The Bluebonnet Betrayal (2 page)

“Pru Parke.” She temporarily raised her voice as a digger rolled past behind her, beeping a warning. “I'm here for the garden club—just as a liaison until they arrive.” Roddy looked past her.

“She isn't here,” Chiv told him.

“Why not? Where is she?”

“Do you mean Twyla?” Pru asked. “Do you know her?”

“She's the one in charge of this project, isn't she?” Chiv asked. “We expected her to make an appearance at the very least.”

“She'll be here—Saturday. Well, I suppose they won't show up here until Sunday at the earliest—jet lag. But look, isn't there something I can do? I've studied the plans and I know what the garden will look like. I can work.”

“Pru Parke.” Roddy rolled her name over his tongue. “Yes, oh yes,” he said, gaining enthusiasm. “I'm sure you can help. Listen, does the press office know you're involved? We could build quite a story around my design and your name.”

Pru took a step back. She knew what he meant—her name had been in the news occasionally—mentioned in regards to certain events, not all of them concerning gardening. But this was not her show. “No, they don't know and there's no reason to tell them. I'm here to work for ARGS—just one of the crew.”

“Fine.” Roddy turned away from her. “You've everything under control here, Chiv. I must return a few phone calls—I won't be long.” He walked away, then stopped and turned. “I say, Pru, you wouldn't mind giving me your mobile number, would you? It would be good to keep in touch.”

This was what she was here for. They exchanged numbers, and he left. Pru pulled her hood back on as the rain returned and watched as a couple of the Aussies left by way of the exit on Chelsea Bridge Road—not one of the main entrances, but a useful access for equipment and materials. She took a moment to drink it all in and once again to be amazed at her extraordinary fortune.

“Isn't it a fascinating process?” she asked Chiv. “And you're the contractor as well as the grower. How are those bluebonnets looking?”

Chiv cut his eyes at her. “You'll have to ask Mr. Bloody MacWeeks that question. Now, you said you're here to work?”

“The purpose of the Austin Rock Garden Society is: to stimulate the love of gardening and horticulture; to promote the growing of native Texas plants; to assist in community beautification; and to work to protect and conserve our natural heritage of the Texas hill country landscape.”

Article 2, Section 2, bylaws of the Austin Rock Garden Society

Pru spent the morning attempting to do the work of the missing crew, and most of it under the tight cover of her waterproofs as the rain began again in earnest. The delivery lorry had moved off, and now one of the two remaining ARGS crew had hopped up on a small excavator and got it going, scraping at the ground. Muddy water cascaded off each bucketful of soil it raised.

She took a spade and followed up on the digger's work, neatening the edges of the hole. When the machine backed off and sat nearby, silent, Pru approached the fellow who ran it and realized from his face—the only part of him that showed—that he was quite a young man. She introduced herself and he mumbled what she thought might be his own name, but she didn't catch it. When she asked him what they would do with the extra soil, he mumbled something about skippy taking it. She wondered if he meant “the skip,” as in a rubbish truck.

Her boots squished in the mud when she stepped down two feet into the flat-bottomed pit that he'd dug. Chiv handed her one side of an enormous sheet of a material that looked like black plastic but was a fair bit heavier—the liner for the reservoir, which would hold the recirculating water. After installing the pump, covering it in rocks, and planting the space, it would look like a natural spring in the Texas landscape.

Easier said than done. They struggled for a while, rain getting in Pru's eyes, as they each tugged on a side, yanking the unwieldy material out of the other's hands, before they realized the liner wasn't large enough. Chiv cursed and threw up his hands, letting go just as a gust of wind caught the liner and slung muddy water across both their faces.

He drew the back of a wet arm across his eyes. “The glamour of Chelsea,” he grumbled, and Pru laughed as she dived into a deep pocket in search of a tissue. Chiv grinned.

The rain let up, and hoods were peeled back once more. The last worker appeared at Pru's elbow.

“Are you ready for a coffee, Chiv? I'll go fetch them.” It was a woman with thick, steel-gray hair, parted in the middle and braided, the ends buried inside her jacket. She had beady black eyes and round cheeks like a chipmunk preparing for winter.

“No, Iris, I'll go,” Chiv said. “Oh, this is, er…” He gestured toward Pru.

“Pru Parke,” she filled in her own name.

“Iris Bright,” the woman replied.

“Coffee?” Chiv asked Pru.

“Yes, please. White, no sugar.” Chiv and the young man walked away, and Pru turned to Iris. “Pleased to meet you. Do you work for Chiv?”

“I'm his partner,” Iris said.
What sort of partner would that be,
Pru wondered,
professional or personal?
Iris watched Chiv disappear into the exhibitors' canteen and sighed. “I can never get him to eat breakfast in the morning,” she continued. “I hope he remembers to get himself some food.” Right, that sort. Iris, small and slight, had the same sort of weathered face Chiv had, the telltale sign of a life outdoors.

