Читать книгу Wild Man Creek - Робин Карр, Robyn Carr - Страница 9

Jillian talked Jack out of what remained of that opened Chardonnay and took it home along with some of Preacher’s wonderful meat loaf, garlic mashed, green beans, bread, a small container of tomato gravy and a slice of chocolate cake. She ate the cake first with another glass of Chardonnay while browsing online, researching seeds and plants. Damn if Dan Brady wasn’t right! Specialty seed catalogues by the dozens! Of course she had no idea how authentic the seeds were or how the finished fruit or vegetables would taste, but this was the first step—seeds were available. And while they were slightly more expensive than ordinary garden shop seeds, they were still priced low.

That night, after talking with Dan, was the first of many such nights. Jillian, like Hope McCrea before her, lived in the kitchen with the fireplace, her computer and desk. From her recliner she could eat on a tray, surf the Net and see that vast garden through the kitchen windows.

That first night, though, she was up almost all night, researching, shopping, ordering, reading gardening blogs. She finally nodded off in the recliner at about 4:00 a.m. only to wake at around six, before the sun. Taking a closer look Jill realized there would be no sun this morning—it was drizzling. Perfect! she thought. She had important errands.

The best part about this climate was that the drizzle didn’t stop her from working in the garden, and there was seldom a heavy, driving rain. But it was so deliciously wet, it would quench the thirst of a garden so well!

Denny arrived at seven-forty-five, and she loved that he was early and ready to work. Jillian was also ready to roll. He came to the front door and she invited him in; she took him through the empty living room, dining room and into the kitchen. “Want a cup of coffee for the road?” she asked.

“Sure. Thanks. Where are we going?”

“First, to get a truck. I need a truck to carry supplies too large for my Hybrid. How do you take your coffee?”

When he didn’t answer immediately, she looked up to see him staring at her living quarters. Her quilt was draped in the recliner, there was a tray for eating there, a pillow for sleeping, a newly purchased small TV, computer, necessities. “Denny?” she said.

He looked back at her. Although he frowned in some confusion she couldn’t help but notice he was a tall, handsome youth. He had short-cropped hair, expressive brown brows over deep chocolate eyes. Eyes that were showing concern at the moment. “I hope you have a bed somewhere, Miss Matlock. That doesn’t look real comfortable.”

“Are you kidding? It’s fantastic! I don’t think I’ve ever been more comfortable. And it’s probably better for my back, neck and whatever …. Coffee?”

“Black,” he said. Then he just shook his head and she laughed.

By noon they had a truck—an ’02 Ford with a nice big bed. They had gone to the fencing company together to order chain-link fencing for her big garden. They loaded up the posts in the truck bed, but the rest of the chain link would be delivered in a couple of days. She sent Denny off in the truck to take care of renting equipment, a crew or both to take down some trees and grade a level passage to the back meadow. While they were off doing chores in separate vehicles, she went about the business of buying some garden supplies. She had found a company online that would test her soil for chemicals and bought the appropriate containers for shipping. Hopefully, there had been no pesticides in that dirt for many, many years. She needed to know the pH, which nutrients were present or missing, all the sort of thing the company promised to provide.

She visited more than one lawn and garden store and asked about pure poultry manure fertilizer for organic gardening and was rather surprised by the smiles and lifted eyebrows. “I’m growing tomatoes, not marijuana,” she informed the clerks who helped her.

“Some do,” was the response.

When she found a good price, she bought several large bags and had them held to be picked up by Denny in the truck. She bought a gas-powered tiller and put it in the back of her Lexus along with a gas can she could fill up on the way home.

Before heading back to the Victorian, she stopped off at Jack’s Bar. As she entered, he came out of the back. “Well, there’s my landlord,” she greeted, smiling at him. “I have a couple of things to run by you.”

“Something to drink while you run?” he asked.

“Cola?”

“Coming up.”

“I think you should come out to the house when you have time. I’d like you to come up to the widow’s walk with me so we can see a lot of the acreage. You know how the drive to the house runs up the road and forks at the southeastern corner in front? Part of the drive curves to the left in front of the house and the other part goes straight along the eastern side of the house to the back.”

“It always seemed like that was the obvious place for a freestanding garage, behind the house,” Jack said.

“It’s just a gravel drive, so I was wondering something. If I extended it through the trees for access to the back meadow, would you go along with that idea?”

“Good idea,” he said. “But I’m sorry to say, I don’t think it would be responsible for me to invest any more in that house. That’s something an owner should do. Someday.”

