I hung up and looked at Ian.
“Duty calls,” he said.
“Apparently,” I replied, pushing back my chair.
Mo immediately inched himself closer to the handle of the front door, letting us know he had no intention of remaining home today.
“Don’t even start,” I warned him.
He did not move.
Ian chuckled. “He’s made his decision and there is no changing it.”
“I don’t need backup to work the garden center,” I said.
Mo remained unmoved.
Ian grabbed his keys. “I’ll take him with me today.”
Mo’s tail thumped once, satisfied.
“Fine,” I said. “But if he causes another fiasco, he’s yours permanently.”
Ian grinned, reminding, “Package deal.”
We stepped outside together, a slight breeze in the warm air. We kissed, and Ian and Mo, who trotted happily ahead of Ian, headed down the path connecting my place with his. While I got in my pickup and headed to work.
The Madison Garden Center was already humming when I arrived.
Late summer always did that, the rush to salvage what was left of the season before autumn quietly took over. Flat carts rattled across gravel paths, sprinklers ticked somewhere in the distance, and the scent of damp soil and sun-warmed greenery wrapped around everything.
Danny caught my eye from across the lot and mouthed,Thank you,before disappearing behind a truck stacked with deliveries.
I tied my bright green apron on, identifying me as a worker, and stepped into the fray.
That’s when I spotted Vera.
She stood near the clearance section of summer flowers, studying a tray of somewhat defeated-looking petunias as if they’d personally offended her. Vera had a gift. A true, enviable gift. Give her a half-dead plant and she’d nurse it back to glorious bloom. Her hanging baskets of ivy geraniums were the stuff of neighborhood legend, cascading color well into October. And her vinca? They bloomed stubbornly past the point of reason.
I walked over. “Rescuing strays again?”
She looked up, eyes bright despite the lines of worry etched around them. “Pepper. You wouldn’t believe what people toss aside. These still have life in them.”
“I don’t doubt it. In your hands, they’ll think it’s spring again.”
She smiled faintly, then the smile faded.
“This whole bank mess,” she said quietly, “it’s unsettled me.”
I lowered my voice. “Because of what you had in your safety deposit box?”
She nodded. “And now the federal agents warning us that the robbers might track down anyone who emptied their box before the heist. They told me to be extra cautious. Extra cautious of what?” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What was in the box?” I asked gently, thinking she wasn’t likely to tell me, but I’d give it a try anyway.
Her brow narrowed. “That is not a question you ask someone, Pepper.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling as if I was in the third grade and being chastised by my teacher, something that had happened on a regular basis. “Have you considered a home safe? Something solid, bolted down?”