The partners sat off on their own during the break, and Pru struggled through a conversation with the young man who ran the excavator. He had pulled off the tight hood of his waterproof—his black hair was shaved back and sides, and the top left to tumble forward of its own accord. Too late Pru saw the earbuds dangling from his shirt pocket, and she realized he'd probably rather be listening to his music than talking with her. She plunged ahead. He mumbled his name again, his face reddened at every question, and his replies were terse. “Seventeen, ma'am.” “Preston on Wye, ma'am.” “No brothers or sisters, ma'am.”

The rest of the day, Pru took any assignment Chiv handed to her. She checked off components for the water feature—the pump, hoses, filters, and more—as Chiv unpacked and examined each. She checked the stone delivery and noted they were four pallets short; so Chiv sent her on a walkabout to suss out the missing rocks. The rain had started up again, and she waded through a stream up the roadway, wiping drops out of her eyes to examine a continuous line of pallets until she found their rocks at the top of Main Avenue near a garden sponsored by an African charity.

At lunch, she made her way alone to the exhibitors' marquee and bought a sandwich. No one else from the garden followed. After her sandwich, she wandered the grounds, stopping to watch the Aussies build a mountain—so that's where the excavated soil had gone. One of their crew stood on the platform of a crane as it was raised near the beginnings of a tall metal framework. “Hello, darlin',” he called down to her. “Fancy a lift?” Pru smiled and waved, but didn't stop to watch as he rose higher and higher.

The afternoon found her ankle deep in mud and shifting siding for the shed. The shed had a dual purpose—the façade of wide, weathered pine boards and a screen door with a rusted metal advertisement for sliced bread would be the front of the gas station in their piece of the hill country, but at the back would be a door into the storage space for the crew. The rain pelted, making Pru grateful for her waterproofs, and—as more than once a heavy piece of lumber landed on her foot—she was thankful for her steel-toed boots, too. Roddy MacWeeks did not return, but texted Pru to say he got caught up in something and would see her tomorrow. She told Chiv, and he cursed.

About five o'clock, just as the rain petered out, the four of them—Chiv, Iris, the young man, and Pru—stood round with cups of tea. Chiv threw a tarp over the frame of the shed and decreed, “That's enough for today.” The young man departed, and Iris braced herself against the digger using a knife to scrape mud from her boots as Chiv sat on the edge of the pit, staring at the ground.

After hanging up her waterproofs and boots under the tarp in the unfinished shed, Pru approached him. “Well, that's me away. See you first thing in the morning.”

He stirred and he nodded. “So you'll be back?”

“Of course I'll be back,” Pru said and added encouragingly, “And the Austin women will be here Saturday. I know they're eager to get started. And Twyla, of course.”

“Chiv,” Iris said.

“Yeah, Iris,” he replied. “In a few minutes. I'm just thinking about this wall.”

Pru returned to the Chiswick flat cold, wet, and with Chelsea mud ground into the hem of her denims and cuffs of her sweater. Perhaps it wouldn't rain tomorrow. She let herself into the lobby of the building, crossed to the lift, and pressed the button. The doors slid open to reveal a single occupant, sitting smack in the middle of the small space.

“Hello, Boris,” Pru said. The Irish wolfhound made a throaty sound, not a bark, not a whine, but what sounded like a conversational reply. He stood, shook himself, and walked out, hesitating long enough for Pru to give his wiry head a scratch—easy to reach, as it came well above her waist. He had a magazine rolled up and tied to his collar. “Are you on a delivery?”

At that moment, a door opened down the corridor and a man's head emerged. “Is that you, Boris? Have you got my
Time Out
? Good lad.” Boris loped down the corridor and let the man take the magazine.

Pru held the elevator, and the dog strolled back. She pressed the second-floor button for Boris and third for her. Boris plopped his bottom down and leaned against Pru, who braced herself with a hand on the wall. Boris carried a lot of weight behind that lean.

When the doors glided open at two, a tall woman with gray hair in a smart chin-length cut stood waiting, hand on a slim ebony cane topped with silver scrollwork.

“Hello, Mrs. Miller,” Pru said. “Here's your boy.”

“Lovely, Pru, thanks.” Mrs. Miller stepped into the elevator, the cane stepping with her left leg, which participated in any movement with a bit of reluctance. “Boris and I will escort you up to your floor and then be off for last call, what do you say?” She looked down at the dog—Boris voiced his approval.

“Will you be all right?” Pru asked.

“Oh yes, we'll be fine. He's quite gentle,” Mrs. Miller said as the lift doors glided open on the third floor. “At least with those of us in his pack. A dodgy-looking fellow tried to stop me on the pavement last week. It took only a growl from Boris to send him on his way.”

