SWEET ANTICIPATION (8 page)

“Oh … uh, sure,” Lauren answered, hoping the relief she felt wasn’t obvious. She pointed to a rack that held the tiny cards and said, “Look at those and pick one out. There should be something suitable there.”

He selected a card, wrote a brief message and signed it, put it in a matching envelope, then handed it to Lauren. “Mother is beginning to think she’ll be the last Mrs. Daniels on our side of the family. My dad has three sisters, but he was the only son and I’m an only child, so you can imagine the pressure on me to carry on the family name.”

Lauren had been watching him, but as he spoke, their eyes met and held for several silent seconds. She could see only truth and a hint of something that looked suspiciously like wistfulness in their smoky depths. So this child that could be his had roots deeper than she had considered. It might have real live grandparents and a great-grandmother who would be completely excluded from its life if Lauren went through with her plans to get sole custody. It was beginning to be difficult enough to deny Jordan what might be his paternal rights, but now there were more people involved.

Was it fair to the child to deny its natural heritage? Did she have the right to make this decision for her baby? Again the conversation had strayed into unsafe territory and Lauren retreated. It had been so much easier to make these judgments when Jordan had been a one-dimensional dragon to be defeated. Now that she was beginning to know more about him and his family, everything was becoming more complicated. And most disturbing was the knowledge that Jordan wasn’t a dragon at all.

Chapter Six

“I don’t know whether to expect June Cleaver or Lily Munster,” Lauren joked as she put the finishing touches on the hanging basket she would be delivering that morning.

“I’d bet on June Cleaver,” Rita said with a laugh. “The woman lives in River Oaks, so she probably wears pearls, even to bed. I’ll be surprised if she isn’t wearing a silk dress and high heels.” .

“Well, I’ll soon find out.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to deliver this to her? It has stopped raining, but the roads are still a little slick.”

“No, I’ll do it. I’ve been stuck inside for the last week and I’m beginning to get cabin fever. It’ll do me good to get out for a while.” Lauren replied.

“And, of course, your curiosity about Jordan’s mother has nothing to do with it.”

“Absolutely not. As far as I’m concerned, she’s just another faceless delivery.” But even as she denied it, Lauren knew she wasn’t being totally honest with either Rita or herself. For the last couple of months she had let Rita take over the majority of deliveries, especially if it meant carrying something heavy or being out in inclement weather. “Okay, okay, so I am just the teensiest bit curious about this woman,” she admitted ruefully. “I’m hoping she will be so snotty and cold that it will take away whatever guilt feelings I might have about depriving her of a grandchild.”

“You probably won’t even get a chance to meet her. She’ll likely be out having her hair done or her diamonds cleaned or whatever it is that the very wealthy do to occupy their time.”

As Lauren drove her bright-pink panel van along the busy city streets, she, too, doubted that she would actually meet Mrs. Daniels. Soon she was winding her way along Willowick looking for the four-thousand block. She passed mansion after mansion in many different architectural styles, but all in the same extremely expensive price range. It was difficult to imagine Jordan, with his casual, unpretentious style, growing up in any one of these palatial houses. He didn’t even wear designer jeans, she thought, remembering how his blue Levi’s had been molded to his long muscular legs and narrow hips.

Good grief! She hadn’t realized she had noticed such details of his anatomy. Her subconscious mind must be less loyal to Johnny’s memory than her conscious mind. In the months following Johnny’s death, she had been certain she would never be attracted to another man. But here she was thinking about Jordan’s body in a manner that could hardly be called indifferent.

She spotted the numbers 4021 on an oversize mailbox that was shaped like an old-fashioned stable and quickly dismissed Jordan’s Levi’s from her mind. Carefully turning the van onto the brick driveway, Lauren caught her first glimpse of the Daniels’s estate. Huge oaks that must be hundreds of years old dotted the acre or so of front yard. The lawn consisted of perfectly manicured emerald green grass, with shrubs that had been trimmed into a short square hedge lining both sides of the driveway. Azaleas, thickly covered with blossoms in several different shades of pink, had been planted around the trunks of all the trees and in the flower beds next to the house.

