Blue Dahlia

Exhausted and exhilarated, Stella stepped into the house. Though it was past their bedtime, she expected her boys to come running, but had to make do with an ecstatic Parker. She picked him up, kissed his nose as he tried to bathe her face.

"Guess what, my furry little pal? We had a baby today. Our first girl."

She shoved at her hair, and immediately got the guilts. Roz had left the hospital before she had, and was probably upstairs dealing with the kids.

She started toward the steps when Logan strolled into the foyer. "Big day."

"The biggest," she agreed. She hadn't considered he'd be there, and was suddenly and acutely aware that her duties as labor coach had sweated off all of her makeup. In addition, she couldn't imagine she was smelling, her freshest.

"I can't thank you enough for taking on the boys."

"No problem. I got a couple of good holes out of them. You may need to burn their clothes."

"They've got more. Is Roz up with them?"

"No. She's in the kitchen. David's back there whipping something together, and I heard a rumor about champagne."

"More champagne? We practically swam in it at the hospital. I'd better go up and settle down the troops."

"They're out for the count. Have been since just before nine. Digging holes wears a man out."

"Oh. I know you said you'd bring them back when I called to tell you about the baby, but I didn't expect you to put them to bed."

"They were tuckered. We had ourselves a manly shower, then they crawled into bed and were out in under five seconds."

"Well. I owe you big."

"Pay up."

He crossed to her, slid his arms around her and kissed her until her already spinning head lifted off her shoulders.

"Tired?" he asked.

"Yeah. But in the best possible way."

He danced his fingers over her hair, and kept his other arm around her. "How's the new kid on the block and her mama?"

"They're great. Hayley's a wonder. Steady as a rock through seven hours of labor. And the baby might be a couple weeks early, but she came through like a champ. Only a few ounces shy of Gavin's birth weight, though it took me twice as long to convince him to come out."

"Make you want to have another?"

She went a few shades more pale. "Oh. Well."

"Now I've scared you." Amused, he slung an arm around her shoulder. "Let's go see what's on the menu with that champagne."

* * *

He hadn't scared her, exactly. But he had made her vaguely uneasy. She was just getting used to having a relationship, and the man was making subtle hints about babies.

Of course, it could have been just a natural, offhand remark under the circumstances. Or a kind of joke.

Whatever the intent, it got her thinking. Did she want more children? She'd crossed that possibility off her list when Kevin died and had ruthlessly shut down her biological clock. Certainly she was capable, physically, of having another child. But it took more than physical capability, or should, to bring a child into the world.

She had two healthy, active children. And was solely and wholly responsible for them - emotionally, financially, morally. To consider having another meant considering a permanent relationship with a man. Marriage, a future, sharing not only what she had but building more, and in a different direction.

She'd come to Tennessee to visit her own roots, and to plant her family in the soil of her own origins. To be near her father, and to allow her children the pleasure of being close to grandparents who wanted to know them.

Her mother had never been particularly interested, hadn't enjoyed seeing herself as a grandmother. It spoiled the youthful image, Stella thought.

If a man like Logan had blipped onto her mother's radar, he'd have been snapped right up.

And if that's why Stella was hesitating, it was a sad state of affairs. Undoubtedly part of it, though, she decided. Otherwise she wouldn't be thinking it.

She hadn't disliked any of her stepfathers. But she hadn't bonded with them either, or they with her. How old had she been the first time her mother had remarried? Gavin's age, she remembered. Yes, right around eight.

She'd been plucked out of her school and plunked down in a new one, a new house, new neighborhood, and dazed by it all while her mother had been in the adrenaline rush of having a new husband.

That one had lasted, what? Three years, four? Somewhere between, she decided, with another year or so of upheaval while her mother dealt with the battle and debris of divorce, another new place, a new job, a new start.

And another new school for Stella.

After that, her mother had stuck with boyfriends for a long stretch. But that itself had been another kind of upheaval, having to survive her mother's mad dashes into love, her eventual bitter exit from it.

And they were always bitter, Stella remembered.

