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“You might say so. I want to know why you’re afraid of me.” He hadn’t meant it to come out just like that, but he let it stand anyway.
“I’m not,” she said in immediate denial.
“You could have fooled me. Unless you have some other reason for hiding in here?”
She stared at him an instant too long before she spoke. “Who said I was hiding? Just because I don’t feel the need to oversee everything you do—”
“You’re letting me make this garden on my own, and you know it. When I get through, it won’t be yours but mine.”
She shrugged briefly. “So I’ll make it mine when you’re gone.”
“There’s no need. I can make sure that it reflects what you want right now. You won’t have to lift a finger except to point. You can tell me what you want moved and what stays as is, what you want pruned to size and what you prefer to be left natural. I’ve gotten rid of the briers and vines and everything else that obviously doesn’t belong, but now it’s decision time.”
“You decide, then,” she said through compressed lips. “You seem to know more about it than I do, anyway.”
“I don’t know what you like or what you want.” The words were simple and he meant them, but the emphasis he put on them in his own mind turned his ears hot.
“Do whatever you like!”
He stared at her, then gave himself a mental shake. She was talking about flowers and shrubs, that was all. “Suppose I clear off everything,” he said, “take it down to the bare…ground.”
“You can’t!”
“I could,” he growled with absolute conviction. “Nothing easier.”
“But there are camellias out there over eighty years old, and one big sweet olive that—” She stopped, her eyes narrowing. “But you know that.”
“I know what’s there,” he said. “I just don’t know what you care about.”
“I can tell you—”
“Show me.” He cut across what she had intended to say without compunction.
Her lips firmed. “I don’t think—”
“Unless it’s me,” he said softly. “Since you’re not afraid, then you must not like the company.”
Surprise and dismay flashed in the rich blue of her eyes. “That isn’t it at all.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Nothing!”
“I don’t think so.”
Her lashes flickered. “At least it’s nothing to do with you, nothing to you. I can’t imagine why you’re so concerned.”
“Call me perverse. I like to know where I stand.”
“Where you don’t belong, actually. In my bedroom.” She flashed him a look of irritation before she turned away again.
“Level with me and I’m gone,” he stated with precision.
Her lips tightened, and she crossed her arms over her chest as she sighed. “It’s not you, all right? If you must know, it’s me. I don’t deal well with people.”
“That right?” he said with a raised brow. “You don’t have to deal with me, just talk to me. I’m not complicated and I don’t bite, but I hate being ignored.”
“I’m not ignoring you!”
“Maybe you just have no use for me, then.”
“That isn’t it at all. I don’t know what to say!”
His smile was slow but sure as he turned to the door and stood holding it open, waiting for her. “Then there’s no excuse left, since I can talk for both of us, and I don’t mind your company.”
The look she gave him was fulminating yet resigned. He had her and she knew it. She was not the kind of woman who could be cruel just to protect herself, no matter the provocation. He had suspected it, even counted on it. Which didn’t say much for him as a person, but it said even less for all the other idiots stupid enough to think she could commit murder. He watched her closely as she pushed her feet into her sandals, which sat beside the chaise, then moved ahead of him down the dim hallway.
Yeah, he had her number. He had Laurel Bancroft out of her bedroom, out of her house again. Now where was he going from here?
It was a good question—one he pondered often during the next week. He might be guilty of arrogance, thinking he knew what was best for her, but he didn’t intend to let that stop him. He was nothing if not high-handed.
At least he’d managed to coax her into the garden every morning. It had taken a lot of thought and energy, not to mention dozens of asinine questions that he could have answered himself without half trying. But on the sixth day, just yesterday, he’d kept her outside long enough to get her straight little nose pink from the sun, and dirt under the nails of her long, aristocratic fingers. As his reward, she had come out of the house this morning with her gloves in her hands and a straw hat on her head.
Working beside her was both a pleasure and a royal pain. She wanted to save everything recognizable, which was going to make her garden one unholy jumble. Not that he cared. Or had any right to complain.