“Well, here’s what I’m offering,” Jill said. “I want to put a couple of portable greenhouses back in that meadow, a sheltered place to start some plants. I’m going to fence the plot behind the house to keep the wildlife out, but I’m going to use that back meadow for the greenhouses. I found them online for a few hundred dollars each and they’re easily movable.”

He leaned both hands on the bar and looked at her closely, quizzically. “Jillian, aren’t you taking this gardening thing a bit far?”

“Oh, definitely. To the next level. I want to try some special fruits and vegetables back there. Denny’s out getting estimates on excavation crews and the cost of leasing equipment. I’m not talking an asphalt drive, but more of a wide path, wide enough to accommodate one vehicle and, of course, I’ll cover the cost. It’s really not going to be that expensive—we won’t have to take out more than ten trees. In fact, getting some gravel to match what’s already down on the drive will probably be the most expensive part.”

“Um, Jillian, have you considered going a little slower? A little smaller? I mean, what you’re really doing is experimenting, and it seems like an awful big, expensive experiment.”

She smiled. “I’ve been told I can be impulsive, but it usually works for me to go with my gut instinct. Of course, I’ll be leaving the extended road when my lease is up, so it should improve the property. For right now, that’s what I need to be able to access that meadow. Oh, and thank you for Denny—bright kid. I like him. He thinks I’m a little nuts, but he’s awful cute, totally polite and he does exactly what I ask him to do. So—will you come out to the house, look over my plans and give me your approval?”

“I’ll come out after breakfast is done,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

“Great!” she said, slapping the bar.

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Jillian, where did all this come from?”

“From my great-grandmother,” she said, taking a sip of her cola. “When she was teaching us to garden, cook, read, clean, sew, she said she was preparing us for life. Well, life has changed a lot in the years since she was my age, but somehow the lessons haven’t really changed. They’ve evolved. And I want to be part of that.”

Jillian went home and was scooping dirt from several different sections of the garden into small plastic cups with lids and labeling them when Denny returned and came over to report on his activities and progress.

“There is not a lot of work around these days so I was able to have a tree crew come out first thing tomorrow to give you a final estimate,” he said. “I hope that works for you. It’ll take them two days to cut through those trees. I found a guy who can grade the area and level it out. You can worry about the gravel after that. And I rented a posthole auger so I can get started on the fencing in the meantime.”

She smiled very happily at his business sense. “Perfect,” she said, sitting back on her heels in the dirt. “Will they come even if it’s kind of wet?”

He gave a nod. “Like I said, not so much work around these days. I think I got you a good price because of that. And you get a discount if you let them have the trees. They’ll process it into usable lumber.”

“Seriously?” she asked, standing up.

“Not huge, but still …”

“Did you shop around a little bit?”

“Three businesses,” he said with a nod. “They were pretty much in line. I went with the one who was available right away.” Then he got a worried look. “Was that all right? That I made a decision? And rented the post digger?”

“That’s what I expected you to do, get it done,” she said, balancing all her little containers to take them into the house. “Want to quit for the day or do you want to make a run to FedEx for me? I need to send in the soil samples.”

“I’ll work till you can’t take any more of me,” he said with a grin.

She stopped in her tracks, smiled at him and said, “You’re my kind of guy, Denny.”

“And you’re my kind of boss, Miss Matlock.”

Jillian thought often about the fact that her best friend was her sister and had been since they were toddlers, yet they were complete opposites in almost every way. They didn’t even look alike, Jillian being a tall, slender brunette and Kelly, a shorter, rounder, blonde. Jill’s skin tanned nicely while Kelly’s tended to burn; Jill had always leaned toward academics while Kelly, the chef, was more artistic. And while even Jill could admit she had a tendency to be impetuous, Kelly always cautiously planned every detail of her life.

Jill had always relied heavily on Kelly, who had a very nurturing personality. When Jill was twelve and started her period, it was Kelly who showed her the ropes. And whenever Jill’s heart was broken, whether it be by a boy or just a disappointment, it was Kelly, the more steady of the two of them, who propped her up and encouraged her.

Even while she was in Virgin River, busy with her new garden, Jillian talked to Kelly every day, usually right before Kelly went to work in the afternoon. She liked to climb up to the roof and sit on the widow’s walk where her cell reception was best and talk to Kelly, filling her in on her growing plans by the day. By the end of her third week she told Kelly, “There’s a bunch of construction equipment parked by the side of the house, a big stack of tree trunks waiting for a flatbed and the road to the back meadow is almost finished. The fencing finally arrived and Denny is working on the posts. Two ten-by-twelve-foot greenhouses are on the way and I’ve started to till the soil where they’re going to be positioned. I can plant both in the ground and in starter trays under the protective domes. It’s going to be a two-tiered operation.