At least she'd been in college, living on her own, when her mother had married yet again. And maybe that was part of the reason that marriage had lasted nearly a decade. There hadn't been a child to crowd things. Yet eventually there'd been another acrimonious divorce, with the split nearly coinciding with her own widowhood.

It had been a horrible year, in every possible way, which her mother had ended with yet one more brief, tumultuous marriage.

Strange that even as an adult, Stella found she couldn't quite forgive being so consistently put into second or even third place behind her mother's needs.

She wasn't doing that with her own children, she assured herself. She wasn't being selfish and careless in her relationship with Logan, or shuffling her kids to the back of her heart because she was falling in love with him.

Still, the fact was it was all moving awfully fast. It would make more sense to slow things down a bit until she had a better picture.

Besides, she was going to be too busy to think about marriage. And she shouldn't forget he hadn't asked her to marry him and have his children, for God's sake. She was blowing an offhand comment way out of proportion.

Time to get back on track. She rose from her desk and started for the door. It opened before she reached it.

"I was just going to find you," she said to Roz. "I'm on my way to pick up the new family and take them home."

"I wish I could go with you. I nearly postponed this meeting so I could." She glanced at her watch as if considering it again.

"By the time you get back from your meeting with Dr. Carnegie, they'll be all settled in and ready for some quality time with Aunt Roz."

"I have to admit I want my hands on that baby. So, now, what've you been fretting about?"

"Fretting?" Stella opened a desk drawer to retrieve her purse. "Why do you think I've been fretting about anything?"

"Your watch is turned around, which means you've been twisting at it. Which means you've been fretting. Something going on around here I don't know about?"

"No." Annoyed with herself, Stella turned her watch around. "No, it's nothing to do with work. I was thinking about Logan, and I was thinking about my mother."

"What does Logan have to do with your mother?" As she asked, Roz picked up Stella's thermos. After opening it and taking a sniff, she poured a few swallows of iced coffee in the lid.

"Nothing. I don't know. Do you want a mug for that?"

"No, this is fine. Just want a taste."

"I think - I sense - I'm wondering ... and I already sound like an ass." Stella took a lipstick from the cosmetic bag in her purse, and walking to the mirror she'd hung on the wall, she began to freshen her makeup. "Roz, things are getting serious between me and Logan."

"As I've got eyes, I've seen that for myself. Do you want me to say and, or do you want me to mind my own business?"

"And. I don't know if I'm ready for serious. I don't know that he is, either. It's surprising enough it turned out we like each other, much less ..." She turned back. "I've never felt like this about anyone. Not this churned up and edgy, and, well, fretful."

She replaced the lipstick and zipped the bag shut. "With Kevin, everything was so clear. We were young and in love, and there wasn't a single barrier to get over, not really. It wasn't that we never fought or had problems, but it was all relatively simple for us."

"And the longer you live, the more complicated life gets."

"Yes. I'm afraid of being in love again, and of crossing that line from this is mine to this is ours. That sounds incredibly selfish when I say it out loud."

"Maybe, but I'd say it's pretty normal."

"Maybe. Roz, my mother was - is - a mess. I know, in my head, that a lot of the decisions I've made have been because I knew they were the exact opposite of what she'd have done. That's pathetic."

"I don't know that it is, not if those decisions were right for you."

"They were. They have been. But I don't want to step away from something that might be wonderful just because I know my mother would leap forward without a second thought."

"Honey, I can look at you and remember what it was like, and the both of us can look at Hayley and wonder how she has the courage and fortitude to raise that baby on her own."

Stella let out a little laugh. "God, isn't that the truth?"

"And since it's turned out the three of us have connected as friends, we can give each other all kinds of support and advice and shoulders to cry on. But the fact is, each one of us has to get through what we get through. Me, I expect you'll figure this out soon enough. Figuring out how to make things come out right's what you do."

She set the thermos lid on the desk, gave Stella two light pats on the cheek. "Well, I'm going to scoot home and clean up a bit."

"Thanks, Roz. Really. If Hayley's doing all right once I get them home, I'll leave David in charge. I know we're shorthanded around here today."

