Книга - The Second Promise

The Second Promise
Joan Kilby


Promises, promises…Maeve Arden had promised to love forever, but the marriage failed. Now, five years later, Maeve has finally found peace–peace she's promised herself to keep. The last thing she wants is a new man in her life. Her joy comes from her work–designing landscape gardens.Will Beaumont hires Maeve to design his garden. He, too, isn't looking to have anyone else in his life–no matterhow much she attracts him. He's just agreed to a platonic marriage with another woman–and it's a promise he intends to keep.But circumstances conspire to remind Will of a second promise he's made.The most important promise of them all…







“Maeve, don’t do this to yourself,” Will said gently.

“I feel for you and what happened with your child, but your life has to go on.”

She forced herself to look him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have made love to you knowing it would come to this. It was selfish. I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“Sorry?” He gave a humorless laugh, then shifted away from her on the bed. “You convinced me I shouldn’t go ahead and marry. Made passionate love with me. And now you’re just going to walk away?”

“I’m sorry, Will,” she repeated, miserable.

Later, she would weep. Right now, she had to leave. What a fool she was! He was right to despise her. She’d screwed up both their lives.

She jammed her feet in her sandals. “Goodbye, Will.”

He turned his back on her without a word.

Tears blurring her eyes, Maeve walked out of the room, down the stairs. And out of his life.


Dear Reader,

Writing The Second Promise was especially enjoyable, as it’s set in my own backyard, so to speak. The Mornington Peninsula, in southeastern Australia, is a beautiful spot, with its bayside and ocean beaches, rolling pastureland and numerous vineyards.

Every story begins with a single idea. The spark for The Second Promise was the large clifftop estates at the southern tip of the peninsula. From the road, the only thing visible might be an opening in a huge hedge or a high brick wall with just a glimpse of a long curving driveway. Yet from the water the houses shine in brilliant sunlight, dotted like gems high above the sparkling blue sea. The intriguing juxtaposition of the mysterious with the open-yet-unattainable provided a foundation for this story about honorable secrets and forbidden love.

Will Beaumont lives alone in one of those big houses on the cliff. Maeve Arden considers it part of her job to find out why. She creates a garden for Will—whom she loves but cannot have—which she hopes will put the magic of childhood back into his life. Inadvertently Maeve also puts something of her own secret longings into the garden. Through enriching Will’s life, Maeve finds that love’s healing power allows her to overcome past sorrows, opening a way to a future together.

I do hope you enjoy my story. I love to hear from readers. Please write me c/o Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd., 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada, M3B 3K9; or e-mail me at www.superauthors.com.

Joan Kilby


The Second Promise

Joan Kilby






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CONTENTS


PROLOGUE (#ub8de5dac-4350-5a4c-8f3f-e849feead68f)

CHAPTER ONE (#u248808fb-edb3-51f3-a7de-f00f9bb2900e)

CHAPTER TWO (#ua91f0970-e628-5af8-8eea-1ceee74e8512)

CHAPTER THREE (#u0012f708-f36c-57c7-b61e-69635a78a14d)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u51ea25fb-92a4-575c-864c-9d8079739720)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)




PROLOGUE


Christmas morning, Melbourne.

WILL TURNED his six-month-old niece, Caelyn, in his arms so she could watch her elder brothers and sisters open presents. Little Caelyn’s warm, sweet-smelling body nestled snugly in the crook of his arm and her tiny hand curled around his finger.

“Another year and you’ll be opening your own presents,” Will assured her as he tore the paper off a soft toy. “Look, a lion! Grrr.” He nuzzled the orange mane into Caelyn’s neck until she giggled, her dark-blue eyes flashing with glee.

Will’s sister Julie crouched before his chair with a camera. “Smile, Caelyn. Smile at your uncle Will.” She snapped the photo and sat back on her heels. “When are you going to settle down and have a family, Will? You don’t want to be like Dad and wait till you’re an old man to have children.”

No, he definitely did not. Will’s father had been fifty-five when Will was born. By the time Will was old enough to play footy or cricket, William Sr. was walking with a cane. And by the time Will was ten, his father was dead of a heart attack.

He thought about his big house on the bay just begging to be filled with children’s laughter, and the hollow spaces in his heart seemed to expand. He’d turned thirty-six last month; he had to get cracking. “Soon,” he told Julie. “I’ll be starting a family soon.”

“You’ll need a wife,” his brother-in-law, Mike, reminded him jokingly, before a water pistol aimed by his eldest boy got him in the neck. “Hey, not in the house!” Mike spun and tickled the laughing child under the arms until he dropped the water pistol.

