Suzanna's Surrender

“Fine.” She loaded the bags of peat and mulch into a wheelbarrow. He swore at her, tossed the shovel on top then nudged her away to push the wheelbarrow himself.

“Where out back?”

“By the stakes near the rear fence.”

She frowned after him when he started off, then followed him. He began digging without consulting her so she emptied the wheelbarrow and headed back to her truck. When he glanced up, she was pushing out two more trees. They planted the first one together, in silence.

He hadn't realized that putting a tree in the ground could be soothing, even rewarding work. But when it stood, young and straight in the dazzling sunlight, he felt soothed. And rewarded.

“I was thinking about what you said yesterday,” he began when they set the second tree in its new home.

“And?”

He wanted to swear. There was such patience in the single word, as if she'd known all along he would bring it up. “And I still don't think there's anything I can do, or want to do, but you may be right about the connection.”

“I know I'm right about the connection.” She brushed mulch from her hands to her jeans. “If you came out here just to tell me that, you've wasted a trip.”

She rolled the empty wheelbarrow to the truck. She was about to muscle the next two trees out of the bed when he jumped up beside her.

“I'll get the damn things out.” Muttering, he filled the wheelbarrow and rolled it back to the rear of the yard. “He never mentioned her to me. Maybe he knew her, maybe they had an affair, but I don't see how that helps you.”

“He loved her,” Suzanna said quietly as she picked up the shovel to dig. “That means he knew how she felt, how she thought. He might have had an idea where she would have hidden the emeralds.”

“He's dead.”

“I know.” She was silent a moment as she worked.

“Bianca kept a journal – at least we're nearly certain she did, and that she hid it away with the necklace. Christian might have kept one, too.”

Annoyed, he grabbed the shovel again. “I never saw it.”

She suppressed the urge to snap at him. However much it might grate, he could be a link. “I suppose most people keep a private journal in a private place. Or he might have kept some letters from her. We found one Bianca wrote him and was never able to send.”

“You're chasing windmills, Suzanna.”

“This is important to my family.” She set the white pine carefully in the hole. “It's not the monetary value of the emeralds. It's what they meant to her.”

He watched her work, the competent and gentle hands, the surprisingly strong shoulders. The delicate curve of her neck. “How could you know what they meant to her?”

She kept her eyes down. “I can't explain that to you in any way you'd understand or accept.”

“Try me.”

“We all seem to have some kind of bond with her – especially Lilah.” She didn't look up when she heard him digging the next hole. “We'd never seen the emeralds, not even a photograph. After Bianca died, Fergus, my greatgrandfather, destroyed all pictures of her. But Lilah...she drew a sketch of them one night. It was after we'd had a séance.”

She did look up then and caught – his look of amused disbelief. “I know how it sounds,” she said, her voice stiff and defensive. “But my aunt believes in that sort of thing. And after that night, I think she may be right to. My youngest sister, C.C. had an...experience during the séance. She saw them – the emeralds. That's when Lilah drew the sketch. Weeks later, Lilah's fiancé found a picture of the emeralds in a library book. They were exactly as Lilah had drawn them, exactly as C.C. had seen them.”

He said nothing for a moment as he set the next tree in place. “I'm not much on mysticism. Maybe one of your sisters saw the picture before, and had forgotten about it.”

“If any of us had seen a picture, we wouldn't have forgotten. Still, the point is that all of us feel that finding the emeralds is important.”

“They might have been sold eighty years ago.”

“No. There was no record. Fergus was a maniac about keeping his finances.” Unconsciously she arched her back, rolled her shoulders to relieve the ache. “Believe me, we've been through every scrap of paper we could find.”

He let it drop, mulling it over as they planted the last of the trees.

“You know the bit about the needle in the haystack?” he asked as he helped her spread mulch. “People don't really find it.”

“They would if they kept looking.” Curious, she sat back on her heels to study him. “Don't you believe in hope?”

He was close enough to touch her, to rub the smudge of dirt from her cheek or run a hand down the ponytail. He did neither. “No, only in what is.”

“Then I'm sorry for you.” They rose together, their bodies nearly brushing. She felt something rush along her skin, something race through her blood, and automatically stepped back. “If you don't believe in what could be, there isn't any use in planting trees, or having children or even watching the sun set.”