hinterland escarpment warmed up.
There was no one in the kitchen, no sign of life in the house, so she made herself a mug of tea and took it outside to have a look at the gardens.
What met her eyes as she came round the back of the house, or the side the main rooms looked out onto, took her breath away.
Smooth green lawn, a rose garden to die for, a sparkling, grotto-like swimming pool with a shingle-roofed pool house with fluted columns to match the main house, then the ground fell away and the view hit you.
Unobstructed views all the way to the blue Pacific Ocean, rimmed, but looking small and insubstantial in the distance, by the towers of Surfers’ Paradise and the Gold Coast. She could even see three hot-air balloons that she appeared to be looking down on.
She was drinking it all in when a voice behind her said, ‘Morning, ma’am.’
She turned to see a man in overalls, boots and an old baseball cap carrying a set of baskets and a set of secateurs. He introduced himself as the head gardener, Cliff Reinhardt.
Rhiannon introduced herself and complimented him on his roses. He immediately offered her some for the house as well as some fresh vegetables, and gave her a tour of the garden.
Half an hour later Rhiannon not only had a basket of fresh fruit and vegetables—strawberries, cucumbers, a variety of lettuce, the most mouthwatering-looking tomatoes, asparagus, aubergines and more—but she also had enough roses to fill several large vases.
The garden was Cliff’s pride and joy and rightly so. It was three acres, although the whole property took up fifteen, of sweeping lawns, huge gum trees, secret walkways and shady nooks. There was a delightful loggia smothered in port-wine magnolia. There were beds of agapanthus, lavender, daisies and gardenias as well as native plants renowned for attracting birds like grevilleas, melaleucas and kangaroo paw. The hedge-enclosed herb and vegetable garden was a work of art.
She’d learnt that Cliff sold most of his fruit and vegetables locally since there was rarely anyone in residence nowadays, although that looked set to change.
And she’d learnt that Cliff had been widowed when his daughter, Christy, was a baby—she was now eleven going on eighteen, he told Rhiannon, and they lived on the property.
It was impossible to miss the fact that Cliff Reinhardt was devoted to the Richardson family.
They were carrying all the bounty to the kitchen through the stable yard—the stables were also sandstone, two wings with a shingle roof and marvellous gold and black wrought-iron weather vane—when the clatter of hooves alerted Rhiannon to the fact that someone had gone for an early-morning ride.
It proved to be Lee Richardson on a large, spirited bay and Christy, Cliff’s daughter, on a smaller almost white pony called Poppy.
They reined in and dismounted and a lad emerged from the stables to take Lee’s horse and call the dogs to order.
Both horses were steaming, both riders looked invigorated and glowing and Christy brought Poppy over to be introduced.
Rhiannon patted the pony and scratched her nose. ‘I tell you what, Poppy,’ she murmured, as she eyed the arrival expertly, ‘you may look as if butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth but I wouldn’t be surprised if you could talk.’
Christy laughed delightedly, and Poppy, still looking angelic, went to nip Rhiannon on the wrist.
She pulled her arm away in time and Christy scolded the pony in such loving tones, she probably thought she was being praised. Then again it was obvious that the motherless Christy adored her pony.
Rhiannon grimaced; she knew what it was like to be motherless—although not at such a young age. She found herself looking into Lee Richardson’s amused eyes.
‘You’re up and about early,’ he said.
He wore jeans, short boots and a navy pullover with military patches. He’d taken off his hard hat and ruffled his dark hair and she’d been right about designer stubble. The blue shadows on his jaw added a definitely sexy aura to his overall aura that was intensely masculine and powerful but marvellously streamlined.
He was the kind of man who took your breath away whether you liked it or not. The kind of man who, through those lazy but all-seeing blue eyes, was probably perfectly aware of the effect he had on you.
Even to the battle you were waging with your better judgement. Not to mention some wayward purely physical responses your body—quite without your permission!—was experiencing.
Rhiannon set her teeth and concentrated for a moment on banishing the insidious little ripples of sensation that the pure appreciation of the fineness of Lee Richardson had produced.
Then she said wryly, ‘Got a big two days ahead!’ She turned to Cliff. ‘Thanks so much for all this. I promise I’ll put it to good use.’
‘My pleasure. I’ll have some more roses for you tomorrow but I’ll help you carry—’
‘It’s OK, Cliff,’ Lee broke in. ‘I’ll do it.’ And he hefted the fruit and vegetable baskets leaving Rhiannon to bring the roses.
The spacious kitchen had windows overlooking the garden.
It was not only a good place to work, Rhiannon thought, with its leafy outlook and its pot plants, but it was also truly pleasant.
They put everything on the box pine table—there was still no sign of anyone—and Lee went to put the kettle on.
‘What time does the staff start?’ she asked with a frown.
‘Eight o’clock or thereabouts.’ He consulted his watch. ‘Not for another hour. Sharon—she’s chief cook and bottle-washer—has a school-age kid, which accounts for her late start, and the variety of cleaners she is responsible for,’ he tipped his hand, ‘appear to please themselves.’
He made himself a cup of instant coffee and came back to the table to sit down. ‘You don’t approve?’
One thing she always guarded against was being too critical so she said only, ‘Maybe we could work out a better system.’ She eyed the colourful mounds on the table. ‘But first things first. I need to get these roses into water. Would you know where the vases are?’
He rubbed his jaw. ‘Sadly, no.’
‘Oh, well, they must be somewhere.’ She started opening cupboards but none held vases.
‘Perhaps the cabinets in the dining room?’ he suggested. ‘You seem to know a bit about horses.’
‘I had a couple of cunning, bad-tempered ponies myself.’ She smiled and walked through to the dining room, where the cabinets he’d mentioned yielded gold. She brought back four vases, two of them heavy crystal, one of them silver and the last a porcelain urn decorated with birds of paradise.
‘I must say,’ she commented as she traced the birds with her fingertips, ‘your home is literally stuffed with the most glorious array of fine old things.’ She looked around for a chopping block and she found a meat mallet and started to crush the stems of the roses and arrange them in the vases. ‘I feel,’ she looked up and smiled at him, ‘like
