NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

 She left it there, smiled a little. “It’s not bad.”

 “And the world didn’t spin on its axis because you leaned on someone else for a minute.”

 “No, it didn’t. Thanks.”

 “You’re welcome. Anyway, other reasons I was hoping you’d come in while I was working. I wanted to tell you I’ve sent a letter to your cousin Clarise Harper. If I don’t hear back from her in a week, I’ll do a follow-up. And I have several detailed family trees for you, the Harpers, your mother’s family, your first husband’s. I actually found an Amelia Ashby. No, leave that head right where it is,” he said, tightening his grip when she started to sit up straight.

 “She’s not connected, as far as I can see, as she lived and died in Louisiana, and is too contemporary. I spent some time tracking her back, to see if I could find a link to your Amelia—a namesake sort of thing—but it’s not happening. I have some e-mail correspondence from the great-granddaughter of the housekeeper who worked in Harper House from 1887 to 1912. She’s a lawyer in Chicago, and is finding the family history interesting enough to put out feelers of her own. She could be a good source, at least on that one branch.”

 His hand stroked gently up and down her arm, relaxing her. “You’ve been busy.”

 “Most of that’s just standard. But I’ve been thinking about the less ordinary portions of our project. When we made love—”

 “What portion of the project does that come under?”

 He laughed at her dry tone, and rubbed his cheek over her hair. “I put that in the extremely personal column and am hoping to fill a lot of pages in that file. But I’ve got a point. She manifested—that would be the word, right?”

 “Can’t think of a better.”

 “She blew open doors, slammed them shut, set the clocks off, and so on. Without question showed her feelings about what was going on between us, and has since we started that personal file.”

 “And so?”

 “I’m not the first man you’ve been personal with in that house.”

 “No, you’re not.”

 “But you haven’t mentioned her having similar tantrums over you and John Ashby or you and Bryce Clerk—or anyone you might have had a relationship with otherwise.”

 “Because it never happened before.”

 “Okay. Okay.” He got up, walking back and forth as he talked. “You lived in the house when you and John Ashby were dating, when you became engaged.”

 “Yes, of course. It’s my home.”

 “And you lived here, primarily, after you were married, exclusively after your parents died.”

 She could see him working something out in his head. No, she corrected. It’s already worked out, he was just going through the steps of it for her benefit.

 “We stayed here often—my mother wasn’t well, and my father couldn’t cope with her half the time. When he died, we lived here, in an informal sort of way. When she died, we moved permanently into the house.”

 “And during all that time, Amelia never objected to him? To John.”

 “No. I stopped seeing her when I turned, oh, eleven, I’d say, and didn’t see her again until after I was married. We hadn’t been married long, but were already trying to have children. I thought I might be pregnant, and I couldn’t sleep. I went outside, sat in the garden, and I saw her. I saw her and I knew I was carrying a child. I saw her at the onset of every pregnancy. Saw or heard her, of course, when the boys were little.”

 “Did your husband ever see her?”

 “No.” She frowned. “No, he didn’t. Heard her, but never saw her. I saw her the night he died.”

 “You never told me that.”

 “I haven’t told you each and every time I . . .” She trailed off, shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you. I’ve never discussed it with anyone. It’s very personal, and it’s painful still.”

 “I don’t know what it’s like to love and lose someone the way you loved and lost your John. I know it must seem like prying, and it is. But it’s all of a piece, Roz. I have to know, to do the job, I have to know this sort of thing.”

 “I didn’t think you would, when I hired you. That you’d have to know personal things. Wait.” She lifted a hand before he could speak. “I understand better now. How you work, I think, how you try to see things. People. The board in the library, the pictures on it so youcan see who they were. All the little details you accumulate. It’s more than I bargained for. I think I mean that in a good way.”

 “I need to be immersed.”

 “Like you were with a brilliant and twisted poet,” she said with a nod. “I also believe you have to know, and that I’m able to tell you these things, because of what we’re becoming to each other. Conversely, that may be why it’s hard for me to tell you. It’s not easy for me to feel close to someone, to a man. To trust, and to want.”

 “Do you want it easy?”

 She shook her head. “How do you know me so well already? No, I don’t want it easy. I suspect easy. I’m having a time with you inside myself, Mitchell. That’s a compliment.”

 “Same goes.”

 She studied him, standing there, vital and alive, with the arbor and its sleeping roses behind him. With warmth and sun, the roses would wake. But John, her John, was gone.