I turned toward Maggie. "You'd have to sell quite a bit of garlic to make ends meet. Do the sisters really manage to support themselves growing rocambole?"

"Pretty much," Maggie said. "But there's always maintenance and equipment and emergency expenditures. They'll be glad of the trust fund."

"What trust fund?"

But the answer to that question would have to wait Maggie was parking in the lot behind her restaurant, where she planned to leave the van for her employees to use. We got out and carried our bags across the street to the Crystal Cave. I steadfastly averted my eyes from the wreath-decked front door of Thyme and Seasons, which I had recently painted an inviting forest green.

I'd locked the store the night before, and I didn't need to check to see how things were. I know the place by heart-stone walls, scarred wooden floor, beamed ceiling hung with braids of garlic and ristras-strings of dried red peppers. Wooden shelves that hold glass jars and stone crocks full of dried herbs, as well as vinegars, teas, herbal soaps, potpourri. Baskets of strawflowers, nigella, globe amaranth, celosia, blue salvia, and poppy pods. Wreaths of artemisia and dried sweet Annie. Red clay pots of lavender, thyme, rosemary, scented geraniums.

Thyme and Seasons is the shop I had dreamed of, filled with useful, delightful plants. But the dream had swallowed my life. I thought of Wanda Rathbottom owning the store instead of me-a thought that six months before would have turned my stomach. Today, it almost seemed inviting. Maybe I could sell the shop to Wanda with the provision that I stay on as gardener. That way, I could spend spring in the garden, rather than behind the cash register. Maybe I could-I pushed the thought away. There was time later to think of options. For the next fourteen days, I planned not to think at all.

Before we actually reached the Crystal Cave, the door opened and Ruby came down the walk, carrying a large suitcase. I did a double take. Ruby is six feet tall, with fiery red hair that she wears in a wild frizz. She was dressed in an ankle-length brown caftan belted with a length of rope.

The hood of the caftan was pulled up, hiding her hair. " I've never been to a monastery before," Ruby said, seeing my inquiring glance. "I didn't know what to wear."

She looked nervously at my jeans and Maggie's dark slacks. "Am I okay? Should I change into something more appropriate?"

"What could be more appropriate?" I asked. "You look like you're auditioning for Sister Act III."

"I didn't wear perfume," Ruby said, as if that explained something. She unlocked the trunk of her red Honda, which was parked at the curb. "Or nail polish. Or my tinted contacts."

"You must feel practically naked," Maggie replied with a grin, putting her bag into the trunk.

Ruby nodded, taking her seriously. "I didn't think nuns were into mat sort of tiling. I thought I should be just plain Ruby."

"Whatever you do, you'll never be just plain Ruby," I said affectionately, adding my bag. "It's a contradiction in terms." Ruby's suitcase went in last, with difficulty, and we climbed into the little car, Maggie in the back. As we drove off, I said to Maggie over my shoulder, "Now, tell me about that trust fund."

"Trust fund?" Ruby asked, making a left turn in front of a telephone company truck. "Did somebody inherit something?"

"The monastery inherited some money," I said, fastening my seat belt. Riding with Ruby can be thrilling. "Maggie was just starting to tell me about it.''

"Actually, it was quite a lot of money," Maggie said. "But the story goes back a few years, and it's complicated. Maybe I'd better start at the beginning."

So while Ruby drove westward under an increasingly threatening sky, Maggie told us the tale of St. Theresa's legacy. It began in a Catholic high school in San Antonio, where an English teacher named Sister Hilaria befriended Helen Henderson, a young student teacher. The two maintained their friendship through frequent letters even after Helen married her college sweetheart, Bert Laney, and moved to his two-thousand-acre ranch near Carr, ninety miles northwest of San Antonio. A few years later, he died in an automobile accident, leaving Helen Laney a wealthy, childless widow. The next year, Helen was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. It would ultimately kill her.

Meanwhile, back in San Antonio, Sister Hilaria's energetic work had brought her increased visibility within her order, the Sisters of the Holy Heart. She was active in every community project and served on a dozen local and national boards. But over the next few years, Sister Hilaria began to think wistfully about living a quieter, more prayerful life. After consulting God and receiving His approval on the project, she went to her superior and requested permission to establish a contemplative house where sisters might step out of their active lives of service to engage in prayer and reflection.

Sister Hilaria's superior was not exactly overjoyed at the idea of retiring one of her most outstanding achievers, but she dutifully bumped the request up the chain of command. After a great deal of hemming and hawing, the order's Reverend Mother General finally said yes-if Hilaria could find an acceptable site for her contemplative community and raise the operating expenses to keep it going. Obviously, Sister Hilaria had gotten permission to do what she wanted because nobody in the order believed she could actually do it. Real estate in Texas was booming, land prices had shot up like Roman candles, and people who had been accustomed to investing in God were looking for better returns from Mammon and Company. In that economic climate, why should anybody sink a nickel into a new religious community that would never turn a dime?

But Sister Hilaria was praying, and when Sister Hilaria prayed, God listened. She was also writing letters. One of the letters went to her old friend Helen Laney, who invited her to visit the Laney Ranch and look around. By now, Helen was quite ill, she was living alone in a large house, and she had no children to inherit her property when she died-no relatives at all, in fact, except for her husband's nephew and his wife, the Townsends. The ranch, Helen thought, might satisfy Sister Hilaria's needs.

When Sister Hilaria arrived at the Laney Ranch, she saw that God had answered her prayers with a resounding "Yes, ma'am." Remote but accessible, the property was situated along the wild Yucca River a couple of hours south and west of Austin. The rambling stone-and-cedar ranch headquarters could serve as office, chapel, and refectory. The large bunkhouse could easily be converted into a dozen eight- by ten-foot cells, and several small cottages along the river could serve as guest quarters. There were the usual outbuildings-barns, vehicle storage sheds, a repair shop- and plenty of room to build more. With her practical eye, Sister Hilaria observed the tillable acreage along the Yucca River and the river itself, which could be partially diverted for irrigation. While she had enormous faith in the long-term productivity of prayer, she also believed in the short-term rewards of work. If the nuns wanted to eat, they could get their hands dirty.

Following visits from the Reverend Mother General, correspondence with Rome, and enough red tape to stretch from here to the Pearly Gates, the final arrangements were blessed by the order's lawyers. After the initial fuss, however, nobody paid a lot of attention to the details of the transaction. The Laney land wasn't oil or coastal property, and it had no real value except to Sister Hilaria and her new community. Helen Laney deeded the ranch house and eight hundred acres to the Sisters of the Holy Heart, and constructed several necessary facilities-a small chapel, a dormitorylike building with individual cells for sisters, and additional residential cottages. In return, the nuns cared for Mrs. Laney until she died, five years later. In her will, she created a foundation to be managed by Sister Hilaria-now Mother Hilaria. She endowed it to the tune of some seven million dollars.