“And,” Jillian went on, “I put my town house in San Jose on the market.”

“You did what?” Kelly nearly shrieked.

“I sent the key to my agent by FedEx along with a personal check for a cleaning crew to get it all cleaned up and spiffy. I realized I’m done with that place, Kell,” she said. “I’m not attached to it.”

“But are you staying there—in Virgin River? Is that the new plan?”

“Honestly? I don’t know.”

“But what if Harry calls you and asks you to come back to BSS?” Kelly asked.

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. For right now, I’m enjoying myself here. I don’t know when I’ve had more fun.”

“But Jill, don’t you have a plan?”

“Sort of. I want to garden through the summer. I have to see what I can grow. If I had to give up and leave now, it would break my heart! Besides, even if I ended up back in San Jose in the fall, I’d want to rent something for a while. When I think about that town house, I realize it just doesn’t feel like home. This feels more like home at the moment, and it’s not really even the house, but more the property.”

“But are you relaxing?” Kelly asked. “Taking stock of your life? Thinking about what’s next?”

Jillian laughed. “In much the same way people relax by running marathons,” she said. “I’m busy all day, researching gardens on the computer till late at night.”

“And just how do you propose to make a living?” Kelly, the practical one, asked.

“Thanks to ten good years at BSS, a nice exit package and a clever financial planner, I don’t have to worry about that right now. But I’ve been thinking about selling vegetables.”

“That sounds profitable,” Kelly said facetiously. “I was thinking something a little more long-term.”

Jillian just laughed at her. “Jealous?”

“Green!” Kelly said. They both knew that in spite of the fact that Jill was known to jump into the deep end of the pool and Kelly thought everything through with relentless planning, Jill had made a ton of money from BSS and Kelly was a relatively poor sous-chef.

“I’m thinking of selling fancy high-end fruits and veggies, the kind your restaurant and other five-star restaurants would buy. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Right now all I want to know is if I can grow them—then I’ll think about the next step.”

“I’d better come up there,” Kelly said. “I think you’ve lost your mind ….”

Jill laughed. “It’s just the opposite, Kell. I feel like I suddenly found it! You know, when was the last time I was this excited? Probably when Harry offered me a chance to work with him to start BSS! I didn’t know anything about the software industry, but I knew I could do it! And this? Kelly, I know about this! Nana taught us in her own garden how to grow some of this stuff. The Russian Rose! White asparagus! Purple Calabash! And I found the seeds. I already have the seedling cups ready. I bought a truckbed full of chicken shit!”

“An asparagus bed takes up to three years …”

“Then I’d better get it started,” Jillian said.

“Aren’t you spending an awful lot of money?”

“Nah. My biggest expense right now is Denny, my new assistant. But he’s such a great guy and good worker he’s helping me speed up this whole process, so he’s worth every cent.”

“You could run into areas you don’t understand, like permits, licensing, agricultural restrictions, that sort of thing. I’d never buy exotic, organic fruits or vegetables from a grower who hadn’t passed all the agricultural inspections.”

“Kelly, lighten up. No one knows how to hire a consultant like I do—I’ve done it a hundred times in an industry I didn’t understand nearly as well as I do this one. Can’t you be a little more positive?”

“Maybe when I stop shaking …”

“Oh, brother. I’d better get this up and running before you buy your own restaurant. You’ll go through so many lists and checkpoints, the place will never open. You’ll never get it open without me.”

“Seriously, I might have to come up there, make sure you’re not totally crazy.”

“You’re certainly welcome, but you’ll have to bring your own recliner.”

Colin parked his Jeep near the turnoff into Jill’s driveway so the motor wouldn’t frighten off early morning wildlife. He walked up the drive and before getting far he noticed a few things. The drive was a muddy mess for one thing, marked with the tire tracks of large equipment. As he neared the house he saw there was a forklift, wood chipper and a little Bobcat backhoe all parked in a row along the tree line east of the house. As he walked around the house he saw a wide path had been cut through the copse of trees to the back meadow, all the huge, felled trees stacked and ready to be taken away.

“Morning,” she said.

He whirled around in surprise to see Jillian sitting on the back porch steps wearing purple furry slippers, draped in a quilt and holding a steaming cup of coffee in both hands. It wasn’t even 6:00 a.m.

“Morning. What’s going on here?”

