Waiting For Eden (Eden Series) by Jessica Leigh Read Free Book Online

she realized that they were part of an old garden, bordered with walls of crumbling sandstone.  Within its bounds, a riot of tulips and daffodils crowded merrily in every corner, with pockets of lavender and yellow-gold forsythia spattered throughout, with no rhyme or reason to their order.  In its neglect, the garden had achieved an undisciplined loveliness that no careful human hand could ever have created.
    But the garden’s crowning glory was its redbud trees, healthy and alight with delicate pink blooms.  Although the redbuds were obviously planted some time ago, they remained dense and shrub-like, as if loathe to rise above the carpeting of floral melee into the responsibility of tree-hood.  
    Alex knelt to pick up a worn sign that had toppled at the foot of a vibrantly-scented purple lilac bush.  The board was worn smooth by years of wind and rain, but for the lightest imprint of a hand-carved word:  EDEN. 
    Alex smiled tremulously, envisioning the gentle country woman who had once cultivated her own little piece of heaven with loving care, naming it in honor of the sacred grounds from the tale of Genesis. 
    As her fingers moved over the shallowly etched letters, she remembered when she had long ago asked Nana how she could get to the lush and wonderful Garden of Eden, where man and animals played together peacefully.  “I don’t want to wait either,” Alex voiced plaintively.
    Nana’s voice again rang clearly in Alex’s mind.  “Alexandra; Eden is not something that a woman easily stumbles upon with careless feet.  You must wait.  But remember this: a woman grown must help to build her Eden, to cultivate it, to coax it to grow... and that’s something that takes a heap of sweat and toil.”
    And the child -Alexandra had merely smiled and nodded at her Nana’s words, hearing but not absorbing, just happy to be walking hand-in-hand with her Nana, and included in such grown up conversation. 
    When in Nana’s company, they did not often speak of childish things, of letters and numbers or of games, but more of the process of growing up, of the joys and sorrows of life, and of the importance of friends and loved ones.  Almost as if Nana had known, somehow, that their time together would be short, as if making up for the years she would later lose. 
    As the breeze picked up and dusted the tendrils of wearied hair from her neck, she brought to mind her Nana’s face, the sharp features and piercing brown eyes softened by long waves of silver-gray hair that no comb could ever tame. 
    Alex gazed around the farm, seeing through her Nana’s wise eyes, the little house, the tall and verdant pines, the fields whose grasses now moved in tune with the wind’s song, the gay garden whose scent had filled her nostrils with the blush of spring.
    “I understand now, Nana,” she whispered, rocking unsteadily to her feet.  “I’m done waiting.  Sweat and toil.”  Alex adjusted her pack, and without looking back, set off down the long driveway toward the road.
                 
     
    ~~~~~~~~
     
     
    The cell phone blared sharply, jerking her out of a fitful sleep, where she dreamed of barrels filled with flames in filthy back alleys, and men with rotten teeth.  Andrea reached for it in the dark, trying not to whimper as her aching body stretched with the effort.  Marcus shifted beside her, and she knew he was awake.
    “Hello?”  She listened a few moments, and then handed the phone to Marcus. 
    He palmed the phone.  “Who?”
    “It’s Ridgeway,” she whispered.
    Andrea flicked on a lamp and observed the frown etched across his face, even through the blurry dimness in the bedroom.  “ Certainly,” he said in a tight, clipped voice, “And rest assured, there will be no fuck ups with this one.  It will be a priority,” he added resolutely before placing the phone in its cradle.
     
     
     
     

Waiting for Eden
    ~*~*~*~*~*~
    Chapter 4
     
     
    The IV bag was making noise again.