Page 66 of Wyoming True

“I’ll have things to keep me busy here,” she replied and was rewarded by a quickly hidden relief in his hard features.

“Sculpting?” he asked after a minute and smiled.

She nodded. “Which reminds me, I have to have my clay and tools.” She sighed. “I have twenty-five-pound bags of special clay.” She put a hand on her hip. “And a ton of potted plants that have to come also, including a banana tree and a lemon tree and...”

“Well, well,” he drawled and chuckled. He got up. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

She followed him slowly down the long hall toward the back of the house. He opened the door, and there was a room, enclosed by glass, a huge room with lit trays that held scores of orchids of all different colors, along with dwarf fruit trees, flowering shrubs, hanging baskets of ferns and philodendrons, even a Norfolk Island pine and a huge bird-of-paradise plant.

“Oh, my goodness,” she stammered, lost for words.

“I like plants,” he said, hands in his pockets as he surveyed the enormous room.

She laughed. “So do I. Mine are mostly flowering plants, but I love orchids and bonsai trees...” She broke off as she spotted a table behind some ferns. Her breath caught. Pots and pots of bonsai trees of all sorts, from jade plants to cypress to miniature weeping willow trees.

“This must have taken you years!” she exclaimed.

“It did. Maude keeps it when I’m out of town. The orchids need a lot of care. They’re misted every day and watered every other day. They don’t like wet feet, so you have to be careful how much water you give them. And they need fertilizer periodically.”

“I’ve always loved orchids. I’ve never been able to grow one, not even a phalaenopsis, and they’re supposed to be foolproof.”

“They need sun-spectrum light,” he said easily. “Thus, the vertical trays with light fixtures.”

She noted the chairs placed around the room. “This would be a lovely place to just come and sit and admire the plants.”

“Which is what I do, when I’m restless or worried,” he replied.

She turned and looked up at him. “You don’t seem to ever get that way.”

He sighed and smiled. “You don’t know me,” he replied. “Not yet.”

She just nodded.

“But you will,” he teased. “How about some more coffee? Then we’d better decide on how to store your furniture and see about getting your piano and your other possessions over here.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ITWASArushed thing, getting all Ida’s things together and moved, and bringing a happy Wolf and Butler home to roam the house, before the Lowells moved into her ranch house. But she and Jake between them managed to do it.

Her furniture had been placed in storage, all except the piano and her bed, which had a special mattress that helped her sleep. Jake had moved the bed and furniture in the biggest of the guest bedrooms into storage with Ida’s things, to make room for her bed and its matching suite of furniture. She also had a huge alpaca rug that went beside her bed on the carpet.

Jake gave it a curious appraisal.

“It’s a comfort thing,” she murmured. “I like the way it feels under my bare feet when I get up in the morning.”

“You’re not allergic to fur?”

She shook her head and smiled. “My mother bought the rug at a mall when I was a little girl. It’s sort of an heirloom. It reminds me of her.”

He understood. “It’s beautiful.”

“I keep it clean,” she said.

He looked around at the white French Provençal furniture that she’d had since her first marriage. The bed had a white plush duvet, and there was a canopy, white and ruffled, along with a skirt around the queen-size mattress. The curtains, Priscillas, matched the frilly bedspread and canopy.

“Very feminine,” he mused.

She laughed. “I suppose it is. We were so poor that I spent my young life coveting a set just like that. My girlfriend, whose parents were well-to-do, had a canopied bed and white furniture. I swore that one day, if I ever had enough money, I’d buy myself a set.”

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