Enviously, Will watched Mike cavort with his children as they spilled out of the family room and into the backyard, shrieking with laughter in the summer sun.

“Will won’t have any trouble finding a wife.” Julie had put down the camera and was handing him a glass of eggnog.

“Cheers.” Will sipped the frosty drink. Since he’d broken up with Maree four years ago there’d been no one serious in his life. The sporty, carefree girls who hung out at the Surf Lifesaving Club were too young to really talk to, and most women his age were either married already or increasingly set in their ways, even as they searched for some elusive romantic ideal.

He had tried to find love, and for a while with Maree, he’d thought he had. The years since they’d parted had eroded his belief in happily-ever-after, but not his desire for a family. The tricky part of marriage was finding that special woman who wanted children as much as he. He knew if he just took a rational approach, he could solve the problem.

After all, he had the rest of his life under control.




CHAPTER ONE


MAEVE ARDEN CONSIDERED a big part of her job as a garden designer was noticing things about her prospective clients. With Will Beaumont the first thing she noticed was his eyes. They were cobalt blue, logical and assessing, but with a hint of humor in their depths.

“Hi,” she greeted Will, who’d just opened his front door to her. “I’m Maeve.”

“Ah, Art Hodgins’s daughter. He talks about you a lot.”

“Art talks a lot, period,” she said cheerfully. “But I wouldn’t have him any other way.”

Her father spoke frequently of Will’s sterling qualities as a boss but had somehow neglected to mention his good looks. Will’s brown hair was damp, his feet bare beneath freshly pressed chinos, and he wore a Hawaiian shirt. Not exactly Maeve’s image of the head of a company, but she liked the incongruity. It made him, and therefore her job, more interesting. “Nice shirt.”

With a half smile, Will Beaumont fingered the hem of dark swirling blues and fluorescent pinks and greens. “I wear it to annoy my accountant.”

Maeve, who dressed for more practical purposes in work boots, khaki cargo pants and a white muslin shirt buttoned over a black crop top, grinned. She removed her hat to fan her face. Wisps of long dark hair blew up with each pass of the broad brim. It was only seven-thirty on a January morning and already the day was a scorcher.

Will slipped his feet into the leather thongs sitting beside the welcome mat. “Come. I’ll show you the garden.”

“I’ve already seen that it’ll be a big job.” The front yard was choked with weeds and overgrown shrubbery, and dried stalks drooped from stone urns flanking the steps. The large two-story art deco house done in cream and pale gold was beautiful; the garden, a mess.

Will led the way around the three-car garage, past a bungalow, to the back of the house. Maeve flipped open her clipboard and paused to do a rough sketch of the existing garden. The property was bounded by high walls and hedges, and sloped to a breathtaking view of Port Phillip Bay, with Melbourne in the distance.

“I understand you’re friends with other clients of mine, Alex and Ginger White,” she said, drawing in the Monterey Bay fig tree that dominated the south side of the terraced lawn.

“They raved about you,” Will said, watching over her shoulder. “Claimed you’re some kind of magician. I was very impressed with what you did with their place.”

“Thank you.” If Alex and Ginger thought she was a magician, it was because she’d done her homework. She’d made note of their clothes and furnishings, their car, even their choice of pets. She’d asked a million questions about their lifestyle, what they expected from their garden and how they planned to use it. Then she’d used her artistic and botanical skills to create a green space uniquely suited to them.

“This place has fantastic potential,” she said, flipping to a new page. “What exactly did you have in mind for your garden?”

He frowned over her question. “Low maintenance is the main thing,” he said briskly. “Maybe a few flowers…”

She sighed at his response. “Do you entertain business associates, friends…?”

“Yes, of course. I have a built-in barbecue up by the patio. And then there’s the pool.” He led her down stone steps to the second terrace, where blue water shimmered beneath the dazzling sun. Bordered by roses and hibiscus, the pool stretched about forty feet in length, with a marble sheen finish and blue mosaic tiling around the edge. Maeve noticed damp patches on the concrete surrounding the pool and drying footprints on the path leading up to the patio. She glanced at Will’s hair, drying on top to reveal gold streaks among the brown. He spent plenty of time in the water. Or on it.

“Very nice,” she said of the pool; then, fingering a badly blighted leaf, she added, “Pity about the roses.”

“Will they have to go?”

Hearing disappointment, she asked, “What is it you particularly like about them?”

He thought for a moment, hands deep in his pockets. “The scent, I suppose.”