"No, you stay home with her and Lily. Harper can handle things here. It's not every day you bring a new baby home."

* * *

And that was something Roz considered as she hunted for parking near Mitchell Carnegie's downtown apartment. It had been a good many years since there had been an infant in Harper House. Just how would the Harper Bride deal with that?

How would they all deal with it?

How would she herself handle the idea of her firstborn falling for that sweet single mother and her tiny girl? She doubted that Harper knew he was sliding in that direction, and surely Hayley was clueless. But a mother knew such things; a mother could read them on her son's face.

Something else to think about some other time, she decided, and cursed ripely at the lack of parking.

She had to hoof it nearly three blocks and cursed again because she'd felt obliged to wear heels. Now her feet were going to hurt, and she'd have to waste more time changing into comfortable clothes once this meeting was done.

She was going to be late, which she deplored, and she was going to arrive hot and sweaty.

She would have loved to have passed the meeting on to Stella. But it wasn't the sort of thing she could ask a manager to do. It dealt with her home, her family. She'd taken this particular aspect of it for granted for far too long.

She paused at the comer to wait for the light.

"Roz!"

The voice on the single syllable had her hackles rising. Her face was cold as hell frozen over as she turned and stared at - stared through - the slim, handsome man striding quickly toward her in glossy Ferragamos.

"I thought that was you. Nobody else could look so lovely and cool on a hot afternoon."

He reached out, this man she'd once been foolish enough to marry, and gripped her hand in both of his. "Don't you look gorgeous!"

"You're going to want to let go of my hand, Bryce, or you're going to find yourself facedown and eating sidewalk. The only one who'll be embarrassed by that eventuality is yourself."

His face, with its smooth tan and clear features, hardened. "I'd hoped, after all this time, we could be friends."

"We're not friends, and never will be." Quite deliberately, she took a tissue out of her purse and wiped the hand he'd touched. "I don't count lying, cheating sons of bitches among my friends."

"A man just can't make a mistake or find forgiveness with a woman like you."

"That's exactly right. I believe that's the first time you've been exactly right in your whole miserable life."

She started across the street, more resigned than surprised when he fell into step beside her. He wore a pale gray suit, Italian in cut. Canali, if she wasn't mistaken. At least that had been his designer of the moment when she'd been footing the bills.

"I don't see why you're still upset, Roz, honey. Unless there are still feelings inside you for me."

"Oh, there are, Bryce, there are. Disgust being paramount. Go away before I call a cop and have you arrested for being a personal annoyance."

"I'd just like another chance to - "

She stopped then. "That will never happen in this lifetime, or a thousand others. Be grateful you're able to walk the streets in your expensive shoes, Bryce, and that you're wearing a tailored suit instead of a prison jumpsuit."

"There's no cause to talk to me that way. You got what you wanted, Roz. You cut me off without a dime."

"Would that include the fifteen thousand, six hundred and fifty-eight dollars and twenty-two cents you transferred out of my account the week before I kicked your sorry ass out of my house? Oh, I knew about that one, too," she said when his face went carefully blank. "But I let that one go, because I decided I deserved to pay something for my own stupidity. Now you go on, and you stay out of my way, you stay out of my sight, and you stay out of my hearing, or I promise you, you'll regret it."

She clipped down the sidewalk, and even the "Frigid bitch" he hurled at her back didn't break her stride.

But she was shaking. By the time she'd reached the right address her knees and hands were trembling. She hated that she'd allowed him to upset her. Hated that the sight of him brought any reaction at all, even if it was rage.

Because there was shame along with it.

She'd taken him into her heart and her home. She'd let herself be charmed and seduced - and lied to and deceived. He'd stolen more than her money, she knew. He'd stolen her pride. And it was a shock to the system to realize, after all this time, that she didn't quite have it back. Not all of it.

She blessed the cool inside the building and rode the elevator to the third floor.

She was too frazzled and annoyed to fuss with her hair or check her makeup before she knocked. Instead she stood impatiently tapping her foot until the door opened.

