The Fantasy Factor by Kimberly Raye Page B

grow best outdoors and they’re less trouble to maintain.”
    “You really know a lot about flowers.”
    “You would, too, if you’d spent every day after school helping Grandma Willie at the shop. I was in charge of watering—that was back in the old days before I took over and added an automatic sprinkler system in the greenhouse. As I watered, I had to recite the plant’s name and classification and a few characteristics.” At his surprised glance, she added, “Grandma wanted to cultivate my green thumb the way she had my mother’s. They used to play the name game when Mom was small, and so Grandma played it with me.”
    “But you didn’t like it the way your mother did.”
    She shrugged. “I didn’t like it because my mother liked it so much. I didn’t want to be my mother. I couldn’t be.” Now, why had she said that?
    Because as hot as he made her physically, there was something oddly comforting about his presence and the fact that he was listening, and understood.
    He’d longed for love as a child as much as she had. But while her grandmother had showered her with love, albeit the love she’d felt for her deceased daughter, his father had never shown him any sort of affection.
    An image rushed at her of a young man, his gaze full of pain as he’d told her about his father and his childhood that night down by the creek. She had the sudden urge to reach out to him now the way she had that night. To slide her arm around him and pull him close until the pain faded.
    She stiffened and fixed her gaze on a distant patch of flowers. “Bluebonnets,” she blurted. “A perennial that thrives in full sunlight.”
    “What about that one?” He pointed to a small patch of white wildflowers.
    “Ragweed. An unfortunate perennial that thrives in a warm climate. Allergists the state over owe their careers to Texas ragweed.”
    “You are good.” A wealth of meaning filled his voice and she shifted to find a more comfortable position.
    “I had to be, otherwise I would have spent Saturdays cooped up in the greenhouse. If I played the game and got everything right during the week, my Saturdays were my own.”
    “I bet you never missed.”
    She grinned. “Once in a while—when I was much younger—but I was a very quick study. Especially with my favorite day of the week hanging in the balance.” Or rather, it had been her favorite day.
    The one she’d planned for, dreamed of, relished because she’d been free of the greenhouse and her mother’s shadow. “I would set my alarm for seven o’clock, pack my bag and head down to the river near Jackson’s Ranch.”
    “I didn’t know there was a river out at his place.”
    “It’s small and private, and surrounded by so many trees that you can’t see it unless you’re right there. Anyhow, it was my favorite spot because there’s all this carpet grass and a huge oak tree that dangles out over the water. I don’t know how many times I climbed that tree and walked the branch out over the deep end. I used to pretend I was a tightrope walker in the circus or that I was crossing an unsteady bridge in the Amazon while fleeing a bunch of cannibals.”
    “Sounds exciting.”
    “It was, and it was an escape, albeit temporary, from Cadillac. I wanted out of here so bad.”
    “But you’re still here.”
    She shrugged. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. My grandmother wanted a carbon copy of my mother to follow in her footsteps. Someone who loved flowers and lived for the family business and that’s what I’m giving her. I’m carrying on the family tradition.”
    “But do you like it?”
    “What I like doesn’t matter. It’s about my grandmother. I won’t cause another heart attack.”
    “Maybe you didn’t cause the first one.”
    “I was a constant source of worry and stress.”
    “You were a teenager. That’s what teenagers do. They worry their parents and stress them out.”
    She cut him a sideways glance. “I climbed a twenty foot