Where Roses Bloom

In her dreams, she held onto him so tightly but when she woke up in the morning, she didn't remember much beyond that. Damn, Reese told herself, she had to stop remembering the way it had been between her and Dallas before things had gone bad.

She got up early enough to shower before cooking up some breakfast of eggs and wheat toast before heading to the nursery. If Dallas hadn't shown up in her face, she might still be dreaming about him After all, she hadn't been so sure she had erased him from her memories or at least exorcised him.

How wrong she had been but there was still hope that she could put him in his proper place which was nowhere in her life.

She put on some worn jeans and a faded tee-shirt before combing out her hair and putting it in a thick ponytail and a hat on top of it. The day promised to be quite hot and a new shipment of fruit trees was arriving which meant that she and Clover had to load them in the wagon and relocate them in the empty spread in the back of the shop. Peaches, plums and walnuts all of which would find new homes fairly quickly enough. She didn't know what Dallas would be doing and she didn't much care as long as it involved something like shoveling manure and he stayed out of her hair.

Arriving at the nursery, Adela standing behind the cash register waiting on a couple purchasing border flowers, she quickly told Reese to head back and move the fruit trees.

But as she wove herself through the maze of the nursery, she looked up and by the rows of trees, she saw Dallas standing there waiting. He was dressed like her in old clothes which he must have bought at a thrift shop.

"What are you doing here?"

He smiled.

"I'm helping you with these trees," he said, "I heard we have to move them to the other side to prepare for sale."

She frowned.

"Where's Clover?"

Dallas rubbed his forehead.

"Oh she's handling the rest of the butterfly bushes that are on display in front today," he said, "I guess Adela's trying to clear them out for something else."

She just didn't say anything else to him but headed to get the trolley to load the trees up on the flatbed cart. Dallas joined in and did most of the heavier lifting while she kept the cart steady.

"I thought for sure you'd head back to L.A. by now."

He pursed his lips.

"Not without you," he said, "I meant what I said, I'm not going back unless you go with me."

She stopped working and put a hand on a hip just looking at him.

"Why not…look I can handle myself and I'll be fine," she said, "Rodrigo's got bigger fish to fry than me…like you."

"I'm not the one who he's been thinking about."

She sighed.

"Look I'm not going to get into that with you," she said, "I'm not explaining my actions to you or anyone else. I'm done with that. If you can't deal, it's your problem."

He nodded.

"No…it's not just your problem…your actions…ours had consequences for others."

She just sighed and refused to say anything more as he hauled a couple more young trees onto the cart and they both pushed it towards the far side of the nursery. She looked at him sideways but he kept his eyes focused ahead. She looked at his hands which gripped the cart handle, causing the muscles on his forearm to tense up. He took damn good care of his body; she had to give him that. She had felt the benefits of its fitness herself when she'd been in his arms, and she had wound her legs around his muscular build.

Her mouth went dry and she shifted her thoughts away from him. She couldn't afford that luxury because if she thought about what the two of them had shared too much, she'd slip so easily back in his bed. Her body had craved his touch, the movement of his own against her, inside of her.

"You ready to unload these," he asked when they reached the location.

She blew a tendril of hair out of her face.

"Ready when you are…let's get moving."

They hauled the trees one by one off of the cart and while they did that, Dallas looked at the woman next to him who was lithe and strong but soft and ripe at the same time. She had filled out a little since he'd seen her last, softened her edges, and he wondered if it would change the way she felt in his embrace. Her hair was the perfect shade of brown, a dark mahogany but it didn't belong wrapped up in a ponytail but loose in soft curls around her face.

He thought about touching her just then. Softly at first, just to remember what her skin felt like beneath his finger tips. Would it feel as good as her lips being explored by his own mouth? They had spent a long time wrapped up in each other, just kissing after they had used up some of that pent up energy of course. When they had first made love, it had happened like an explosion, not a whisper. A collision of their bodies fed by lust and need, which wrapped around them so quickly, he could barely breathe. When they were together, he felt better than he ever had with any woman.

Damn shame with how it had all turned out.

