"I insist," Joseph said, and disappeared into his office. He came out moments later with a briefcase and a roll of drawings under his arm. "If you stay, then you'll make me feel guilty," he warned, flashing her a broad, engaging grin.

Marjorie wilted beneath the gaze. Even she was not immune to chocolate-chip eyes and wide smiles.

She shrugged. "If you insist."

Joseph grinned. "I do."

And then he stopped on his way out the door, suddenly remembering something he'd been meaning to do all week. "Oh, by the way, Molly, you need to give Mrs. Weeks your home phone number...just in case."

She nodded, remembering the talk they'd had one evening about putting her name on Joey's papers at the day-care center as someone else to call in case of emergency if Joseph was unavailable.

"Just in case of what?" Marjorie asked. The look she gave Molly was full of distrust and accusation.

"She's the other person on record at Joey's day care to be contacted if I can't be reached."

Marjorie's mouth pruned, her eyes glittered, her nostrils flared, but like the well-bred woman she was, she did nothing but reach for a pen and paper and then made note of the information and work schedule Molly gave her.

"If he had a mother, none of this would be necessary," she muttered.

Joseph heard and, after what he'd just been through, was less than kind in response to her interfering comments.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Mrs. Weeks. And until you do, it might be a good idea to keep your opinions to yourself."

High color slashed across her face, sweeping downward and disappearing beneath the ruff of lace at her neck.

"Yes, sir," she said stiffly, glaring fiercely at Molly, unwilling to lay blame on herself for her boss's condemnation.

Molly could only stare at the hate on the older woman's face. It made her sick, and it made her remember. The last time such a hateful expression had been directed her way, Claudia Wilder had been wearing it. It was a subdued trio that left the office.

Joseph felt Molly's dejection and wished that they were alone. But Joey wiggled to be put down, anxious to punch the b.u.t.ton to the 'vator by himself. Dealing with the child kept Joseph and Molly from dealing with their own sets of feelings toward each other. That there were feelings, Joseph was certain. Just how deep-and for whom-was what remained to be seen.

Molly swept the last of the cut gra.s.s from the patio, thankful that for another week or so, her lawn was now down to an acceptable height, then rolled her shoulder and winced when a sore muscle twinged. It was a hazard people would never have suspected from the job that she did.

Being a florist was hectic, and often quite physical. Nearly everything was heavy or awkward, from handling long boxes of flowers packed in ice to juggling pots and pots of flowers that needed to be wrapped for resale. Having to come home and deal with a lawn and shrubbery was just adding insult to injury.

"Oh my gosh." She groaned and dumped the last bit of cut gra.s.s into a bag to be disposed of later, then leaned against the handle of her yard rake.

"Hey, over there-are you all right?"

Joseph's voice surprised her. She walked over to the hedge, trying unsuccessfully to peer through the thick growth, and made a mental note that the thing needed tr.i.m.m.i.n.g.

"I'm fine. What made you ask?"

"I heard you groan," Joseph said. "I thought maybe you'd hurt yourself."

"The only things that hurt are my feet," Molly said. "I hate to mow the lawn."

"Oh."

"What are you doing over there?" she asked.

"I'm...ouch!"

Molly grinned. She'd heard that particular curse before-and from this side of the hedge, if she remembered correctly.

Hearing Joseph's grunt, and then his short exchange of words with himself, made Molly grin. Joey had asked for a swing set, and knowing Joseph, she suspected he wouldn't long deny his son the chance for another skinned knee.

It was one of the things she most admired about Joseph. Instead of being the overprotective parent one would expect of a man in his circ.u.mstances, he seemed perfectly willing to let Joey be a typical little boy. Dirt and blood-in small amounts only-never seemed to faze him.

"Need some help?" she asked, refusing to admit that shouting through a hedge was an odd way to communicate. So far it had been working quite nicely.

There was silence, then a loud sigh, and a disgusted reply. "What I need is an extra pair of hands."

It was what she'd been waiting to hear. "I'll be right there." She dropped the rake and darted through her house, glad for the excuse to go see him.

Joseph watched her coming across his lawn, and at that moment, hated the d.a.m.ned red pole to the swing set he was holding in place. There were a lot of other things he would rather be doing with his hands than stuffing a bolt through a hole.

