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The Second Promise
Joan Kilby
Promises, promises…Maeve Arden had promised to love forever, but the marriage failed. Now, five years later, Maeve has finally found peace–peace she's promised herself to keep. The last thing she wants is a new man in her life. Her joy comes from her work–designing landscape gardens.Will Beaumont hires Maeve to design his garden. He, too, isn't looking to have anyone else in his life–no matterhow much she attracts him. He's just agreed to a platonic marriage with another woman–and it's a promise he intends to keep.But circumstances conspire to remind Will of a second promise he's made.The most important promise of them all…
“Maeve, don’t do this to yourself,” Will said gently.
“I feel for you and what happened with your child, but your life has to go on.”
She forced herself to look him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have made love to you knowing it would come to this. It was selfish. I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“Sorry?” He gave a humorless laugh, then shifted away from her on the bed. “You convinced me I shouldn’t go ahead and marry. Made passionate love with me. And now you’re just going to walk away?”
“I’m sorry, Will,” she repeated, miserable.
Later, she would weep. Right now, she had to leave. What a fool she was! He was right to despise her. She’d screwed up both their lives.
She jammed her feet in her sandals. “Goodbye, Will.”
He turned his back on her without a word.
Tears blurring her eyes, Maeve walked out of the room, down the stairs. And out of his life.
Dear Reader,
Writing The Second Promise was especially enjoyable, as it’s set in my own backyard, so to speak. The Mornington Peninsula, in southeastern Australia, is a beautiful spot, with its bayside and ocean beaches, rolling pastureland and numerous vineyards.
Every story begins with a single idea. The spark for The Second Promise was the large clifftop estates at the southern tip of the peninsula. From the road, the only thing visible might be an opening in a huge hedge or a high brick wall with just a glimpse of a long curving driveway. Yet from the water the houses shine in brilliant sunlight, dotted like gems high above the sparkling blue sea. The intriguing juxtaposition of the mysterious with the open-yet-unattainable provided a foundation for this story about honorable secrets and forbidden love.
Will Beaumont lives alone in one of those big houses on the cliff. Maeve Arden considers it part of her job to find out why. She creates a garden for Will—whom she loves but cannot have—which she hopes will put the magic of childhood back into his life. Inadvertently Maeve also puts something of her own secret longings into the garden. Through enriching Will’s life, Maeve finds that love’s healing power allows her to overcome past sorrows, opening a way to a future together.
I do hope you enjoy my story. I love to hear from readers. Please write me c/o Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd., 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada, M3B 3K9; or e-mail me at www.superauthors.com.
Joan Kilby
The Second Promise
Joan Kilby
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE (#ub8de5dac-4350-5a4c-8f3f-e849feead68f)
CHAPTER ONE (#u248808fb-edb3-51f3-a7de-f00f9bb2900e)
CHAPTER TWO (#ua91f0970-e628-5af8-8eea-1ceee74e8512)
CHAPTER THREE (#u0012f708-f36c-57c7-b61e-69635a78a14d)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u51ea25fb-92a4-575c-864c-9d8079739720)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
Christmas morning, Melbourne.
WILL TURNED his six-month-old niece, Caelyn, in his arms so she could watch her elder brothers and sisters open presents. Little Caelyn’s warm, sweet-smelling body nestled snugly in the crook of his arm and her tiny hand curled around his finger.
“Another year and you’ll be opening your own presents,” Will assured her as he tore the paper off a soft toy. “Look, a lion! Grrr.” He nuzzled the orange mane into Caelyn’s neck until she giggled, her dark-blue eyes flashing with glee.
Will’s sister Julie crouched before his chair with a camera. “Smile, Caelyn. Smile at your uncle Will.” She snapped the photo and sat back on her heels. “When are you going to settle down and have a family, Will? You don’t want to be like Dad and wait till you’re an old man to have children.”
No, he definitely did not. Will’s father had been fifty-five when Will was born. By the time Will was old enough to play footy or cricket, William Sr. was walking with a cane. And by the time Will was ten, his father was dead of a heart attack.
He thought about his big house on the bay just begging to be filled with children’s laughter, and the hollow spaces in his heart seemed to expand. He’d turned thirty-six last month; he had to get cracking. “Soon,” he told Julie. “I’ll be starting a family soon.”
