Spring Flowers, Summer Love

Why did she want that hunk of overgrown bush?

“The thing is, Connor, your uncles and I made that agreement last summer. Before I’d seen all this damage.” She glanced around, frowned. “I should warn you that the job may cost more than I’d originally estimated. The ice storm was bad enough, but all this hacking—”

“How much more?” he asked. Suspicion feathered its way across his nerves in a warning he’d made a fortune listening to. If she thought she was going to soak two old men who were recovering from an accident she was in for a second thought.

“I don’t know yet. I’ve poked around a bit. Those terraces don’t look stable. The bottom layers of bricks are crumbling. They’ve been repaired piecemeal, shored up for a lot of years but—”

“Look,” he interrupted as the wind whipped through his wet pants. “We’re both going to catch cold if we stand in this sleet, chattering. Maybe you could conduct your assessment and give me the overrun figures. Then I’ll decide whether or not we’ll go ahead.”

She stared at him for several moments while her eyes brewed a storm, turned to green daggers. When she spoke frost edged her words. Her voice was low, determined and showed not the slightest hint of apology.

“Make no mistake, Mr. Wingate. This project is going ahead. I turned down a year’s worth of designing to come here. Your uncles and I signed a contract. It’s too late for you to back out now.”

They’d signed something? Even after he’d warned them to let him handle things? Connor shoved his hands into his pockets but refused to show his frustration in any other way. He was here now. He’d protect their interests.

“I’ve already begun pruning,” she told him. “If the weather clears up I’ll be back on-site tomorrow morning with a helper to continue. But the grounds are too wet to work. I’ll have to hold off on the flower beds until they dry out.”

“Fine.” He turned to leave.

“Mr. Wingate?”

“Yes?”

The dog came racing up, flopping down at her feet. She glanced down.

“I’m going to have some heavy equipment in here. The dog can’t be loose for that. If you could construct a pen or keep him inside, he’d be a lot safer.”

“Fine. Anything else?” He lifted one eyebrow as a wet drop slid down his neck.

“Yes.”

Connor waited, shifted. When she didn’t speak he fixed her with a glare. “Well?”

“Could you lose the attitude?” she asked quietly. “I’m not here to harm you or ruin Wingate Manor. I’m here to make it look fantastic. It’s going to take some time and a whole lot of work but you can rest assured that I will get the job done to your satisfaction.”

“Before June 1?” he demanded. “There’s a large wedding reception scheduled here that night. My uncles want the place to be in shape by then.”

“It will be.”

Connor had his doubts about that, but now was neither the time nor the place to second-guess the old boys’ decisions. He’d let her go at it for a couple of days, wait for her to admit it was too big a job and then he’d find someone else. Someone who looked able to lift a fallen tree, not dance across the trunk.

“Fine.” He turned away, put one foot toward the house.

“Just one more thing.”

Ensuring his sigh was loud enough for her to hear, he turned back. One look at her expressive face and he wished he hadn’t. His bad attitude wasn’t her fault. He struggled to change his tone. “What is it?”

“I’ve also begun work at the nursery. If you see lights up there, it’s me. The power’s on and I’ve moved into the house.” Her lips lifted but nobody would have called it a smile. “Don’t worry, Mr. Wingate, the electric bill’s in my name.”

She bent, patted the dog’s head, then walked away, her boots slogging through the mud with an ease he envied.

“I wasn’t going to—”

She gave no sign that she’d heard a thing. Connor gave up, closed his eyes and exhaled. When he opened them she was gone and only Tobias stood looking at him as if he’d lost his senses.

“I probably have,” he admitted as he headed for the house.

As expected, Tobias was filthy. And not averse to sharing the mud. Connor was halfway up the steps when he noticed just how much of it the animal was plastering over his uncles’ pristine white stairs. Tobias couldn’t possibly be allowed inside.

Connor grumbled, turned and squished his way back to the car for the leash. Of course Tobias took forever to heel. Only when Connor was soaked and dirtier than he’d been before, if that was even possible, did the dog finally stand to attention so the leash could be snapped onto his collar.

“You need a bath,” Connor told him, tying the leash to a rail at the side of the house. “But I need one more. Stay here and I’ll come back and clean you up in a while. Then we’ll talk about dinner.”

His hands were frozen, his backside was sopping and his head ached like fury. Connor felt no compunction when the dog let out a woof of argument.

By the time he’d turned on the water, lit the water heater, got the furnace up to seventy and shed his clothes, the place was warm enough to take a shower. Only after he emerged from it did he realize his suitcase was still in the car.

Whatever humor Connor had begun the morning with had long since dissipated. No way was he putting those filthy garments back on. Instead, he dug through his uncles’ belongings, scrounged up a pair of pants six inches too large around the middle and six inches too short on the legs, a flannel shirt with seven different buttons and a pair of wooly socks that did nothing for fashion but kept his feet and ankles warm.

Two pairs of rubber boots sat at the back door. Resigned to wearing the odious footwear, Connor slipped on one of them, squinching his toes to fit. Then he went to find the dog.

Tobias was gone, the leash dangling on the ground.

“I should have known,” Connor grunted, trudging back toward the house. “If it weren’t for bad luck—”

A rumble overhead warned him the day wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. He hauled himself inside as the heavens unleashed a mixture of snow, rain and sleet, and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the hall mirror.

“Dogs know how to take shelter,” he told it. “Animals have a sixth sense about self-preservation.”

Animals that have resided inside posh New York apartments for their entire lives? A picture of Cecile’s face—chiding, sad—wavered through his mind.

Guilt was a terrible thing. And right now it had a choke hold on him.

Connor sighed, pulled on a yellow slicker, dragged the hood over his head and squeezed his feet into the other pair of boots. They were no bigger. His toes ached painfully.

Grimacing, he headed outside to hunt for the dog.

Cecile had died saving Tobias. After their conversation that day he was probably the last person she’d have chosen to take care of her beloved pet, but there wasn’t anyone else. The least he could do was make sure her dog got a bath and some dinner.

Chapter Two

Rowena’s fingers moved nimbly over the twigs she’d received from Oren Yelland’s personal nursery. With any luck she’d get the cuttings finished and into the rooting compound tonight. Ash, elm, poplar. She counted mentally, nodded. Three thousand so far.

It was a start.

A noise outside made her pause.

Not that there hadn’t been noises before. Every night she was out here she heard something. So different from living in the city. She’d forgotten that. If the rain ever stopped she’d take a walk, see what else was sharing her land.