Blue Dahlia Page 0,63

Sex with class. Every man there's going to wish he was taking you home tonight."

"Well." With a half laugh, Roz shook her head. "It's great having women in the house. Who knew? I'm going to go nag David. He'll primp for another hour if I don't give his ass a kick."

"Have a wonderful time."

"She sure didn't look like anybody's mother," Stella said under her breath.

* * *

What would she look like in twenty years? Hayley wondered.

She studied herself in the mirror while she rubbed Vitamin E oil over her belly and breasts. Would she still be able to fix herself up and know she looked good?

Of course, she didn't have as much to work with as Roz. She remembered her grandmother saying once that beauty was in the bones. Looking at Roz helped her understand just what that meant.

She'd never be as stunning as Roz, or as eye-catching as Stella, but she looked okay. She took care of her skin, tried out the makeup tricks she read about in magazines.

Guys were attracted.

Obviously, she thought with a self-deprecating smile as she looked down at her belly.

Or had been. Most guys didn't get the hots for pregnant women. And that was fine, because she wasn't interested in men right now. The only thing that mattered was her baby.

"It's all about you now, kid," she said as she pulled on an oversized T-shirt.

After climbing into bed, plumping up her pillows, she reached for one of the books stacked on her nightstand. She had books on childbirth, on pregnancy, on early-childhood development. She read from one of them every night.

When her eyes began to droop, she closed the book.

Switching off the light, she snuggled down. "'Night, baby," she whispered.

And felt it just as she was drifting off. The little chill, the absolute certainty that she wasn't alone. Her heartbeat quickened until she could hear it in her ears. Gathering courage, she let her eyes open to slits.

She saw the figure standing over the bed. The light-colored hair, the lovely sad face. She thought about screaming, just as she did every time she saw the woman. But she bit it back, braced herself, and reached out.

When her hand passed through the woman's arm, Hayley did let out a muffled scream. Then she was alone, shivering in bed and fumbling for the light.

"I'm not imagining it. I'm not!"

* * *

Stella climbed up the stepstool to hook another hanging basket for display. After looking over last year's sales, crunching numbers, she'd decided to increase the number offered by 15 percent.

"I could do that," Hay ley insisted. "I'm not going to fall off a stupid stepstool."

"No chance. Hand me up that one. The begonias."

"They're really pretty. So lush."

"Roz and Harper started most of these over the winter. Begonias and impatiens are big-volume sellers. With growers like Roz and Harper, we can do them in bulk, and our cost is low. These are bread-and-butter plants for us."

"People could make up their own cheaper."

"Sure." Stella climbed down, moved the ladder, climbed up again. "Ivy geranium," she decided. "But it's tough to resist all this color and bloom. Even avid gardeners, the ones who do some propagating on their own, have a hard time passing up big, beautiful blooms. Blooms, my young apprentice, sell."

"So we're putting these baskets everywhere."

"Seduction. Wait until we move some of the annuals outside, in front. All that color will draw the customers. Early-blooming perennials too."

She selected another basket. "I've got this. Page Roz, will you? I want her to see these, and get her clearance to hang a couple dozen in Greenhouse Three with the extra stock. And pick out a pot. One of the big ones that didn't move last year. I want to do one up, put it by the counter. I'll move that sucker. In fact, pick out two. Clean off the discount price. When I'm done, they'll not only move, they'll move at a fat profit."

"Gotcha."

"Make sure one of them's that cobalt glaze," she called out. "You know the one? And don't pick it up yourself."

In her mind, Stella began to plan it. White flowers - heliotrope, impatiens, spills of sweet alyssum, silvery accents from dusty miller and sage. Another trail of white petunias. Damn, she should've told Hayley to get one of the stone-gray pots. Good contrast with die cobalt. And she'd do it up hot. Bold red geraniums, lobelia, verbena, red New Guineas.

She added, subtracted plants in her mind, calculated the cost of pots, stock, soil. And smiled to