“You can’t know that.” Her mother lifted her eyebrows.
“Oh, yes I can. I can tell by every favor he refuses, how he makes sure he gives more than he receives. He never wants to be beholden to anyone.”
Her father frowned. “So, he doesn’t know who you are? Is that a way to start a relationship?”
“I didn’t know I was going to fall for him,” Calli said indignantly. “He thought I was a boy. That wasn’t a very promising start.”
“You’d best tell him the truth.”
“Then he’ll never apply for a job with you.”
“Stalemate, Calli, but I still think you ought to tell him the truth. Are you going to tell us who he is?”
“I don’t doubt you could find out if you want to.” She kissed her father on the cheek and gathered up her bag, ready to leave.
She gave her father’s advice some consideration in the car on the way home before deciding that if Kell didn’t love her, he didn’t ever need to know she was an Allbrook. Then he could apply for whatever job he chose without worrying about his pride. She would be nothing but the gardener next door with whom he’d had a pleasant fling until surprise, surprise, who would have guessed?
During the week, having finished the judge’s garden, she had time to find casual employment without worrying about her surname, which she did with comparative ease. On Tuesday she began her first gardening job.
“Two hundred dollars a day,” she said to Kell, waving a wad of cash under his nose when she popped in to see his progress on his house after she had finished work for the day. “Not bad. I can take you out for dinner.”
He grabbed her and hugged her tight. She knew he liked her a lot, but that would never be enough for her. Of course, she would be shattered if he didn’t return her love, but she was willing to give him until the judge returned to see how perfect they were for each other. Her cat wanted him as much as she did.
By the end of the week, the electrician had rewired Kell’s house, minus the final details, and the tiler finished his three upstairs bathrooms, the main with gray marble coin flooring and gray subway tiles. He used the same flooring in the guest en suite with white tiles on the walls. The piѐce de résistance was the master bathroom featuring gray and black basket-weave mosaic marble flooring and black railway tiles on the walls. With all the baths and basins white and all the fixtures bronze, the effect was dramatically art deco and elegant.
Downstairs, the new extension had been approved and Trent hammered in the joists for the floor. Over the weekend, Kell and Trent built the rafters. During the week, Trent added the flooring and the roof tiles. Calli watched the installation of the bank of glass doors at the back, plotting the plants she would want in view. Kell finished polishing the upstairs floors. The end was now in clear sight.
After the walls for the downstairs laundry were erected, only waterproofing remained until Kell had his new half bathroom and laundry. He worked into the night during that next week and she desperately wanted to help him, if only to see him, but he had nothing for her to do but sweep, which of course she did.
However, he deconstructed his old kitchen the next week, which worked in her favor, because Trent finally decided to move in with Emily. Although he could have a hot shower now, he couldn’t manage without somewhere to prepare meals, or so he said. Emily, apparently, had fallen as hard for him as he had for her. Calli couldn’t have been more delighted. Trent had been caught from the start, and he deserved an A for persistence.
“You couldn’t say a P,” Kell said. “Since that would be a bathroom reference and after he went without for so long…” He grinned.
“I’m sure you can’t cope without a kitchen either, so you could move in with me,” Calli said to Kell, clinging onto his arm and kissing his stubbly cheek.
“That’d mean I would be living off the judge. Not cool, Calli.”
She sighed, having heard clear confirmation of the pride she had described to her parents. Not for a moment had she expected him to agree. She turned on the coffee machine. Today she had done a full day’s casual laboring in a nearby garden. “I was offered a design job today, too, off the street. Kerin Haslam, a woman who walks past daily, asked me to do some planting in her garden, too. How about that?”
“I’m not surprised. The judge’s place is a great advertisement for you. I hope you make mine look half as good.”
“Half? I don’t do anything by halves.”
“I know. We’ll soon be ready to start my garden. The construction is finished and as soon as the inside is done, we can do the outside.”
“I’m starting on Mrs. Haslam’s garden as soon as she approves my plans. I only need to finish the drawings, and I can do that tonight while you’re sanding your upstairs floors.”
“I’ll be prepping for a few more days before I’m ready to sand, but as soon as we’ve eaten tonight, I’ll make a start. Then I’ll move into the small bedroom upstairs while I polish the downstairs floors.”
“Takeaway pizza?”
“You order, and I’ll get it.” He left after they had eaten. Rather than watch television with Hobo, she helped Kell pull the old carpet nails out of the floors until her knees refused to click one more time. He kissed her goodnight and went on with the work. Trent now only worked during the daytime.
In the morning, she dropped her design plans into her prospective client’s letterbox. The next day she started ordering pavers, sand, laborers, and plants. During the previous week of sunny summer days, and with Christmas looming, the judge’s garden had hardened off the new growth. The roses had their first showing during spring and had already developed the next the plump buds. The salvias, geraniums, dog’s bane, lavenders, Mexican sage, and Felicia still bloomed in a swathe of blues and purples among the silver foliage of the Artemesia. The pinks hovered, waiting for their big moment.