“I know some wonderfully scented roses. Or I could plant gardenias. They have a beautiful fragrance.” She pulled a tape measure from the pocket of her cargo pants. “Hold this, please,” she said, giving the end to Will. She walked the length of the pool, wrote down the measurement on her clipboard and walked back, reeling the tape in until she was standing in front of him. “White flowers are lovely by moonlight. Do you swim at night?”

“Sure, when it’s warm enough.” His frank gaze washed over her, intimate and humorous. “Do you?”

“When the opportunity arises.” Maeve tugged, and the tape snapped back into its case. Those eyes.

She tipped back her hat to gaze up at the house, imagining it from the bay, with the cream stucco repeating the pale-gold sand at the base of the cliff and the sky reflecting blue in the plate-glass windows. Projecting, she saw it surrounded by lush healthy vegetation.

“It’s a wonderful house,” she said. “Awfully big for one person, though.” She glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “Or are you married?”

The humor faded from his expression. A tendon in his jaw twitched. “Is that relevant?”

“If I’m going to design your garden I’ll need to know something about you. I want to make the outdoor living space uniquely yours.”

“It’s not meant to be a work of art. Just needs a little pruning and weeding here and there.”

“Are you married?” Maeve asked again, reminding him of the question. And reminding herself that patience was a virtue.

“No.” He was massively indifferent.

“Fiancé?”

He frowned. “No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Now, I know that’s not relevant.” He sounded exasperated, and slightly defensive, almost angry.

She waited silently. Sometimes people needed a couple of sessions to open up. Sometimes they talked so much she couldn’t get past the verbiage to their real selves. What she wanted was a glimpse of the real Will Beaumont, something she could translate into a garden that would provide him inner peace. After the turmoil in her life, she was a great believer in inner peace.

“Oh, all right,” he said at last. “Lately I’ve been thinking it’s time I settled down.” He shrugged off the admission with a disarming grin. “What can I say? My biological clock is ticking.”

Maeve pictured a white pavilion and elegantly dressed guests mingling, champagne glasses in hand, among the flowers. “The second terrace would be a wonderful place to have the wedding ceremony,” she said, enthusiastic. “You and your bride could stand here overlooking the bay, with your guests over there—”

“Are you a wedding planner or a gardener?”

Maeve’s cheeks grew warm. “Sorry.”

But she was getting somewhere at last. Women. Love. Marriage. Touchy subjects of some significance to Will.

Relevant? Definitely.

She set off along the wall that separated the first terrace from the second, feeling the heat emanating from the stones. Crickets shrilled in the dry undergrowth, and the scent of tea-tree from the cliffs below hung on the salt-laden air. Methodically, she cataloged the plants and shrubs that needed pulling or pruning or treating for disease, and those that could remain. Will followed a discreet three feet away.

“Pity the place was allowed to go so wild,” she commented as they came to an overgrown stand of rhododendrons. “Once weeds gain a foothold they’re hard to get out.”

Will snapped off a leaf and twirled the stem between his fingers. “I’ve been preoccupied with my business lately, and the garden kind of got away from me.”

Maeve took the leaf from his hand, inspected the underside and shook her head at the evidence of spider mite infestation.

“Is it serious?” he asked.

A faint groove curved around his lips. Under favorable conditions, she thought, a dimple might grow in that spot. “Nothing’s so serious it can’t be fixed.”

As she circled the bungalow, she examined a young gum tree that had sprung up next to the small brick building. Cracks spread through the concrete base where the tree’s roots burrowed underneath. “I’d recommend taking this tree out. Do you use the bungalow?”

“It’s my workshop.” Will opened the door and flicked on the light.

Maeve stepped into the room. The wide wooden benches lining the walls were scattered with voltmeters, coiled wire, batteries and plastic casings, plus odds and ends she couldn’t identify. “You don’t get enough of electronics at your factory?”

“I like to tinker.”

Turning to go, Maeve saw propped against the back wall behind the door a bright-yellow surfboard. A wet suit hung from a hook next to it. She had a sudden image of sun-sparkled water and Will riding the crest of a wave in a perfectly balanced crouch, his lean-muscled body sleek against a brilliant blue sky. “Do you do much surfing?”

Will ran a loving hand along the top curve of the surfboard. “When I was younger I almost turned pro.”

“Really? What made you choose engineering, instead?”

“I quit school when I was sixteen. Spent my nights working in a convenience store and my days at the beach. I’d sit out there for hours every day, waiting for the perfect wave, and all the while my mind would be ticking over, thinking about things.”

“Hopes? Dreams?” she asked. “Relationships?”

He flashed her a bemused glance. “Practical things. Physical things. How things work, like the thermostat in a cooling system or the electronics of a car. I had ideas for inventions, things I could build myself.” He made a sweeping gesture that took in his workshop and the projects under way. “With my limited knowledge I could only get so far…so I went back to high school and then on to university.”

