© Copyright 2006
by Elizabeth Delayne

Hope That Blooms

Part I

Dani couldn’t believe she’d agreed to this. She’d been weak at the moment, and Tyler was known for his craftiness. It made him good in business and would one day help his company to flourish.

She really loved Tyler as a brother. He was good for Carrie in so many ways.

Unfortunately, their marriage and renewed commitment to The Heritage sealed her fate. She was going to be stuck with this house forever. She would never get Jacey to agree to sell out now. Jacey adored Tyler too much. And even though the youngest sister struggled with their ties to the house, she would do anything Tyler asked of her.

So the scales were tipped permanently.

Still, it didn’t mean Dani had to be part of it. Why Tyler had come to her, ladled her with the smooth talk ... then tricked her into overseeing the reconstruction ...

She did know. And that was the worst of it. Jacey wouldn’t keep her mouth shut. Not for the four months Carrie and Tyler would be in England. Her gift was in her stories, but she also had the gab of a lunatic.

Besides, the youngest of the Morgan sisters was away at college. Little good it would do for her to keep an eye out on the old place.

It was a once in a lifetime chance for Carrie and Tyler. Before Tyler fell into his business with Brad and a few of his friends, he was going on an extended honeymoon with his new bride over the summer months. She had a temporary teaching position at a college in England and was finishing her doctoral studies. Tyler followed through on some university connections and was studying international business and public relations on the side.

And while they were away, Tyler was giving his bride a gift. He and his family. He’d secretly moved his belongings into the storage in a wing of the Heritage, ended his lease on his apartment, and was pouring way too much of his money into this ... money pit. And seeing how much Carrie loved the old house, Dani figured Tyler would hit the jackpot upon their return.

Dani pulled to the front of the house behind the beat up pickup truck and stared at the towering columns of the Greek Revival home. She could still remember the summer when she turned seven and the three of them had been sent up to spend the summer with her grandmother; to help her fix up the old gardens.

That summer, unknown to them, their mother had been going through extensive cancer treatments. When they’d left her, she’d been fine ... a little weak, just having a new baby, but bright and so very much their mother. Beautiful, loving.

The next time they saw her, as the summer came to an end, she had been weak and tired. Months later, she’d finally given up and had past on.

Instead of being with her, they’d been here; they’d explored, played, enjoyed lemonade on plenty hot summer days.

And their mother had been dying.

And instead of forging a new life, their father had moved back home with his mother and they’d lived in this old place until their grandmother died, the debts swallowed them whole, and they’d been forced to move into that cramped apartment over by the university.

Dani gritted her teeth, and climbed out of her car, slamming the door behind her.

The man that appeared, the owner–she supposed–of the truck, must be the carpenter Tyler had hired. He came around the back from the gardens and stopped.

“Dresden Cooper?“ Dani changed directions and walked over to meet him. He didn’t extend his hand, but neither did she.

“I am ... though folks call me Cooper, Coop for short. Even my family doesn’t call me Dresden.” He tilted his head. “And you’re late.”

She only shrugged. In every other facet of her life, she was responsible—but she refused to feel responsible over anything that had to do with The Heritage.

“I’m only here supervisory. Tyler would have told you what he wanted, or rather what Carrie blathers on and on about.”

“I figured you would have input in a family home like this. You are the oldest Morgan sister, aren’t you?”

“It’s her home. I signed executor rights over to her over a year ago.”

“But you lived here.”

“I haven’t lived here since I was in my teens ... and I wouldn’t again.” She turned and walked up the steps, then struggled with the front lock. “While you’re here, you could fix this.”

“Why? You don’t like coming anyway.”

“Still, it would make it easier when I have to.”

She stepped aside and watched as he dealt with the alarm. He had the codes for the downstairs, which was different then the codes for the upstairs library and research room. As long as the rennovators were in the house, the library rooms would remain under tight security.

Even though she hated the house and chafed at it’s legacy, the letters that had been stolen over a year ago now, were valuable. It had happened under her watch, before she’d turned the responsibility over to Carrie.

As she led him in he began to talk and point. She followed behind as he explained—his enthusiasm for the project a burr in her side. Still, she didn’t listen. He rambled on and on like Carrie. She was used to tuning it out.

Dani did enjoy watching him though. His hands were fascinating—large, work roughened, somewhat scarred with time. He eyes were sharp, a deep green, and she loved the way he would lift his eyebrow, just enough, when he glanced back at her waiting for her response.

As he was right now.

“What?” she stammered and looked back to his hand on the wall. She had no idea what he’d been rambling on about.

“I’m sorry—I wasn’t—“

”Paying attention? I know. I just spent the last few minutes explaining the what a carburetor does in a car,” he squinted his eyes as if studying her. “You really don’t like this house, do you?”