“Right, well, good evening,” Pru called as the doors shut again. She had known Mrs. Miller from brief trips to London, but would have more time to get to know her this visit. Boris was a recent addition to the older woman's household—a gift from her son who had been transferred to Adelaide for two years.

One hot shower later, Pru held a glass of wine and looked into the freezer for her dinner—mushroom risotto from Waitrose. This was an all-too-familiar diet. Not a cook herself, Pru had spent her first year in London mostly alone, eating sandwiches, frozen meals, and the occasional bowl of minestrone at an Italian restaurant in Chelsea.

She sent Ivory a quick update, and Ivory replied directly, saying how excited they all were, especially Twyla.
She's a doll!
Ivory wrote.
I know you're going to love her!

Late that evening, Pru tucked herself up into bed and stared at the empty pillow next to her. It was like old times again—only this separation belonged to the second stage of her life in England, after she and Christopher had found each other but while they were living apart. Nothing could take the place of their quiet, cozy, face-to-face bedtime talks, but until she could cuddle with the real thing, she'd have to settle for his voice. Smiling, she reached for her phone.

The next morning, the rain let up during her journey on the Underground. Although the air was heavy with moisture, the walk from the Sloane Square station was pleasant under gray skies, and so, optimistically, Pru decided she would not don her waterproof gear when she got to the garden. She arrived before eight o'clock—a show of commitment—just as the skies opened once more. On went the waterproofs.

Chiv sat alone, just where she'd left him on the edge of the pit, and stared at the mud.

“Good morning,” she called. “Are Iris and…that young fellow around?”

“Teddy's cut his hand and they're up at first aid,” he said without looking up. “We'll start on the trench today for the wall. Have to put a smaller bucket on the excavator. Can you work one of those bloody things if Iris won't let him back at it?” He nodded to the machine.

She wanted to say yes, she really did, but it had been years since she'd run anything larger than a weed trimmer. And this would be delicate, close-in work. “I could have a go if you need me to,” she said without enthusiasm.

He shook his head. “Might be better to dig the entire thing by hand.”

The serpentine stacked-stone wall that ran through the garden would be more than forty feet long. And the trench…“How deep?” she asked.

“Half a meter—I want a good base. And I don't like those stones.” Chiv nodded to the four missing pallets, now arrived. “They don't suit me. I'm sending them back.”

“I told you, Chiv.” Roddy MacWeeks stood behind Pru wearing a light sport coat and pressed trousers along with the mandatory steel-toed boots. The rain had lightened, but water beaded up on his shoulders. His hair looked as it had the day before—casually unkempt. Pru now realized it was meant to be that way. “You should use the formed stones—what's it called, ‘something-ite'?”

“I'm not using fake rocks. We'll be true to the theme, even if it is your name on the design.”

“It's an approximation,” Roddy said. “It isn't as if we've imported a load of Texas limestone—it's all come from the Cotswolds.”

That statement solved a niggling thought in Pru's mind—what stone in Britain could substitute for the rusty-looking limestone that was indigenous to much of the Texas hill country? Cotswold stone, with its warm honey tones, would do quite well.

“It'll be a stacked stone wall. We'll use a lime mortar at the base. I'll get it done.”

“Yes, you're a real artist,” Roddy said, taking out a handkerchief and cleaning his glasses.

Chiv's phone rang. After a brief exchange, he dropped it back in his pocket and announced, “The sponsor's here.”

Roddy flinched. “Is he?” he asked, looking over his shoulder. “Which entrance?”

“Bull Ring,” Chiv said.

“Well, sorry I can't stay for that, but I've a conference call set up with Singapore—the time difference, you know, we've got to talk while we're all awake. You can sort this out, I'm sure, Chiv—I'll just slip out the London gate.” As he spoke he backed away, until he reached the edge of the garden, where he turned and hurried off up the avenue to the entrance at the far opposite side, dodging forklifts and lorries.

A sly grin spread over Chiv's face as he watched the back of Roddy. “Oops, did I say the sponsor was waiting at the Bull Ring gate?” he asked quietly. “I meant London Road.”

The sponsor—Pru hadn't bothered to learn anything about who was putting up the money. She had concentrated on what concerned her—the garden design and plant list. But she remembered the name: GlobalSynergy. It meant nothing to her. “The sponsor likes to stay involved?” she asked Chiv.

“You could say that.”

Fifteen minutes later, Roddy returned, throwing Chiv a stormy look. At Roddy's side was a young man, a really young man. Pru decided he couldn't be a day over twenty-five. Perhaps he was the sponsor's son. The newcomer had a fresh face, round, pale blue eyes, and a stocky build. He wore a clear plastic poncho over his white shirt and khaki trousers.