She had to admire someone with that much drive and ambition. “It’s wonderful to be able to work at something you love.”

“Yeah… It’s good, but the business side of it…I don’t know. More headaches than it’s worth sometimes.” He broke off with a shake of his head. “You’re not interested in all this.”

“Yes, I am,” she said seriously. “I’m interested in everything about you.” She blushed, realizing how he might take that remark. “I mean—”

“Please don’t spoil it by explaining.” He smiled widely.

Bingo. One dimple, on the right side of his mouth. Great grin, warm and teasing. Some woman was going to be very lucky….

Maeve moved across to the Monterey Bay fig tree. Its broad limbs and glossy dark leaves gave welcome shade to that half of the yard. Stepping over the high, ridged roots, she ran a hand caressingly over a thick smooth limb. “This would be a perfect place for a swing,” she suggested idly, pulling her pencil from behind her ear to make a note on her clipboard.

“Or a tree fort.” His gaze was lost in the soaring tangle of greenery. She couldn’t see his expression, but she heard the wistful note in his voice.

Every once in a while clients came along who subconsciously communicated an inner need or a desire for something more from their garden than simply a place to relax and entertain. Such clients, and the gardens Maeve created as an expression of their inner selves, demanded her greatest intuitive and interpretative skills. Yet they were also the most rewarding.

Looking at Will Beaumont, successful owner of his own electronics manufacturing company, she wouldn’t have thought him the type to need her special gifts. But the tingling in her nerve endings as her gaze went from the neglected grounds to his pensive blue eyes suggested Will might be just such a client.

“Do you plan on having kids?” she asked, suppressing the inevitable ache she felt when she talked about children. Ordinarily, she didn’t initiate such conversations, but she had a job to do.

His eyes lit. “Absolutely. I love kids.”

Maeve walked on quickly. From her perspective, his enthusiasm seemed painfully innocent.

“Do you have children?” he asked, falling into step.

She shook her head, stumbling on a tuft of grass. Not anymore. Never again. She said nothing. Any answer she gave would only lead to questions she’d spent the past five years avoiding.

They’d come full circle, and once again stood where the grass ended at the asphalt driveway. “If you’re going to have kids, you’ll want to fence off the backyard,” Maeve suggested briskly.

“True,” Will agreed, watching her. “Do you want some water? You look a little pale.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Really.” She flipped through her clipboard to a plastic sheet encasing business cards, extracted one and handed it to him. “This fellow does specialty wrought-iron fencing for me. Since a wedding is in your future plans, we could do something appropriate for the occasion—a kissing gate. I know they’re a little old-fashioned, but they’re very romantic.”

“A kissing gate? I’ve never heard of that.” His dimple reappeared. “You’ll have to show me how to use it.”

She plucked the card from his fingers and slid it back into its slot. “That will be a job for the future Mrs. Beaumont.”

“The position is vacant,” he teased. “All comers considered.”

For Maeve, flirting was more bittersweet than fun when there could be no future in it. She smiled and changed the subject. “Shall I draw up a plan and prepare a price estimate to rejuvenate your garden?”

His humorous gaze turned assessing. Then, abruptly, he started toward the patio. “Come inside. I’ll give you my card with a number where you can contact me during the day.”

Shade cloth and bougainvillea cooled the slate-floored patio. Cushioned chairs were set around a redgum table. Nice spot, Maeve thought. Add a few large pot plants, maybe a staghorn fern hanging from the wall, and it would be even more inviting.

She followed him through a terra-cotta-tiled family room adjoining the kitchen, to a study off the dining room. His briefcase sat open on a chair, and business documents were spread out on the desk, along with his wallet and car keys.

Maeve’s gaze automatically gravitated to the papers he’d been working on. She just had time to notice a financial consultant’s report on Aussie Electronics before Will shuffled the documents together, placed them inside the briefcase and shut the lid.

“Top secret, huh?” she said, wondering at the sudden frown that flattened the arch in his eyebrows.

“Just business.” He snapped the locks shut and spun the dials. Then he handed her a card from his wallet. “You can reach me on this number during the day and on my cell phone anytime.”

Maeve slipped the card into one of the pockets of her cargo pants. In turn, she gave him one of her own.

“‘Maeve Arden,”’ he read. “Your last name is different from Art’s. Are you married?”

“I was. I divorced five years ago.” Her split-up with Graham had been less rancorous than sad. Grief over Kristy had overwhelmed other disappointments and left Maeve with a lingering sense of unfinished business.

