Roses and Lilacs and Steele

By Nancy Eddy

With thanks to Pat for her story,

"Roses and Lilacs and Love"

As the white Volkswagen Rabbit left the cemetery, Laura didn't look back. Her grandmother wouldn't want her to. "Always look ahead, Laura, hon. Never look back."

But if she had, she would have probably braked the car and turned around upon seeing the tall, dark haired man who approached her grandmother's grave. The man she knew as Remington Steele read the inscription on the plate, then touched the flowers that Laura had left.

He knew he shouldn't have followed her. But she'd disappeared once again- it had been happening at least once a week. When asked, all she had ever did was remind him that "you have your secrets, Mr. Steele, I have mine."

Remington had followed her out of curiosity. She would be furious if she ever discovered that he'd taken a cab to tail her to the florist shop, then here to the cemetery, to watch as she placed the roses and lilacs on this grave. Roses and lilacs. An - odd combination. But it suited Laura, somehow, he thought.

"And who were you, Letitia Ryerson?" he asked aloud. And why had Laura been bringing flowers to the woman's grave?

He turned toward the back of the cemetery where his taxi waited. He had some detective work to do- with Mildred's able assistance, of course.

Laura returned Mildred's smile as she entered the offices of Remington Steele Investigations. There were times when the receptionist reminded her of Letty. Not often, Laura amended. But occasionally. "Miss Holt."

Picking up the messages with her name, Laura began to look through them. "I'll be in Mr. Steele's office-"

"He's not here," Mildred said quickly.

Laura turned, frowning. "Where is he?"

Mildred shrugged. "He didn't say where he was going. He should be back soon, though."

"How do you know that, if you don't know where he went?" Laura asked.

"He said he wouldn't be long," Mildred insisted, sending a relieved look past her to the door. "Mr. Steele. Miss Holt was just wondering where you were," she said pointedly.

Remington's smile included Mildred as well as Laura. "Had some personal business to attend to," he explained. "Had to see what an old friend was up to."

"Not another of your 'old friends', Mr. Steele," Laura said. "The *last* time one of them showed up - "

"Really, Laura-"

She turned toward his office. "We need to discuss the Matheson case before Mr. Matheson arrives," she told him. Mildred gave Remington a questioning look, and he mouthed "Later". Realizing that he wasn't behind her, Laura looked back. "Mr. Steele?"

"I'll be along in a moment, Laura. Just need to discuss a matter with Mildred-"

Laura's brow wrinkled in suspicion. "And what matter might that be?" she wanted to know.

Mildred fumbled for an idea, her gaze falling at last on a slip of paper on her desk. "There are some - questions about Mr. Steele's dry cleaning bill that need to be cleared up - " she said, her voice trailing off as Laura's expression darkened.

"A *dry cleaning* bill? Surely this can wait until later - Mr. Matheson will be here any minute -" She opened the office door. "Now, Mr. Steele."

Mildred gave him an apologetic look and Mr. Steele shrugged before turning to follow Laura into his office.

**********

Once Mr. Matheson was gone, Laura disappeared into her office. "Paperwork," she explained.

"I've done all the current paperwork," Mildred reminded her. "It's waiting on your desk -"

Laura stopped. "Oh. Thank you, Mildred. I guess I'll go look them over and sign them, then." The door closed behind her.

Remington bent over Mildred's desk. "What'd you find out, Chief?" she whispered. "Where has Miss Holt been going?"

"She's been taking flowers to the grave of someone named Letiticia Ryerson," he told her, keeping his voice low. Laura had the hearing of a cat when she was suspicious - the door opened and Laura appeared carrying a file. "I can't believe they would overcharge me like this, Mildred," he said in a louder voice, hastily picking up the cleaning bill.

"That's why I wanted to ask you about it, Mr. Steele," Mildred said, playing along. "To find out what you wanted to do about it -" Laura pretended to ignore them as she placed the file into a cabinet near the desk and then returned to her office. Mildred wrote down the name he'd given her. "Did you get anything else? Date of birth?-"

"1900 to 1971, I believe."

"I'll check it out asap, chief," she promised as Laura's door opened again. Mildred slipped the paper she'd written the information on under some other papers.

"Well, did you two get the great dry cleaning mystery all sorted out?" she asked.

"I think so," Remington said.

"Good. Because you're due at that committee meeting in half an hour - I've already called Fred. He'll meet you downstairs."

"Really, Laura, I-"

She placed a hand on his arm and turned him toward the doors. "You promised, Mr. Steele, remember? And everyone knows that Remington Steele's word is his bond," she reminded him.

"That's not fair, Laura," he protested, "using my own words against me." He paused in the open door. "If I go and smile at the little old ladies, will you have dinner with me tonight?" He smiled at her. "A little dinner, some dancing - perhaps a movie -"

Mildred sighed heavily. "If you don't say yes, Miss Holt, I will."