“You’re smart.”

“It’s historical. A masterpiece of style. Even during its heyday people would have idolized the strength and power and style.”

“It’s old—absolutely impossible to heat, cool or keep up. It sucks your bank account dry. Try living in it yourself.”

“Is it haunted?”

Dani laughed–though it came out more like a choking sound.

“No, but my sister’s pretty inventive. If you’re looking for a fright, drop by on a dark, stormy night when Jacey’s home from school and she’ll dish you up a story that will melt your bones.

“I love a woman with imagination,” he said as he pulled out his measuring tape and a small notebook and pen. “I’ll have to meet her.”

“She’s to young for you—“

Whether it was jealousy or the protective instincts of an older sister, Dani wasn’t sure, but she did know she needed to protect her sister from ... something about this man.

Or maybe it was herself.

He just smiled and continued write down the measurements he took. He could have asked her to take the end of the tape, but he didn’t. He seemed quite capable on his own.

“Is there anything you really need from me?”

“Not at the moment. My crew will begin arriving in a few minutes. You might want to stick around, meet them, otherwise ... since you really don’t care what happens to this place, I don’t guess it matters.”

She felt a twitch, as if she wanted to disagree.

But she didn’t, she reminded herself. She hated this place. If he accidently opened a gas line and set fire to the whole tender box of a house, she wouldn’t care.

“Good–then I’ll head out back to check my grandmother’s roses before I leave.”

She escaped. Even as a child she’d understood the gardens were an escape for her ... from the darkness, the past and the haunted stories on the inside.

She avoided looking at the remains of what have been the majestic Heritage gardens. She’d developed her love of flowers and the outdoors at her grandmothers side.

Because her grandmother had loved these gardens.

It was what made her good at her job. What made her renowned in the Knoxville area.

And what made looking at the gardens an ache she couldn’t assuage by landscaping any other place.

Still, she tried. Putting the time and effort and money into bringing these gardens back would put too much importance on an old house she wanted to forget.

The roses, however, had been planted by her mother the year she married into the family. They were an old variety and needed far more care then she ever gave them.

So she grabbed her tools from the stable, then settled down to work.

* * *

The summer light was just beginning to fade when Cooper finally dismissed his men and began to put up his tools. They’d started later in the afternoon and stayed longer to finish some of the prep work. It would take awhile to prep as it always did in refurbishing the old houses. The older the houses, the more the work. They had to document and preserve what they could of the original construction. If it was possible, they would research and replace old patterns and design.

It took time and research and effort, but still, the end product was worth it.

He had never worked on a house this size and hoped that if he did a good job with the family wing that maybe he would be asked to continue and work on the more historical aspects of the house.

It was an amazing project really, a once in a lifetime chance to have a hand in something lasting and important to the community.

As he passed by the kitchen window, now framed in blue painters tape, he spotted Dani knelling in the middle of weeds and overgrown bushes. She was a pretty little thing, he thought. With an old straw hat covering her blond hair and aged garden gloves on her hands, she toiled in the dirt.

Experienced as he was as a contractor, Cooper had heard about her skill as a landscape artist. He’d actually seen the results of some of her work. She’d picked up a reputation, even in Knoxville.

Still, it was different watching her in person. She had ... it was more then concentration ... a devotion to the plants she was working with. She loved her work. She celebrated the sunlight.

She started with the rose bushes that grew on the trellis at the back of the house, but had moved on. She was now several feet down where he could see her, appreciate her. She was a combination of responsibility and uncertainty. There were wounds underneath that touch exterior that needed to be softened and healed. She cared more for the Heritage then she let on, perhaps more then she wanted to believe.

She was a complex mix and always things like that drew him. Whether it was a house, or a person, he felt drawn, connected, because he knew what it felt like to need to be refinished and rebuilt. He knew what it felt like to be broken.

He stepped out the back and let the screen door close behind him. He watched as she spun around, surprise and consternation in her eyes.

“I didn’t think you’d still be here,” he said.

She looked back, almost guiltily at the beds she’d been working on. “Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. It’s ashamed to let these beds just sit here ... it’s good soil, good light.”

“And yet you do.”

She shrugged and began to gather her tools. “Some things, you just don’t fight.”

“And some things you fight for,” he said as she stood.

“Don’t get into this with me,” she murmured and turned away.

He followed her to the building that had obviously been stables at one time. It was rundown, crumbling in parts—though not where it couldn’t be repaired. It was actually a magnificant structure, stone in most of its parts. He pressed a hand to the outside and felt the rough texture.

It was a shame, he thought, to let this structure crumble, to use it for nothing more then a shed.