“Dad will be pleased to know I’m working for you,” she said. “If you decide to use my services, that is.” Already she wanted this job; Will’s garden was ripe with possibilities and rife with unfulfilled dreams. She didn’t know exactly how she knew that; she simply accepted that she did. She’d learned not to analyze the source of her intuition, for fear of stifling the flow.

“If I weren’t so busy at work I’d have gotten several quotes, but personal recommendations go a long way with me. If I like what you propose, I’ll probably go with that.”

She met his eyes. “You won’t regret it.”

“If you’re your father’s daughter, I’m sure I won’t. Art is the best foreman I’ve ever had.” He led the way back through the house to the front steps. “I look forward to seeing your design. When can you have something ready?”

At this time of year she was working flat-out, but for someone her father admired as much as Will Beaumont, she would put aside some of her nonessential tasks. “I’ll do up a preliminary plan in the next few days. Before I finalize it I’d like to come back for a more thorough look over the grounds and to ask you a few more questions.”

“Fine. Say Thursday, around six?”

She wrote down the time and day, then tucked her clipboard under her arm. She’d noted many details today, but the most important information she’d gleaned was imprinted not on the pad’s lined pages but on her brain. Not facts and figures, but the suppressed longing in a man’s voice when he spoke of a child’s tree fort.

Maeve climbed into her truck and poked her head out the window. “I’ll see you Thursday.”

Will leaned on the roof above her window. “Afterward we could grab a bite to eat in Sorrento,” he suggested casually. “There’s this great seafood restaurant down by the water—”

Tempted despite herself, she searched her mind for an excuse. He’d be fun to go out with, but encouraging him wouldn’t be fair. She heard a faint ringing from inside the house. “Is that your phone?”

He glanced over his shoulder and straightened away from the ute. “I suppose it is.”

Maeve put the truck in gear. “Catch you later.”

In the rearview mirror, she saw him shake his head, his smile bemused, clearly in no rush to answer his phone. She laughed to herself. This job could be interesting. And challenging.

The biggest challenge of all would be restraining her attraction to Will Beaumont.




CHAPTER TWO


MAEVE PARKED BENEATH the peppermint gum in the side yard of her cottage in the village of Mount Eliza, a half hour up the coast from Will’s place in Sorrento. The front door stood open in the vain hope of attracting a passing breeze, and her father’s worn work boots rested to one side of the mat.

Good. Art was home. She wanted to have a word with him about his moving back to a place of his own. He’d recovered from the mild heart attack he’d suffered last winter, and although she loved him and enjoyed his company, they both needed to get on with their own lives.

Maeve kicked off her boots and pushed through the screen door to enter the relative cool of the hallway. Wandin Cottage wasn’t as grand as some of the houses she worked at, but what did she or her father need with grandeur? He’d been a working man all his life and she preferred the outdoors to fancy decor.

She slung her hat on a hook, picked up the pile of letters on the hall table and walked down the narrow hallway to the kitchen, which lay at the back of the house.

Art stood at the stove, burly in a white T-shirt and brown work pants, with her frilly pink apron tied around his neck and waist. His hair had turned completely white after the heart attack, but his eyebrows were still black and bushy.

Maeve came up from behind and gave him a hug. “Hamburgers again. You know you don’t have to cook for me.”

“You can’t do a full day’s work, then come home and eat rabbit food,” he growled, flattening a sizzling patty with the back of his spatula. Then his habitual frown lightened into what for him passed as a smile. “Never thought I’d say it, but I like cooking for my daughter. It’s good having company over a meal.”

Maeve forced herself to return his smile, though her heart sank. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

“Sure, Maevie, love, but before I forget, Tony called. He wants to know if you ordered the paving blocks for the Cummings place.”

“Thanks. I’ll phone him back later.” Maeve got herself a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and leaned against the counter, sorting the junk mail from the bills, dropping the flyers straight into the recycling box. “I did a landscaping quote for your boss, Will Beaumont, this morning.”

Art flipped the burger and smashed down the other side. “You don’t say!”

“He’s got a beautiful place on the cliff at Sorrento. The garden’ll be a lot of work, but it has great potential.”

“After I was let go from my old job, not a soul wanted to hire a man in his fifties who’d had a heart attack. Will Beaumont did.” Art pointed his spatula at her. “You make sure you do a good job for him, you hear?”

“’Course I will, Art. He thinks pretty highly of you, too.” She grimaced at the size of her nursery bill and moved it to the bottom of the pile.

