Home to Eden Page 5

  "The accident happened the sununer after we graduated from high school," Brenda was saying. "It was such a terrible tragedy." She stopped and frowned. "Did you ever stop to think what a stupid phrase that is? Terrible tragedy. Like there's such a thing as a good tragedy? Where do you suppose phrases like that come from?"

  Kate was accustomed to Brenda's habit of going off on a conversational tangent and knew that an answer was neither expected nor required. Unfortunately, she rarely lost sight of the original topic.

  "Anyway, there was a car crash. Brian was killed and Nick almost died, too. I went to see him in the hospital a couple of weeks after the accident. He looked...I don't know." She absentmindedly pinched a faded pansy from its stem, her forehead creasing. "I remember thinking he looked kind of empty, like a part of him was missing." She dropped the flower and looked up suddenly. "You know how you hear that there's a special bond between twins?"

  Kate nodded reluctantly. She didn't want to hear this, didn't want to hear anything that made Nick more real to her, let alone something that roused her sympathy. She knew what it was to lose someone you loved.

  "Well, I don't know if that's true but I do know Nick was never really the same after the accident."

  "Losing someone you love changes you," Kate said slowly, speaking half to herself. "Losing a brother or sister is sometimes harder than losing a parent because it feels so unnatural. It's not the way life's supposed to go."

  "I thought you were an only child," Brenda said, her expression both surprised and curious. "You sound like you're speaking from experience."

  Kate gave her a startled smile, though her fingers suddenly ached from the force with which she gripped the water nozzle. "I read about it somewhere. Or maybe I heard some psychiatrist on a talk show. They're all the time delving into that kind of thing. Family dynamics is a hot topic these days."

  "Yeah." Brenda looked at her a moment longer, a trace of doubt lingering in her eyes. She shook her head abruptly. "You're probably right—about losing a sibling, I mean. It's hard to imagine what that would be like."

  "Hmm." Kate moved away a little, focusing her attention on watering every single flat thoroughly.

  "Nick was certainly never the same after Brian died," Brenda said, moving after her. "The whole family was devastated, of course."

  "Of course." Kate threw a quick, hopeful look over the nursery, hoping to see a pack of ravening gophers descending on the vegetable seedlings or maybe a customer being attacked by a man-eating delphinium—some crisis that would demand her immediate and complete attention and enable her to put an end to this conversation.

  "You know, it makes you think of that old question of why bad things happen to good people," Brenda continued thoughtfully. "I mean, you couldn't find a nicer family than the Blackthornes."

  Kate wasn't lucky enough to sight a major disaster but there was a customer browsing near the perennials. She was pathetically grateful to see her.

  "That woman looks like she needs some help," she said, cutting Brenda off. She thrust the watering wand into her friend's unwilling hand. "Finish watering this table, would you? After I'm through with this customer, maybe we could spend some time going over the plant orders for next week."

  "Whatever you want to order is fine with me,'' Brenda said. She held the wand over the table, her expression pained. ''Besides, I really should be going. I have tons of stuff to do this afternoon."

  "I could hold the order until tomorrow," Kate offered, ignoring the sharp pinch of her conscience. She knew that being forced to look at long lists of plants was sheer torture to Brenda, and she felt a little guilty for using that knowledge to manipulate the other woman.

  But she didn't want to hear any more about Nick Blackthorne—past or present. In fact, if she never had to hear his name or see him again, it would suit her just fine.

  Chapter 4

  Nick was inspecting the front porch for dry rot when Kate's car pulled up in front of Spider's Walk He'd known she was coming. Harry had told him about the appointment yesterday. He'd known, even before that, that she would be here, he just hadn't known when.

