Christmas at Rose Hill Farm by Suzanne Woods Fisher Page B

this was now. He shook his head and came back to the present. He wished he’d remembered that book on lost roses today. He stared at the rose, willing it to grow. Open, rosebud. Open. As soon as it did, he would be able to determine if this might be related to the Perle von Weissenstein. Maybe as old as the Perle. Possibly . . . older?
    And if it were, it would be the biggest rose found of the decade. He would be credited for the identification and he could leave Stoney Ridge behind. This time, for good.
    The sun disappeared behind a cloud, casting a gray pallor that matched his frame of mind. Squinting at the sky through the glass roof, he watched the cloud cover, wondering if it would thicken or diminish as the day wore on. When he heard someone say his name, he nearly jumped. “George! What are you doing here?”
    George was standing in the open door of the greenhouse, studying the squeak of the hinges as he opened and shut the door. “Needs a little oil.”
    â€œI know. I thought I’d put enough on it.” He scratched his neck. Why hadn’t he heard it squeak when George came in?
    â€œI noticed you forgot this. I thought you might need it.” George handed him the book of lost roses, the very one he had forgotten.
    â€œYou came all this way? How’d you know where I was?”
    George reached into his pocket and held out that piece of paper with the address of Rose Hill Farm on it that Jill had given to him Friday morning. “You keep dropping this.” He stared at a row of jars that lined the back of the workbench. He reached out to pick up one jar of dried rose petals and held it up to the light. “Ah, roses as remedies. For the herb gardenerin a medieval monastery, R. gallica ‘Officinalis’ offered the cure for many a malady.”
    Billy squinted at him. This erudite hobo thoroughly baffled him. “How would you know the Latin name for a rose?” He was thunderstruck. “How on earth?”
    George tipped his chin in Billy’s direction, though he didn’t look at him directly. He set the jar of rose petals back in its place. “Have you had a chance to see your father?”
    A current of indignation mixed with rage sprang up in Billy. Last night was the first time he’d spilled out his feelings to someone about his father and brothers, about the hurt they’d caused all those years ago, about how the hurt could be so intense yet, when he’d thought it mastered. But he hadn’t really expected to see George again and he certainly didn’t expect him to show up in Stoney Ridge where the story began. And ended.
    â€”——
    Late summer 1973. Billy had gone to the barn to tell his brothers that supper was ready and found them adding scoops of sawdust to the bottom of empty flour sacks, then pouring freshly threshed wheat grain on top of the sawdust. “What’s going on?”
    His brother Ben was the first to speak. He stepped in front of Billy, hands on his hips, chin jutting. “What are you doing here?”
    â€œJust what the die-hinker are you doing here?” echoed Mose. Some said Mose was skewed in the head, mostly because he never had a thought there that hadn’t started in Sam’s or Ben’s head first. He followed his brothers everywhere, most often into trouble.
    Billy ignored Mose. Ben glowered at him, but he always had something to be angry about, and Billy had learned long ago that the best way to handle him was to stand up to him. “Whywould you put sawdust in the gunny sacks?” Billy sidestepped around Ben up to the sacks of grain as a horrible discovery dawned on him. “Are you trying to add weight to the grain?”
    Ben scowled at him. “We’re keeping the grain from getting mildewed. It’s common practice.”
    That was a lie. “If they mill the grain into flour with that sawdust in there, then it’ll mean folks are