by Joan Kilby
“True,” Will agreed, watching her. “Do you want some water? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Really.” She flipped through her clipboard to a plastic sheet encasing business cards, extracted one and handed it to him. “This fellow does specialty wrought-iron fencing for me. Since a wedding is in your future plans, we could do something appropriate for the occasion—a kissing gate. I know they’re a little old-fashioned, but they’re very romantic.”
“A kissing gate? I’ve never heard of that.” His dimple reappeared. “You’ll have to show me how to use it.”
She plucked the card from his fingers and slid it back into its slot. “That will be a job for the future Mrs. Beaumont.”
“The position is vacant,” he teased. “All comers considered.”
For Maeve, flirting was more bittersweet than fun when there could be no future in it. She smiled and changed the subject. “Shall I draw up a plan and prepare a price estimate to rejuvenate your garden?”
His humorous gaze turned assessing. Then, abruptly, he started toward the patio. “Come inside. I’ll give you my card with a number where you can contact me during the day.”
Shade cloth and bougainvillea cooled the slate-floored patio. Cushioned chairs were set around a redgum table. Nice spot, Maeve thought. Add a few large pot plants, maybe a staghorn fern hanging from the wall, and it would be even more inviting.
She followed him through a terra-cotta-tiled family room adjoining the kitchen, to a study off the dining room. His briefcase sat open on a chair, and business documents were spread out on the desk, along with his wallet and car keys.
Maeve’s gaze automatically gravitated to the papers he’d been working on. She just had time to notice a financial consultant’s report on Aussie Electronics before Will shuffled the documents together, placed them inside the briefcase and shut the lid.
“Top secret, huh?” she said, wondering at the sudden frown that flattened the arch in his eyebrows.
“Just business.” He snapped the locks shut and spun the dials. Then he handed her a card from his wallet. “You can reach me on this number during the day and on my cell phone anytime.”
Maeve slipped the card into one of the pockets of her cargo pants. In turn, she gave him one of her own.
“‘Maeve Arden,”’ he read. “Your last name is different from Art’s. Are you married?”
“I was. I divorced five years ago.” Her split-up with Graham had been less rancorous than sad. Grief over Kristy had overwhelmed other disappointments and left Maeve with a lingering sense of unfinished business.
“Dad will be pleased to know I’m working for you,” she said. “If you decide to use my services, that is.” Already she wanted this job; Will’s garden was ripe with possibilities and rife with unfulfilled dreams. She didn’t know exactly how she knew that; she simply accepted that she did. She’d learned not to analyze the source of her intuition, for fear of stifling the flow.
“If I weren’t so busy at work I’d have gotten several quotes, but personal recommendations go a long way with me. If I like what you propose, I’ll probably go with that.”
She met his eyes. “You won’t regret it.”
“If you’re your father’s daughter, I’m sure I won’t. Art is the best foreman I’ve ever had.” He led the way back through the house to the front steps. “I look forward to seeing your design. When can you have something ready?”
At this time of year she was working flat-out, but for someone her father admired as much as Will Beaumont, she would put aside some of her nonessential tasks. “I’ll do up a preliminary plan in the next few days. Before I finalize it I’d like to come back for a more thorough look over the grounds and to ask you a few more questions.”
“Fine. Say Thursday, around six?”
She wrote down the time and day, then tucked her clipboard under her arm. She’d noted many details today, but the most important information she’d gleaned was imprinted not on the pad’s lined pages but on her brain. Not facts and figures, but the suppressed longing in a man’s voice when he spoke of a child’s tree fort.
Maeve climbed into her truck and poked her head out the window. “I’ll see you Thursday.”
Will leaned on the roof above her window. “Afterward we could grab a bite to eat in Sorrento,” he suggested casually. “There’s this great seafood restaurant down by the water—”
Tempted despite herself, she searched her mind for an excuse. He’d be fun to go out with, but encouraging him wouldn’t be fair. She heard a faint ringing from inside the house. “Is that your phone?”
He glanced over his shoulder and straightened away from the ute. “I suppose it is.”
Maeve put the truck in gear. “Catch you later.”
In the rearview mirror, she saw him shake his head, his smile bemused, clearly in no rush to answer his phone. She laughed to herself. This job could be interesting. And challenging.
The biggest challenge of all would be restraining her attraction to Will Beaumont.
CHAPTER TWO
MAEVE PARKED BENEATH the peppermint gum in the side yard of her cottage in the village of Mount Eliza, a half hour up the coast from Will’s place in Sorrento. The front door stood open in the vain hope of attracting a passing breeze, and her father’s worn work boots rested to one side of the mat.
Good. Art was home. She wanted to have a word with him about his moving back to a place of his own. He’d recovered from the mild heart attack he’d suffered last winter, and although she loved him and enjoyed his company, they both needed to get on with their own lives.
Maeve kicked off her boots and pushed through the screen door to enter the relative cool of the hallway. Wandin Cottage wasn’t as grand as some of the houses she worked at, but what did she or her father need with grandeur? He’d been a working man all his life and she preferred the outdoors to fancy decor.
