Page 5 of The Queen of Roses

It took her a moment to realize that she had, actually. She’d passed a sandwich board sign with “Roses” written on it and an arrow pointing left into a drive framed by the kind of wooden gate she’d seen at the entrance to ranches in the Westerns her dad had loved so much.

“I didn’t realize that was the nursery,” she said.

Matt gave a sheepish little laugh. “That’s one of Miss Pearce’s eccentricities. She doesn’t believe in advertising but Miss Pearce is one of the premier commercial rose growers in the western United States.”

“If Rosewood Nursery is a business, why doesn’t she want to advertise?”

“She’s old-school and thinks that our reputation is enough to carry us through. You’ll understand when you meet her. She should be just around here,” he said as they cleared the house.

What Theresa saw nearly stopped her in her tracks. Beautiful as the front yard had been, the back contained the most incredible garden she had ever seen. It began with a flagstone patio surrounded by olive trees and roses before giving way to deep flower beds that meandered in soft bends. The garden stretched well back from the house, the distant tree line eventually blending into the native chaparral of the San Gabriel Mountains rising above it.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

“Thank you, Miss Johnson.”

Theresa turned to the sound of the English accent to find a petite woman with a mass of thick silver hair rising from her seat at a teak table. The lady was dressed in a faded blue oxford shirt and slim khaki trousers cropped at the ankle, and she wore a broad-brimmed straw hat, which probably accounted for the fact that her lightly lined face bore only the barest hint of color.

“Miss Pearce,” Theresa started.

The woman held out a hand to shake, and Theresa discovered Miss Pearce’s grip was firm.

“How do you do, Miss Johnson. I see you’ve met my nursery manager, Matthew,” said the older woman.

“I caught her coming in as I was cutting back the last of the tulips that have gone over. I was just telling her a bit about the nursery,” said Matt.

“Ah, but you’ve started the story at the end,” Miss Pearce said with an indulgent smile despite her use of his full name. “Miss Johnson is a reporter and will no doubt wish to hear the entire story from start to finish.”

“Please call me Theresa. I really must apologize for any error in my copy. I do try—”

“There is no need to apologize for something you couldn’t possibly know, Miss Johnson,” Miss Pearce said, ignoring Theresa’s permission to drop the formality of her last name. “Matthew, I’ve prepared some lemonade. Would you be so kind as to fetch it? You’ll find a tray with two glasses already laid out in the kitchen.”

“Does that mean I’m not invited?” he asked.

Miss Pearce gave him a light tap on the arm. “Cheeky as always. You said yourself that you are to open the nursery at ten. Now go.”

Theresa watched Matt amble off in the direction of the French doors off the back of the house before turning to her hostess.

“Miss Pearce, I should begin by apologizing. I did everything I possibly could to provide an accurate representation of Mr. Whitley’s life, but with no surviving family members to speak to, I have had to rely on interviewing people who knew him at his nursing home and our paper’s morgue,” she said.

“Your paper’s morgue?”

“The place where all of our old newspaper clippings live,” Theresa explained. “It serves as a sort of reference library.”

“And when was your newspaper founded?”

“About thirty years ago,” she said.

“Well, that would explain a great deal.” The older woman gestured toward the teak dining set positioned in the shade of a cluster of olive trees. “Would you care to sit?”

Matt reemerged from the house carrying a wooden tray with a pitcher of lemonade and glasses. “Here we are.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Pearce.

“Keep out of the sun,” he said to the older woman. “I didn’t like how peaky you looked yesterday after you came back from running errands. And no lifting. Not until that shoulder is feeling better.”

“Don’t fuss, Matthew,” said Miss Pearce, but Theresa noticed that, despite her protest, Miss Pearce did edge into the shade a little more.

Miss Pearce waited until Matt loped off around the side of the house to reach for the pitcher of lemonade and begin to pour.