The President's Daughter Read Online Free PDF

oceans of waving delphiniums and phlox, hollyhocks and roses. The best Dina could hope for was to plan the beds in a manner that would complement, rather than overwhelm, the architecture. To this end, she played with sketches of a walled garden with a patio and a bricked walk that would wind around a series of raised beds. Back against the walls, the tall perennials would appear more graceful, less serendipitous, than in smaller beds closer to the formal house. Those small beds were just right for an herb garden, the scale of which would be in better proportion to the back of the house, the function more in keeping with the era the Fishers were trying to re-create.
    Dina downed the last now-cold bite of rotini just as the alarm on her watch alerted her to the fact that it was coming up on seven. If she was to be in town in an hour, she needed to get into the shower now. She closed her file, took the dishes into the kitchen to rinse, then locked the back door before heading up the narrow stairs to her bedroom, where she stripped off her work clothes. As she hastened toward the bathroom, she caught a blurred glance in the mirror of her tall, lean body, her robe slung over her shoulder. Even to herself, she appeared to be hurried and just a little haggard. She turned on the shower and worked the elastic and pins out of her dark hair and hoped that a few minutes under steaming water would revive her.
    All too soon, the hot water started to lose pressure, and Dina knew it would take another ten minutes for it to get back up to speed. She turned off the shower and stepped out onto the thick cotton rug that covered the cold tile and dried her hair quickly. Dressed in khakis and a blue sweater, she grabbed her jacket, her purse, and the yellow file of sketches she’d prepared, then headed out the door. It would only take five or so minutes to drive into Henderson proper, but she did want to catch Don Fletcher as early as possible.
    A light snow had started to fall, and the front steps were already beginning to slick. She climbed into her Explorer and drove past the greenhouse, then the shop, and finally through the small parking lot.
    Dina passed by the ancient apple orchard, the acres of Christmas trees, accelerating as she passed the farmhouse, her thoughts focused on the reflecting pool she had in mind for the new park and who among the volunteers she might talk into digging it.
    Dina’s meeting with the volunteers took less than an hour, and she was anxious to get home and crawl into bed.
    The whole drive home, Dina’s mind was occupied with work. Perhaps, when Polly was ready to take on more responsibility with the shop, she might have a little bit more time for herself and the things she liked best about the business. The prospect of spending more time on the design end of the business cheered her. She pushed open the door and stepped into the quiet of the narrow front hall, the only sound the bubbling from the fish tank in the living room.
    Less time in the shop would give her more time, too, maybe, to spend out at the trade school, where there were so many students willing to learn the basics of landscaping, as she’d discovered through her volunteer work there.
    Less time in the shop would mean she could almost—maybe—have a life apart from her work.
    Fancy that,
she thought wryly as she locked the door behind her and hung up her jacket.
    She toed off her boots and left them near the door, pausing to flip through the day’s mail. A few bills, a catalog or two, and a card from a friend who’d just returned from a honeymoon in Hawaii, complete with a photo of the happy couple, who sat at a table in a restaurant, leis draped around their necks. The camera had caught them gazing into each other’s eyes rather than at the photographer, and their love for each other shone so brightly in their eyes and in their smiles that Dina had the fleeting feeling that she’d somehow intruded into their privacy.
    She slid the photo