“You’ll need a wife,” his brother-in-law, Mike, reminded him jokingly, before a water pistol aimed by his eldest boy got him in the neck. “Hey, not in the house!” Mike spun and tickled the laughing child under the arms until he dropped the water pistol.
Enviously, Will watched Mike cavort with his children as they spilled out of the family room and into the backyard, shrieking with laughter in the summer sun.
“Will won’t have any trouble finding a wife.” Julie had put down the camera and was handing him a glass of eggnog.
“Cheers.” Will sipped the frosty drink. Since he’d broken up with Maree four years ago there’d been no one serious in his life. The sporty, carefree girls who hung out at the Surf Lifesaving Club were too young to really talk to, and most women his age were either married already or increasingly set in their ways, even as they searched for some elusive romantic ideal.
He had tried to find love, and for a while with Maree, he’d thought he had. The years since they’d parted had eroded his belief in happily-ever-after, but not his desire for a family. The tricky part of marriage was finding that special woman who wanted children as much as he. He knew if he just took a rational approach, he could solve the problem.
After all, he had the rest of his life under control.
CHAPTER ONE
MAEVE ARDEN CONSIDERED a big part of her job as a garden designer was noticing things about her prospective clients. With Will Beaumont the first thing she noticed was his eyes. They were cobalt blue, logical and assessing, but with a hint of humor in their depths.
“Hi,” she greeted Will, who’d just opened his front door to her. “I’m Maeve.”
“Ah, Art Hodgins’s daughter. He talks about you a lot.”
“Art talks a lot, period,” she said cheerfully. “But I wouldn’t have him any other way.”
Her father spoke frequently of Will’s sterling qualities as a boss but had somehow neglected to mention his good looks. Will’s brown hair was damp, his feet bare beneath freshly pressed chinos, and he wore a Hawaiian shirt. Not exactly Maeve’s image of the head of a company, but she liked the incongruity. It made him, and therefore her job, more interesting. “Nice shirt.”
With a half smile, Will Beaumont fingered the hem of dark swirling blues and fluorescent pinks and greens. “I wear it to annoy my accountant.”
Maeve, who dressed for more practical purposes in work boots, khaki cargo pants and a white muslin shirt buttoned over a black crop top, grinned. She removed her hat to fan her face. Wisps of long dark hair blew up with each pass of the broad brim. It was only seven-thirty on a January morning and already the day was a scorcher.
Will slipped his feet into the leather thongs sitting beside the welcome mat. “Come. I’ll show you the garden.”
“I’ve already seen that it’ll be a big job.” The front yard was choked with weeds and overgrown shrubbery, and dried stalks drooped from stone urns flanking the steps. The large two-story art deco house done in cream and pale gold was beautiful; the garden, a mess.
Will led the way around the three-car garage, past a bungalow, to the back of the house. Maeve flipped open her clipboard and paused to do a rough sketch of the existing garden. The property was bounded by high walls and hedges, and sloped to a breathtaking view of Port Phillip Bay, with Melbourne in the distance.
“I understand you’re friends with other clients of mine, Alex and Ginger White,” she said, drawing in the Monterey Bay fig tree that dominated the south side of the terraced lawn.
“They raved about you,” Will said, watching over her shoulder. “Claimed you’re some kind of magician. I was very impressed with what you did with their place.”
“Thank you.” If Alex and Ginger thought she was a magician, it was because she’d done her homework. She’d made note of their clothes and furnishings, their car, even their choice of pets. She’d asked a million questions about their lifestyle, what they expected from their garden and how they planned to use it. Then she’d used her artistic and botanical skills to create a green space uniquely suited to them.
“This place has fantastic potential,” she said, flipping to a new page. “What exactly did you have in mind for your garden?”
He frowned over her question. “Low maintenance is the main thing,” he said briskly. “Maybe a few flowers…”
She sighed at his response. “Do you entertain business associates, friends…?”
