The Australian Affairs Collection. Margaret Way
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She was right. He didn’t want to hear about her with another man. But was he ready to win her for himself?
‘It’s been two years, Declan. Lisa would not expect you to grieve for ever.’ Now it was his mother’s words borrowing his brain.
‘I have plans,’ Shelley continued. ‘I don’t want heartbreak and angst and all that stuff that seems to come with relationships—or they do for me anyway—to get in the way of achieving my goals.’
‘Plans?’ he said. Goals? He realised he might be guilty of underestimating Shelley. Had he given a thought to her life beyond his garden and her unwitting role as muse?
‘Serious goals I’ve put on the back burner for years—derailed by relationships gone wrong.’
‘I’d like to hear those goals.’
‘Let me start,’ she said. ‘I want to visit some of the great gardens in Europe. Gardens that have had such an influence on the way people design gardens even here on the other side of the world. Some say the English perennial border isn’t suited to most parts of this country—I’d love to see it at home in England. Then there’s Monet’s garden at Giverny, near Paris—who doesn’t want to see that?’
Declan could think of far more interesting things than a garden to see in France but he was too stunned to interrupt her flow of words.
‘And the Gardens of the Alhambra in Spain.’ She smiled. ‘Lots of fountains.’
He cleared his throat. ‘When do you go?’
‘As soon as your garden is done. Four more weeks, according to our agreement. Then I’ll be flying off to Europe.’
‘When will you be back?’
‘Who knows? I’m booking an open-return ticket. My father was born in England and I can stay for as long as I like. What I really, really want to do is work as a horticulturalist in the gardens of one of the grand stately homes in England.’ Her eyes shone with enthusiasm. ‘I apply for every job I see—they advertise through agencies on the internet—and I’m hoping one of them will stick.’
‘Sounds exciting,’ he said lamely.
He realised that since he had nearly kissed her in his garden when he had unwound her hair, the thought had been quietly ticking away in the back of his mind that one day, if he was ever able to move on, Shelley might be the one. It was a shock to find she had no intention of being here, of giving him time to come to terms with the change her presence in his life might entail.
‘So, you see, you’re a grieving widower—and I totally understand that, I can’t imagine how dreadful it’s been for you—and I don’t do meaningless flings.’
She leaned across and kissed him lightly on the mouth. Even it had impact, sending want coursing through him.
‘So, lovely as that kiss was, I don’t think we should do it again.’
Declan was too speechless to respond.
Shelley got up from her stool. ‘I have to get going to meet my sister. I can pick up the pie dish when you’re done with.’
‘Let me see you out,’ he said, getting up to follow her.
She put up her hand to halt him. ‘No need.’
She strolled out, and suddenly the room seemed very, very empty indeed.
* * *
Shelley stood outside the house near the fountain, lit up by the sensor lights that had come on automatically when she had stumbled out of Declan’s back door. She hoped the cool evening air would bring her to her senses. She shivered and tugged her cream sweater tightly around her shoulders. Her mouth ached from both the effort of continual smiling and appearing nonchalant—and the unaccustomed dissembling. She wasn’t a liar. Yet she had lied and lied and lied to Declan.
‘It was just a kiss’ was the first lie. She touched her fingers to her mouth, shuddering as she remembered the powerful effect of his lips on hers, his tongue exploring the soft recesses of her mouth, the desire that had ignited and raced through her body. It was so much more than a mere pressing of two mouths together. Of awakened passion.
But the biggest lie of all was that she didn’t want him kissing her again. There was nothing she wanted more than to be in his arms and kissing him. More than kissing him.
But the lies had been necessary. Because they were overwhelmed by the one big truth. She didn’t want to risk heartbreak. And everything Declan did, what he said, pointed to massive heartbreak down the line if she let down the guard on her emotions.
Her wounds from Steve were still too raw and painful to risk opening them again. She still hadn’t completed that long climb back out of the black pit of distrust that her father’s betrayal and rejection of her love had flung her into.
Dating decent—if unexciting—men had set her on the first rungs of finding her way back out until Steve had kicked the ladder out from under her in spectacular fashion. Coming back to Sydney and away from anything that reminded her of Steve had started her recovery.
She had to protect herself from falling down again. Denying that Declan’s kiss had affected her was one way to do it.
Although, in doing so, she was actually lying to herself.
SHELLEY LOOKED LONG and hard at the door in her kitchen that, she now knew, led straight through into Declan’s kitchen. The door she had promised never to use. The key was in her hand. All it would take would be to slide it into the lock and—
She put the key—which she had attached to a pewter horseshoe key ring—back down on the countertop with a clatter.
It was five-thirty in the morning. She had been awake since four o’clock. Tossing and turning and unable to get thoughts of Declan from her mind. How it had felt to kiss him. To want so much more than a kiss. More than he could give. More than it was wise to want.
She looked at the key again gleaming on the countertop. Tempting her.
At four a.m. it had been way too dark to go out and start work in the garden. She’d tried to read a book—a new one on Enid Wilson she’d ordered from a specialist gardening bookstore—but could not concentrate. Television offerings at that time of morning had not been able to engage her interest either.
So she had baked muffins. Banana and pecan muffins with a maple-syrup glaze. She could have made a pie—she had apples aplenty arranged in a fruit bowl on the table. But both of her pie dishes—enamel ones given to her by her grandma—were not here. One was with Lynne and Keith. The other was with Declan still, from when she had last seen him three days ago.
Would it be a terribly bad thing to sneak into his kitchen, retrieve the pie dish and leave an offering of some warm banana muffins on the countertop for him?
She wanted that