Sickness weighed on him when images flooded his mind of that night, of when violence had disrupted what had been a festive party. His cousin lying shot on the Persian rug, his blood staining a pattern across it. Guns pointed at his own head and Reese being shoved into another room away from him.

He looked up at her as she appeared lost in her own thoughts making sure the trees had enough space between them and then taking hold of the cart and heading back to get the next load leaving him to abandon his own thinking to catch up.

The second load went more quickly than the first and then the two of them went to the classic soda vending machine and bought themselves some chilly colas. Reese sighed as she sipped hers because the work had left her mouth parched, the day had really heated up.

Adela had gone out to inspect the fruit trees and had told them that they looked good enough to go on sale the next day after some watering. Then she assigned the both of them to handle a dozen small avocado trees and Dallas groaned and then drank the rest of his cola. Reese shot him a look.

"You know if this is too much for you, you can always quit."

He shot her a direct look that heated up her blood though she didn't show it.

"I can do whatever you can do…I'm just getting warmed up."

She chuckled, chucking her bottle in the bin.

"Yeah right…let's get moving…"

But he did handle the trees well, even though she could tell his muscles cramped by the time they got halfway through. She remembered the time that she'd given him that massage back on the island…but no point in traveling down that road the way his muscles had twitched beneath her kneading fingers…and how he had whispered in the middle that she really needed to stop or…she smiled at that part. Despite him acting like a jerk, she still missed him.

Clover wandered in the middle of their working and smiled at Dallas.

"Hey, you ready to take a break?"

He wiped his brow and looked at her.

"Depends on what you have in mind."

She smiled back at him.

"I'd like to invite you out to dinner…at a restaurant in town that's got great fish."

He thought about it and Reese tried not to notice. What Dallas did was his own business after all, not hers. He nodded.

"Okay…I'm willing, what time should I pick you up?"

Clover shrugged with a wider smile.

"About six, I'll see you then."

"Later…"

He watched her go and then looked over at Reese.

"Does it bother you?"

She shook her head.

"No…I think it's great that you've been here a couple of days and already have a date."

Dallas went back to lifting the avocado tree.

"We'd better finish this up…I don't want to be late."

She just sighed at him as they returned to finishing their work.

Rodrigo got out of the shower, and slipped into his silken robe. He went to his bedroom where Violet waited for him, her wrists tied with silky sashes to the bedposts, her body naked.

She looked at him, apprehensively.

"I thought we were finished…"

He picked up the surprise he had for her and walked over to stroke her hair gently, before grabbing it in his fist.

"Oh no, we've just begun…"

The guards walked away from the doors, ignoring the screams that turned to pitying cries from inside Rodrigo's suite.

Earlier...

Dallas had left the Lear jet where he'd park it and headed to the parking lot where he'd pick up the jeep and take it back to his bungalow. Mac greeted him at the hanger, and both of them knew well enough to whisper.

"Did you get the plans," Mac asked.

Dallas nodded.

"I put them in the wheel axel," he said, "So when you do your post flight check, you'll find them there."

Mac smiled, and then gave him some forms to fill out to file with the tower. Dallas got into his car and drove down the winding road, with only himself for company as usual. The ocean breeze hit his face, the day's heat still clinging to it. Stars filled the sky and the sliver of a pale moon. He reached his bungalow which was 200 feet away from the edge of the most crystal blue ocean he had ever seen in his life.

Rodrigo's partner had picked himself quite a paradise for this latest hideaway.

After parking the jeep, he walked to his bungalow and turned on the ceiling fan before even stepping inside. He flipped on the light and there she stood in front of him.

" Reese?"

She moved closer to him and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close to her. He lowered his mouth on hers and kissed her hard, while she threaded her fingers through his hair. Her hair smelled like lilac, intermingling with his aftershave.

Her hands moved close enough to the front of his pants and unsnapped them, trying to pull them down. He finished that for her and his briefs too while still kissing her, then his hands moved towards her dress, riding it up her thighs, gripping her hips covered with the bunched up fabric. No romance, no foreplay, just with one goal in mind.