“Beaumont doesn’t waste time with a lot of manipulative bullshit about productivity and teamwork,” Art went on, stirring the onions frying alongside the hamburgers. “He respects a person’s ability to do a job and lets him get on with it.”

Maeve barely heard him. Tucked between the quarry bill and the phone bill was a small green envelope addressed in the strongly slanting handwriting she’d never thought she’d see again. Graham.

“And if something screws up he doesn’t hold it against you, just expects you to fix the problem,” Art rambled. “He doesn’t waste words, either. I can’t bear a man who rabbits on about nothing.”

That outrageous statement shook Maeve out of painful memories of her brief marriage and made her smile.

Art pointed his spatula at her. “He’d been a good ’un for you, Maevie.”

“Don’t think so,” she said, taking a sip of her water. “He’s in the market for a wife.”

Art turned off the heat under the frying pan. “All the more reason.”

“Dad, forget it. Please.” Her life might be an emotional desert, but at least she’d more or less recovered her equilibrium. For a whole year after Kristy’s death she’d barely functioned. No one but her friend Rose knew all she’d been through. She was not ready for another plunge into matrimony and motherhood. Probably she never would be.

“Okay, okay,” Art said. “These burgers are ready. Want to cut up some rolls?”

Glad of an excuse to set Graham’s unopened letter aside, Maeve sliced hamburger rolls and slid them under the griller to toast. “There’s something lurking under the surface with Will,” she said. “Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”

“Will Beaumont is the most straightforward bloke a man could hope to meet,” Art declared. He waggled his fingers at her. “I suppose you got one of your weird ‘feelings’ about him.”

Maeve turned away from the fridge, her arms loaded with bottles of condiments. “I just got a glimpse. Not enough to go on. He’s missing something. Something to do with love.”

Art snorted. “Will Beaumont missing out in love? I wouldn’t think so. You should see the way the girls on the production line follow him with their eyes when he walks by.”

“I’ll admit he’s got sex appeal, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with love,” Maeve said dryly. “However, I could be wrong. He’s a hard one to read.”

Art slid the hamburgers onto a plate and brought them to the table. “He’s been under a lot of pressure lately, always in a meeting with the accountant. There are rumors going around that the company’s in trouble financially.”

“Really? He’s got a great big house and a Mercedes parked out front.” The memory of Will shoving papers into his briefcase—papers he didn’t want her to see—flashed through her mind.

Art sat at the head of the table and fixed his hamburger with “the lot”—bacon, onions, a slice of beetroot, cheese, mayo, tomato and lettuce; then he topped the whole quivering mass with a fried egg. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked, before opening his mouth wide and biting deep.

Maeve, who’d contented herself with lettuce and tomato, put her hamburger back on her plate and took a deep breath instead of a bite. “Do you ever miss having your own place?”

Art chewed and swallowed. “My word, no. That housing unit was as lonely as a monk’s cell, after your mother passed on.” He was about to take another bite, then lowered his burger and fixed her with his shrewd gaze. “Perhaps it’s you who miss having your place to yourself.”

Suddenly, she couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t inflict another loss on her father. “Of course not,” she said, laughing to prove the foolishness of such an idea. “It’s great having you here.”

He smiled tentatively. “Who else would you get to cook for you, eh?”

After dinner Art took himself off to the front veranda for his one smoke of the day. Maeve propped the green envelope on the windowsill in front of the sink, and ran hot water to build up a soapy froth. What did Graham want after all these years? The return address was care of the yacht harbor in Sydney, so she assumed he still had his sailboat.

After she’d stacked the last clean plate in the dish rack, she swept the floor and tidied the pantry. Then she sat at the table and attended to her bills, her checkbook at hand. At last, there was nothing for it but to read Graham’s letter. With trembling fingers she tore open the envelope:

Dear Maeve, I’ve been thinking of you a lot lately. I’m sailing for Fiji at the end of March. Before I go, I want to see you again. I’ll be in Mornington sometime in the next few weeks. Will call when I get in. Graham. P.S. Remember how we used to make love at sea under the stars?

Maeve’s hands dropped to her lap and the letter slipped through her motionless fingers to the floor. For a moment she did remember. Was there a part of her that still loved Graham? They’d had some good times before Kristy died. Some bad times, too, but that was part of marriage. If he was backtracking all this way just to see her, he must still care.

Did she?

WILL ARRIVED HOME from work late on Thursday evening to find Maeve’s ute in his driveway and Maeve sitting on the tailgate. Every red blood cell in his body went on alert. She’d cast off her shirt, and the scant black crop top left an expanse of taut brown skin above her cargo pants. Her dark hair was pulled into a long ponytail, which hung over her shoulder. In one hand she held a half-empty bottle of water and in the other a wide-brimmed hat, with which she fanned herself.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” he said, emerging from the Merc. “The production line broke down just as I was leaving, and I stayed until it was fixed.”