The judge’s pool glimmered sparkling blue, his fountain twinkled in the sunshine, and the spent plants had been removed from the vegetable garden. Spinach glistened in the sun. Tiny peaches and apricots had already formed on the fruit trees. Bees hummed through the air, and butterflies flittered erratically from leaf to flower. She needed to plant Kell’s garden before the summer heat turned scorching.
“Could you cut down all the shrubby rubbish in your front garden this weekend? I’ll need to get a start on the soil and the plotting,” she said to Kell, after he had crawled into bed with her that night. The light from the moon slitted through the blinds. Hobo, her creamy pale coat rippling with health, sprang onto Calli’s pillow and snuggled between her chin and shoulder while purring into Calli’s ear. Neither she nor the cat could have been happier, sleeping with Kell most nights.
“I don’t expect you to do the garden.” He rolled to face her and with a single finger he pushed her hair back behind her ears as if to see her better. “You have more than enough to do. Our deal was for a plan.”
“And then you would pay someone to work on my plan?”
He kissed her chin. “I suppose.”
“Pay me then. I’ll give you mate’s rates. I’ll work on your garden during weekends once you have cleared the area. Hobo will be thrilled. She’ll be able to see you more often.”
“Are you planning on keeping her?”
“What else could I do? She must have adopted me for some reason.”
He considered. “I wonder where she came from?”
“She’ll never tell, but the vet said that judging by the condition of her paws, she had travelled a long way.”
“To find you.” His breath whispered on her cheek. “Where will you go when the judge comes back?”
Her heart dropped. She had to face the fact that soon she would have to leave Kell—but not quite yet, not for a couple of weeks. By then, she could be bored with his conversation, tired of wonderful sex, and anxious to be alone. “I don’t know. I might move in with my sister for a while. Where will you go?”
“I’
ll stay in the house until it sells, and then I’ll move back into my caravan. I have a spot at the warehouse reserved. When I have the money, I’ll buy another renovator’s delight, but for me.”
Three weeks was all she had left with him, three weeks until Christmas day. She longed to ask if he planned to continue their relationship, but she couldn’t face a question whose answer she might not be able to bear. Best not to know, and enjoy the relationship while she could. She didn’t intend to be one of those women who waited and waited for a proposal. Her own mind was made up, and she would marry him on the spot, but if he loved her as much as she loved him, he would want to marry her instantly.
Her friend Maggie waited four years for a proposal. That was right for her, but not for Calli. By now she knew she had never been in love before. The men who hadn’t loved her had never given her these feelings of desperation, the longing to see them, the great warmth inside when she did, or the smile she wore when she was expecting Kell to arrive home from work.
Whatever money or property woes she and Kell had could be solved together. If he didn’t see this, if he didn’t love her so deeply that he wanted her no matter what, he didn’t love her enough. And perhaps he didn’t.
She might be another Hobo to him, for all she knew, simply a stray to be nurtured.
* * * *
Kell straightened and leaned back, his palms pressing on the small of his back as he watched Calli crawl around on her hands and knees joining the rolls of sod they had almost finished laying. Trent brought another barrow-load from the front where the grass had been dumped early this morning. “That’s the last. I’m ready for a nice cold bottle of beer.”
“I’m looking forward to sitting for a while.” Emily had also come along today with Trent to help finish the garden. She had wanted to look at the inside of the house, but Kell didn’t have time for a tour, not yet.
Laying the green lawn front and back was the final task. He kicked, and the new section slowly unrolled to the red brick garden border. Calli scooted along on her knees to join the edges while Trent dumped another roll and Emily walked the sod flat.
Calli and Emily had evaded each other’s gazes for a while after Emily had turned up, but either something had been said that Kell hadn’t heard or they had conceded to working instead of letting a tense atmosphere ruin the day. Now after three hours of working together, they were as pleased with each other as two women could be. “Emily, if you want to sit, you could get into your car and drive down to Mama’s on Portrush Road,” Calli said, her face serious. “I ordered lunch and it will be ready to pick up.”
“Where do we plan to eat? On Kell’s beautiful new shiny floor?” Emily sounded reluctant.
“Next door, in my place. I’ve got the table set up there.”
“Okay,” Emily said, rising to her feet. “I’m feeling a bit old after all this physical work. The rest of you are used to it, but I normally work inside an air conditioned building.”
She left and Calli began watering in the new lawn at the front of the house while Kell and Trent barrowed and spread the spare soil over the joins at the back. Grassing the front garden had taught them the routine Calli clearly knew so well.
This final touch of green made Kell want to stand back and enjoy the view. He and Trent had paved the patio with herringbone reclaimed red brick, old fashioned, but in keeping with the design of the house. The new wide front path had also been herringboned and with the lawn on either side and the iceberg roses along the red brick fence, the garden looked plain, neat, and strangely right. Trent had also added some fancy brickwork to the low front fence, copying a pattern of herringbone twist Calli had shown him on a picture of Hampton Palace, an old Tudor house in England. Between the pillars sat plain iron railing in dark gray. Calli knew her design.