She also had a reverence for living things that caused her to jump in and save every turtle, frog, lizard or even snake that came anywhere near the ax or shovel he might be wielding. This morning, she had spent an hour chasing a half-grown rabbit up and down the garden to be sure it found its way outside the fence.
As compensation for his tried patience, he could stand downwind from her while she worked and catch the incredible scent of roses and jasmine and warm female that drifted from her skin. He got to take his orders directly from her, which she always couched as courteous requests. He was permitted to admire the view when she bent over in close-fitting cutoff jeans to plait dying bulb foliage or to turn over a few shovelfuls of soil. He got to talk to her whenever he pleased. And sometimes, when he least expected it, he was rewarded for some quip or comment by her rare smile.
She was the kind of woman he might have laid down his life for in another place and time. As it was, he meant to drag her out of her self-imposed exile and see to it that she began to live again. He wasn’t quite sure why he was so bent on it except that he maybe needed something to distract himself, occupy his mind. Or maybe he just hated waste.
Yes, and maybe he was an idiot to think it was that simple. Denial had never been one of his problems before.
They were eating their lunch on the veranda. He was having trouble choking down Maisie’s homemade hamburger, although it was fine eating. His throat kept closing when he turned his head to look at Laurel sitting so naturally beside him. She was hot and tired, and her T-shirt was damp with perspiration so it clung in all the right places. Her hair was coming loose from the long braid down her back, and a piece of trash was caught on her gold-tipped lashes. He thought he had never seen anything so gorgeous in his life.
“Hold still,” he said, reaching out to touch her cheek, gently closing her eyelid with his thumb before sliding the offending bit of dried leaf from her lashes with two fingers.
She blinked experimentally as he took it away, then grinned at him. “Thanks.”
Incredible, how a single word could make him feel ten feet tall. Ready to leap tall buildings. Save the world. Or do lascivious-type things on the table between them that would get him booted off the property before he could turn around.
She was watching him, her gaze faintly inquiring. He suspected his face might be flushed, considering how cool the breeze felt that wandered down the long length of the veranda. Blowing the piece of trash from his fingers, he picked up his water glass and drank deeply.
“You don’t eat much, do you?” she said in tones of mild censure. “At least, not compared to how hard you work.”
“I eat enough.” The words were short. The last thing he wanted from her was motherly concern.
She frowned a little. “I only wondered if it was on purpose, some kind of California health-food thing.”
“I guess you could call it that,” he allowed finally. “The old man I used to work with thought overeating caused all sorts of problems. Fat rats die young, he used to say. He was Chinese, laughed at the American diet while he stirred up ungodly mixtures of rice and vegetables. But he was eighty-six and going strong last time I saw him.”
“You did yard work with him?”
Alec gave a quick nod, pleased that she had remembered something of what he’d told her that first night. “Mr. Wu was a gardener. He taught me what I know about plants, and a great deal more, besides.”
Her smile was whimsical. “The wisdom of the venerable ancients?”
“You’ve been watching too many old Charlie Chan movies,” he answered with a grin. “Mr. Wu was big on Zen meditation and martial arts, but I never heard him quote Confucius.”
“Martial arts? Did he teach you that, too?”
He shrugged. “Only as a form of exercise—something else Mr. Wu was big on.”
“I’d have thought gardening would give you more than enough of that.” The words were dry as she flexed her neck muscles.
“That was my idea, too,” he replied with a faint laugh of remembrance. His gaze skimmed the softness of her breasts that were lifted into prominence as she turned her head and arched her back to relieve strain. “Mr. Wu had a way of changing a person’s mind.”
“You miss California, I expect. I mean, it must seem so different here.”
“I did miss it,” he replied with a slow shake of his head as he watched her. “But not anymore.”
She avoided eye contact. Relaxing, she used a fingertip to pick up a sesame seed that had fallen from her hamburger bun. “You’ll be going back, though, I guess?”
