Among The Roses

Chapter 8: Evening

"Everything okay with you, Chiara?"

"Hm?" Chiara looked up from her laptop, where she was perusing college courses, daydreaming about what she'd take if only she could go. "Yeah, dad, I'm fine, why?"

"I don't know, it's just that you seem so morose lately," Bert said, rising from his easy chair and coming around to see what she was looking at. "I'm sorry you couldn't go this year," he said, ruffling her hair, which was down around her shoulders so it could dry after her bath. "I just couldn't do without you to run the business this year. But in a way that's a good thing, I think, because it means that business is good, right? That we have more work than one person can do alone?"

He sounded hopeful as he asked, and of course Chiara nodded, leaning against him as she did so. "Yeah, you're right, it is a good thing. And if this year goes well, then maybe I can go next year, right? And you can afford to take someone on?"

"There you go, there you go," Bert agreed, patting her head. "After this year, I'll be able to hire someone to work with me, though of course no one will be the same as working with you, with my own flesh and blood."

Chiara smiled up at her father. "You know I feel the same way, right? I really do want to go to uni, but I love working with you, and I love working the soil. I enjoy what we do together so much, dad, so much." She reached around and hugged him, and they stayed that way for a moment, just enjoying being together.

"I'm also still angry about the cuttings that the horrible new owner of Langton just let those delivery people destroy, too," she admitted. It still made her blood boil just remembering his smug face, the way he'd flicked at the precious seedling she'd cultivated, spending weeks nurturing it in her greenhouse so it would be ready to go into the ground with its brothers and sisters. And the way he'd looked at her, as if she had no right to be upset! He'd actually said that if it didn't bother him, it shouldn't bother her!

She didn't even want to tell her father what the odious Drew had said about ripping out the roses altogether to put in a tennis court. She couldn't believe that even someone as thoughtless and callous as he seemed to be would do such a thing.

Infuriating.

"Ah, Chiara, you need to put it out of your mind," her father advised. "I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose and was just embarrassed when he realized what had happened. And, though I know you don't want to hear this, he is your boss, and he's right, if he's not upset about it, then you shouldn't be, either."

"But Dad!" Chiara protested. "Part of the job of gardener is making decisions about landscaping and gardening! We don't ask our clients every time something needs to be pruned, or fertilized, or moved. Or planted," she finished. "That spot was empty, and it's part of the planting bed. I had the perfect hybrid roses to plant there, so I did."

"Chiara, what are you doing planting fresh young cuttings in August?" Bert asked. "You know that spring is when grafted cuttings should go in the ground."

Chiara shrugged. "I read that you can get a jump on root growth by putting grafted cuttings in the ground in the fall, giving them a dormant season to set, so I thought I'd try it. Now we'll never know," she said grimly. "Because that gormless git let his delivery people run over them."

"Chiara!" Bert chastised with a laugh. "Please, don't. You're going to slip up and call him something to his face, and we're going to lose a lucrative job. He's one of those super rich singers, right?"

Chiara nodded.

"So he's bound to be used to getting his way, right? Please, please don't rub him the wrong way, Chiara, please?" Bert looked at her appealingly. "I know how headstrong you can be."