dollhouse,” Kyle said, with male uneasiness that Ben approved of.
It was a tidy house, painted a pale-buttercup yellow, the gingerbread and trim around the windows painted deep midnight blue. Lace curtains blew, white and virginal as a damned wedding dress, out a bedroom window that was open to the September breezes.
It was a reminder, Ben thought, getting out of the truck, that she was not the kind of woman a man could play with, have a casual good time for a couple of weeks or a couple of months and then say goodbye with no hurt feelings on either side.
No, the house spoke of a woman who wanted things, and was afraid of the very things she wanted. Stability. A safe haven. A world that she could trust.
Ben wanted to just drive away from all the things she would be shocked he could see in that neat facade. But he had to do the responsible thing now, for his nephew.
The yard was as neglected as the house was tidy. Yellow climbing roses had gone wild over the arbor over the front gate, and it was nearly falling down under their weight. Inside the yard, the grass was cut, but dead in places, a shrub under the front window had gotten too big and blocked out the front of the house and probably the light to the front room.
Beth Maple came out her door. Ben tried not to stare.
She had gotten home before they had arrived, and she’d had time to change. She was barefoot, and had on a pair of canvas pants, rolled to the knee, with a drawstring waist. Somehow the casual slacks were every bit as sexy as the shorts she had worn the night she had joined them for ice cream, though he was not sure how that was possible, since the delicate lines of her legs were covered.
Imagination was a powerful thing. The casual T-shirt just barely covered her tummy. If he made her stretch up, say to show him those roses, he could catch a glimpse of her belly button.
What would the point of that be, since he had decided he was not playing the game with her? That he was going to try and fix something for her, not make it worse! Seeing her house had only cemented that decision.
“It’s awful, I know,” she said ruefully, looking at the yard. “I only bought the place a year ago. I’m afraid there was so much to do inside. Floors refinished, windows reglazed, some plumbing problems.” Her voice drifted away in embarrassment.
Ben saw she had an expectation of perfection for herself. She didn’t like him seeing a part of her world that was not totally under control.
“I don’t imagine a thousand dollars will go very far,” she said.
But Ben was going to make it go as far as it needed to go to wear Kyle out, to make him understand the value of a thousand dollars, and the price that had to be paid when you messed with someone else’s stuff.
And working at Miss Maple’s would be a relatively small price compared to what it could have been if she called the cops.
“You might be surprised how far your thousand dollars will go,” he said, and watched as Kyle fixated on the large side yard’s nicest feature, a huge mature sugar maple just starting to turn color. It reminded Ben of the tree in her classroom.
His nephew scrambled up the trunk and into the branches. Ben was relieved to see him do such a simple, ordinary, boy thing.
Beth watched Kyle for a moment, too, something in her eyes that Ben tried to interpret and could not, and then turned back to him.
“What should we fix?” she said briskly. “The arbor? The railing up the front stairs? The grass?”
Suddenly Ben did interpret the look in her eyes. It was wistfulness. She wanted to climb that tree! To be impulsive and free, hidden by the leaves, scrambling higher, looking down on the world from a secret perch. Was her affection for the tree the reason she had reproduced it in her classroom? Was she even aware of her own yearnings?
“How do you want this yard to make you feel?” he asked.
“Wow. You can make me feel something for a thousand dollars?”
For some reason his eyes skidded to her lips. He could make her feel something for free. But he wasn’t going to.
“I can try,” he said gruffly.
“Okay,” she said, challenging, as if he’d asked for more than he had bargained for, “I want that summer day feeling. A good book. A hammock in the shade. An ice-cold glass of lemonade. I want to feel lazy and relaxed and like I don’t have to do a lick of work.”
Low maintenance. He began a list in his head. But when he thought of low maintenance, he wasn’t really thinking about her yard. He was thinking about her. He bet she would be one of those low-maintenance girls. She wouldn’t need expensive gifts or jewelry or tickets to the best show in town to make her happy.
A picnic blanket. A basket with fried chicken. A bottle of something sparkly, not necessarily wine.
Why did Beth Maple do this to him? Conjure up pictures of things he would be just as happy not thinking about?
Still what people wanted in their yards told him a great deal about them. It was possible that she just didn’t know what was available, what was current in outdoor living spaces.
“You know,” he said carefully, “lots of people now are making the yard their entertainment area. Outdoor spaces are being converted into outdoor rooms: kitchens with sinks and fridges, BBQ’s and bars. Hardscaping is my specialty. Last week I did an outdoor fireplace, copper-faced, and patio where you could easily entertain forty or fifty people.”
“Hardscaping?” she said. “I’ve never heard that term.”
“It means all the permanent parts of the yard, so walkways and patios, canopies, privacy fences or enclosures, ponds. Basically anything that’s made out of wood, concrete, brick or stone. I have other people do the greenscaping and the styling.”
“Styling?”
“You know. Weather-resistant furniture. Outdoor carpeting.”
“Obviously that isn’t on a thousand-dollar budget.”
“If there was no budget, what would you do?” he asked, having failed to find out how she felt about the posh entertainment area in her backyard.
She snorted. “Why even go there?”
“Landscaping doesn’t have to be done all at once. I like to give people a master plan, and then they can do it in sections. Each bit of work puts a building block in place for the next part of the plan. A good yard can take five years to make happen.” He smiled, “And a really good yard is a lifetime project.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “The plan for a yard, alone, is probably worth more than what Kyle owes me.”
“Well, if you don’t tell him, I won’t. He has nothing to give you right now, except his ability to work. If I take that away from him he has nothing at all.”
She nodded, a kind of surrender. Definitely an agreement.
“I want him to have blisters on his hands, and that little ache between his shoulder blades from working in this yard.”
“I’m