She was smiling, and the flash of her teeth made his belly ache. Wisps of that autumn-colored hair kept blowing across her eyes, and every time she reached up to brush it away from her face, the motion pulled her b.r.e.a.s.t.s up just enough to drive a man crazy. Her long legs were, as usual, bare. Her short cutoff jeans were soft and frayed, and they molded to her slender figure with every step she took. He groaned.

Molly heard the sound. She took the last few steps on the run, certain that he was in a terrible bind from the position he was in.

"I've got it," she said, sliding her own hands up beneath his, leaving him free to insert the bolt and put on the nut.

Her hands were slender. A small nick on her forefinger made him want to lean down and kiss away the pain, small though it might be. Reluctant to remove his hands and break their touch, he waited, and time ceased.

Molly looked up and was caught in a dark, impenetrable stare. She watched his eyes, and the way his gaze swept across her face, lingering longer than needed on her mouth, on her chin, on the way their bodies touched as she stood beside him.

She inhaled, then shuddered from an unexpected ache in a long-forgotten portion of her heart. It had been so long since she'd let herself care. Her gaze fixed as she counted four beads of sweat across his forehead and one in the center of his upper lip, and she wondered if he would put as much pa.s.sion into making love as he did in making swing sets for his child.

Joseph watched the blue in her eyes turn gray and stormy, saw her body's reaction as her nipples hardened beneath her tank top, and knew that it wouldn't take much for their bodies to wind up tangled in the metal to which they were holding.

"Don't let go," he whispered softly.

She shook her head, unable to answer. I would never let you go, Joseph Rossi. It's you who'd better hang on.

Four.

Molly clipped the stem of the daisy in her hands to within a couple of inches of the bloom, inserted a thin, flexible piece of floral wire through it and then up through the blossom. Moving without conscious thought, she yanked a strip of white floral tape from the roll and began wrapping the wired stem. When she had finished, she laid it beside the others just like it on her work table that would soon become the elaborate bridal bouquet she was creating.

Wiping her hands on the seat of her pants to rid them of the sticky residue left from the floral tape, she began to a.s.semble the bits of green fern and baby's breath that would form the halo of the bouquet. Anxious now that she'd actually begun to create the arrangement, the work went quickly. Inserting, bending, and coaxing, she worked the flowers until they formed the perfect shape.

Cora poked her head around the display cooler. "Are you almost through? Harry has the palm fronds and archway already loaded." And then she grinned and lowered her voice so that the browsing customers could not overhear. "This wedding is going to look like it took place in a jungle. Did you ever see so much green stuff in your life?"

Molly nodded, absently listening to Cora's gossip, while most of her focus was on the work in her hands. But Cora wasn't exaggerating. The mother of the bride had literally bought out the store's supply of green and leafy plants as well as ordering a number of portable stands that would be filled at the church with layer upon layer of palm fronds.

"Just give me another second...there!" Molly stepped back to eye her project, then gave the last of the ribbon around the bouquet a fluff and straightened the lengths of lover's knots hanging below.

After spritzing the bouquet liberally with water, she slipped it into a large cellophane bag and handed it to Cora with a relieved flourish.

"I'm gone," Harry said as he collected the bride's bouquet from his wife and headed for the delivery van. "See you when I see you."

Several seconds of silence pa.s.sed as Molly and Cora looked at each other and then unexpectedly burst into laughter.

"It's the same every time," Molly said. "First the euphoria of the order, then the mundane business of ordering the flowers from market. Next comes the day of decision. To create today...or wait till the last minute, take a chance on a slow day and work like h.e.l.l. I always tell myself that next time I'll plan ahead, and next time never comes."

Cora nodded. "But you love it," she said.

Molly grinned. "I love it."

Cora began picking up bits and pieces of snipped ribbon and crushed leaf, then wiping and mopping around the work area while Molly headed for her office. Much as she hated to do it, it was almost the first of the month and time to do the billing.

She turned the corner in the hallway, her mind on the list of things to be done. The piece of palm frond came into her line of vision at the same time she stepped, but it was too late to stop the motion. Her foot connected with the wet leaf, and the next thing she knew she was flat on her back on the concrete floor, staring up at a brown water spot on the ceiling.

Oh, darn, the roof has a leak.