She slung her hat on a hook, picked up the pile of letters on the hall table and walked down the narrow hallway to the kitchen, which lay at the back of the house.
Art stood at the stove, burly in a white T-shirt and brown work pants, with her frilly pink apron tied around his neck and waist. His hair had turned completely white after the heart attack, but his eyebrows were still black and bushy.
Maeve came up from behind and gave him a hug. “Hamburgers again. You know you don’t have to cook for me.”
“You can’t do a full day’s work, then come home and eat rabbit food,” he growled, flattening a sizzling patty with the back of his spatula. Then his habitual frown lightened into what for him passed as a smile. “Never thought I’d say it, but I like cooking for my daughter. It’s good having company over a meal.”
Maeve forced herself to return his smile, though her heart sank. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“Sure, Maevie, love, but before I forget, Tony called. He wants to know if you ordered the paving blocks for the Cummings place.”
“Thanks. I’ll phone him back later.” Maeve got herself a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and leaned against the counter, sorting the junk mail from the bills, dropping the flyers straight into the recycling box. “I did a landscaping quote for your boss, Will Beaumont, this morning.”
Art flipped the burger and smashed down the other side. “You don’t say!”
“He’s got a beautiful place on the cliff at Sorrento. The garden’ll be a lot of work, but it has great potential.”
“After I was let go from my old job, not a soul wanted to hire a man in his fifties who’d had a heart attack. Will Beaumont did.” Art pointed his spatula at her. “You make sure you do a good job for him, you hear?”
“’Course I will, Art. He thinks pretty highly of you, too.” She grimaced at the size of her nursery bill and moved it to the bottom of the pile.
“Beaumont doesn’t waste time with a lot of manipulative bullshit about productivity and teamwork,” Art went on, stirring the onions frying alongs
ide the hamburgers. “He respects a person’s ability to do a job and lets him get on with it.”
Maeve barely heard him. Tucked between the quarry bill and the phone bill was a small green envelope addressed in the strongly slanting handwriting she’d never thought she’d see again. Graham.
“And if something screws up he doesn’t hold it against you, just expects you to fix the problem,” Art rambled. “He doesn’t waste words, either. I can’t bear a man who rabbits on about nothing.”
That outrageous statement shook Maeve out of painful memories of her brief marriage and made her smile.
Art pointed his spatula at her. “He’d been a good ’un for you, Maevie.”
“Don’t think so,” she said, taking a sip of her water. “He’s in the market for a wife.”
Art turned off the heat under the frying pan. “All the more reason.”
“Dad, forget it. Please.” Her life might be an emotional desert, but at least she’d more or less recovered her equilibrium. For a whole year after Kristy’s death she’d barely functioned. No one but her friend Rose knew all she’d been through. She was not ready for another plunge into matrimony and motherhood. Probably she never would be.
“Okay, okay,” Art said. “These burgers are ready. Want to cut up some rolls?”
Glad of an excuse to set Graham’s unopened letter aside, Maeve sliced hamburger rolls and slid them under the griller to toast. “There’s something lurking under the surface with Will,” she said. “Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”
“Will Beaumont is the most straightforward bloke a man could hope to meet,” Art declared. He waggled his fingers at her. “I suppose you got one of your weird ‘feelings’ about him.”
Maeve turned away from the fridge, her arms loaded with bottles of condiments. “I just got a glimpse. Not enough to go on. He’s missing something. Something to do with love.”
Art snorted. “Will Beaumont missing out in love? I wouldn’t think so. You should see the way the girls on the production line follow him with their eyes when he walks by.”
“I’ll admit he’s got sex appeal, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with love,” Maeve said dryly. “However, I could be wrong. He’s a hard one to read.”
Art slid the hamburgers onto a plate and brought them to the table. “He’s been under a lot of pressure lately, always in a meeting with the accountant. There are rumors going around that the company’s in trouble financially.”
“Really? He’s got a great big house and a Mercedes parked out front.” The memory of Will shoving papers into his briefcase—papers he didn’t want her to see—flashed through her mind.
Art sat at the head of the table and fixed his hamburger with “the lot”—bacon, onions, a slice of beetroot, cheese, mayo, tomato and lettuce; then he topped the whole quivering mass with a fried egg. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked, before opening his mouth wide and biting deep.
Maeve, who’d contented herself with lettuce and tomato, put her hamburger back on her plate and took a deep breath instead of a bite. “Do you ever miss having your own place?”
Art chewed and swallowed. “My word, no. That housing unit was as lonely as a monk’s cell, after your mother passed on.” He was about to take another bite, then lowered his burger and fixed her with his shrewd gaze. “Perhaps it’s you who miss having your place to yourself.”
Suddenly, she couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t inflict another loss on her father. “Of course not,” she said, laughing to prove the foolishness of such an idea. “It’s great having you here.”
He smiled tentatively. “Who else would you get to cook for you, eh?”
After dinner Art took himself off to the front veranda for his one smoke of the day. Maeve propped the green envelope on the windowsill in front of the sink, and ran hot water to build up a soapy froth. What did Graham want after all these years? The return address was care of the yacht harbor in Sydney, so she assumed he still had his sailboat.
