was mounding his food on her plate. “I never eat this much. You must think I’m a greedy pig.”

“Yeah. I’ve always admired greed in a woman. Always admired meanness, too, and you’ve got an unusually mean streak. I was watching how you treated those two kids who work for you. They both think you’re a goddess.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Are you kidding? I’m in awe, chére.” When she finally finished enough to please him, he reopened the bag and emerged with more goodies. “Almond cookies. And there’s a little more raspberry iced tea. Although I only bought a few cookies. I had no idea you were going to need three or four dozen just to fill you up on a first round.”

The darn man was so comfortable and fun to be with that she had to laugh…but then, of course, reality caught up with her. She couldn’t be feeling comfortable. Not here.

It wasn’t that she never came out to this stretch of the farm. She’d planted the twenty acres of lavender over the past few years, after all. Still, she avoided this view if she could help it. She wasn’t the one who’d tended it-her younger sister Camille had, when she’d come home early in the spring, yelling the whole time about how crazy Violet had become to neglect anything like this.

And the craziness was true. Obviously, she knew she was coming out here with Cameron; they had to get the harvest business settled. But for whole long stretches of time, she forgot how traumatically symbolic the lavender was for her.

A knot filled her throat as she gazed at the stretching, rolling sweep of lavender. Until Camille had come home, the long rows of lavender bushes had been an unkempt, overgrown thatchy mess. They still weren’t perfect, yet Violet-who had always nurtured and mothered everything and everyone-had thrown these plants in the ground and just left them.

Cameron suddenly said quietly, “Tell me what you originally planned to do with this?”

His voice was gentle, serious, nonjudgmental, but she couldn’t speak for the lump in her throat-not for that moment.

The smell of lavender saturated the warm summer air. The buds were just barely coming on, because all the strains she’d put in were late types. Buds would keep coming from now through August, and by late summer the smell would be unbearable, invading everything, impossible to escape from-not that anyone would want to.

The plants were pale purple, soft in the evening light, and that first blush of bud smell was like nothing else-not at all heavy, but immeasurably light, a scent that was forever fresh and frisky and clean. There was nothing quite like it. No other flower, no other herb, had a scent even remotely related to lavender.

“Violet?”

When he prompted her, she motioned to the field without looking at him. “Our mom-her name was Margaux-always had lavender growing in the backyard. She’s the one who taught me what I know. There are all kinds of lavender, but basically most strains fall in one of two camps. ‘Hardy lavender’ is what a lot of people call English lavender, even though it’s not from England. And the ‘tender lavenders’ tend to grow around France and Spain.”

Cameron leaned back. “Go on.”

“Okay. The thing is…you get the finest oil-as far as perfume-from the hardy lavenders. Which I guess you obviously know, huh?”

“I may know just a little something about that, yeah. But keep talking, anyway. I want to know how you got into this, how you developed this strain.”

There. She was starting to unchoke. Cameron surely knew all this stuff already if he was a chemist, but babbling was one of her best ways of covering up nerves. “Well…I knew from my mom that there are advantages to each type of lavender. The oil wasn’t really my interest, because I already realized you needed some ridiculous amount-like 500 pounds of flowers-to get even ounces of the oil. But some lavenders are stronger in color and scent. Some are hardier as far as where they can grow.”

She wasn’t going to think about babies. She was just going to keep talking until she got a good grip and could look at Cameron with a smile again. “Anyway, after the divorce, I had time on my hands. And Daisy happened to send me some interesting strains of lavender, so then, for fun, I just started setting up some experiments in the greenhouse. I brought in some of my mom’s favorite strains from her garden, then started collecting others from around the country. What I wanted to do was just…play…see if I could blend the best qualities of all my favorites.”

“For what reason?” Cameron asked.

“Just for fun. Just to see if I could do it, if I could produce a lavender where the scent stayed truer than all the other types. I always loved puttering with plants, you know? And-” She stopped.

She was lying to him. Images spilled through her mind, mental pictures of the man she’d once married and believed was the love of her life. She’d learned everything she knew about sex from Simpson-particularly all the wrong things. Things like how guys needed to get off or they suffered. Things like how guys couldn’t wait. Things like Real Women climaxed with no problem unless they were inhibited. Also, Real Women got pregnant as long as the guy was virile, and Simpson’s sperm-he’d had that checked-were damn good swimmers.

She was the one with the skinny tubes.

“Violet, what’s wrong?” Cameron asked quietly.

She stared at the field until her eyes started to clear. “After the divorce…I just wanted to grow things. Reproduce things. Everybody thought I was crazy to let this field get so out of control. They were all right. But the truth, Cam, is that I didn’t care if it was out of control.”

“All right,” he said.

“It was mine to love or lose. If I lost it, if I never made a dime, I didn’t care. I don’t need money from it. I can afford the loss. I don’t really give a damn if anyone thinks I’m crazy or not.”

“Hey,” he said gently.

Tell him, her heart said. Just tell him. Then it’s out on the table. You’ll know if it’s important to him or not.

But she knew it wasn’t that simple. Cameron might have an already grown family; he might not want kids. But a lot of men thought a woman was less than a complete woman-less sexual, less feminine-if she was infertile.

“I just wanted to grow something. Of my own. I wanted to make something out of land that had been barren, because this slope was rocky and nothing ever grew well here before. So it was the challenge. To create something that hadn’t existed before. It wasn’t about making money. It was just about-”

“Whoa,” Cameron whispered, and as if he had some cockamamie idea that he was dealing with a fragile woman on the verge of a big, noisy, crying jag, he swooped her into his arms.