The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [24]
“Polly went up to her place around one. She was here for a while, but she was sneezing and coughing a lot so I told her I’d finish up mixing the soil for the stuff you wanted to pot up this week.” William paused, then asked, “Was that okay? I mean, she seemed really sick.”
“No, that was fine. Absolutely. She’s been coming down with that cold for the past few days. Thanks for taking over there.”
“No problem. I like this part of the work, you know? I like the greenhouse and all. Planting up those flats and watching the little shoots come up. It’s cool.”
“William, you have the makings of a fine nursery-man.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“You’re welcome.” She smiled, knowing that his adolescent face had turned scarlet, as it always did when Dina praised his efforts. “I’ll be coming down in a while. If you leave before I get there, just leave the door unlocked.”
“Okay. I’ll probably be heading out after I finish with this mix. Unless you need me for something special.”
“No, you go on whenever you need to. There’s nothing that has to be done this afternoon. Just don’t forget to fill in your hours on the calendar.”
He was a good kid, she thought as she hung up the phone. In spite of his dizzying taste in music, he was an all-around good kid. Hard worker. Honest. Dependable. A quick study. A raise was probably in order, she was thinking as she pulled on waterproof boots to prepare for her short trek to the greenhouse.
Dina stopped in the kitchen to call Polly, then chatted with Erin, who informed her that her mother was napping because she had a cold.
“Don’t wake her, honey,” Dina told her. “Just let her know that I called and that she can get back to me whenever she’s feeling better. It’s nothing important.”
“Okay.”
Dina was smiling to herself as she got a rain jacket out of the closet. Erin was such a sweet child. For the briefest of moments, Dina considered the special tie that held Polly to Erin, mother to daughter, that same tie that connected her to Jude.
Endless circles, Dina reflected as she trod on stepping-stones touched with a silvery glaze where sleet had turned to ice. Mother to child and child to mother, on and on, through time, a certain and necessary continuation. Dina wondered if it was in her cards to one day form a link of that chain with a daughter of her own.
Assuming, she thought wryly, that she’d find that man who could . . . what had she said to her mother? Raise her heart rate? A man who set her pulse racing and brought a smile to her lips and filled her nights with dreams.
He had to be out there somewhere.
She wondered what it was going to take to find him.
CHAPTER SIX
Miles Kendall reminded Simon a bit of his grandfather, who, in spite of his frail physical condition and his own loss of memory, had lived to the ripe old age of eighty-six before succumbing to pneumonia five years ago. Simon had never quite forgiven himself for not making the trip back to Iowa during those last few weeks before his grandfather’s death. The fact that he probably wouldn’t have recognized Simon didn’t matter. He should have made the effort and hadn’t. He’d never ceased to regret it. That regret may have been at the heart of Simon’s decision to pay a second visit to St. Margaret’s.
On his way, Simon stopped at a convenience store where he filled up the Mustang with gas and stocked up on mints. Minutes later, he parked in the lot at the home, locked the car, and headed for the front door, mints in one pocket, his tape recorder in the other.
“You’re back.” June, the nurse’s aide he’d met on his first visit, waved from a concrete bench that was set in a patch of sunlight to the left of the steps.
“I thought I’d stop in for a minute and drop off some mints for Mr. Kendall.”
“That’s nice of you. He’s feeling pretty spunky today.” June closed the book she’d been reading.
“Spunky?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s been talking