She backed up eagerly against a wall and he tugged her panties down her legs before she jumped up on him, wrapping her legs tightly around him. She held him closely to her while he kissed her.

Dallas woke up in a deep sweat, not aware of where he lay now. But the dream…it had seemed so damn real. He had felt the softness of her skin as he held her. But no it couldn't be because they weren't the people they'd been back then and everything had changed since they had closed out that case.

Sure they had been best friends and business partners but what had happened between them during that assignment had been unreal. It could never survive the harsh light of the world they returned to after their job had been done. The operation hadn't ended the way it had been planned but it had ended.

He sighed as he shifted in his bed, naked except for a sheet wrapped around him. His date with Clover had been fun but nothing serious. She seemed like a nice woman with no small degree of sex appeal but he had his work cut out for him keeping Reese from Rodrigo's crosshairs. He had to focus on that.

After getting some sleep, and that meant not dreaming about a past that would never be revisited.

She lay back on the bed, her slip of a dress hiked up to her waist. Her heart beat quickly and she felt exposed, in an unfamiliar bed. He stood above her casually undoing his cuffs, before slipping his shirt off of his massive shoulders. All those years fighting underground where men had died and been buried at sea, had honed out a killer who wore Armani like a pampered millionaire.

"You're so beautiful," he said, reaching for the snap on his pants and lowering them and his briefs before moving onto the bed.

Inside her head, she thought of someone else.

Reese woke up and saw that the sun would be rising in an hour so she got out of bed, reached for her robe and walked to the kitchen to make breakfast. She had been dreaming before she had awakened, about Rodrigo.

On nights she dreamed about Dallas, she woke up elated a moment before she remembered she was supposed to hate him. But with Rodrigo, there was no such moment.

When she woke up from her dreams about him, she felt dirty. She felt as if she had been stained so deeply inside her, nothing could remove it. She had tried so hard in the months since but it always remained like a brand. .

No, she had put that episode behind her and she had moved on, which was one reason why she had driven all the way up here, leaving L.A. behind her. She had slid into her new role here easily enough, leaving the past behind her and focusing only on each day at a time.

Until Dallas had decided to come up here looking for her.

She knew that he wouldn't leave to go back to L.A. unless she came with him which was never going to happen. But although she didn't admit it, the thought of Rodrigo out there trying to find her scared her. If he did find her…that made it hard to sleep at night. So maybe having him around not too close but close enough to act if Rodrigo did appear wasn't such a bad thing.

But he'd have to keep his distance from her if he were going to stay. Living with it had been hard enough but she had pushed everything in her past away.

She would keep doing that and she would make that clear to Dallas.

Rodrigo called in one of his guards to deal with some merchandise lying in the floor of his suite. Violet lay there, her face bruised, on her side, unconscious.

It had been quite a busy night for her but he was finished. The guard walked in, taking a look at her and then looking at him.

"What do you want me to do with her?"

Rodrigo stroked his jaw.

"Put her on the next plane down to Brazil," he said, "She'll do nicely there in one of the brothels."

"She looks out of it."

Rodrigo shrugged.

"Does it really matter," he said, "All she's got to do is lie on her back and she'll be open for business."

The guard called a second guard in and they bent over her, but when they saw the bruises around her wrists and the track marks they looked up at Rodrigo.

When they saw the expression on his face, they kept their thoughts to themselves.

"She'll be out of here by the end of the day."

Rodrigo nodded.

"Good…any reports coming in on that tramp."

"Nothing…though we're expecting a call from one of the men."

"The one near San Francisco right," Rodrigo asked.

The guard nodded.

"Yeah…he might have a trail," he said, "A guy at a motel said he saw a woman looked like her several months ago."

Rodrigo had gotten a lot of tips but not much so far in terms of panning out. It just irritated him.

"Contact me the moment he reports," he said, "I want to talk with him directly."

"We'll do that," the guard said, "We'll take care of her now."

Rodrigo stared down dispassionately while they picked up Violet and carried her away, before he walked through his open French doors out onto his balcony.