She hopped from the tailgate and brushed off the back of her pants. “It’s okay. I mowed the lawn while I waited.”

“Such enterprise.” Will opened his front door. “Come in. We’ll get a cold drink and you can grill me.”

Maeve kicked off her boots and stepped past him into the entry hall. He watched her gaze lift to the overhead skylight, then sweep up the curved staircase to the landing. There, round windows like portholes let in more light. Finally she peeked sideways to the lounge room, which glowed warmly in shades of cream, yellow and terra-cotta.

“I love your house,” she said, turning to him with a surprised smile. “I didn’t take it all in the last time I was here. It’s perfect.”

“Thanks.” The house was light and bright, reflecting the sun and the sea, with hardly a straight line or a sharp angle in the place. After he and Maree had split, he’d needed a place where he could feel positive about the future. A home he could grow into.

But as he led the way down the hall to the kitchen, Maeve amended her verdict. “Almost perfect. So far I haven’t seen a single plant.”

He glanced over his shoulder to see her eyes sparkling. “And you won’t. I always forget to water them, so now I don’t bother trying to grow any.” He opened a bar fridge in the family room, displaying a dozen types of specialty beer, plus several bottles of white wine and different types of water. “What’ll you have?”

“Something nonalcoholic with ice, thanks.”

Will made her a tonic and lime juice, then chose a Red Dog lager for himself, and they sat at the patio table. Maeve flipped her clipboard open and proceeded to question him on everything from his favorite color to his astrological sign. Her dark-brown eyes studied him with such intense concentration, she might have been trying to read the convolutions of his brain.

And when she bent her head to note his answers with green-stained fingers, Will studied her. Although she wore no makeup, her tanned skin was smooth and her vivid coloring a collection of contrasts: dark hair, white teeth, deep-red lips. Her mouth was wide and full, curling at the corners in a cupid’s bow. Her large eyes full of laughter a few minutes ago, were now serious.

“Do you have any siblings?” She brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek, drawing his attention to the translucent moonstones that studded her lobes.

After a moment of silence she glanced up expectantly, and he realized he’d forgotten the question.

“Siblings,” she repeated.

“Two sisters and a brother.”

Her gaze remained fixed on his. “What number child are you?”

“I’m the eldest.”

“Star sign?”

“Capricorn.”

She frowned down at her clipboard, muttering, “Capricorn and Libra—bad mix.”

“Who’s a Libran?”

She didn’t answer, and he smiled to see a blush creep into her cheeks. “Do you believe in astrology?” he asked.

“Not really.” Her gaze sharpened. “I mean, yes.”

Will drank from his beer. “‘Our fate lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.’ Or words to that effect. I feel I know you already, through your father.”

“Oh?” She put down her pen and eyed him warily.

“For instance, I know you like pancakes topped with fresh fruit for breakfast on Sunday morning. And that you use rainwater to wash your hair.” His fingers flexed as he found himself wondering if her hair was as smooth and soft as it appeared.

“What else did he say about me?”

Will racked his brain, and couldn’t think of anything she might object to. “Nothing personal. No deep dark secrets.”

Maeve appeared relieved, and his fascination with her grew. But this session was about him, and she hadn’t forgotten that. “So,” she said, going back to her clipboard, “who was next—your brother or a sister?”

“My sister Julie. But why? What does my childhood have to do with this garden?”

“You never know,” she replied, writing down his answer.

He leaned forward, trying unsuccessfully to read her handwriting upside down. “Are you licensed to practice psychiatry in this state?”

Her mouth twitched, but she ignored his question and went on. “Did you grow up in the city or the country?”

“I grew up here on the peninsula on a small mixed farm. When I was ten, we moved into the town of Mornington.” Will shifted in his chair, crossed one leg over his knee. “What about your family? Art mentioned he has a son overseas.”

“My brother, Bill, lives in New Mexico. He’s an astronomer.”

“Is he searching the galaxy for extraterrestrial life forms?” Will joked.

“Yes,” Maeve answered seriously. “Now, when you were on the farm you must have played outside a lot. Do you remember the feelings you associate with being outdoors at an early age?”

He was about to make a flippant remark, when he stopped and thought twice. Perhaps the smell of the freshly mown grass called forth memories, or maybe it was Maeve’s gentle prodding, but suddenly the past came back in a flash of vivid imagery. That time in his life before his father died. Before he’d had to grow up too quickly.