The thought was inane, but she had no intention of wondering why she'd chosen this particular moment to consider the issue of leaky roofs. She was just thankful she could still think, because she was afraid to move. The loud crack she'd heard when she hit the floor had come from something, and if her body was in pieces, she didn't want to know.

"Cora, do you think you could come here for a minute?" she called weakly.

Cora laid down her mop and started down the narrow hallway that led toward the back of the building when she saw Molly stretched out on the floor.

"Oh my G.o.d!" she shrieked. "Don't move. I'll call an ambulance!"

"No!" Molly groaned. "Just come help me up."

Cora was on the boundary between panic and tears when she knelt at Molly's side.

"Oh, honey, where does it hurt?" she asked.

Molly grinned slightly. "I'm afraid to find out. Let's try this one step at a time."

She wiggled a foot, and then the other. Nothing fell off. Nothing hurt-much. She lifted her arm, and then the other, then swept the disarray of curls from her face with shaky hands.

"So far, so good," she said. "Now help me, I'm going to try to sit up."

"Oooh, I don't know about this," Cora mumbled. "I still think we should call for help. What if you've hurt your back?"

"If I have, I'll know it in a minute," Molly said. She extended her arms and Cora pulled.

The effort took more out of Molly than she'd imagined. Pain shot through her back and then eased, rocketed through her head, and then subsided. She sat up, then flexed her knees and rested her head on them, unwilling, for the moment, to move any farther.

"Molly?"

She heard the fear in Cora's voice, but for the life of her, it was impossible to talk. If she opened her mouth, she would probably scream.

Minutes pa.s.sed, and finally, when Molly could focus, with Cora's help, she stood upright.

"Good Lord," Molly said. "That was stupid."

"It was an accident," Cora corrected. "What made you fall?"

Molly pointed at the culprit still stuck on the bottom of her shoe. Cora frowned, bent down, and removed it before a repeat performance could occur.

"I'm calling Harry," Cora said. "You need to go to the emergency room and get yourself checked out."

"Don't be silly," Molly said. "He's in the middle of that wedding, remember? Besides, I just need to go home and get in a hot bath before everything stiffens up. I don't think anything's broken, but I know for darn sure that everything's bruised."

Cora wrung her hands, unwilling to let go of the idea of calling for help. "I hate this," she said. "I don't think you should be alone. What if you have a concussion? What if you've cracked a bone? You live alone, honey. Maybe you should come home with us."

Cora fussed absently with her short gray hair, worrying at the bit over her ear as she tucked it behind the earpiece of her eyegla.s.ses. She couldn't bear the thought of Molly alone and in pain.

"No way," Molly said. "Besides, if I get in bed and can't get out, I'll call an ambulance myself. Remember, I have neighbors, good neighbors. If I need help, all I have to do is yell."

Cora hushed. She'd seen this look on Molly's face before and knew better than to argue.

"Oh, no!" She pointed to the crushed plastic on the floor. "Your new phone!"

Molly sighed with relief. Her compact portable phone, the one she'd stuffed in her hip pocket, was in pieces on the floor.

"Thank G.o.d that's what I heard break," she said. "I thought it was me."

Cora glared. "You need your head examined," she muttered.

Molly put a hand on either side of her own head, wiggled it gently back and forth, and tried to grin. "It feels all right."

"If you're making jokes, I suppose you can't be all that bad," Cora said. "But I swear, you're not driving yourself home. Either wait for Harry or call a cab."

"Yes, nurse." Molly hugged her to lighten the teasing remark she'd made. "Thanks for caring. Sometimes I don't know what I'd do without you and Harry. You've become as dear to me as my own parents were."

Cora tried to smile, but her chin wobbled instead. She was short and stocky, but when she had to, she could move like a skate bug on water, and she left on the run to call a cab.

Minutes later, Cora stood at the window, watching as the cab swung out into the city traffic, her eyes narrowing against the glare of the afternoon sun as she considered what she was about to do. Then she headed for Molly's office and began searching through her Rolodex. When she found the number she was looking for, she dialed. Her hands were shaking, but her voice was strong as she waited for someone to answer the phone.

"Red Earth Designs."

"Mr. Rossi, please," Cora said.

"He's with a client," the secretary told her. "If you'll leave your name and-"

"I'll hold," Cora said. "I think this is an emergency."