“A little excavation. I needed access to that back meadow. And we’ve just about got the garden fenced. I’m afraid we scared off the wildlife for the time being, but I’m sure they’ll be back when things quiet down.”

“Are things going to quiet down?”

“Sure. Gardening is a serene occupation. But for now there’s been some noise. I’m putting up a couple of greenhouses back there behind the trees. Everything should be finished in a week, unless Denny can’t figure out how to erect the greenhouses. If we have to get more help, it could take longer. Want a cup of coffee, since you’ve come all this way?”

He held his camera out to the side, glancing at it. Useless now, he thought. “Sure.”

“I’ll get it for you and bring it out. There’s no place to sit in the house. How do you take it?”

“A little cream.”

“Will two percent milk do?” she asked.

He gave her a slight smile. “Yeah. That’ll work fine.”

She pulled the quilt around her and shuffled into the house, into the kitchen. She poured and dressed his coffee.

“There’s no furniture in here,” he said from behind her. He had followed her inside.

She turned around while stirring. “Sure there is. I have a recliner and all my important stuff—computer, printer, TV. I had to ask Jack to throw a stovetop and refrigerator in here, even though I’m sure the eventual owner will want custom stuff that actually fits the space the builder provided. There’s room for lots of large, high-end kitchen appliances—stuff with all the bells and whistles. I just needed the occasional flame and a small refrigerator. I mostly use the microwave.”

“Do you have a bed somewhere?”

“Is that important? I’m very comfortable in the recliner and, since I’m not expecting any company it’ll do just fine for now … unless my sister comes to be sure I haven’t completely lost my mind.” She smiled and said, “I told her she’d have to bring her own recliner.”

He reached for the coffee. “Why is she worried about that? Because you’re living in the kitchen and are planting the back forty?”

Jill chuckled. “You have no idea how perfect this is. When I turn out the lights and the TV I can see the stars from that chair. If it’s clear, that is. And it’s going to be clear a lot more often in summer. I stand guard, trying to train the deer and bunnies to move along to the next farm. In the early morning, just as the mist and fog are lifting, I can watch the land come to life. I don’t usually go outside before seven, but it was such a nice morning today. Actually, I half expected you to show up.”

He sipped his coffee. “Where are your clothes?”

She pulled the quilt around her. Her hair was still mussed from sleep and her cheeks kind of rosy and he wanted to pull her into his arms for just a little touch. A little taste. “I’ll get dressed in a while,” she said.

“No,” he said with a laugh. “Your wardrobe. Your luggage. You obviously don’t keep them in the kitchen.”

“Oh, that—there’s a closet in that bedroom—one of two closets in the whole house. Maid’s quarters, we think.”

“Ah,” he said. “So, I guess this means you’re going full speed ahead?”

“With the growing? Oh, yes. I’m so charged up I can hardly sleep at night. Want to go outside? Sit on the porch? I mean, there could be a totally crazy deer out there that hasn’t been completely intimidated by the excavation noise.”

“Sure,” he said. “And you can tell me about your greatest expectation for this exercise.”

“I think,” she said as they went back out the door, “that I’m trying my hand at becoming a commercial farmer. I don’t know if it’ll work until I know if I can grow the stuff, but I could farm exotic, rare, heirloom fruits and vegetables. The kind that are hard to produce. I would sell them to high-end restaurants that are looking for new and unique, fabulous foods.”

He sipped again. “Going to buy a fleet of trucks to deliver them to big cities?”

She laughed. “Nope. Going to call UPS or FedEx and send them overnight. They’re delicate—none of them have a long shelf life. And they’re not used in mass quantities, usually as side dishes or garnishes.”

“How do you make money doing that?”

She shrugged. “You become the best, with the best marketing campaign. And, of course, you start small and regionally. I’ve already identified target cities with five-star restaurants. I wouldn’t ship to New York—it’s too far. But shipping to Portland, Sun Valley, Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco and the surrounding areas would not be a problem.”

He chuckled. “I have to admit, it’s gutsy and it actually sounds reasonable.”

“It’s completely reasonable! There is one ‘x’ factor … and that’s whether I can grow these rare, old seeds. I bought product from several different seed companies and I’ll check them out. My great-grandmother canned some, sold some fresh off the porch—we had a hard time getting by back then and she had lots of ways to supplement her income. This is a whole different story. If it works, buyers will order ahead of season, so I have to know I can deliver. It’ll take me six to eighteen months to figure that out.”

“But how long are you renting …?”

“Through summer. But things like moves and leases can be worked out. The one thing I can’t control is whether or not I can grow the stuff.”

