Christmas at Rose Hill Farm (4 page)

“If the bloom were open, I could tell more about it. But there are some distinctions about it that are rather unusual.” Billy
peered at the veining on a leaf. “Are either of you familiar with the term ‘a found rose'?”

Jonah and Bess exchanged a look, then shook their heads.

“It's a rose with an unknown identity. It's thought to be extinct, but then one or another will turn up in an old cemetery. Or someone's backyard. They're usually sturdy roses on old rootstock, brought over by European immigrants, who shared clips with their descendants. They're not hybrids—modern roses didn't start until the nineteenth century.”

Bess listened carefully. “I read about such a rose on Alcatraz Island.”

Billy tilted his head at her, not hiding his surprise. “Yes. Yes, that's exactly right. The Bardou Job. A Welsh rose.” His eyes met hers and he nearly became lost in her blue, blue eyes.

Jonah seemed surprised. “Where is it? Where's this Alcatraz?”

Billy forced himself to look away from those searching eyes of Bess. “It used to be a federal prison in San Francisco Bay. On an island.”

Amused, Jonah said, “What do you suppose a rose was doing at a federal prison?”

“Actually, there was more than one rose at Alcatraz. The head warden was a rosarian. After the prison was closed down, the Heritage Rose Group was inventorying the roses and discovered an heirloom Welsh rose. The Bardou Job. It had been thought to be extinct.”

“And you think this rose could be a ‘found'?” Bess said, taking a step closer to the rose.

She was standing so close that he caught a whiff of the rose soap she used. Even now, years later, he associated that faint scent with Bess. He backed away so there was more space between them. No whiffs of rose soap. He needed every inch of distance. “Possibly. And if so, a found rose can be extremely valuable. Both to the scientific community and also on the com
mercial market. You should keep this quiet until the rose can be identified.”

“If it's about money . . .”

“It's not just the money, Jonah. You know how crazy people can be about roses. They're like bird-watchers on the hunt for a rare bird. Even on Alcatraz Island, the Rose Society brings out tours each year when the Bardou Job is in bloom. You'll have people climbing onto your property in the middle of the night with a pair of clippers in one hand and a plastic sandwich bag in the other to hold the slips. You'll wake up one morning and find this plant sheared down to a stump. That's if it doesn't get stolen first. Most rose rustlers are polite, but some aren't. You should lock up the greenhouse when you're not in it.”

“Does a ‘found' get discovered very often?” Jonah said.

Billy gave up a half laugh. “No. I'm still waiting for my first found.”

Bess glanced up and smiled. “I thought the job of a rose rustler was to find extinct roses.”

He made himself look away from her intoxicating smile, lifting his eyes to notice the ventilating windows of the greenhouse. “Rose rustlers go after old roses—thought to be extinct commercially, but they're rarely truly extinct. I've never come across one that can't be identified.”

Bess still kept one hand lovingly on the pot. “And you really think this rose is a found?”

“I don't know. Probably not. But . . . I'd like to check it out.” And as Billy voiced that thought aloud, his heart fell. This morning wasn't turning out at all like he had planned. He had known it would be difficult to be in Stoney Ridge, to see Jonah again, but he was sure Jonah wouldn't put any pressure on him to stay, or worse, to see his father. He had assumed he'd come out to Rose Hill Farm this morning, identify the rose, and get back to College Station. In, out, job done. That's the way it usually worked.

But it was Bess at the bus stop, not Jonah. And then there was
this
rose. This mysterious, unidentifiable rose.

Knowing Bertha Riehl as he did, this rose would have an interesting history. It might be a found, or it might be a variant of a known species. But if there was a chance that this rose was extinct, a true found, it would require repeated trips back and forth from College Station to Stoney Ridge to confirm it. Meticulous by nature, Billy would spend more time at Rose Hill Farm than he expected—or wanted to. “I'll need to photograph it, draw some pictures, check the database back at the university, and compare it to other known varieties. Talk to the heads of a few Rose Societies. They're a wealth of information. If it's a found, Rose Hill Farm will be in a sweet spot. It will be a highly desirable rose.”

Jonah lifted his dark eyebrows, crossed his arms over his chest. “I only wanted to identify the rose so we could propagate it and add it to our inventory. That's all.”

When Billy saw the hesitation on Jonah's face, he added, “A rose like this should be shared. You just need to do it the right way. Keep it quiet until I can identify it.”

Jonah glanced at Bess. “Maybe I should run this by the bishop.”

“Who's the bishop now?”

“Same one,” Bess said quietly. “Caleb Zook.”

Billy winced. Same one as when he left, she meant. His last conversation with the bishop had been a painful one. He cast a glance at Bess. “How's Maggie?”

“She's fine. Hasn't changed a bit.”

Jonah added, “I'm sure she'd like to see you.”

Billy stiffened up. “I've got to get back to work.” He pulled his camera out of his backpack. He ripped open the foil wrapper of a new roll of film and inserted it into the camera, then rolled the film into place. He shot pictures from every angle,
used up the entire roll of thirty-six pictures, took out another new roll, and took thirty-six more. As he photographed the rose, Jonah and Bess moved away to let him work uninterrupted. He set down the camera and picked up his sketch pad to scribble down some characteristics he'd noted, to study it further back at College Station. By this time Jonah had quietly excused himself and left the greenhouse. Bess remained, and he wished she would leave him alone.

He wished everyone would just leave him alone.

Bess studied Billy awhile as he stood in front of the rose. Clenched jaw, arms crossed over his chest, staring at the rose as if it were about to sprout wings and fly away. She wondered how many miles he'd drifted over the last few years, how many roses he'd rustled during his exile, how long it would take him to lose that distance he maintained so carefully. Once or twice, she saw a crack in it, but then he would roll up like a possum.

