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. Two feet from his left ear, the nagging little blip every five seconds was enough to drive a body over the edge and right into the damn morgue downstairs. He squinted and concentrated on wiggling his big toes beneath the sheets, and was pleased when the starched white linen vibrated in response. He had only been able to accomplish that as of yesterday.

"Ezra, quit your fussing. You're long overdue for a nap."

A nurse, well over two hundred pounds in her not-so-starched uniform, waddled past, flashing him the evil eye as she went.

"It smells like week-old applesauce in here! I cain't take it anymore."

"Fiddlesticks."

"Fiddlesticks your big arse, woman. I want to be shipped down to Florida. Lookit, I can even lift my leg today." Ezra grunted, and the sheet rose an inch or two in the air, quavered, and then sank again with a soft pooofff.

The nurse paused at the door, her more than generous lips puckered in disdain. "Well I'll be a rooster's egg. I've surely just witnessed a miracle. Lord be praised." As she passed out of the doorway, Ezra waited for the resulting draft across the nape of his neck, as the air in the room sought to replace the vacuum that had once been filled with her massive bulk.

"Fish lips," he muttered, after she was out of ear-shot. Nurse Liddy only took so much sass before turnin' mean and that was a sight he had witnessed once. Once had been quite enough.

Liddy's doughy face poked back into the doorway, giving him a momentary start of fear. "I heard that ole man. You're just lucky you got a visitor now."

When the nurse's sour visage receded the second time around, there was a skinny young thing standing in his doorway, skirted and stockinged, powdered and puffed. And lookin' exactly as if she had just stepped out of the corporate headquarters of Ridgeway Lumber. The thought curled his stomach in with vicious intent.

"Don't want no visitors!" he snarled in his best rotten old man voice.

"Mr. Wilkens, I'd just like a few minutes of your time, that's all." She stepped into the room and smiled. "My name is Alexandra Winters."

"Guess you're deaf too." Ezra continued to glower at the little priss, and yet found himself lifting his nose for a sniff. Ezra's frown softened when he drew in a shaky breath and caught a lovely whiff of rose. No, maybe it was lavender...

He inhaled deeply, for one moment free of the stale bouquet of moldering applesauce. It never, ever smelled liked lavender in this hospital.

"You got perfume on, missy?"

She was taken aback for a moment, and her grin went a little bit crooked. "Oh... are you allergic? I could wash up in the restroom if you like-"

"No, no." Ezra waved a bony hand. "If you're one of Ridgeway's, just get on out, less you're meaning to kill me. Then, I say, just get on with it."

"Ridgeway? No, I'm not *one of Ridgeway's." She moved cautiously to a chair near his bedside and perched in it, the corners of her mouth still turned up, trying to disarm him, he supposed. "And I'm not here to... kill you?"

She was lookin' at him as if he were plum insane. If Ridgeway thought he was gonna get anywhere with this new strategy, sending him a pretty young thing faking confusion to soften him up, he had another thing coming. He was an old man, and Miss Priss was a pip-squeak. A pretty piece of fluff, but a pip-squeak nonetheless.

Nobody had believed him about Marta. They said there was no sign on her chest, no evidence of an intruder. No locks broken, nothing stolen. Just a sad old lady who had had enough pain and suffering. He knew they thought he was senile. And they knew she had cancer.

"Mr. Wilkens?"

He scowled, for she simply couldn't be about any good news. None of that left. "So what do you want then, girl?"

"You can call me Alexandra, if you like," she returned tartly. "Actually, I'm here because I wanted to talk to you about your property off of Stony Run Road."

"I knew it! Not for sale. Not ever, tell Ridgeway. Get on out."

"But the realtor, Mr. Lockland said-"

"Damn that busybody. That man's gonna get a swift kick in the arse the next time I see him. I can just about do it too." Ezra struggled again to lift his right leg in proof, and then fell back against the pillows, cheeks flushed and bushy eyebrows nearly meeting in his effort to look intimidating. "Tell Ridgeway-"

"I don't know any Ridgeway," Alex repeated, and her voice now held more than a little edge to it. She took a deep breath, and started again softly, "Mr. Lockland explained your situation to me, Mr. Wilkens. And by the way, I'm very sorry to hear about your wife. I lost my husband in an accident three months ago myself. I know what you must be going through."

Ezra pursed his lips, but held his tongue, starting to believe that it might be possible that she hadn't been sent by Ridgeway. Well then, it was likely that she was from another company, sneaking in on the heels of its competitor. Lookin' for an easy kill, a soft old man, and a senile one at that.