“So, you’ll have fruit trees, too?” he asked.

“No trees,” she said, shaking her head. “There are a few apple trees on the property, but I’m not planting trees …”

“But you said fruits …”

“Tomatoes, tomatillo, melons, et cetera—are all considered fruits.” She smiled.

He felt a little pang of something. A jolt of some kind. She was awful cute. Incredibly smart and very cute.

Colin was a little startled. Cute was not in his vernacular. He felt those sizzling jolts when he was with women he would describe as hot or sexy or edible, but he had never before felt a single nerve-tingle for cute. He was too jaded for that. He reasoned this was probably only because he hadn’t been with a woman for so long and, further, because he assumed he probably wouldn’t be again, at least not for a very long time. And certainly not this one—although she was smart as a whip, she was too “girl next door.” He was attracted to women in low-cut tops with generous cleavages, microscopic skirts and four-inch heels. The kind of women you wouldn’t want your mother to meet.

“Is the eagle painting done?” she asked him.

“Done? Oh, no,” he said. “That won’t be done for a while. Maybe another few weeks.”

“Wow. Don’t you get bored, spending so much time on one painting?”

“I have several going at one time. I keep going back, improving, changing, fixing, getting them right. It’s hard to know when it’s really done. And sometimes when you think they’re finished, they’re not. More often, when you think they’re not finished, they really are. Sometimes knowing when to stop is more important than knowing when to keep working on it.”

“And then you sell them?”

He shook his head. “Haven’t ever sold one.”

She sat up straighter and her quilt slipped off one shoulder exposing her striped pajamas. They were almost little-girl pajamas. “Never sold one? How do you make a living?”

Again he chuckled. “I’m independently wealthy.”

“How nice for you. Do you plan to ever sell any or are you doing this for fun?”

“Right now painting them is more important than selling them,” he said.

“What kind of market is there for a … an eagle?”

He smiled at her. Straight to the point, wasn’t she?

“Huge,” he said. “I didn’t realize that when I got hooked on animals. Wild animals, not kittens or puppies. I liked them better than bowls of fruit ….”

She got a teasing grin on her face. “Better than nudes?”

He matched her grin. “I’ve never painted any nudes.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Was that an offer?”

She burst out laughing and he found the sound was perfectly charming. Charming? Yet another word Colin had never used before, but it suited her. And son of a bitch if it didn’t charm him!

“Oh, believe me, you can do way better than me! Maybe I could strip, wear my garden gloves, straw hat and rubber boots—that should get you a big Playboy commission!” And she laughed some more while he got an irresistible image in his head that he wanted to paint. “But seriously, who buys paintings of animals?”

“Wildlife art,” he said. “Look it up on Google sometime. It surprised the hell out of me.”

“So,” she said, sipping the coffee, “you’ve been at this for a while?”

What the hell, he thought. Everyone else probably knew, given his brother lived here. “I was in the Army. I was a pilot and crashed in a helicopter. I broke a bunch of bones, got some burns, was in therapy for six months trying to get back on my feet, and I painted.” He shrugged. “I’ve always done some drawing and painting, but it kinda looks like this is how I’m going to spend my time, at least for now. The Army retired me. So,” he said with a nod of his chin, “I’m trying to get good.”

“Oh,” she said, serious. “Sorry about the crash. You all right now?”

“Getting there. I get a little stiff and sore, but otherwise, pretty good.”

“And you’re here because …?”

“Because my brother is here and there’s also an abundance of wildlife. I have another brother in Chico, but no deer or fox or eagles around his house. I rented a cabin till hunting season opens in September. I should be ready to hit the road by then. Meantime, I can paint. My cabin is in a valley by a stream, very isolated. I’m already getting some good pictures of animals there.”

She sat up a little straighter. “What happens when hunting season starts?”

“I’ll be moving on. Oh, I’m sure I’ll visit sometimes. But before I decide where I’ll live next I’m planning to spend six months in Africa. The Serengeti. Maybe even head over to the Amazon.”

“Big game,” she said. Her eyes gently closed and he wondered if she could be visualizing it in her head the way he was—large canvases of elephants, lions, tigers, wildebeests ….

“Big game for me—tiny, weird little vegetables for you. How do you think we’re going to do?”

“I don’t know how you’re going to do, Colin, but I’m going to kick some ass. I’m a marketing and public relations expert and I was taught to grow by the best—my nana. She could throw a diamond in the ground and grow a diamond vine.” She grinned. “You don’t know me but, trust me, I haven’t been this excited in a long, long time.”