The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [8]
“Yow!” Dina turned quickly to lower the volume.
“William, my friend, I can see we are going to have to have a little talk,” she muttered under her breath as she searched for her favorite soft rock station.
William Flannery, the young high school student Dina’d hired to take care of the odd jobs she often couldn’t get to, had a penchant for loud music, fast cars, and Kelly, the pretty young blonde who helped out in Dina’s shop on weekends during the busy spring through early fall seasons. He’d hung around so much last summer that Dina had ended up putting him to work.
If only his taste in music were a little more tolerable.
Dina tucked a long strand of black hair into the makeshift bun at the nape of her neck and leaned over one of the flats of annuals she’d planted the previous Sunday. The first little spikes of green had just pushed their way from the soil, and the sight of those thin featherlike leaves brought a smile to her lips. Growing all of her own nursery stock gave her total control over color and type, texture and fragrance, and ensured that she’d be able to meet the needs of her landscape and garden design customers. Already three shelves of heirloom plants—salvia, larkspur, dame’s rocket, columbine, and poppies—had germinated, plants that were indispensable to the old-fashioned cutting gardens so in demand these days.
At thirty, Dina was the owner of Garden Gates, specializing in re-creating and restoring eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gardens. Such projects having been scarce those first few years, she’d focused her energies on building up her greenhouse and retail efforts. The business had grown solidly, and as time went on she’d managed to snag a few of those landscaping plums as gentrification sought out one after another of the small towns near Henderson, her home on the upper end of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Over the past year, Dina had been tapped for the private restorations of several historic homes since building her reputation on the renovation of Ivy House, a local property that had been bequeathed to Henderson by two elderly sisters, longtime residents of the town. Dina also wrote an occasional column on heirloom plants for the local newspaper and served as the gardening consultant for the local television station. All in all, Dina was doing just fine.
“Pretty damned fine, if I do say so myself,” she reminded herself as she debated on whether or not to plant another flat of hollyhocks, recalling that last year the double yellows, reds, and pinks had sold out of the greenhouse by the beginning of June. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to re-create their grandmother’s garden.
And Dina’s business was booming.
From a drawer in the center of one of the worktables she pulled out a pad of paper and began to sketch a flower bed she’d been contracted to design for a family who’d recently purchased one of those new executive-style homes that were being built out on Landers Road—McMansions, as the locals referred to the overly large homes on the postage stamp–sized lots— and lost herself in a dream of midsummer color. That’s what the owners had wanted. Lots and lots of color . . .
“Garden Gates,” Dina said as she lifted the ringing phone from its base on the small desk behind her.
“Hi, sweetie,” Jude McDermott greeted her daughter.
“Oh, hi, Mom. You’re home from work already?”
“Already?” Jude laughed. “It’s almost six. Actually, I’m running a bit late today.”
Dina frowned and looked out through the glass walls. Sure enough, while she’d been picking through plastic bags and vials and envelopes filled with seeds and plotting out beds of summer annuals the last bit of afternoon had slipped away and the sun had set, and now her stomach took the opportunity to remind her she hadn’t eaten since eleven o’clock that morning.
“I didn’t realize how late it was,” Dina said. “I have a meeting at borough hall tonight with the volunteers for the new memorial park project.”
“What time?”
“Eight. But I’m hoping to get there