He looked at the fountain and its surrounds through narrowed eyes. ‘Is it worth repairing?’ Could anything so damaged ever come back to life to be as good as new? Anything as damaged as a heart?
‘I think so,’ she said.
‘Would it be more cost-effective to replace it with something new?’ he asked.
She frowned. ‘You mean a reproduction? Maybe. Maybe not. But the fountain is the focal point of the garden. The sandstone edging is the same as the walls in the rest of the garden.’
‘So it becomes a visual link,’ he said. He was used to thinking in images. He could connect with her on that.
She looked at the faded splendour of the fountain with such longing it moved him. ‘It would be such a shame not to try and fix it. I hate to see something old and beautiful go to waste,’ she said. ‘Something that could still bring pleasure to the eye, to the soul.’
He would not like to be the person who extinguished that light in her eyes. Yet he did not want to get too involved, either. He scuffed his boot on the gravel that surrounded the pond. ‘Okay. So we’ll aim for restoration.’
‘Thank you!’ Those nutmeg eyes lit up. For a terrifying moment he thought she would hug him. He kept his arms rigidly by his sides. Took a few steps so the backs of his thighs pressed against the concrete of the pond wall.
He hadn’t touched another woman near his own age since that nightmare day he’d lost Lisa. Numb with pain and a raging disbelief, he’d accepted the hugs of the kind nursing staff at the hospital. He’d stood stiffly while his mother had attempted to give comfort—way, way too late in his life for him to accept. The only person he’d willingly hugged was Jeannie—his former nanny, who had been more parent to him than the mother and father he’d been born to. Jeannie had held him while he had sobbed great, racking sobs that had expelled all hope in his life as he’d realised he had lost Lisa and the child he had wanted so much and his life ever after would be irretrievably bleak.
He wasn’t about to start hugging now. Especially with this woman who had kick-started his creative fantasies awake from deep dormancy. Whom he found so endearing in spite of his best efforts to stay aloof.
‘Don’t expect me to be involved. It’s up to you,’ he said. ‘I trust you to get it right.’
‘I understand,’ she said, her eyes still warm.
Did she? Could she? Declan had spent the last two years in virtual seclusion. He did not welcome the idea of tradespeople intruding on his privacy. Only her. And yet if he started something he liked to see it finished. When it was in his control, that was. Not like the deaths he’d been powerless to prevent that had changed his life irrevocably.
‘Call in the pool people,’ he said gruffly. ‘But it’s your responsibility to keep them out of my hair. I don’t want people tramping all over the place.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ she said. ‘Though harnesses and whips might not be welcomed by pool guys. Or other maintenance workers we might have to call in.’
He released another reluctant smile in response to hers. ‘I’m sure you’ll find a way to charm them into submission.’
As she’d charmed her way into what his mother called Fortress Declan. He realised he had smiled more since he’d met her than he had in a long, long time.
She laughed. ‘I’ll certainly let them know who’s boss,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve had to fight to be taken seriously in this business. If anyone dares crack a blonde joke, they’ll be out of here so fast they won’t know what hit them.’
He would believe that. A warrior woman. In charge.
He clambered out of the empty pond. Thought about offering Shelley a hand. Thought again. He did not trust himself to touch her.
Turned out he wasn’t needed. He’d scarcely completed the thought before agile Shelley effortlessly swung herself out of the pond with all the strength of an athlete. He suspected she wasn’t the type of woman who would ever need to lean on a man. Yet at the same time she aroused his protective instincts.
‘Are we sorted?’ he said brusquely. ‘You deal with the pond. I’ve got work to do.’
He actually didn’t have anything that couldn’t be put off until the evening. But he didn’t want to spend too much time with this woman. Didn’t want to find himself looking forward to her visits here. He’d set an alarm clock this morning so he wouldn’t miss her. That couldn’t happen again.
He pulled out the keys from his pocket. ‘I’ll open the shed for you. Then I’m disappearing inside.’
To stay locked away from that sweet flowery scent and the laughter in her eyes.
* * *
Like much of this property outside the house, the shed was threatening to fall down. Declan found the lock was rusty from disuse and it took a few attempts with the key before he was able to ease the bolt back from the door of the shed.
Unsurprisingly, the shed was a mess. It was lined with benches and shelves and stacked with tools of varying sizes and in various states of repair. Stained old tins and bottles and garden pots that should have been disposed of long ago cluttered the floor. The corners and the edges of the windows were festooned in spider webs and he swore he heard things scuttling into corners as he and Shelley took tentative steps inside.
Typically, she saw beyond the mess. ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s a real old-fashioned gardener’s shed with potting benches and everything,’ she exclaimed. ‘Who has room for one of these in a suburban garden these days? I love it!’
She took off her hat and squashed it into the pocket of her khaki trousers. That mass of honey-blond hair was twined into plaits and bunched up onto her head; stray wisps feathered down the back of her long, graceful neck. The morning sunlight shafting through the dusty windows made it shine like gold in the dark recesses of the shed.
An errant strand came loose from its constraints and fell across her forehead. Declan jammed both hands firmly in the pockets of his jeans lest he gave into the urge to gently push it back into place.
He ached to see how her hair would look falling to her waist. Would it be considered sexual harassment of an employee if he asked her to let it down so he could sketch its glorious mass? He decided it would. And he did not want to scare her off. She stepped further into the shed, intent on exploration.
‘Watch out for spiders,’ he warned.
In his experience, most women squealed at even the thought of a spider. Sydney was home to both the deadly funnel web and the vicious redback—he would not be surprised if they had taken up abode in the shed.
Shelley turned to face him. ‘I’m not bothered by spiders,’ she said.
‘Why does that not surprise me?’ he muttered.
‘I’d never be a gardener if I got freaked out by an itty-bitty spider,’ she said in that calm way she had of explaining things.
‘What about a great big spider?’ There was something about her that made him unable to resist the impulse to tease her. But she didn’t take it as teasing.
‘I’m still a heck of a lot bigger than the biggest spider,’ she said very seriously.
Was it bravado or genuine lack of fear?
‘Point taken,’ he said. He looked at her big boots that could no doubt put an aggressive spider well and truly in its place.
‘Snakes, now...’ she said, her eyes widening, pupils huge in the gloom of the shed. ‘They’re a different matter. I grew up on a property out near Lithgow, west of the mountains. We’d often see them. I’d be out riding my horse and we’d jump over them.’ She shuddered. ‘Never got used to them,