Her heart soared at this first recognition of her place in his life. ‘I’m happy to be here for you.’
They stood like that for a long time until Shelley pulled away. She looked up at him. ‘I’m not going to talk about bats or vampires, I promise.’
He smiled. ‘I don’t mind them. It’s the slugs I don’t like being compared to.’
‘And rightly so,’ she said. ‘It’s plants I’m thinking about—plants that thrive in the shade. If you dig them up and plunk them straight away into the bright sunlight they shrivel up and die. Moving them from the shadow to sun is a gradual process. It might be the same with you—too much light too soon might mean—’
He tilted her chin so she looked straight up into his face ‘If you’re the light, Shelley, I don’t think I could have too much of you,’ he said.
She met his gaze for a long moment as the import of his words ticked through her. ‘That...that’s good,’ she stuttered. ‘You don’t mind being compared to a plant? I’m talking plants that can live indoors like hosta and spathiphyllum and—’
There she went, deflecting anything emotional when it came to her. Why did she do this?
‘Baffling me with Latin again,’ he said.
‘You might know a spathiphyllum as a peace lily. At least I’m not comparing you to mushrooms,’ she said. ‘They love living in the dark and they feed on sh— Well, they feed on manure.’
Declan laughed and she loved the sound of his rare laughter. ‘I’ll add mushroom to the list of my attributes,’ he said in a voice choked with mirth. Then he sobered. ‘You really are adorable, Shelley. Don’t change.’
She looked up at him. ‘Just be honest with me, Declan, that’s all I ask. I... I so want to be the light in your life.’
He pulled her to him and kissed her. For a long time they kissed in the filtered sunlight coming through the dusty windows of the old shed. Kissing, touching, exploring.
The pile of papers wrapped in oilskin would have to wait.
Nothing was more important than this.
A WEEK LATER, Shelley stood in the spring sunshine in front of the fountain, tapping her foot impatiently. She could hardly wait to tell Declan the news that was consuming her but he was taking his time coming downstairs to the garden.
Deep breaths, Shelley, deep breaths, she told herself. She concentrated on the soothing splash of the water falling down the three tiers of the fountain, admired her plantings of purple and yellow Louisiana iris unfurling into bloom. The goldfish had doubled in size since she’d set them free into the waters of the pond, adding welcome flashes of gold as they flitted in and out of the plants. There were plenty of places for them to hide from interested kookaburras and other fisher birds.
She was struck by a sudden flash of déjà vu. Hadn’t she stood at the site of the derelict fountain and imagined just this scene—right down to the goldfish?
Back then she couldn’t have predicted how important this place would become to her. Most of all she could never have imagined how close she would become to Declan. Then Mr Tall, Dark and Grumpy, now...well, now he was everything she could ever want in a man.
The last week had been an accelerated getting-to-know-you process. She’d gone from teetering on the edge of falling in love with Declan to preparing to dive on in head first.
He got her. He accepted her for the way she was, didn’t just put up with her foibles but actually seemed to like them. She could relax and be herself around him as she’d never been able to before. It was an exhilarating feeling.
She was ready to take the next step. Tonight she was cooking him dinner at the apartment. Sex would change the dynamic between them but it was getting more and more difficult to stop at kisses—for both of them. But she judged she was ready for that change—and she suspected he felt the same.
Then she saw him, heading towards her with the smile that seemed to have replaced his perpetual scowl. Because of her. She had made the difference—she made him smile with her encouragement, her support, her not-going-to-call-it-that-yet love. Oh, and the gaffes and blunders she still made in spite of her best efforts. But they made him laugh.
‘You in a pink dress, the fountain, the flowers—I wish I had my camera on me,’ he said. ‘You make a beautiful picture.’
She was still getting used to this Declan, still surprised at the man who was revealing himself by gradually peeling off layer by protective layer. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
He swooped her into his arms and spun her around. ‘So what’s the big excitement that couldn’t wait?’
* * *
Declan wished he could pause that moment of Shelley standing in front of the fountain with a look of anticipation on her face as she’d lifted her head from something she was examining in the fountain to see him. Not just anticipation. Affection too. For him. She was giving him the second chance he’d thought he hadn’t deserved.
He wanted to paint her like this. Not Estella. Shelley. Not a mythical warrior woman created from his own imagination but the real woman whose warm heart and generosity of spirit were slowly thawing his own frozen emotions.
He swooped her, laughing, back to earth, set her on her feet and waited for her reply.
Her eyes were wide and sparkling. ‘First I went to see the television producer and he’s very interested in progressing the presenter role with me.’
‘That is good news,’ he said. ‘Well done.’ He hoped she would get the job. And that it would keep her here in Sydney.
She pulled out a large envelope from her tote bag. ‘But the mind-blowing news is this,’ she said. ‘Though of course you might not find it as mind-blowing as I did. After all, I know you—’
‘Get on with it,’ he said with a smile that he knew she would see as indulgent. The day Shelley didn’t rabbit on was the day he’d be concerned.
‘Do you remember when we opened the old chest in the shed last week and found the diaries?’
‘Of course.’ How could he forget that time with her in that darned shed she liked so much? Although it was memories of her in his arms that came to mind rather than the set of old notebooks that had caused her such pleasure.
‘I went back into the shed the next day to look at that bundle of papers that were wrapped in the oilskin.’
‘I remember them,’ he said. He’d been thankful she’d forgotten them and he could keep on kissing her. If there’d been somewhere more comfortable in that shed than a wooden work bench there might have been a whole lot more than kissing going on in there.
Shelley tapped the envelope. ‘These are those papers.’ Reverently, she pulled out a sheaf of the old documents, yellowed and faded around the edges, and pointed to the hand-drawn illustrations. ‘These are original plans by Enid Wilson for this garden. Look, there’s the fountain, the walls, everything. Can you believe it?’
Declan took the plans from her hands, held them up to the light, looked at them critically. ‘The plans certainly look like this garden. They’re beautifully rendered in watercolour.’ His grandmother’s favourite medium had been watercolour. ‘These are good. Very good,’ he said, judging them as paintings rather than horticultural plans.
‘Of course they are. Enid Wilson was an artist. Her plans were works of art and so were her gardens.’ Her voice rose with her excitement. ‘Your garden wasn’t just inspired by her designs, it was actually designed by her.’