  It struck him as painfully ironic that it had been Gareth's suggestion that brought her here. When Nick had mentioned that Harry wanted to do some work on the landscaping, Gareth had immediately suggested Kate for the job. A year or so ago. she'd begun doing landscape design, working through the nursery she managed. The business was still in the fledghng stage but the initial response had been good and she'd had several referrals from satisfied clients. Listening to Gareth had brought five-year-old memories rushing back. And he'd heard Kate's voice, telling him about her desire to create beautiful surroundings for people's homes, how much she hoped she'd be able to fulfill that dream now that she'd settled in Eden. He remembered wishing her luck and offering some platitude about dreams coming true. He hadn't really believed it. At the time, he hadn't believed in much of anything, least of all dreams, but he was glad to see that Kate had fulfilled this particular dream.

  She got out of her car and started up the walkway. After enduring a hundred years of earthquakes and subtle attacks from the roots of the ancient sycamore that shaded the front of the house, the once smooth concrete was cracked in so many places it resembled a jigsaw puzzle. Cautious visitors tended to watch their feet as they approached Spider's Walk, but Kate seemed oblivious to the potential danger. All her attention was for the faded remnants of what had once been flower beds and carefully tended shrubbery.

  Standing in the shadows of the porch, Nick watched her. She was wearing khaki-colored cotton slacks and a matching camp shirt. The only touch of contrast was the soft purple scarf she'd used to catch her hair from her face and the summer sky blue of her eyes. The austerity of the outfit suited her slender figure and gave her streaky gold hair the tawny look of a lioness.

  Five years ago, there had still been traces of the girl visible beneath the woman. Those traces were gone now. He'd thought she was pretty then, but that prettiness had been refined into something more, something not so easily defined. He frowned as he looked at her. She wasn't beautiful. Her mouth was too wide and her nose was a little too short for true beauty. She was...lovely. The old-fashioned word suited her. There was a certain quiet elegance to it, a sense of control that seemed to fit the woman she'd become.

  Nick shut the Swiss army knife he'd been using to probe the wooden posts and slid it in his pocket before starting down the steps toward her. He knew the exact moment she saw him. Her shoulders stiffened, and even at a distance he could see her expression ice over. She hesitated and he wondered if she was going to turn and leave rather than speak to him, but he underestimated her.

  "Nick."

  He winced at her flat tone. "Hello, Kate."

  'I'm here to see Mr. Wallace."

  "I know." Nick slid his hands in his pockets and tried a half smile. It was met with a cool stare. Not that he could blame her. He hadn't exactly done anything to endear himself to her the last time they'd met. "Harry's in the house. He probably heard the car so he'll be on his way out."

  Kate nodded and looked away, focusing on an overgrown pittosporum. Pride kept her where she was, though every instinct urged her to run. Fight or flight, she thought ruefully. When confronted by danger, the human animal still responded on the most primitive level. The danger Nick represented wasn't physical, but that didn't make it any less real, and her instinct was still to flee.

  "This was Gareth's idea," she said abruptly, throwing him a quick, challenging glance.

  "Yeah, I know. He said you'd be perfect for the job." Nick's broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. "I told him the decision was Harry's to make. I'll handle the work on the house but, when it comes to the landscaping, I'm completely useless. To tell the truth, I wouldn't know a parsnip from a petunia."

  He made the confession with a self-deprecating half smile that, at another time, Kate might have found charming, but her memories of their last conversation were still vivid and she was in n
o mood to be charmed by him. She returned her attention to the pittosporum.

  Nick's smile faded in the face of her chilly silence. He pushed his hands deeper in his pockets and contemplated the difficulty of coming up with an adequate apology.

  ''Kate, I—''

  "Good morning." Harry's greeting preceded him down the steps. Kate and Nick turned toward him. They were both grateful for the interruption though for different reasons. "You must be Kate Moran. According to Gareth, you're the greatest landscape designer in the state of California."

  "He's a little biased," she said, smiling as she took his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wallace."

  "The pleasure's mine." His handshake was pleasantly firm, his smile warm. "Call me Harry, please. If you're going to be digging up my yard, I think we should be on first-name terms."