"Well I ain't senile yet," he muttered. The girl was lookin' at him as if he were daft now. He only raised his voice. "I ain't crazy neither."

"He sure ain't crazy, just a royal pain in my butt." Nurse Liddy's expansive junk passed through the doorway in a slow-motion trundle.

"Mr. Wilkens, if you don't want to sell your property, why did a realtor tell me that it might be available?"

Ezra looked away from the girl's intense, hazel-eyed gaze, trying hard to figure out a way to get her out. "Liddy! Bring me a bedpan! It's comin'!"

"Ya just went!" Liddy's voice returned from somewhere out in the hallway.

This was pure insanity. Thoroughly defeated, Alex slumped back in her orange vinyl chair, and it squeaked out a debasingly rude sound in protest. Coudersport Memorial was a cross between an under-funded rest home and the Twilight Zone. What the hell had she been thinking?

After hitching a ride back to Ole Bull State Park, where she was happily reunited with her gold-tone Mercedes sedan, she had driven until she finally located a few bars of cell phone service. A few searches and a swift change in the restroom, and she was heading up Route 44 toward Northern Realty, the proprietor one Norman G. Lochland III.

One glance at Norman G. should have convinced her to retreat and point the nose of the sedan in the direction of D.C. without a second thought, but she had managed to convince herself that bizarre characters were merely part of the local flavor. Quaint, Alex, that's the word you want... quaint.

When Alex had entered the office, proprietor Norman G. Lochland III was perched behind a small, neat desk in a greatly oversized chair which further emphasized his frail physique. He was a tiny man, squirrel-like in body and movement, with pale, watery eyes that bugged myopically from behind horn-rimmed glasses. Slim Whitman was crooning somewhere in the background.

Norman G. had appeared more than a little frightened by her entrance, she being a young and attractive out-of-towner in expensive clothes. He had managed to clear his throat, but his voice had pitifully failed him when it came to introductions, cracking and rasping until he had coughed up a hunk of phlegm into a dainty, lace trimmed hanky.

In her opinion, Norman G. hadn't looked as if he could withstand one night in the harsh mountain climate, not to mention a long, wind-whipped winter. In all truthfulness, Norman G. hadn't looked as if he could walk to his car and back without a case of the vapors.

Patience and persistence eventually had brought about the information that Alex was seeking-- the property in which she was interested was available. The owner, one Ezra Wilkens, was entering his fifth week in the local hospital, the victim of a heart-attack and slight stroke, after losing his wife in an accident.

In a whisper, Norman G. had further confided that the old lady had committed suicide, that she had bone cancer and could no longer take the pain. The old man would no longer be able to maintain such a large property, nearly six hundred acres including all the mountain woodland, and it was rumored he wanted to retire to Florida upon his recovery.

Fortified with this new information, Alex then made an attempt to extract directions to the hospital from the ever-stuttering Mr. Lochland. Instead of staring into the pitifully owl-like eyes as he debated over three possible routes of travel, she had found herself concentrating on the shining pate that was starkly naked but for a thin sweep of blond hair follicles that he had combed neatly east to west and pressed flat with a generous touch of gel.

Now, Alex found herself staring at the top of Ezra's head, which was capped with an amazingly thick shock of unruly white hair. Deflated and suddenly tired, she decided that she was done wasting her time with old farts and mad obsessions. She belonged back in a city condo, there was simply no more fighting it. She stood, the vinyl chair responding with yet another base sound, and smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt.

"I think I'll just leave you alone, Mr. Wilkens." Alex headed resolutely for the door.

"Wait," Ezra grunted. "I don't need no bedpan."

Alex shot him a disgusted look over her shoulder. "I'll get Nurse Liddy on my way out."

"Just a minute, pip-squeak. I have a question for you."

Alex turned, hands on her hips. She made an annoyed sound when she found Ezra grinning at her, for she was tired of his game. "I'm very busy, Mr. Wilkens, if-"

"Just tell me what you find so damned interestin' about my property."

Alex narrowed her eyes, assessing the question. She could sum it up with one word. "Everything. It needs a lot of work, but... everything."

"The tractor don't work."

Alex shrugged. "I'll buy a new one... I'll want to fix up everything, the barn, the house..."

"I guess you have plenty of cash. Born with a silver spoon in your mouth I bet. What do you know about fixin' up a hunk of land?"

She decided to take the easy way out, and ignore the jibe completely. "Mr. Lochland told me that you want to retire to Florida. He also told me that there's no way you can do it unless you sell this property. Now, I don't have hard cash at the moment, Mr. Wilkens, but I have a lot of assets in my name. They can be converted within several weeks time."

