I’ll give you my card with a number where you can contact me during the day.”
Shade cloth and bougainvillea cooled the slate-floored patio. Cushioned chairs were set around a redgum table. Nice spot, Maeve thought. Add a few large pot plants, maybe a staghorn fern hanging from the wall, and it would be even more inviting.
She followed him through a terra-cotta-tiled family room adjoining the kitchen, to a study off the dining room. His briefcase sat open on a chair, and business documents were spread out on the desk, along with his wallet and car keys.
Maeve’s gaze automatically gravitated to the papers he’d been working on. She just had time to notice a financial consultant’s report on Aussie Electronics before Will shuffled the documents together, placed them inside the briefcase and shut the lid.
“Top secret, huh?” she said, wondering at the sudden frown that flattened the arch in his eyebrows.
“Just business.” He snapped the locks shut and spun the dials. Then he handed her a card from his wallet. “You can reach me on this number during the day and on my cell phone anytime.”
Maeve slipped the card into one of the pockets of her cargo pants. In turn, she gave him one of her own.
“‘Maeve Arden,”’ he read. “Your last name is different from Art’s. Are you married?”
“I was. I divorced five years ago.” Her split-up with Graham had been less rancorous than sad. Grief over Kristy had overwhelmed other disappointments and left Maeve with a lingering sense of unfinished business.
“Dad will be pleased to know I’m working for you,” she said. “If you decide to use my services, that is.” Already she wanted this job; Will’s garden was ripe with possibilities and rife with unfulfilled dreams. She didn’t know exactly how she knew that; she simply accepted that she did. She’d learned not to analyze the source of her intuition, for fear of stifling the flow.
“If I weren’t so busy at work I’d have gotten several quotes, but personal recommendations go a long way with me. If I like what you propose, I’ll probably go with that.”
She met his eyes. “You won’t regret it.”
“If you’re your father’s daughter, I’m sure I won’t. Art is the best foreman I’ve ever had.” He led the way back through the house to the front steps. “I look forward to seeing your design. When can you have something ready?”
At this time of year she was working flat-out, but for someone her father admired as much as Will Beaumont, she would put aside some of her nonessential tasks. “I’ll do up a preliminary plan in the next few days. Before I finalize it I’d like to come back for a more thorough look over the grounds and to ask you a few more questions.”
“Fine. Say Thursday, around six?”
She wrote down the time and day, then tucked her clipboard under her arm. She’d noted many details today, but the most important information she’d gleaned was imprinted not on the pad’s lined pages but on her brain. Not facts and figures, but the suppressed longing in a man’s voice when he spoke of a child’s tree fort.
Maeve climbed into her truck and poked her head out the window. “I’ll see you Thursday.”
Will leaned on the roof above her window. “Afterward we could grab a bite to eat in Sorrento,” he suggested casually. “There’s this great seafood restaurant down by the water—”
Tempted despite herself, she searched her mind for an excuse. He’d be fun to go out with, but encouraging him wouldn’t be fair. She heard a faint ringing from inside the house. “Is that your phone?”
He glanced over his shoulder and straightened away from the ute. “I suppose it is.”
Maeve put the truck in gear. “Catch you later.”
In the rearview mirror, she saw him shake his head, his smile bemused, clearly in no rush to answer his phone. She laughed to herself. This job could be interesting. And challenging.
The biggest challenge of all would be restraining her attraction to Will Beaumont.
CHAPTER TWO
MAEVE PARKED BENEATH the peppermint gum in the side yard of her cottage in the village of Mount Eliza, a half hour up the coast from Will’s place in Sorrento. The front door stood open in the vain hope of attracting a passing breeze, and her father’s worn work boots rested to one side of the mat.
Good. Art was home. She wanted to have a word with him about his moving back to a place of his own. He’d recovered from the mild heart attack he’d suffered last winter, and although she loved him and enjoyed his company, they both needed to get on with their own lives.
Maeve kicked off her boots and pushed through the screen door to enter the relative cool of the hallway. Wandin Cottage wasn’t as grand as some of the houses she worked at, but what did she or her father need with grandeur? He’d been a working man all his life and she preferred the outdoors to fancy decor.
She slung her hat on a hook, picked up the pile of letters on the hall table and walked down the narrow hallway to the kitchen, which lay at the back of the house.
Art stood at the stove, burly in a white T-shirt and brown work pants, with her frilly pink apron tied around his neck and waist. His hair had turned completely white after the heart attack, but his eyebrows were still black and bushy.
Maeve came up from behind and gave him a hug. “Hamburgers again. You know you don’t have to cook for me.”
“You can’t do a full day’s work, then come home and eat rabbit food,” he growled, flattening a sizzling patty with the back of his spatula. Then his habitual frown lightened into what for him passed as a smile. “Never thought I’d say it, but I like cooking for my daughter. It’s good having company over a meal.”
Maeve forced herself to return his smile, though her heart sank. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“Sure, Maevie, love, but before I forget, Tony called. He wants to know if you ordered the paving blocks for the Cummings place.”
“Thanks. I’ll phone him back later.” Maeve got herself a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and leaned against the counter, sorting the junk mail from the bills, dropping the flyers straight into the recycling box. “I did a landscaping quote for your boss, Will Beaumont, this morning.”
Art flipped the burger and smashed down the other side. “You don’t say!”
“He’s got a beautiful place on the cliff at Sorrento. The garden’ll be a lot of work, but it has great potential.”
“After I was let go from my old job, not a soul wanted to hire a man in his fifties who’d had a heart attack. Will Beaumont did.” Art pointed his spatula at her. “You make sure you do a good job for him, you hear?”
“’Course I will, Art. He thinks pretty highly of you, too.” She grimaced at the size of her nursery bill and moved it to the bottom of the pile.
“Beaumont doesn’t waste time with a lot of manipulative bullshit about productivity
