The Rose of Winslow Street (33 page)

“Get down from there!” he roared. He pulled the brake on the wagon and sprang to the ground, stalking across the yard like a barbarian on the march. Even from three stories up she could hear him muttering in Romanian, and whatever he was saying did not sound complimentary. He stood in the middle of the yard and yelled up at her.

“Why can't you be a normal woman and keep your feet on the ground? I have traveled nine hundred miles to get back to you, and look! Trousers!”

The man was two months late and he had the gall to criticize her wardrobe? For weeks she had been the laughingstock of the town, and now he had the audacity to criticize her in public. “The duchess” indeed.

“I suppose the women in Kentucky dress a lot nicer!” she shot back down to him. She was thrilled down to her toes to see him, but she was not going to let him ride roughshod over her.

“Yes, they do.” He braced the ladder against the house and was getting ready to mount. She had to move quickly. He was only on the second rung when she nudged the top of the ladder with her foot to send it hurtling backward. Michael sprang harmlessly onto the grass as the ladder clattered to the ground. Catcalls of approval rose from the crowd. Libby noticed it was the women who cheered her, while the men were taking Michael's side. Mr. Stockdale was already helping Michael get the ladder back in place.

“Don't you dare come up here,” she shouted. “Did those well-dressed women in Kentucky water your jasmine seedlings every day without fail, even when they were so mad they could spit?”

He planted his hands on his hips, his eyes narrowed as he glared up at her. “The women in Kentucky are too ladylike to spit.”

“Well, I'm not!” She grabbed the basket of peanuts, took aim, and hurled them down on his arrogant head. Peanuts and cracked shells floated down harmlessly, but Sally Gallagher was thrilled. “Give it to him, Libby!”

Michael turned and gestured for Joseph, who pushed through the crowd, a three-hundred-pound force of nature. Both men carried the ladder to the house for a second attempt to storm the roof. With the ladder held solid at its base by Joseph's massive hands, she would have no prayer of pushing it over a second time. Not that she really wanted to, anyway. The ladder jostled as Michael mounted again. She slid higher back on the roof so she could be away from the blast of those eyes when he finally reached her. The angle of the roof made it impossible to see him, but she heard the pound of each footstep as he climbed higher and higher. Could this man do nothing quietly? Even his return to town had to be accompanied by throngs of onlookers who trailed after his wagon like he was the Pied Piper.

But he came back to me.
Already she longed to indulge in his big, generous spirit.

His hands were the first thing she saw. Callused and blunt, they grasped the sides of the ladder as he raised himself the final few rungs. He was grinning by the time he cleared the base of the roof.

“Hello, Liberty Sawyer,” he said casually.

She nodded in his direction, mimicking his nonchalant air. “Michael.”

He was about to step onto the roof when he paused to sniff the air. The expression on his face was sheer masculine satisfaction. “You are wearing my perfume.”

“Every day.”

His grin deepened. “Good.” For a big man, he was surprisingly graceful as he stepped onto the roof. With an agile twist he turned and sat beside her. “I have traveled nine hundred miles to see that smile again. It was worth every step.”

Libby did her best to kill the smile. “Tell me about those beautifully dressed women in Kentucky,” she said. After all, the man was two months late and she was entitled to an explanation.

“Well,” he began cautiously, “there were attractive women all the way from here to Kentucky and back. But the women of Kentucky were especially beautiful.”

“Were they,” she said dryly. More than two dozen people were loitering near the wagon in the street, all of them staring straight up at them. They could see, but they could not hear.

“Oh yes. But none of them snort when they laugh the way you do.”

Oddly, Libby knew he meant it as a compliment. “They don't?”

“No. And none of them know the difference between a red juniper and a silver maple.”

“The dullards.”

“Yes. This is why I had to travel all the way back to fetch you. I find I missed you more with each day.”

Her heart warmed at the words, but her mind still wanted an explanation. “Does that explain the torrent of letters you flooded me with these last few weeks?”

He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. Even from the rooftop, she could hear the murmur of approval from the crowd below. Michael shot the spectators an annoyed glance. “The townspeople don't bother me, but I can't do this in front of my boys.” He stood up carefully and braced his hands on his hips. “Joseph!” he bellowed.

Joseph came lumbering forward. “Aye?”

“Take the boys to Mr. Auckland's house. The rest of you can stay if you want, but I plan on spending the rest of the afternoon up here with Libby, so you will get bored.”