He was as good-looking as the picture on the back of his books - several of which she'd read or skimmed through before arranging this meeting. He was, perhaps, a bit more rumpled in rolled-up shirtsleeves and jeans. But what she saw was a very long, very lanky individual with a pair of horn-rims sliding down a straight and narrow nose. Behind the lenses, bottle-green eyes seemed distracted. His hair was plentiful, in a tangle of peat-moss brown around a strong, sharp-boned face that showed a black bruise along the jaw.

The fact that he wasn't wearing any shoes made her feel hot and overdressed.

"Dr. Carnegie?"

"That's right. Ms.... Harper. I'm sorry. I lost track of time. Come in, please. And don't look at anything." There was a quick, disarming smile. "Part of losing track means I didn't remember to pick up out here. So we'll go straight back to my office, where I can excuse any disorder in the name of the creative process. Can I get you anything?"

His voice was coastal southern, she noted. That easy drawl that turned vowels into warm liquid.

"I'll take something cold, whatever you've got."

Of course, she looked as he scooted her through the living room. There were newspapers and books littering an enormous brown sofa, another pile of them along with a stubby white candle on a coffee table that looked as if it might have been Georgian. There was a basketball and a pair of high-tops so disreputable she doubted even her sons would lay claim to them in the middle of a gorgeous Turkish rug, and the biggest television screen she'd ever seen eating up an entire wall.

Though he was moving her quickly along, she caught sight of the kitchen. From the number of dishes on the counter, she assumed he'd recently had a party.

"I'm in the middle of a book," he explained. "And when I come up for air, domestic chores aren't a priority. My last cleaning team quit. Just like their predecessors."

"I can't imagine why," she said with schooled civility as she stared at his office space.

There wasn't a clean surface to be seen, and the air reeked of cigar smoke. A dieffenbachia sat in a chipped pot on the windowsill, withering. Rising above the chaos of his desk was a flat-screen monitor and an ergonomic keyboard.

He cleaned off the chair, dumping everything unceremoniously on the floor. "Hang on one minute."

As he dashed out, she lifted her brows at the half-eaten sandwich and glass of - maybe it was tea - among the debris on his desk. She was somewhat disappointed when with a crane of her neck she peered around to his monitor. His screen saver was up. But that, she supposed, was interesting enough, as it showed several cartoon figures playing basketball.

"I hope tea's all right," he said as he came back.

"That's fine, thank you." She took the glass and hoped it had been washed sometime in the last decade. "Dr. Carnegie, you're killing that plant."

"What plant?"

"The dieffenbachia in the window."

"Oh? Oh. I didn't know I had a plant." He gave it a baffled look. "Wonder where that came from? It doesn't look very healthy, does it?"

He picked it up, and she saw, with horror, that he intended to dump it in the overflowing wastebasket beside his desk.

"For God's sake, don't just throw it out. Would you bury your cat alive?"

"I don't have a cat."

"Just give it to me." She rose, grabbed the pot out of his hand. "It's dying of thirst and heat, and it's rootbound. This soil's hard as a brick."

She set it beside her chair and sat again. "I'll take care of it," she said, and her legs were an angry slash as she crossed them. "Dr. Carnegie - "

"Mitch. If you're going to take my plant, you ought to call me Mitch."

"As I explained when I contacted you, I'm interested in contracting for a thorough genealogy of my family, with an interest in gathering information on a specific person."

"Yes." All business, he decided, and sat at his desk. "And I told you I only do personal genealogies if something about the family history interests me. I'm - obviously - caught up in a book right now and wouldn't have much time to devote to a genealogical search and report."

"You didn't name your fee."

"Fifty dollars an hour, plus expenses."

She felt a quick clutch in the belly. "That's lawyer steep."

"An average genealogy doesn't take that long, if you know what you're doing and where to look. In most cases, it can be done in about forty hours, depending on how far back you want to go. If it's more complicated, we could arrange a flat fee - reevaluating after that time is used. But as I said - "

"I don't believe you'll have to go back more than a century."

"Chump change in this field. And if you're only dealing with a hundred years, you could probably do this yourself. I'd be happy to direct you down the avenues. No charge."