  Before Kate could protest that she hadn't agreed to work for him yet, he turned his faded blue eyes on Nick. "Don't you have something you're supposed to be doing? I'm not paying you to stand around chatting with every pretty girl that comes along, am I?"

  "I wasn't aware you were paying me at all."

  "Some jobs are worth their weight in gold in experience alone." Harry's faintly pompous tone was at odds with the twinkle in his eyes.

  "You're too good to me, Harry," Nick said dryly.

  "Yes, I know." Harry set his hand under Kate's elbow and led her toward the side of the house. "Pay no attention to his whining," he said in a tone pitched loud enough for Nick to hear. "He's spent the last five years working on Wall Street, a parasite sucking the life from the common man. I'm probably saving his soul from eternal damnation by providing him with the opportunity to do some honest work."

  Nick's quick bark of laughter was cut off as they turned the comer of the house.

  Kate's first impression of Harry Wallace was that he looked like an unmade bed. Everything about him was rumpled. His thick gray hair was a little too long for neatness though not long enough to be a fashion statement. He wore a dark blue shirt that looked as if he'd pulled it out of the dryer and put it on immediately. His faded gray pants looked much the same. Scuffed leather loafers and mismatched socks completed the look of gentle disarray.

  But his eyes were at odds with the image. The clear blue had faded a little with time but there was a shrewdness in them that made it clear that age might have slowed Harry's body but it had done nothing to slow his mind.

  "I'm not a gardener," he said, leading her past an apple tree that looked as if it hadn't been pruned since the last world war. Seeing her frown, he chuckled. "I guess that's self-evident. My grandmother laid the foundations for the gardens while my grandfather was laying the foundation for the house. My mother took over in her turn. She loved these gardens so much that I've always half suspected her of marrying my father just to get her hands on them. My own wife was honest enough to tell me that, if it hadn't been for the gardens, she'd never have been willing to put up with marrying a man named Wallace."

  Catching Kate's startled look of inquiry, he grinned. "Her name was Wanda, " he explained, and was pleased by her soft choke of laughter.

  "She must have loved you very much," she said solemnly;

  "Yes, she did," he said, his smile gentle with memories. He shook himself, and his tone became brisk again. "Unfortunately, she's been gone for more than thirty years now, and I'm afraid the gardens have pretty much gone wild since then. I've hired gardeners over the years but most of them know more about repairing lawn mowers and power blowers than they do about plants. They did manage to keep the place from becoming a complete jungle, but that's about all,"

  As she looked around the property, Kate could feel her determination to refuse the job fading beneath the wild beauty of the place. The house sat on nearly an acre of land and, from what she'd seen so far, it must have been a showplace at one time. She could make out the outlines of flower beds overgrown with Bermuda grass and withered remains of long dead perennials. The only thing blooming in them now was a healthy population of oxalis, their delicate yellow flowers nodding in the slightest breeze.

  "Mother put in the rose garden," Harry said, as he led her down a cracked brick walkway and past an empty fountain. "I was still living at home when she put it in. That was during the thirties. The Depression was on and money was tight but plants were cheap and I provided free labor." He grinned at her. "Reluctantly, I might add."

  Kate returned the smile absently. Her attention was all for the four formal beds laid out in front of her. Wide grass pathways separated them, and in the center, where the paths met, was a life-size statue of the goddess Diana, At the base of the statue was a rusty wrought-iron bench, a silent invitation to sit and enjoy the view. If she narrowed her eyes just a little, she could see what the garden must have looked like in full bloom. The scent of roses would hang heavy on the summer air and bees would drift from blossom to blossom, gorging themselves on nectar. She sighed faintly as the image faded.

  "The roses still bloom," Harry said, interrupting her fantasy. "I thought they were supposed to be fussy but it looks to me like you can't kill 'em with a stick."

  "In this climate, they can tolerate a lot of neglect."

  Kate turned slowly on one heel, eyeing the overgrown hedges and underpruned shrubbery. The place had been shamefully neglected but it wasnH beyond saving. Like a wild, unruly child, all it needed was a firm hand to turn it in the proper direction.