Ezra chewed on the inside of his cheek a bit, contemplating. "I want to know how yer gonna fix up the farm without a man about."

She bristled instantaneously. "Mister Wilkens, I'll have you know..."

Her words trailed off as her heart did an erratic little skip inside her chest. The horrible thing was that Ezra's words had the sharp ring of truth to them. She had never before in her life been so utterly alone. Richard had always been there, taking charge of their lives, leading the way, making the decisions. She had simply followed him.

Clearing her throat, Alex lifted her chin in an attempt to save a little face in the onslaught of Ezra's knowing look. "I believe I can do it, Mr. Wilkens. I want to start a ranch, a small horse facility, breeding, training, trail riding... These mountains are perfect for me to make a new start. I- I'm tired of city life." She wondered at those five little words even as she was saying them. Could they really be true?

Ezra looked hard at Miss Alexandra Winters, and then nodded slowly, gnawing on his lower lip a bit while he contemplated her words. So she was tired of city life, huh? Would she be able to last on his land? It wasn't an easy task to care for such a large property.

It seemed to him this girl was alone and a good bit scared, but she seemed to have a certain grit about her. Miss Alex was feisty. After all, what the hell kinda name for a girl was Alex?

"Horses, huh? You swear on your heart you ain't part of Ridgeway's operation? Or any other tree-killin', forest-mutilatin' kind of corporation?"

"No, I swear it... is that the kind of people who are trying to buy your property?"

"Yeah. Filthy bast- well, idiots, all of them. If they had their way, there'd be no trees left *round here. You been up in the woods behind my place?"

"Yes. It was... magnificent," she said simply.

"Well, I want it to stay that way. Magnificent is a right good word. Marta's probably rollin' in her grave over this whole business of loggers after our land. She was born in that house, so was her momma. We was married in that house. Built in 1896. It was Indian land, you know. It's got history."

A slow smile crept over Alex's face, and the excitement it contained warmed his heart. "That's wonderful. Marta was your wife?" she asked.

"That's right, by near on fifty-one years. They say she committed suicide over the cancer, but..." Ezra caught himself before the word murder could tumble out of his fool mouth again.

He'd been chastised and reprimanded well enough for such talk, called a delusional old nitwit, ain't no one killed Marta, you know better, Ezra! Yeah he knew better, he knew what he saw, and what the killer's note had said! Time's up old man...

But when the postal worker had conveyed their mail to the front door later that afternoon, (to the kitchen door, actually, cause Marta always fed him cookies for such a fine hand-delivery service), and found a great big nasty surprise, there had been no such note. Only toppled old folks... her a suicide by cut wrists and him a heart attack. Little stroke thrown in for good measure.

The ache of loss encircled his much abused heart like a swarm of riled hornets, stinging fiercely. Ezra sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, knowing damned well his wife never would have done so much as kill herself over a little pain!

Marta was a God-fearin', Christian woman and she had told him she was gonna fight that cancer like she had fought every other battle in her life, head up and fists flailin'... Ezra blinked and found the girl's eyes on him, waiting curiously.

"I just cain't believe she done it," he muttered, dropping his gaze in defeat. He probably was senile and just didn't know it yet. He knew it likely the brain could not see or hear anything in the midst of a heart attack.

No need to get the girl up in arms, for she was young and had the strong defense of money behind her. Ridgeway would back off for sure, cause when the shit hit the fan this feisty and city-smart little gal couldn't be deemed a senile old fool, or intimidated. This might be the way to foil Ridgeway. Ezra only had to say the word.

"I'm askin' two hundred fifty thousand." He knew it was worth much, much more. He only hoped it didn't cost her in a different way.

"I'll have it, two weeks from today."

He nodded, folding his hands together and steepling the gnarled index fingers, wondering if he was doing a wrong here. But his land needed protected, and he felt in his bones this girl could be the one to do it. But she wasn't Susquehannock. What would Marta want for him to do?

Finally, he sighed. "That's fine, then. Don't think Liddy'll let me go before then anyway. That woman ain't done torturin' me yet."

"Mr. Wilkens, you won't regret this decision." She gave him a brilliant smile, her hazel eyes lit with a lovely light from within, and finally pulling a grin right outta his reluctant bones in return.

"Nope. Don't suppose I will." He hoped.

"But just be careful and keep your eyes open miss," he added suddenly, guilt nagging at his hopes. "There's people that want that piece of land bad enough to do nasty things. It will always need protected. Don't forget the name Ridgeway."