Where he'd sit with a magnificent view of the ocean in front of him thinking of his plans for the woman when he finally caught up with her.

Reese looked over at Dallas before she headed back to unload some of the newly delivered ceramic pots off of the truck. They had arrived that morning to replace a stock which had quickly sold out from a just completed sale.

Not that reducing the prices had been necessary because the items sold as soon as they were placed on the shelves outside the main shop. She focused on the smaller and medium sized pots deciding to leave the heavy stuff to Dallas to deal with after she had done her own chores. He had been working on stacking some of the packaged potting soil and fertilizer that had also arrived. His faded jeans hugged his muscular thighs and that incredible ass of his per usual. His tee-shirt had already been smudged by dirt, and drenched with sweat from the heat that had permeated the shoreline. The usual sea breeze had stopped in its tracks for some reason and so a thick layer of humidity blanketed the town. It almost seemed tropical in that sense and brought back memories of that time she had spent with Dallas.

No good to think about that, so she concentrated on her work, while Clover breezed on through raving about her dinner date with the man currently sorting the fertilizer from the dirt.

"Man I had such a great time last night with him," Clover said, helping her with the pots, "Dinner and music at a club. I never would have taken him for a Jazz man."

Neither would Reese because he'd favored classic rock when they had been together even before the assignment as close friends hanging out together after the business day ended. But maybe his tastes had changed.

"I'm glad you had fun," Reese said, "He seems a bit more relaxed today."

Clover smiled in response.

"Well, we did take a walk through what passes for a strip here after we left the club," she said, "and he did kiss me goodnight…like a friend."

Reese felt a clenching in her chest but then told herself that was foolish on her part. How could she not expect Dallas to have moved on since they'd been together? Just because he was up here keeping tabs on her didn't mean he wanted her back.

She wasn't sure she'd take him back anyway. After the way he'd treated her and the words he'd said without bothering to hear what she had wanted to tell him then. No, she was better off if he just moved on with his life like she'd done with hers.

But then hadn't one of her reasons for moving up north been to get away from him?

That hadn't worked out well at all. Okay, maybe they were now living in the same small town but that didn't mean they had to stick together like glue. If he'd felt it was the right time to start up again with another woman, perhaps it was time to find herself a guy.

Not to be serious with because she didn't think she was ready for that but just to hang out and have fun with and yeah, to rustle between the sheets with too. The last time…no she didn't want to think about that.

It hadn't been with Dallas and he'd never stop reminding her of that.

"You okay with it?"

She looked up suddenly from her work at Clover.

"Okay with what?"

Clover hesitated.

"Me going out with Dallas," she said, "I mean didn't you used to have a history with him?"

Something sharp pierced inside of her but she shook her head.

"Yeah but that was in the past," Reese said, "I'm not sure we're really even much of friends anymore."

Clover's dismay tempered her relief somewhat.

"No really Clover, it's over and done. Feel free to go out with him and have fun."

Those words hadn't come as easily as they sounded but they were the right ones. Any pang she had about cutting loose from him had been washed away by what he'd done.

Clover finally nodded and brushed her hands together.

"Okay cool then," she said, "since you've given me the green light."

Reese sighed, putting a ceramic pot on the shelf and then reaching for her bottle of water. The day had warmed up quite a bit in the past hour, dampening the air in the process.

"Sure, in fact I'm probably going to go out and meet some guys," she said, "Have some fun myself. It's been a while and I need to get back into the swing of things."

Clover brightened up and Reese looked at her uneasily wondering if she'd just unleashed a pent up force.

"Oh cool…listen I've got tons of guys that you can meet up," Clover started, "You interested in just a casual fling or a more serious relationship?"

Reese just stared at her.

"I think I just want to start with talking up some guys rather than jump into anything with them."

Clover digested that and it didn't deter her enthusiasm.

"Okay sure, why don't we go clubbing tonight?"

Reese arched one brow and Clover sighed.

"Okay maybe not exactly clubbing like but as close as we can do it here," she said, "The Pelican Wing has got some classic rock tonight."