Being in the flower business, it was natural that she should notice the plants first, but now that she had rounded a bend in the circular driveway, she got her first good look at the house. It was large, but not as imposing as the Tara replica down the street or the stone castle next door. Antique brick, white stucco and heavy stained beams combined to make a cozy looking Tudor-style home. Sunlight twinkled in the diamond-shaped panes in the front windows, with brightly colored stained glass scattered randomly among the clear glass. The roof was an interesting combination of peaks and pitches with chimneys at both ends.

It was a beautiful house, but surprisingly homey-looking. As Lauren walked up the brick steps to the carved double doors, she couldn’t help but notice several large pots of a variety of healthy-looking spring flowers. Obviously the Daniels’s gardener knew his work well and spent a lot of time on selection and maintenance of all the plants in this yard. Shifting the heavy hanging basket to her other hand, Lauren reached out and pressed the doorbell. Several seconds passed with no response, so she rang it again.

She couldn’t believe that no one was at home. Surely there was someone inside polishing the silver or dusting the heirlooms. Changing the basket back to her other hand, she walked back down the steps and followed the flagstone walk around the side of the house to the backyard, thinking that perhaps she might find one of the maids or the gardener.

But the backyard, too, appeared to be deserted. The basket seemed to be growing heavier by the moment, but she couldn’t see any place near the house to leave it where it would be protected from the sun and the wind. Actually, geraniums were pretty tough plants, but she didn’t want it to lose a single bloom or round, stiff leaf before Jordan’s mother received it. What she did with it afterward was entirely her business, but it was Lauren’s job to deliver it in perfect condition.

When she spotted a large greenhouse next to the garage, she breathed a sigh of relief. Deciding she would hang it in there and leave a note at both the front and back doors of its location and purpose, Lauren headed toward the glass building. Her fingers were stiff from holding the brass chain hanger and it took her a couple of seconds to turn the doorknob. Lifting the basket so the tendrils of blossoms and leaves didn’t drag on the ground, she stepped inside.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to burst in here without knocking, but I didn’t know anyone was here,” she rushed to explain as soon as she saw the person who was obviously the gardener bending over a table.

The gardener turned around and asked in a calm, curious tone, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“My name is Lauren Nelson and I own the Pretty Petals florist shop over near Hermann Park. I was trying to make a delivery to Mrs. Daniels, but no one seems to be at home, so I thought I would hang this plant out here and leave a note. It’s Mrs. Daniels’s birthday today and this is from her son.” All of this information rushed out before Lauren had time to get a good look at the gardener. But after she took time to study the person in front of her, she saw that it was an attractive middle-aged woman. “You’re not the gardener, are you?”

“No, dear, I’m not. Here, let me help you with that plant. It looks as if it’s heavy.”

“Yes ma’am, it is,” Lauren replied, gladly helping the woman attach the chain onto a hook that was suspended from one of the ceiling beams.

“Good Lord, you’re pregnant!” the woman exclaimed. “You shouldn’t be carrying around heavy things like that. Come sit down for a minute. There’s a chair that doesn’t appear to be too dirty. Let me dust it off for you.” The woman bustled around like a mother hen, practically pushing Lauren down onto the wicker rocker.

“Don’t tell me, let me guess.” Lauren smiled. “You’re Jordan’s mother, aren’t you?”

“Why, yes, I am. How did you know? I look pretty awful whenever I work out in my yard, but it’s one of the things I truly love to do. My husband humors me, letting me borrow his old clothes and never asking how much I’ve spent on the flowers. Not that I would tell him, anyway. As long as the yard looks nice and we aren’t out the expense of a gardener, then he really can’t complain, can he?”

“You mean,
you
are the one who takes care of all those flowers? That’s got to be a monumental task. There are so many and they’re all so beautiful,” Lauren said in amazement.

“I enjoy doing it,” Mrs. Daniels replied. “Oh, sure, I have a man come in to do the mowing and trim the hedges, but the flower beds are mine and I take great pride in what I’ve done with them. For years, I let someone else take care of all the garden, but I was never completely satisfied with how it looked, so I took it over myself. And let me tell you, this is better therapy than any psychiatrist’s couch. It’s got to be the most fulfilling thing in the world to watch something you’ve planted grow and become beautiful—next to raising children, of course. They bring the most blessings into one’s life, don’t you think?”