The back garden was another matter, lushly planted with a rainbow of colors along the new gray fence. A big old elm had been kept in the middle of the lawn but the rest of the trees had gone with the chainsaw. Kell had painted the window frames to match the fence iron. The front door was pale aqua blue, and the diamond-patterned leadlight sparkling in the top of the windows looked perfect.
Other than the last painting of the walls downstairs, only the kitchen inside remained waiting to be installed. Strange, that. The cabinets had been ready for a couple of weeks, but Kell had a childhood hangover he had never been able to shake. Leave the best for last.
By the time Emily returned with lunch, a sprinkler had been set on the back lawn and everyone was ready for a break. Calli led the way to her cottage next door where they could comfortably eat the chicken and prawn salad she had ordered last night.
When Trent and Emily clicked together the small bottles of ice-cold beer Calli had taken from her fridge, Kell sat up straighter. The couple had been strangely jubilant this morning.
“Are you going to tell, or am I?” Emily glanced at Trent.
“You.”
“I’ve quit my job, and I’ve found another one in Sydney.” Emily gave a little hitch to her shoulders and a bolstering smile at the persistent, hard-working, easygoing bricklayer who had made sure Kell reached his goal. “I’m leaving with Trent when he goes after Christmas.”
Without Trent and his patience, Kell would be renovating his house until the middle of next year. He reached over and ruffled Trent’s hair, delighted for his friend. “Good news, buddy.”
“We’re getting engaged,” Emily said, staring at her bare ring finger. “Probably not until June or July, though.”
“If you don’t mind.” Calli rose to her feet. “I must kiss the happy couple.” Trent being the nearest, she kissed him first, and without any hesitation she kissed Emily. “He’s the best. You are a lucky girl.” She collected the used plates and stacked them in the kitchen, her smile somewhat wan.
Kell covered her unusual behavior by talking about places he would like to live in Sydney, and listening to speculation about how busy the set design business would keep Trent. Trent decided that he would show Emily over the renovated house before the couple left to spend the afternoon with Emily’s parents, who apparently knew and approved of goofy Trent.
“You need a dripper system for the garden now.” Calli sat at the table again after watching Trent and Emily walk down the driveway.
“I’m pretty well on budget, so I’ll buy the makings and put the system together during the week. Why the lack of enthusiasm about Trent’s good news?”
“I wanted her to love him as much as he ought to be loved,” she said, her voice fierce.
“How do you know she doesn’t?”
“She’s made plans to make a plan to marry him. Engaged in six months? Why not married in six months? If I thought someone wanted to put off marrying me for years, I wouldn’t consider him as a partner. I would go on my merry way. I want much more than a tepid relationship.”
And so did he. With her, his relationship had been anything but tepid. Flaming hot, would describe their interactions. He rubbed the back of his neck while he considered the passion in her tone. This woman didn’t want half of anything. She worked in her gardens with the same passion that she showed when she made love to him. She plotted, certainly, but if her design didn’t quite work how she saw it in her head, she had no hesitation in moving plants again and again until her mind picture satisfied her. Nothing but the best was good enough for her, and he wasn’t that by any means.
“You deserve nothing less,” he said, keeping his voice tight to cover his hopelessness. And then the damned cat leaped onto his lap and started purring. His neck stiff and his emotions deliberately blocked, he put her onto the floor, stood, and walked to the door. “I’ll move the sprinkler. You can have the rest of the afternoon off. I’ll measure out the positions for the kitchen units.”
“Don’t you want me to hold the end of the tape?”
“I’ll be okay alone.” Alone. Without her.
As soon as he sold the Tudor, he would need to
settle the huge mortgage he had taken out on the place. He stood to make one hundred thousand plus his own stake of one hundred thousand if he sold for a million. Two hundred thousand would never be enough to buy a house he would want to renovate for himself.
If he sold for 1.2 million, he had another two hundred thousand in his pocket, less taxes. He also had the quarter acre next door to the Tudor, which he could possibly sell for three or four hundred thousand, most of which he would have to plough into growing his business, or at least in mortgaging his own premises. The rest would get him the mortgage for an ordinary sort of house in a newer suburb, not a home he could bet Calli had been brought up to expect, and certainly not in an area commensurate with her family’s position.
What he wanted more than another house to renovate, was to build his company into the biggest and the best. If he had an assured future, he would have the right to ask Calli to marry him. Maybe. He couldn’t offer her less than a husband with assured potential, not an Allbrook.
At this stage, he had nothing to promise but a caravan on a concrete pad and the use of a bathroom in his workshop—unless AA & Company took over the empty plot and offered his team a place in their company, taking the bribe of him paying half the costs, which meant the land.
The rest of his life hinged on the impression he made on AA’s representative.
Chapter 13
Kell’s team installed his kitchen. He was his own customer, also his own designer, his own craftsman, and his own worst enemy. Glancing at patient and lately very solemn Calli, he shrugged. “What do you think?”
“The workmanship is perfect.” She ran her hand over the white marble countertop, a considering expression on her face.
“Is that all?” he asked, disappointed. Normally she couldn’t hold back her enthusiasm, which was another trait that endeared her to him.
Perfect Scents Page 18