Would he? He had certainly thought so, once. Now he wasn’t so sure. With his brain feeling tight in his skull as he watched her place the sesame seed on the pink surface of her tongue, he said, “Not anytime soon.”
“Because your brother isn’t well enough? Or is it that he just doesn’t want to go?”
She was avoiding the issue of what he himself wanted, which seemed to indicate that she understood him a little better than he had figured. Although that might be wishful thinking on his part. After a moment, he said, “Gregory’s happy here, or happy enough. I’m not sure he’ll ever…leave.”
“That’s good, then. There must be something about it he likes.”
He gave her a straight look. “Yes, but that’s not what I was getting at.”
“Oh.” Her head came up. “You don’t mean…”
He gave a slow nod as he turned his head to squint at a blue jay just landing on a fence picket. Voice low, he said, “He isn’t going to make it.”
In the sudden quiet, the sound of a jay’s call was loud. After a moment, she said softly, “He knows?”
Alec nodded, since he didn’t quite trust himself to speak.
“How old…”
“Thirty-five in October, four years older than I am.” He was laying the age thing on the line between them. The way she had hesitated over the question made him think it might be what she wanted.
“Does he—That is, is he…all right about it?”
“No,” Alec said deliberately, “I don’t think you can say that.” Far from it, in fact. Gregory wasn’t taking it well at all, and who could blame him?
“He’s lucky to have you with him.”
It was the last thing he expected her to say—so unexpected that he laughed. “I’m not sure he would agree.”
“Maisie says your grandmother told her that you’re up with him all hours of the night.”
“Somebody has to check on him, give him his medication. Grannie fusses over him during the day, but she needs her rest.” He was surprised Laurel had spoken to Maisie about him. His brow quirked into an arch as he wondered why.
She colored slightly under his regard. “I saw you taking a nap after lunch that first day. Maisie told me you probably needed it, and why. You haven’t done it again, so I just wanted to say that I don’t mind, if you…feel the need.”
The need he felt had little to do with sleeping, though a great deal to do with lying down. Or not. “I appreciate the thought,” he said carefully, “but I’ve been managing a catnap in the evening while Grannie Callie cooks supper. I’ll get by.”
“It’s up to you.” She lifted one shoulder.
“You suggesting I’m too out of shape to do without it?” he asked in a weak effort to lighten the mood, change the subject.
Her gaze skated over his chest where he had left his shirt unbuttoned for coolness. Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Hardly.”
He held his lips clamped shut—it was the only way he could keep from grinning. He hadn’t been fishing for compliments, but he wasn’t immune to them, either.
He pushed his plate aside and leaned back in his chair. His wandering attention was caught by the scaling paint along the edge of the porch, and he grasped at the subject like a lifeline.
“When was the last time this house was painted?”
She shrugged. “Six years, seven maybe. I know it needs it, but…”
“As I said before, it would be a shame to let it go too far. It’s such a grand old place.”
“I know,” she said unhappily. “It’s just that it’s such a hassle.”
“I also told you I could do it.”
“You’d be here forever.”
Exactly, he thought. Instead he said, “Not quite. It’s amazing how fast you can cover ground with a few cans of paint and an air compressor.”
“Spray it, you mean?”
He lifted a brow. “It’s not a new concept.”
“No, but Howard always did it the hard way, with a brush.”
“Your husband, right?”
She nodded, her gaze on her plate. She put what was left of her hamburger down as if she were no longer hungry. Alec thought she looked a little pale. Remembering what Maisie had told him, he couldn’t blame her too much. “It isn’t your fault he died,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Don’t let it get to you.”
“You don’t know anything about it.” Her eyes flashed blue fire as she looked at him.
“Nothing except what I’ve been told. But even I have sense enough to know a woman who won’t hurt a turtle would never kill a man.” There it was, out in the open. He waited for her to tell him to get lost.
