could tell you,” he murmured.
“You don’t know whether you like barbecues?”
“I don’t know whether my liking for the occasional barbecue means we should build a barbecue in this courtyard, if that’s what you’re trying to work out. Look at it!” He gestured at the wild, intimidating jungle in front of them, sounding…daunted? Surely not. He didn’t look like the kind of man who could be daunted by anything. “I’m fascinated by the idea of restoring the place, but can’t begin to imagine how it will work.”
“That’s why you’re considering the possibility of hiring me,” she reminded him.
They both stood in silence, contemplating the sprawling space. It was bracketed at one end by the three sides of the old adobe ranch house, already well on its way to being a showpiece thanks to the injection of Ben Radford’s money and effort.
He was still in the process of restoration, but the rooms that were already finished were spectacular without being overdone, and with a personal touch that had spoken to Rowena immediately as she’d passed through them. Clean lines, unexpected colors, well-chosen antiques, pockets of warmth and coziness that made you want to curl up in them with a good book.
The contrast between the yard and the house was almost shocking.
Barring one or two dusty pathways, the entire expanse—well over an acre—was a towering tangle of cactus, some of it probably a hundred years old. Rowena had identified prickly pear, several species of agave, ocotillo, barrel cactus and half a dozen other species. The plants twisted together like some bizarre maze. Dead husks rattled on the ground, painful spines reached out to snag the unwary. There would be birds’ nests in there, insects of all kinds and snakes…
“You mentioned bulldozers a minute ago,” Ben Radford said. His voice held a thoughtful note.
They were both standing quite still. San Diego, Oceanside and La Jolla were each less than an hour’s drive away, along with the urban sprawl that marched farther in from the ocean year by year. Here, beyond the vineyards and nursery plantations closer to the coast, the old Spanish-land-grant ranch sat poised at the foot of the mountains, surrounded by air you could really breathe. The house seemed more a part of the earth than a human creation. There were cattle grazing in the distance and horses inhabiting the old stables, and it was very peaceful.
“I wasn’t serious,” Rowena said quickly.
“Why not?” He frowned at her. He wasn’t the kind of man to accept setbacks or contradictory opinions.
“Because we don’t know what’s beneath all this,” she explained, knowing she wouldn’t have much opportunity to convince him. “It would be a crime to come in with heavy machinery. There could be a treasure trove destroyed in the process. Old household items that would belong in a museum, and heirloom plant strains that might be very hard to find now. Do you see these powdery silver-white patches on the prickly pear?”
“They look like damp erupting behind whitewash in a mildewed basement,” he said.
“They do, but take a bit of it and crush it in your fingers.”
He reached out and did so, then looked up at her in astonishment at the brilliant crimson red that had stained his skin. “That’s amazing. What is it?”
“Cochineal. Those white patches are colonies of living creatures—a kind of scale insect. They store the red pigment in their bodies. Before the Spanish arrived in Mexico, the Mixtec Indians farmed these insects on the cactus and used them to make dye. There were periods when it was almost as precious as gold. It was used as a food coloring, too, for a long time, in jams, medicines, candy.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“You’ve probably eaten it.”
“That’s fascinating.”
“This might sound strange,” Rowena went on slowly, “but I have a feeling that the whole garden could provide the same experience as you’ve just had with the cochineal. Nothing to get excited about at first glance, but if you take a closer look, if you approach with delicacy, you discover its magic. I’d hate to bring in a bulldozer, Mr. Radford—”
“Call me Ben,” he ordered. “I won’t need to tell you that again, I hope.”
“Ben,” she repeated, and that warning thunk hit her stomach again, more powerfully than ever. Why did she like the idea of calling him Ben? “Um, I hope you won’t. And, uh, Rowena, for me. Or Rowie.” Why had she added that? It was the nickname her sister called her by, and sometimes Mom and Dad. A client had no need to know it.
He was still looking at the crimson stain on his fingertips, and he had incredible hands—strong and lean and smooth. Sure hands, the way almost everything about him seemed sure.
Oh, except for that one very telling moment when he’d mentioned his divorce.
She could smell the aura of soap and coffee and clean male skin that hovered around him and it did something to her, quickened the blood in her veins and muddied her thoughts in a way that was unsettling but—like her outburst a few minutes ago—exhilaratingly new.
“We could lose some really valuable things,” she finished vaguely.
He nodded, instantly decisive. “No bulldozer. It’s a deal. So you’d use a team to clear the cactus by hand? Machetes and whatnot?”
“I’d be here myself the whole time, to oversee the work so that nothing important was damaged. If this place was mine, I’d let the design of the restored garden evolve over a period of some days as we began to discover what lay beneath. I wouldn’t plan it on paper in advance. It would be a unique, fascinating exercise.”
She ran her gaze over the mazelike expanse and felt a ridiculous itch to get started at once, like a kid in a candy store. Was that the curve of a stone well housing she could glimpse between the forests of cacti? Even if the well didn’t produce water, the old stone would make a dramatic accent with the right surroundings. She could see brilliant yellow flowers, too, but couldn’t make out what they were. It would be wonderful to work on this garden.
“Tell me more, Rowena,” Ben Radford invited her softly. “Make me see it. Paint it for me.”
“Oh, um…” she began awkwardly, and even when she relaxed and grew more fluent, she kept waiting for him to lose interest and signal that she’d said enough.
But he never did. Instead he stayed silent. He followed the gestures she made, nodded when she emphasized a point, smiled and even laughed with her once or twice when she invited him to picture an incident from a previous project. Like the time she’d briefly mistaken a late-twentieth-century lost toy for a Civil War belt buckle because she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She’d made an appointment to get contact lenses the next day.
She didn’t mind telling an anecdote against herself if it made a man laugh. Ben Radford’s laugh was deep and a little rusty, as if he didn’t use it often enough.
“I really think that’s about all I can tell you for the moment,” she finished, after several minutes.
Ben nodded slowly, and made up for his disdainful failure to glance in her direction earlier by studying her with a disconcerting intensity now. What was he looking at? The too-dreamy