Joseph gave a little salute. Libby sent a broad wave down to Andrei and Luke. “Can I take the cat?” Luke's childish voice carried up to them, and Libby was pleased when Michael looked to her for permission. “Tell Luke not to feed him table scraps,” she said. “He is getting fat.”

Michael called down the instructions, then rejoined her as the wagon rolled away. “I hope you don't mind staying up here,” he said. “I think we will have more privacy here than anywhere else. People began following our wagon the moment I reached Storybrook Lane.”

How strangely natural this felt as he folded her hand within his own and they sat beneath the fragrant autumn leaves. “I had to stay much longer than I planned in Kentucky,” he said. “The sisters needed help with their roses, and there is no one in the country who understands this cultivar as well as I.” He explained the nonexistent mail service from that valley, and that by the time he had crossed the Appalachian Mountains, where mail delivery was fast, he knew he would be able to reach her within a week or two. “I wanted to explain all this to you in person,” he said. “I figured another couple of weeks without letters would not matter so much. Was I wrong?”

Libby carefully held her tongue. If ever she doubted there was a profound deficit in men's understanding of the female mind, she had just been disabused of that bit of foolishness. “A note or two to let me know you were alive might have been nice.”

As Michael anticipated, after a while the onlookers eventually lost interest, as it appeared the fireworks were over and she and Michael were sitting like a boring old married couple perfectly content to hold hands on the top of a roof. Despite appearances, Libby was filled with exhilaration. Michael had come back for her and it was as if he had never left.

The afternoon grew cooler as he told her about his time in Kentucky, how he stayed to help the sisters improve their operations for harvesting and distilling rose petals. Mirela entered the novitiate process, learning the ways of the sisters in preparation for taking her vows. To her surprise, Turk insisted on remaining with Mirela. He found lodging with a nearby farming family, but promised he would help the sisters work the fields during the harvests.

Michael asked after her father, and Libby was pleased to report that they were getting along better than ever before. Her father had quit demanding perfection of her, and of himself as well. Now that his wonderful, albeit imperfect, inventions were performing useful work out in the world, he was beginning to take greater pride in his accomplishments. At times he was still surly and impatient, but she no longer feared he was slipping into dementia.

After they filled each other in on the last three months, they talked about nothing, and it was magnificent. Michael asked her if the leaves of their maple were always this brilliant shade of yellow in autumn, and she wanted to know if the boys behaved themselves on the journey. Throughout the afternoon, people kept checking on them. She saw draperies pulled aside as curious neighbors sneaked a peek, and sometimes people even strolled past their house, making a point to nod and wave up to them. Probably a third of the population of Colden came by to check out the peculiar sight, but Libby did not care.

The afternoon shadows lengthened, and Libby knew they could not linger up there forever. She drew a breath and asked the question that had been in the forefront of her mind all afternoon.

“What happens now?”

Michael's hand tightened around hers. “I would like to share my life with you,” he said. “I would like to marry you and have children with you. I would like you to help teach my boys to become fine young men. I want to walk through the woods with you and fall asleep with you beside the light of a fire.”

Libby's heart swelled with a surge of joy, but Michael's next words sobered her. “Libby, I would like us to move to Kentucky.”

It was as she'd feared. When he spoke of the rose fields surrounding the convent, he was alive with an energy that was contagious. It was as though he had found the Holy Grail and could now rest in blessed peace. “I need to make arrangements for the sale of my estate in Romania,” he continued. “Once I have that revenue, I will be able to afford the kind of land and house where I would be proud to raise a family. I would like you to be a part of that life, but if you find you cannot make this move, I will understand. I will remain in Colden if this is where you need to be.”

Libby looked at the street where she'd lived for as long as she could remember. She knew the life story of every person in each house, the location of each loose cobblestone in the street. She could leave these things behind. Harder would be leaving her father, as problematic as their relationship was. Missing the weekly luncheons in Jasper and Regina's garden and saying good-bye to Mr. Auckland forever would hurt. She would miss these things, but they were all a normal part of growing up and becoming her own person. After the initial adjustment, she would be fine.

But leaving Tillie would break her heart.

From the moment that girl had been born, Tillie was like a daughter to her. That relationship had been the best thing in her world, and she did not want to imagine a life without Tillie in it.

Could she tell Michael that without sounding selfish? She traced the outline of his strong, callused thumb as she thought. In the space of two short months, she had bonded to Michael's children and looked forward to being a part of their lives, but nothing could ever replace the soul-deep bond she had with Tillie. If Michael stayed in Colden, she could have everything. Did she dare ask for it?