She tried to think of something to say to Billy, but couldn't. Being so close to him was making it hard to speak. She watched him photograph the rose, captivated by the sight he made as he leaned to the task. How wide his shoulders, how spare his movements, how capable his muscles. She watched him walk around the workbench to peer at the rose from different angles, noticing for the first time in her life how much narrower a man's hips were than a woman's, how powerful a man's hands could be, how beguiling. Her eyes were drawn to those hands, wider than she remembered, and certainly far stronger.

He put down his camera and took a sketch pad out of his backpack, paused to study the rose, then began to sketch it. As he concentrated, she was able to get a leisurely gander at his face. It was long and lean, like the rest of him. His mouth was straight and firm, unsmiling. With his chin tilted, his jaw had
the crisp angle of a boomerang. His lips were slightly parted as he squinted skyward, his eyelashes seemed long as the corn stubble, sooty, throwing spiky shadows across his cheek.

She used to love the crinkles at the sides of his eyes, as if he couldn't help but smile, even if it were just in his eyes. So far, he kept his hat brim pulled low as if to protect any secret she might read in his eyes. He was working hard to keep expression out of those eyes. Same with his voice; it was respectful to her father and Lainey, but flat. And with her, slightly irritated.

Bess realized she'd been holding her breath as he made his way around the rose, photographing it at different angles, and so she exhaled, clasping her hands together. “A customer asked me a question awhile ago and I wasn't sure I gave her the correct answer.” Her voice shook, then steadied. “She wanted to know if a China rose was an heirloom or a modern rose.”

He didn't say anything, and Bess wondered if he'd heard. She sidled a little closer to him. “I told her that modern roses came
from
China roses,” she said, raising her voice. “I think that was the right answer.”

Billy froze. He tilted his head at her like a barn owl, then shook it as if he were very sorry for her, and she had to bite her lip to keep from grinning. How many times had he given her that same look when she was just learning about roses? More times than she could count.

“China roses were the first significant hybrids,” he proceeded to inform her in his best lecturing tone. “Europeans crossbred their roses with China roses and were able to get repeat bloomers. Before that, roses bloomed only once a year. But repeat blooming wasn't the only reason they were hybridized. The Europeans hadn't seen the bright crimson color before. In nature, true red is a rare color to find in flowering plants, even among roses.”

Lecture over, he turned his attention back to his work and
she searched her mind for something else. Anything to keep him talking.

“So the Chinese loved roses before the Europeans did?”

“Before?” He hesitated. “Not sure about that. The world's oldest roses go back thousands and thousands of years. And loved is the wrong word. The Romans used the petals as confetti. The Chinese used the roses for cures and remedies. Rosehips are a source of Vitamin C.”

Bess didn't mind hearing him tell her facts she already knew—she was that eager to hear his voice.

“The Chinese fed their children rosehip tea long before anyone else did. But they didn't have the same admiration for rose flowers as the Europeans did. European royalty used roses as legal tender.”

She nearly sighed in admiration. She wondered how a man could know so much.

Then, suddenly, as if Billy realized he was slipping back into an old, comfortable role with Bess, a coldness came over him. “Look, I'm not here to give you a lesson in basic rose tending,” he said brusquely. “Unless you know something about
this
rose, I need to concentrate.”

Bess blinked and took a step back as if she'd been slapped. Her cheeks burned and she tried to will them to cool. She busied herself with deadheading some of the flowering roses. Billy had certainly changed in more ways than the obvious physical ones. He had hardened into manhood. Yet he was stunted somehow, Bess thought. Like a crop that had suffered an unexpected frost.

She watched his head, hat firmly in place, bent over the potted rose and its deep green leaves, its one lone rosebud. Unless you know something about
this
rose, he'd said . . . and she was suddenly transported to another time.

———

Mid-November 1969
, a crisp autumn afternoon. Billy was peering at a leafless rosebush sitting on newspaper on the kitchen table at Rose Hill Farm. “What's so special about this rose?”

Mammi clapped her big hands together. “Now, there's a question that's finally got some sense to it.” She pointed to a large book of botanical prints, resting wide open at the end of the table. “I want you to figure it out.”

Billy examined the picture, then studied the rose. “How do I do that when it has no leaves and no blooms? Not to mention that I know this much—” he pinched his thumb and index finger together—“about roses.”

“Study its traits.”

“It's got big thorns,” Bess said, trying to be helpful.

Billy gave her a look of sheer disgust. “Roses produce prickles, not thorns.”

“Same thing,” Bess said. Billy looked serious as a sermon.

Billy set his lips and shook his head slightly as if she were speaking gibberish. “Not hardly.”

Mammi's attention was on the rosebush. “Better not be a hybrid. Dadgum hybrids have no fragrance at all. They've ruined them.”

“Then why do they make them?” Bess asked in her bravest voice. They didn't hear her, so she asked again. “Why do they make hybrids?”

Billy kept his eyes on the book. “Because they're disease resistant and more cold hardy.”

“Bah!” Mammi said. “The old-fashioneds are the strong ones. They've endured.”

“Hybrids have a broader range of color and form,” Billy said, turning pages in the book.

“Pish.” Mammi dismissed that with a wave of her hand. She didn't think much of how hybrids had tinkered with Mother Nature.

Billy let out a breath and looked at Mammi. He still had barely noticed Bess existed. “Where'd you find that pathetic excuse for a rose?”

Mammi suddenly grabbed a broom and busied herself. “Here or there,” she said, looking aside. She always looked aside when she wasn't telling the exact truth.