That sounded interesting, Reese thought, thinking maybe it was time for her to get out and mingle a bit.

"That sounds fun. Maybe it'll be good to get out for a change."

"Sure it Luke, and I'm sure Dallas won't mind if you come with us."

Now that didn't sound nearly as much fun, Reese thought, but she didn't want to offend Clover's good intentions. She just didn't want to be in the same vicinity as Dallas in a social setting. It hadn't worked out that well between them at the recent beach party.

Though the kiss had sizzled between them, the aftermath hadn't felt nearly as good.

"Clover, I don't know…"

The other woman's eyes sparkled.

"Oh come on," she said, "We'll meet for some fish and chips at the diner before we hit the club."

"But there'll only be the three of us…"

Clover shook her head.

"Not for long," she said, "You'll hook up with some guy pretty quick and have a good old time."

Dallas walked by just then and Clover smiled at him.

"Hey, you're cool with Reese coming with us to the club aren't you?"

He glanced over at Reese, his brows raised and she just shot him a terse look. His mouth curved slowly into a smile.

"Sure, it's fine with me if she can handle it."

Reese looked directly at him, while flipping her ponytail back.

"Damn straight I can," she said, "but what about you?"

She saw the shift of emotions in his eyes and knew that he had flashed back to a different time. But then as much as he pissed her off these days, it wasn't like her insides didn't simmer when she caught an eyeful of him working in the nursery. She knew how the muscles of his chest moved underneath her frenzied touch. How his shadow tickled her when he had kissed the hollow between her breasts and how it felt when he moved inside of her while pinning her against the bed.

Her blood rushed at what she remembered inside one second, isolated from the world around them. Sometimes she felt herself weaken and knew she had to take a deep breath then and not do something crazy.

Throwing her arms around his neck and begging him to fuck her would fall into that category. She pushed that urge down inside her quickly enough.

"I think I can handle anything you throw at me Reese."

He said that with a smile but hidden underneath it, she heard him well. Clover looked at the both of them, with an uneasy look.

"I'm not going to have to separate the two of you," she said, "I mean from fighting each other."

Reese pursed her lips.

"No I can handle this, but I don't know about him."

Dallas nodded.

"Yeah well now that we've got that settled," he said, "I'll see you both later. I've got work to do here."

Clover shook her head as he walked away.

"What'd you get him all riled up for anyway?"

Reese folded her arms, and gave her a cool look.

"I didn't do any such thing," she said, "I think he gets his own self worked up."

Clover narrowed her eyes.

"Are you sure there's nothing going on between you?"

Reese blew a tendril of hair out of her face.

"I said that what we had was in the past," she said, "We've both moved forward from it."

Clover looked confused stroking her chin.

"I wonder what brought him up here anyway," she said, "You sure that had nothing to do with you?"

Reese felt exasperation fill her suddenly.

"Of course, how can anyone explain why Dallas does anything?"

"He didn't come up here to like win you back or anything?"

Reese just moved back to stacking the ceramic pots in one nice orderly line.

"Of course not, at least he hasn't said anything to me about it," she said carefully.

She had just stepped onto a mine here, because she didn't want Clover to think that anything still stood between her and Dallas but she couldn't tell her the truth either. That he'd rushed up here to try to strong arm her into going back home because some vengeful trafficker had tried to find her.

No, some things had to stay a secret after all.

"I hope you don't think I'm not being honest about Dallas, but seriously it's over, it's been over and you don't have to worry about that."

Clover bristled just a little bit.

"Oh I'm not worried," she said, "I just wanted to be sure that's all because I'm seriously going to make the moves on him. He's just too much of a hunk to resist."

Ah, Reese knew that to be true because hadn't she succumbed to the same temptation? She should have just left well enough alone and not gotten together with him.

But her libido had gotten in her way, outrunning her good sense.

Still a part of her felt a bit riled up that Clover had plans to seduce the man that had hadn't had to work so hard to seduce her.

So Reese had her own plans for the evening and they wouldn't be the only ones getting some action.