After she’d stacked the last clean plate in the dish rack, she swept the floor and tidied the pantry. Then she sat at the table and attended to her bills, her checkbook at hand. At last, there was nothing for it but to read Graham’s letter. With trembling fingers she tore open the envelope:
Dear Maeve, I’ve been thinking of you a lot lately. I’m sailing for Fiji at the end of March. Before I go, I want to see you again. I’ll be in Mornington sometime in the next few weeks. Will call when I get in. Graham. P.S. Remember how we used to make love at sea under the stars?
Maeve’s hands dropped to her lap and the letter slipped through her motionless fingers to the floor. For a moment she did remember. Was there a part of her that still loved Graham? They’d had some good times before Kristy died. Some bad times, too, but that was part of marriage. If he was backtracking all this way just to see her, he must still care.
Did she?
WILL ARRIVED HOME from work late on Thursday evening to find Maeve’s ute in his driveway and Maeve sitting on the tailgate. Every red blood cell in his body went on alert. She’d cast off her shirt, and the scant black crop top left an expanse of taut brown skin above her cargo pants. Her dark hair was pulled into a long ponytail, which hung over her shoulder. In one hand she held a half-empty bottle of water and in the other a wide-brimmed hat, with which she fanned herself.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” he said, emerging from the Merc. “The production line broke down just as I was leaving, and I stayed until it was fixed.”
She hopped from the tailgate and brushed off the back of her pants. “It’s okay. I mowed the lawn while I waited.”
“Such enterprise.” Will opened his front door. “Come in. We’ll get a cold drink and you can grill me.”
Maeve kicked off her boots and stepped past him into the entry hall. He watched her gaze lift to the overhead skylight, then sweep up the curved staircase to the landing. There, round windows like portholes let in more light. Finally she peeked sideways to the lounge room, which glowed warmly in shades of cream, yellow and terra-cotta.
“I love your house,” she said, turning to him with a surprised smile. “I didn’t take it all in the last time I was here. It’s perfect.”
“Thanks.” The house was light and bright, reflecting the sun and the sea, with hardly a straight line or a sharp angle in the place. After he and Maree had split, he’d needed a place where he could feel positive about the future. A home he could grow into.
But as he led the way down the hall to the kitchen, Maeve amended her verdict. “Almost perfect. So far I haven’t seen a single plant.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see her eyes sparkling. “And you won’t. I always forget to water them, so now I don’t bother trying to grow any.” He opened a bar fridge in the family room, displaying a dozen types of specialty beer, plus several bottles of white wine and different types of water. “What’ll you have?”
“Something nonalcoholic with ice, thanks.”
Will made her a tonic and lime juice, then chose a Red Dog lager for himself, and they sat at the patio table. Maeve flipped her clipboard open and proceeded to question him on everything from his favorite color to his astrological sign. Her dark-brown eyes studied him with such intense concentration, she might have been trying to read the convolutions of his brain.
And when she bent her head to note his answers with green-stained fingers, Will studied her. Although she wore no makeup, her tanned skin was smooth and her vivid coloring a collection of contrasts: dark hair, white teeth, deep-red lips. Her mouth was wide and full, curling at the corners in a cupid’s bow. Her large eyes full of laughter a few minutes ago, were now serious.
“Do you have any siblings?” She brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek, drawing his attention to the translucent moonstones that studded her lobes.
After a moment of silence she glanced up expectantly, and he realized he’d forgotten the question.
/> “Siblings,” she repeated.
“Two sisters and a brother.”
Her gaze remained fixed on his. “What number child are you?”
“I’m the eldest.”
“Star sign?”
“Capricorn.”
She frowned down at her clipboard, muttering, “Capricorn and Libra—bad mix.”
“Who’s a Libran?”
She didn’t answer, and he smiled to see a blush creep into her cheeks. “Do you believe in astrology?” he asked.
“Not really.” Her gaze sharpened. “I mean, yes.”
Will drank from his beer. “‘Our fate lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.’ Or words to that effect. I feel I know you already, through your father.”
“Oh?” She put down her pen and eyed him warily.
“For instance, I know you like pancakes topped with fresh fruit for breakfast on Sunday morning. And that you use rainwater to wash your hair.” His fingers flexed as he found himself wondering if her hair was as smooth and soft as it appeared.
“What else did he say about me?”
Will racked his brain, and couldn’t think of anything she might object to. “Nothing personal. No deep dark secrets.”
Maeve appeared relieved, and his fascination with her grew. But this session was about him, and she hadn’t forgotten that. “So,” she said, going back to her clipboard, “who was next—your brother or a sister?”
“My sister Julie. But why? What does my childhood have to do with this garden?”
“You never know,” she replied, writing down his answer.
He leaned forward, trying unsuccessfully to read her handwriting upside down. “Are you licensed to practice psychiatry in this state?”
Her mouth twitched, but she ignored his question and went on. “Did you grow up in the city or the country?”
“I grew up here on the peninsula on a small mixed farm. When I was ten, we moved into the town of Mornington.” Will shifted in his chair, crossed one leg over his knee. “What about your family? Art mentioned he has a son overseas.”
