DECLAN LOCATED THE keys to both the shed and the apartment without too much difficulty. But the tags attached to them were labelled in Lisa’s handwriting and it took him a long moment before he could bear to pick them up. He took some comfort that she would be pleased they were at last being put to use.
Before he took the keys out to Shelley, he first detoured by the front porch and grabbed her leather tool bag from where she had left it. He uttered a short, sharp curse it was so heavy. Yet she had carried it as effortlessly as if it were packed with cotton wool. No wonder her arms were so toned.
He lugged it around to the back garden.
No Shelley.
Had she been put off by the magnitude of the task that faced her and taken off? Her old 4x4 was parked on the driveway around the side of the house and he might not have heard it leave. He felt stabbed by a shard of unexpected disappointment at the thought he might not see her again. He would miss her presence in his garden, in his life.
Then he saw sense and realised there was no way she would leave her tool bag behind.
He soon caught sight of her—and exhaled a sigh of relief he hoped she didn’t hear.
His warrior-woman gardener had hopped over the wall and jumped down into the metre-deep empty pond that surrounded the out-of-commission fountain. There she was tramping around it, muttering under her breath, her expression critical and a tad disgusted as though she had encountered something very nasty. Her expression forced from him a reluctant smile. In her own mildly eccentric way, she was very entertaining.
For the first time, Declan felt a twinge of shame that he had let the garden get into such a mess. The previous owner had been ill for a long time but had stubbornly insisted on staying on in her house. Both money and enthusiasm for maintenance had dwindled by the time she had passed away. When he and Lisa had moved in, he had organised to get the lawns mowed regularly. But even he, a total horticultural ignoramus, had known that wasn’t enough.
In fact he had mentioned to his wife a few times that maybe they should get cracking on the garden. Her reply had always been she wanted it to be perfect—compromise had never been the answer for Lisa—and she needed to concentrate on the house first.
Her shockingly unexpected death had thrown him into such grief and despair he hadn’t cared if the garden had lived or died. He hadn’t cared if he had lived or died. But now, even from the depths of his frozen heart, he knew that Lisa would not have been happy at how he had neglected the garden she had had such plans for.
Grudgingly he conceded that maybe it was a good thing the neighbours had intervened. And a happy chance that Shelley Fairhill had come knocking on his door.
Not that he would ever admit that to anyone.
She looked up as he approached, her face lit by the open sunny smile that seemed to be totally without agenda. Early on in his time as a wealthy widower he had encountered too many smiles of the other kind—greedy, calculating, seductive. It was one of the reasons he had locked himself away in self-imposed exile. He did not want to date, get involved, marry again—and no one could convince him otherwise no matter the enticement.
‘Come on in, the water’s fine,’ Shelley called with her softly chiming laugh.
Declan looked down to see the inch or so of dirty water that had gathered in one corner of the stained and pitted concrete pond. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,’ he said with a grimace he couldn’t hide.
He intended to stand aloof and discuss the state of the pond in a professional employer-employee manner. But, bemused at his own action, he found himself jumping down into the empty pond to join her.
‘Watch your nice boots,’ she warned. The concrete bottom of the pond was discoloured with black mould and the dark green of long-ago-dried-out algae.
Declan took her advice and moved away from a particularly grungy area. The few steps brought him closer to her. Too close. He became disconcertingly aware of her scent—a soft, sweet floral at odds with the masculine way she dressed. He took a rapid step back. Too bad about his designer boots. He would order another pair online from Italy.
If she noticed his retreat from her proximity Shelley didn’t show it. She didn’t shift from her stance near the sludgy puddle. ‘How long has this water been here?’ she asked.
‘There was rain yesterday,’ he said, arms crossed.
Sometimes he would go for days without leaving the temperature-controlled environment of his house, unaware of what the weather might be outside. But yesterday he’d heard rain drumming on the slate tiles of the roof as he’d made his way to his bedroom in the turret some time during the early hours of the morning.
Shelley kicked the nearest corner of the pond with her boot. Her ugly, totally unfeminine boot. ‘The reason I ask is I’m trying to gauge the rate of leakage,’ she said. ‘There are no visible cracks. But there could be other reasons the pond might not be holding water. Subsidence caused by year after year of alternate heating and cooling in the extremes of weather. Maybe even an earth tremor. Or just plain age.’
She looked up to him as if expecting a comment. How in hell would he know the answer?
‘You seem to know your stuff,’ he said.
‘Guesswork really,’ she admitted with a shrug of her shoulders, broad for a woman but slender and graceful.
‘So what’s the verdict?’ he asked.
‘Bad—but maybe not as bad as it could be if it’s still holding water from yesterday. Expensive to fix.’
‘How expensive?’
He thought about what she’d said about a fountain bringing movement to a garden. The concept as presented by Shelley appealed to him, when first pleas and then demands from the neighbours to do something about the garden never had.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘We might have to call in a pool expert. Seems to me it’s very old. How old is the house?’
‘It was built in 1917.’
Thoughtfully, she nodded her head. ‘The fountain is old, but I don’t think it’s that old. I was poking around the garden while you were inside. It has the hallmarks of one designed around the 1930s or 40s. I’d say it was inspired by the designs of Enid Wilson.’
‘Never heard of her.’
Gardening had never been on his agenda. Until now. Until this warrior had stormed into his life.
‘Enid Wilson is probably Australia’s most famous landscape designer. She designed gardens mainly in Victoria starting in the 1920s and worked right up until she died in the1970s. I got to know about her in Melbourne, although she did design gardens in New South Wales, too.’
‘Really,’ he drawled.
She’d asked him to tell her to button up if she rabbited on. Truth was, he kind of liked her mini lectures. There was something irresistible about her passion for her subject, the way her nutmeg eyes lit with enthusiasm. She was so vibrant.
She pulled a self-deprecating face. ‘Sorry. That was probably more than you ever wanted to know. About Enid Wilson, I mean. I did a dissertation on her at uni. This garden is definitely based on her style—she had many imitators. Maybe the concrete in the pond dates back to the time it was fashionable to have that style of garden.’
‘So what are your thoughts about the pond? Detonate?’ he said.
‘No way!’ she said, alarmed. Then looked into his face. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘I’m kidding you,’ he said. His attempts at humour were probably rusty with disuse.