With a sigh, he followed Dani in, more to see the inside then to continue to argue with her. He looked up at the rafters and then down to where the stalls had been taken out, or were beginning to rot away. Despairing, but not a hundred years old.

“How long’s it been since horses were kept here?”

Setting her tools on a flimsy metal shelf, Dani shrugged. “You’d have to ask Carrie.”

“Still,” he grinned a little as he leaned against the frame and watched her put away her tools with smooth, orderly moves.

“I know my great, great grandfather kept horses here before the first world war. And I think my grandmother had horses as a child—or maybe it was her mother. But not in awhile,” she slapped her gloves on the shelf, “the money was gone before it got to us.”

Dani frowned at the shelf of garden tools, surprised at the bitterness in her own voice.

“Oh–so that’s what has you so upset. The Morgan sisters are no longer the richest girls in the county.”

He was goading her, she could tell. Most people seemed to question her disdain for the house, tried to pry out the reason.

She was too tired for it.

“It has nothing to do with that,” she said as she tossed her gloves at the shelf. “And plenty to do with no family vacations, and having to stay in the house where we stayed the summer my mother was dying. I could–“

She watched the gloves—her mother’s favorite pair—slap against the back wall and slide through the back. She jumped forward, grabbed on, and over compensated.

The rickety shelf pulled back with her. She stepped forward.

Helplessly.

And found herself yanked back into Dresden Cooper’s arms. The metal shelves crashed to the floor.

She stared for a long time at the mess, the scattered tools and broken glass, the books that had been stacked on the top shelf. She stared at the pile for a long time, and for a moment wondered if she could get away with just backing out and shutting the door behind her, leaving the mess scattered all over the floor.

She turned, surprised to find herself still in Cooper’s arms. She placed a hand against his chest, as if to push back, and found him well toned and strong.

She looked up at his eyes. Such pretty, green eyes.

“What kind of name is Dresden?”

He grinned, a crooked, criminal, smile. “A family one. One, I’m afraid, you wouldn’t appreciate.”

She rolled her eyes at his blatant comment and the spell—if there had been one—was broken. She pushed back and set her hands on her hips. She’d have to clean this up. She wasn’t planning on coming back and putting herself in Dresden Cooper’s way any time soon.

“Some mess,” he said as he stepped around her and dipped down at the foot of the shelves. “It’s no wonder they toppled over. Someone had set the shelves on top of this old ...”

She noticed the chest for the first time and stepped around him to stand in between the shelves. She watched as he shifted the chest and pride open the top. Instead of dust and dirt, or old junk like was in the attic, inside was a stack of books, paintings that leaned up against the edge and rolls of more stacked against the side.

“I can’t believe it,” she said as she knelt down. “We never saw ...”

She reached out with a trembling hand and lifted the cover back with a finger. Inside was written the name that gave old Lindsey house much of its fame.

Annabelle Grace.

“Oh—“ she held out a hand to stop him as he reached out to touch. She’d been around Carrie enough—around preservation enough—to know better than to mess with aged paper.

“It’s the legendary journals ...” she glanced at the rolled sheets and the leaning small canvasses. “And paintings. I wonder if they’re hers. You know, the legend says she was a writer and published her stories under a man’s name in a northern press. There were very few southern writers back then, so people speculate and wonder about her.”

She looked back at Cooper and found him grinning at her.

“You used the word legend. Isn’t that a little ... nostalgic for a place you claim to hate?”

Dani pushed to her feet and glared down at him. “What it is, is an important find. Irreplaceable. And it has nothing to do with my hate for the place.”

And nearly everything, she thought, with Carrie’s devotion. They’d searched as children for the missing hope chest, their own summer treasure hunts through the old house on rainy afternoons. They’d never thought of the stables, but neither had her grandmother or the scores of history buff’s who’d taken the time to look. The stables were nothing but a dark and dingy old shed.

But as a teenager, and later an adult, she’d given Carrie nothing but grief over anything to do with Annabelle Grace and the reasons for preservation.

A twinge of guilt tugged at her heart, because she found she could do nothing but what her sister would want to do.

“I need to call Professor Davis. He’ll want to know.’

She thought of the letters they’d lost the previous year. Someone had taken them, walked right out with them. Letters her ancestor had exchanged during the Civil War with Robert E. Lee, U.S. Grant, and General George B. McClellan.

Irreplaceable letters.

And there was no security in the stables.

“Can you help me? I need to get this to my truck—“ she grimaced. “That won’t work. I can’t transport this in the back bed.”

“I can put it in mine. I have an SUV.”

She stared at him, stared at those deep green eyes. “Fine—but I’ll ride with you.”

“You don’t trust me?” he asked, with a grin.

Once again, he was questioning her feelings for the old house and what it meant. She pushed the irritation off.

“This is too important.”

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