"I need an expert, which I'm assured you are. And I'm willing to negotiate terms. Since you took the time out of your busy schedule to speak to me, I'd think you'd hear me out before you nudge me out the door."

All business, he thought again, and prickly with it. "That wasn't my intention - the nudging. Of course I'll hear you out. If you're not in any great rush for the search and report, I may be able to help you out in a few weeks."

When she inclined her head, he began to rummage on, through, under the desk. "Just let me ... how the hell did that get there?"

He unearthed a yellow legal pad, then mined out a pen. "That's Rosalind, right? As You Like It?"

A smile whisked over her mouth. "As in Russell. My daddy was a fan."

He wrote her name on the top of the pad. "You said a hundred years back. I'd think a family like yours would have records, journals, documents - and considerable oral family history to cover a century."

"You would, wouldn't you? Actually, I have quite a bit, but certain things have led me to believe some of the oral history is either incorrect or is missing details. I will, however, be glad to have you go through what I do have. We've already been through a lot of it."

"We?"

"Myself, and other members of my household."

"So, you're looking for information on a specific ancestor."

"I don't know as she was an ancestor, but I am certain she was a member of the household. I'm certain she died there."

"You have her death record?"

"No."

He shoved at his glasses as he scribbled. "Her grave?"

"No. Her ghost."

She smiled serenely when he blinked up at her. "Doesn't a man who digs into family histories believe in ghosts?"

"I've never come across one."

"If you take on this job, you will. What might your fee be, Dr. Carnegie, to dig up the history and identity of a family ghost?"

He leaned back in his chair, tapping the pen on his chin. "You're not kidding around."

"I certainly wouldn't kid around to the tune of fifty dollars an hour, plus expenses. I bet you could write a very interesting book on the Harper family ghost, if I were to sign a release and cooperate."

"I just bet I could," he replied.

"And it seems to me that you might consider finding out what I'm after as a kind of research. Maybe I should charge you."

His grin flashed again. "I have to finish this book before I actively take on another project. Despite evidence to the contrary, I finish what I start."

"Then you ought to start washing your dishes."

"Told you not to look. First, let me say that in my opinion the odds of you having an actual ghost in residence are about, oh, one in twenty million."

"I'd be happy to put a dollar down at those odds, if you're willing to risk the twenty million."

"Second, if I take this on, I'd require access to all family papers - personal family papers, and your written consent for me to dig into public records regarding your family."

"Of course."

"I'd be willing to waive my fee for, let's say, the first twenty hours. Until we see what we've got."

"Forty hours."

"Thirty."

"Done."

"And I'd want to see your house."

"Perhaps you'd like to come to dinner. Is there any day next week that would suit you?"

"I don't know. Hold on." He swiveled to his computer, danced his ringers over keys. "Tuesday?"

"Seven o'clock, then. We're not formal, but you will need shoes." She picked up the plant, then rose. "Thank you for your time," she said, extended a hand.

"Are you really going to take that thing?"

"I certainly am. And I have no intention of giving it back and letting you take it to death's door again. Do you need directions to Harper House?"

"I'll find it. Seems to me I drove by it once." He walked her to the door. "You know, sensible women don't usually believe in ghosts. Practical women don't generally agree to pay someone to trace the history of said ghost. And you strike me as a sensible, practical woman."

"Sensible men don't usually live in pigsties and conduct business meetings barefoot. We'll both have to take our chances. You ought to put some ice on that bruise. It looks painful."

"It is. Vicious little..." He broke off. "Got clipped going up for a rebound. Basketball."

"So I see. I'll expect you Tuesday, then, at seven."

"I'll be there. Good-bye, Ms. Harper."

"Dr. Carnegie."

He kept the door open long enough to satisfy his curiosity. He was right, he noted. The rear view was just as elegant and sexy as the front side, and both went with that steel-spined southern belle voice.

A class act, top to toe, he decided as he shut the door.

Ghosts. He shook his head and chuckled as he wound his way through the mess back to his office. Wasn't that a kick in the ass.