“Yes, of course. I have a built-in barbecue up by the patio. And then there’s the pool.” He led her down stone steps to the second terrace, where blue water shimmered beneath the dazzling sun. Bordered by roses and hibiscus, the pool stretched about forty feet in length, with a marble sheen finish and blue mosaic tiling around the edge. Maeve noticed damp patches on the concrete surrounding the pool and drying footprints on the path leading up to the patio. She glanced at Will’s hair, drying on top to reveal gold streaks among the brown. He spent plenty of time in the water. Or on it.
“Very nice,” she said of the pool; then, fingering a badly blighted leaf, she added, “Pity about the roses.”
“Will they have to go?”
Hearing disappointment, she asked, “What is it you particularly like about them?”
He thought for a moment, hands deep in his pockets. “The scent, I suppose.”
“I know some wonderfully scented roses. Or I could plant gardenias. They have a beautiful fragrance.” She pulled a tape measure from the pocket of her cargo pants. “Hold this, please,” she said, giving the end to Will. She walked the length of the pool, wrote down the measurement on her clipboard and walked back, reeling the tape in until she was standing in front of him. “White flowers are lovely by moonlight. Do you swim at night?”
“Sure, when it’s warm enough.” His frank gaze washed over her, intimate and humorous. “Do you?”
“When the opportunity arises.” Maeve tugged, and the tape snapped back into its case. Those eyes.
She tipped back her hat to gaze up at the house, imagining it from the bay, with the cream stucco repeating the pale-gold sand at the base of the cliff and the sky reflecting blue in the plate-glass windows. Projecting, she saw it surrounded by lush healthy vegetation.
“It’s a wonderful house,” she said. “Awfully big for one person, though.” She glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “Or are you married?”
The humor faded from his expression. A tendon in his jaw twitched. “Is that relevant?”
“If I’m going to design your garden I’ll need to know something about you. I want to make the outdoor living space uniquely yours.”
“It’s not meant to be a work of art. Just needs a little pruning and weeding here and there.”
“Are you married?” Maeve asked again, reminding him of the question. And reminding herself that patience was a virtue.
“No.” He was massively indifferent.
“Fiancé?”
He frowned. “No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Now, I know that’s not relevant.” He sounded exasperated, and slightly defensive, almost angry.
She waited silently. Sometimes people needed a couple of sessions to open up. Sometimes they talked so much she couldn’t get past the verbiage to their real selves. What she wanted was a glimpse of the real Will Beaumont, something she could translate into a garden that would provide him inner peace. After the turmoil in her life, she was a great believer in inner peace.
“Oh, all right,” he said at last. “Lately I’ve been thinking it’s time I settled down.” He shrugged off the admission with a disarming grin. “What can I say? My biological clock is ticking.”
Maeve pictured a white pavilion and elegantly dressed guests mingling, champagne glasses in hand, among the flowers. “The second terrace would be a wonderful place to have the wedding ceremony,” she said, enthusiastic. “You and your bride could stand here overlooking the bay, with your guests over there—”
“Are you a wedding planner or a gardener?”
Maeve’s cheeks grew warm. “Sorry.”
But she was getting somewhere at last. Women. Love. Marriage. Touchy subjects of some significance to Will.
Relevant? Definitely.
She set off along the wall that separated the first terrace from the second, feeling the heat emanating from the stones. Crickets shrilled in the dry undergrowth, and the scent of tea-tree from the cliffs below hung on the salt-laden air. Methodically, she cataloged the plants and shrubs that needed pulling or pruning or treating for disease, and those that could remain. Will followed a discreet three feet away.
“Pity the place was allowed to go so wild,” she commented as they came to an overgrown stand of rhododendrons. “Once weeds gain a foothold they’re hard to get out.”
Will snapped off a leaf and twirled the stem between his fingers. “I’ve been preoccupied with my business lately, and the garden kind of got away from me.”
Maeve took the leaf from his hand, inspected the underside and shook her head at the evidence of spider mite infestation.
“Is it serious?” he asked.
A faint groove curved around his lips. Under favorable conditions, she thought, a dimple might grow in that spot. “Nothing’s so serious it can’t be fixed.”
As she circled the bungalow, she examined a young gum tree that had sprung up next to the small brick building. Cracks spread through the concrete base where the tree’s roots burrowed underneath. “I’d recommend taking this tree out. Do you use the bungalow?”