“I…I wouldn’t know. You see, this is my first child, so I don’t know much about it yet,” Lauren answered, bewitched and overwhelmed by this energetic, cheerful woman. Now that she looked carefully, she could see that Jordan and his mother had the same sparkling gray eyes and that her hair, now naturally streaked flatteringly with silver, had once been the same ebony as his. It was not perfectly coiffed as Lauren had envisioned, but piled loosely and pinned on top of her head. Her face had very little makeup and she had done nothing to try to hide the tiny laugh lines at the comers of her eyes and on each side of her smiling mouth. Lauren could imagine that Jordan would look like a masculine version of this woman when he got older, and it was not an unpleasant prospect. Would Lauren’s baby have eyes that same shade of misty-gray or hair as thick and black as a moonless night?

“Ah, but you will soon,” Mrs. Daniels went on. “When they’re tiny babies, they’re a lot of work, but they’re so sweet and innocent. Then later as they get older, it’s fun to watch them learn and grow. My only regret is that my husband and I couldn’t have more children, but since we could have only one, I’m glad it was Jordan. He’s a wonderful son. He never forgets my birthday, even though I’m trying to. And someday, I hope he will present me with a half dozen grandchildren.”

Lauren stiffened at the reference to grandchildren. “Did Jordan tell you to say that?” she asked suspiciously.

Mrs. Daniels looked at her blankly. “Why, no, dear. Why on earth should he? Actually, we haven’t talked about the subject. He knows how much I want some babies to do all those typical grandmotherly things with, but I would never pressure him. It’s more important to me that he wait until he finds a woman he really loves, and who loves him, before he starts a family. That’s not something a person should rush into.”

There was nothing Lauren could say to that. She mulled over Mrs. Daniels’s response and could find no reason not to believe it was spontaneous. Jordan could have planned this whole scene, prompting his mother so she knew what to say to draw Lauren’s sympathy, but she didn’t think that Mrs. Daniels could be that good an actress.

“Oh, what is that lovely fragrance?” Mrs. Daniels leaned closer to her birthday present and breathed deeply. “It smells like peppermint.”

“Yes, that is one of a new breed of scented geraniums. Instead of that pungent geranium odor, they come in several different scents such as apple, coconut, ginger, lemon, lime, roses, or, like this one, peppermint.”

“How delightful. I’ve never even heard of these. Jordan knows how much I enjoy my flowers, and he must have had some difficulty finding a species I didn’t already have. I didn’t think he knew a mum from a marigold.”

Lauren wanted to tell her that he didn’t, but why spoil the woman’s delight?

Mrs. Daniels wiped her sleeve across her forehead. “It’s so hot today, especially inside this greenhouse. Even with cooling fans to circulate the air, it stays pretty steamy in here, particularly after we’ve had a rainstorm. Why don’t you come up to the house and let me fix you something cold to drink?”

“I should be getting back to the shop….”

“Oh, please, stay for just a few more minutes. I’ve enjoyed talking with you. I always thought it would have been nice to have a daughter. There are some things a woman just can’t talk about with her husband or her son. Oh, I guess I could, but they wouldn’t understand. Men just have different attitudes about some things. They don’t understand how a woman feels about babies and birthdays. I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I always hate to be alone on my birthday. My husband is out of town until Sunday and Jordan will probably drop by tonight or tomorrow. But that house never seems quite so large or lonely as it does when I’m in there by myself on special days.”

Lauren couldn’t help but be touched by the woman’s plaintive plea. It was true that sometimes men didn’t realize that a woman needed more on her birthday than a present. They needed reassurance that they were still loved and needed. “Sure, I guess I could stay for a while longer,” she said, then followed Jordan’s mother across the yard and through the back door. And Lauren had to admit to herself that her reasons were not totally unselfish. She was dying to see inside that huge house.

“Do you mind if we sit down here in the kitchen? I hate to use the dining room. It’s so formal. My husband and I usually take our meals in here whenever we don’t have guests.”

“That would be fine,” Lauren answered, looking around at the huge kitchen and breakfast room combination that was larger than the whole building where she had her shop. It was clean and neatly arranged with a butcher-block island in the middle of the cooking area. Copper pots and pans hung from a rack over it and an impressive collection of plates were displayed over the cabinets and on almost every wall.