But if she was to marry Michael, she needed to stop thinking about what
she
wanted and do what was best for the entire family. Last summer she had slipped seamlessly into the Dobrescu clan and had savored every hour of it. She wanted more. She wanted to teach his children to paint and feed them blackberry jam until their skin was tinged indigo. She wanted to help Michael grow roses and learn how to make perfume. She wanted to listen to Michael's stories of Romania and watch him pour wine on the ground to toast Uncle Constantine. It was the Dobrescu family that mattered now. She was going to be a part of that family, and her love for Tillie was only one piece of what must be considered. Michael Dobrescu always made his decisions based on what was best for his family as a whole. Libby Dobrescu must do the same.

The thought of picking up and leaving Massachusetts was daunting. She lowered herself to lie down against the roof, feeling the sun-warmed roof tiles on her back as she stared up at the wisps of clouds in the late afternoon sky. “What do the boys think of Kentucky?” she asked.

“They loved it. It reminded them of home.” Michael lay back as well, his hand still clutching hers as they lay side-by-side, staring up at the sky. “If we remain in Colden, they will learn to adjust.” His voice was strong and confident as he said it. “Libby, no matter where we live, we will bloom and thrive. I find that I wish to be alongside you, but I do not know how strongly you are tied to this town.”

Her answer was unequivocal. “My ties to you are stronger.”

Michael's fingers tightened around hers. Kentucky made sense for them. She had never found a partner here, and the man she loved more than the sun, the moon, and the stars rolled together wanted to live in Kentucky. She would be proud to go with him.

There was a rustling of fabric as he turned on his side, resting his head in his crooked arm. How oddly intimate it felt to be lying beside him like this, but his eyes were gentle as he rested his hand across her stomach. It was so big it nearly covered her entire middle.

“I hope someday we have a daughter who has your kindness.”

Yes, a daughter. A smile curved her lips as she tried to imagine how Michael would pamper and fuss over a little girl. Or would he roughhouse with a daughter as he did with his boys? It was hard to predict, but no matter what, she knew Michael would be an amazing father. And she knew she would gladly follow him to the ends of the earth, for God had blessed her with the priceless gift of a family. She would honor that gift by treating it with the reverence that it deserved, be it in Colden, or Kentucky, or on a desert island. She had found her family, and she, like a rare hybrid rose, would bloom wherever she happened to be.

Three Years Later

A
fter weeks of travel, Professor Willard Sawyer's legs were shaky as he stepped down from the wagon to inspect the house the Romanian had built for his daughter. It was a fine farmhouse, no doubt about that, with a wide front porch that wrapped around the entire front and the east side as well.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” the driver he had hired to take him there asked.

“I'm sure.” Who else but a crazy man would plant a hundred acres of roses? Willard had seen fields of corn interspersed among the rose fields, so at least Dobrescu was not a totally impractical man. But it wasn't roses or cornfields he came nine hundred miles to see. There was a new granddaughter to meet, and a promise he needed to fulfill. He had not been the world's best father to Libby, but at least he was a man of his word, and it was time to deliver on the promise he'd made to Michael Dobrescu three years ago. Glancing at the sprawling two-story farmhouse sitting amid a hundred acres of healthy cropland, it looked as if the man had done well by his daughter.

As he walked closer to the farmhouse, Willard noted the hammock strung between two mighty oak trees and a pink rocking horse on the front porch. If the carefully manicured patch of lawn with a series of wickets staked into the ground was any measure, it looked as if Libby was still indulging her love of croquet.

Still . . . what kind of man made perfume for a living? For the past three years, Willard had been receiving the letters his daughter had dictated to Michael, describing their partnership with the sisters at the convent to harvest and sell their rose oil to the New York perfume industry. Michael had already bought equipment to begin blending his own perfume, but needed his jasmine before he could begin the process.

The seedlings for Michael's rare strain of night-blooming jasmine could not be transported when Libby moved to Kentucky, so for the past three years Willard had been nurturing those plants. Through the hot dry summers and months of bitter cold, he had fertilized, pruned, and fussed over those plants. Following the instructions Michael had sent, he carefully raised the plants to maturity and tended the bean-like seedpods until they were ripe for cultivation.

Some men gave their children a home upon marriage. Some gave a piece of the family business or enough money to start a business of their own. In his pocket, Professor Sawyer carried the only gift his daughter and her husband desired. It was the last thing his crazy son-in-law needed before beginning to blend his own perfume in America.

A sack of rare night-blooming jasmine seeds.