  "It needs a lot of work. It's been let go for much too long."

  "I know." Harry looked abashed. "I kept meaning to do something about it but time just slipped by."

  "Well, it's not too late," she said grudgingly. She had told herself she wasn't going to take the job, but now that she saw the property, it was difficult to turn away from it.

  Nick was working on the house, but by his own admission, be knew nothing about plants so it wasn't like she'd have to work with him. If she was careful, their paths might not even cross.

  "It can't be done overnight and it won't be cheap," she warned.

  "I guessed as much," he said meekly.

  Kate nibbled on her lower lip, common sense struggling against a gut-level hunger to get her hands on Harry's yard. Of course, it would be a good business move. There would be the design fee, which, at Brenda's insistence, was hers alone. There would be the cost of plant material and mulch, all to be ordered through the nursery. And it would also be a good advertisement, both for the nursery and for her abilities as a designer. If she could restore these gardens to their former beauty—and she knew she could— she'd have a wonderful addition to her resume.

  Watching her, Harry found himself hoping that she never tried to lie on the witness stand. Her face was utterly transparent, revealing her shifting emotions with perfect clarity. Her professional demeanor had cracked the moment she saw the gardens, and it had been crumbling ever since. He wouldn't have been surprised if, with a little negotiating, he could have had her offering to pay him for the privilege of taking on the job.

  "We're really very busy right now," she said, looking longingly toward the back of the property. "Is there a stream back there?"

  "A small one," he said casually. "If you don't have time to take it on, I understand." He should probably feel guilty for tugging on the line when he knew she was already hooked, but the urge was irresistible.

  "I can work it in," she assured him hastily, and he hid a smile. ''I'd like to take the job, if we can work out the details."

  Privately, she was determined to work out the details, even if she had to cut her own fee out entirely. She wanted this job more than she'd wanted anything in a very long time. She was going to get it, and to hell with Nick Blackthorne.

  Nick was lying on his back under the kitchen sink when he heard the back door open. He tensed, but there was only one set of footsteps, which meant that Kate hadn't come in.

  "What are you doing?" Harry asked irritably. "Every time I turn around, you're poking around looking for dry rot or sticking your head
under a sink."

  "That's why I came back," Nick said as he slid out from under the sink and sat up. He looked at Harry and raised one brow. "You wanted me to put the house in shape to sell. Remember?''

  "Of course I remember," the old man said irritably. "But I didn't expect you to spend your every waking moment with your head stuck in dank holes." He waved one hand, cutting off Nick's attempt to point out that most plumbing work involved dank holes. "Never mind that now. I wanted to tell you that we've got ourselves a landscaper."

  "She took the job?"

  "Sure did. She can't wait to get started. Wouldn't make much of a poker player. I could see she was anxious to get her hands on the place." Pleased with himself, he chuckled. "I'm not sure, but I think she might have me brought up on charges of plant abuse if there was such a thing."

  "The landscaping is in pretty bad shape," Nick said absently. He got to his feet and glanced out the window, only to find his view blocked by a nearly solid wall of hibiscus leaves. The shrub had grown up over the window, filtering the sunlight so that the narrow kitchen was always tinted the faint green of a deep jungle.

  So, Kate was going to be working on the yard while he was working on the house. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He was glad that she hadn't turned down the job just to avoid him, but he wasn't all that crazy about the idea of having her underfoot, figuratively speaking. He'd be better off keeping a little distance between himself and his brother's fiancee.

  "Did she go back to work?" He hadn't heard her car leave, but he probably wouldn't have with his head stuck under the sink.

  "Not yet." Harry opened the refrigerator and pulled out a box of Chinese take-out from the night before. He took a fork out of the drawer, then speared a hot pepper directly from the box. Nick winced as he bit down on it.

  "Jesus, Harry, I can't believe you actually put those things in your mouth. They're hot enough to strip paint."