Laura sighed as well. "What movie?" she asked.

"Your choice," he assured her.

"Then you can pick me up at seven," she agreed, giving him a final shove out of the office. She stood in the corridor until he disappeared into the elevator before turning back to confront Mildred. "Okay, Mildred. What was all that about earlier?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Miss Holt. Mr. Steele was double charged for something on his cleaning bill, - "

"How could he tell? The thing is nearly as much as the national debt," she commented dryly.

Mildred looked at her. "Why don't you go on home, Miss Holt? Take a hot bath, get ready for your date -"

"It's not a date," Laura insisted. "It's a bribe."

"Dinner, dancing and movie. Honey, where I come from that's called a date, no matter what *you* might try to call it."

Laura went to her office and signed the reports that Mildred had taken care of, then realized that there really wasn't any reason to hang around the office. There weren't anymore clients scheduled for the day - it was Friday afternoon, and it wasn't likely that anyone would come in. Mildred could call her if something *did* come up, she reasoned. And it was something that Grandma Letty would have done, she decided. Before she could come up with reasons why she *should* stay, Laura grabbed her purse and hat, and rejoined Mildred.

"I think I *will* take the rest of the day off, Mildred," she announced. "If anything comes up-"

"I'll call," Mildred promised. "Have a nice evening."

"You too," Laura returned, leaving the office with an airy wave.

Mildred let out the breath she'd been holding and turned the computer monitor back on. If Miss Holt had glanced at this, she would not only not have left for the day, she would probably have refused to have dinner with Mr. Steele for the next month, if not longer. Waiting a moment, Mildred typed in the name "Letitia Ryerson", then the year of her birth. At least it wasn't a common name, she said to herself.

**********

She was reading the information that she'd printed out when Mr. Steele returned. "I found out who Letitia Ryerson was, Mr. Steele," she told him first thing.

He glanced toward Laura's office. "Where is -"

"Miss Holt when home early. Right after you left, in fact."

"What did you find out?"

"She was Miss Holt's grandmother," Mildred told him, holding the printout toward him.

"Her grandmother?" he questioned, glancing through the information. Never married, one child, Abigail Ryerson Holt, -" As he read, he began to piece together a very interesting life for a woman he found himself wishing he had known. She'd been given numerous awards for her care of foster children over the years, had been tied socially to a wealthy businessman several years her junior before the man's death in an accident. A true rebel, Remington thought. Someone not afraid to fight against the status quo and beat the odds. So that was where Laura got her courage. He'd often wondered how she had ever found the nerve to become a private detective, to do battle against the notion that because she happened to be a woman she couldn't do the job. He chuckled softly.

"What?" Mildred asked, looking over his arm to the paper in his hand, wondering what he'd found humorous.

Laura got off the elevator, frowning. She'd forgotten about a report that had to be sent into the state by tomorrow morning - and Mildred would never find it where she'd put it. As she opened the doors, she saw Mildred and Remington standing beside the desk, reading something, heard him laugh and Mildred ask the reason.

"Nothing, really. It's just that I think I understand Laura a little better for having found about about grandmother, that's all."

Laura's frown deepened as her temper's fuse lit. "Oh, you do, do you, Mr. Steele?" she asked.

"Laura."

"Miss Holt -" Mildred began as they both turned toward her. "I thought you were gone for the day-"

"Obviously. A very nice little ploy to get me out of the way, wasn't it?" She held out her hand for the paper that Remington now held behind his back. "May I see that, please?"

"It's not very interesting, Laura," he told her. "Just a routine investigation, -"

"Of who, Mr. Steele?" she asked softly. "I don't remember any of our current cases calling for us to investigate anyone - and if they do, then surely - as owner of this agency - I have the right to read whatever it is you've found."

Remington met her eyes, then slowly handed over the report. "Mr. Steele-"

"The game's up, Mildred," he told her with a resigned sigh as the secretary moved to stand slightly behind him. "Before you lose your temper, Laura-" he began in a placating tone of voice.

"I think it's a little late for that," she said. "You had no *right*," she exclaimed. "No right at all to go digging into my background -"

"This was the second time this month that you just took off, no word, no explanation of where you were going -"

"And you couldn't just leave it at that, could you? No, you had to go prying, digging up information about my grandmother! How would you feel if every time you took off I followed you? You wouldn't appreciate it very much-"

"This isn't about me, Laura," Remington reminded her. "And how long as it been since I've taken off on my own without telling you what I was doing?" he asked, his own voice raising slightly in volume.

"That still doesn't give you the right to-"

"To find out who Letitia Ryerson was? You aren't ashamed of her, are you?"

"Of *course* I'm not!" Laura insisted. "I don't expect you to understand."

"Why? Because I don't have family of my own?"

"That's not what I meant. It's just- Grandma Letty was the most important person in my life besides my father," she explained.

"Then why hide your visits to her grave? Just from what I read in that report, I'd say that your grandmother wouldn't have approved of that. She seemed the type of woman who enjoyed life, who wasn't afraid to take a few chances now and then. A woman wasn't afraid to let herself care about someone and the whole world be damned if they found out about it." He expected her to scream at him, to yell, to do anything except what she did: turn and go into his office without a word. Remington took a deep breath. "Why doesn't she ever do what I *expect* her to do, Mildred? She's the most impossible, stubborn-"

Mildred nodded. "Maybe because she's a lot like her grandmother?" she suggested, then nodded in the direction that Laura had gone. "You'd better get in there."

"Why? So she can tell me again how disappointed she is in me?"

"No. So she can tell you about her grandmother," Mildred explained. "I'll make sure you're not disturbed," she told him, then gave him a gentle push toward his office. "Go on."

Knowing that Mildred wasn't going to let him back off this, Remington went through the door, closing it quietly behind him. Laura was standing at the window, her back to the room, apparently oblivious to his presence. He hesitated, uncertain of what he should say. Laura leaned forward to rest her forehead on the glass. "You were right about her," she said, relieving him of having to speak first. "She was unique, special. I don't think I've ever met anyone else quite like her."

"When's the last time you looked in the mirror?" Remington asked, putting his hands into his pockets as he moved to stand near her.

Laura shook her head. "I'm not like her. Not in the ways that really matter."

"You beat the odds, became a private investigator, started this agency - "

Laura lifted her eyes to the blue sky beyond the glass. "That's only part of it. Grandma - Grandma never did what anyone expected her to. She chose to be a businesswoman instead of a housewife - she had a really torrid affair with a *very* important man, and when she found herself pregnant, refused to marry him, instead decided to raise the child alone."

"Without any help from her child's father?"

"He sent her money, spent as much time with their daughter as Letty would allow - but she wanted her daughter to grow up independent, not relying on a man to make her happy."

"Doesn't sound much like your mother," Remington commented.

Laura managed a small smile. "No, it doesn't, does it? Mother preferred living with her father rather than with Letty. They weren't very close."

"I'd like to hear about her," Remington said softly. "If you want to -" Very slowly, Laura began to speak, to tell him about the woman who had influenced her life more than any other person - even her adored father. Remington smiled as she told him about the courageous, intelligent woman that she'd grown up admiring, wanting more than anything else to emulate.

As she finished, she turned to look up at him. "I think she'd have liked you. She would have said you were just right for me." And then she smiled. "Either that, or she'd try to -"

"Steal me away?" he suggested when she didn't finish the comment.

"Something like that."

He smiled back. "I wish met her." He reached out to touch her cheek. "Thank you for telling me about her. It helps me to understand that dogged determination of yours, that drive to be the best. She'd be proud of you."

"I like to think she would. But she'd also let me have it for not following through."

"What do you mean?" he asked, watching as she turned to move across the room. "Keeping you at arms length, for one thing, Grandma always said that it was important to follow the dream, but not to forget to follow your heart as well- and that if those paths seemed to diverge, to always go with your heart."

Remington moved a few steps closer. "And you haven't- gone with your heart?"

She was facing away from him, and shook her head. "No. It's the one thing I'm afraid to risk."

He was behind her now, and gently turned her to face him. "I think you're wrong, you know. Why else would you have let me stay all this time if it wasn't your heart telling you that it was the thing to do? How many times has your head told you to tell me to shove off?" She grinned. "Several, apparently. And yet you listened to your heart and refused to let me go - even went to find me a time or two." His dark blue eyes met hers. "What was right for Letty might not be right for you, Laura. She wouldn't want you to be a carbon copy of her - she sounds as though she wanted you to simply be yourself. No apologies, no regrets."

"That sounds like something she would have said," Laura agreed. "Thank you." She lifted her lips to his.

He rested his head on hers, sighing. "I wish I could tell you about my grandmother, Laura- "

"That's all right," she assured him. "I don't have to know who you were." She looked up at him. "Because I know who you are *now* and that's all that matters."

Remington pulled her tight against him, hugging her. "Why don't we go out to dinner? And I'll tell you all about my first meeting with Daniel."

Laura grinned as they turned toward the door. "You mean I'm going to get a piece of your mysterious past out of you, Mr. Steele?"

"Quid pro quo, Miss Holt. And I might even buy you some roses and lilacs."

Laura laughed softly. *You would have loved him, Grandma,* she said to herself. *Almost as much as I do.*  Now, she just had to learn to trust that feeling the way Grandma always had. Maybe then, she'd really be worthy of being Letitia Ryerson's granddaughter.

The End