“Freedom,” he said at last. “I could go anywhere, do anything I liked, from dawn to dusk. My brother and sisters and I roamed the beaches and the paddocks for miles around. We weren’t restricted by time or place or fear of strangers. Freedom and security—they were what I felt. Two rare and precious commodities. But they’re gone from today’s world. You can’t get them back.”

“I can try,” she said.

He eyed her skeptically. “If you can create the illusion of childhood in a garden, I’ll believe you really are a magician.”

“The magic comes from within,” she said quietly. “You have it, too. Everyone does. You just need to find it.”

She paused to sip her drink, the melting ice cubes tinkling faintly as she lifted her glass. To Will, the curve of her throat seemed at that moment both unbearably vulnerable and unimaginably strong. Magic within? He didn’t think so. Not him.

She lowered her glass and repositioned her pen above the paper. “Did you have a special place you liked to go to as a child? A place that was yours and yours alone?”

“Why are you asking all these questions?” All of a sudden he felt vulnerable himself.

“I told you. I want to know you.” Her huge dark eyes were hypnotic; her smooth low voice was mesmerizing.

“There was a place,” he admitted slowly, “at the bottom of the garden where jasmine grew over the fence. The vines were wildly overgrown—they must have been at least six feet thick. Next to the fence I hollowed out a cubby for myself. On hot days it was cool and filled with green light. Perfumed by the jasmine.” He chuckled. “I would pretend I was an Arabian sheik living in my tent at an oasis. My golden retriever was my camel.” He threw her another skeptical glance. “Not the sort of landscaping you had in mind, I’m sure.”

“You’d be surprised.” She closed her clipboard. “I’ll just go take a few more measurements. I want to check out those lilacs by the brick wall.”

“Mind if I tag along?” Will said, rising. Then, through the open sliding doors came the sound of the door chimes.

“Saved by the bell—again.” Her mouth hinted at a smile, then she strode off across the lawn.

Will went to open the front door and found Ida, his oldest friend and practically his best mate, on the doorstep. With her auburn hair and creamy complexion, Ida would have been a knockout if not for the burn scars that marred the right side of her face, puckering the skin from the outer corner of her eye all the way down to her chin.

“Hi, Will. You’re not busy, are you?” she asked, stepping past him into the entry hall.

“No.” Even after all these years, Will never saw the scars without experiencing a stab of guilt.

Today Ida looked slighter than usual in a slim gray skirt and white fitted blouse.

“Good, because I need to talk.”

“Of course. Come through to the patio.”

They stopped in the kitchen to get Will another beer and to pour Ida a glass of chardonnay.

“Can I have some mineral water with that?” she asked, rummaging in Will’s pantry for pretzels. “I’ve been feeling a little queasy all week. Must have a tummy bug.”

Will handed her the wine spritzer. “What’s up?”

“Wait till we’re sitting.” Carrying her glass and the bag of pretzels, Ida led the way out the sliding glass doors to the patio table. When they were seated, she took a sip of her drink, put her glass down and looked Will straight in the eye. “I’ve decided to have a child.”

Will choked on his beer. “What?”

“I said, I’m going to have a child. On my own.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Ida waved a pretzel at him. “I didn’t mention it until now because I was afraid you’d try to talk me out of the idea before I’d even made up my mind. But I’ve thought long and hard and I’m very sure this is what I want. Now it’s just a question of finding someone to donate sperm.”

“But on your own! Don’t you want to get married someday?”

“Who’d marry me?”

“Come on, Ida,” Will chided. “You’re smart, successful, beautiful—”

“Stop it, Will. I might have been beautiful once,” she conceded, touching her forefinger to the fine ridges of scar tissue on her cheek. “Since this happened…forget it.”

Will fell silent, gnawed by guilt. Her scars, caused by burns from a deep-fat fryer in the fast-food joint where they’d both worked as university students, were his fault. She’d been standing over the fryer when he’d come along, on his way to the back room with his lunch. He’d stepped in a spot of grease, slipped, and his drink had flown into the fryer. He’d gone down, escaping the spray of boiling fat. Ida had caught it in the face. Thanks to her generous, forgiving nature, she’d never held the accident against him.

“Okay, so you’ll never make it in the movies, but you do all right, don’t you? I mean, your law practice is thriving, you own your house outright, you drive a brand-new BMW—” He broke off, wondering whether he was trying to convince himself or her.

“In terms of material success, yes, I’m doing fine. But it’s not enough anymore. What I want is a family.”

“I can understand that. I’d like a family, too. I’ve been thinking it’s time I settled down.”

“There you go. I’m thirty-seven, Will. It’s time to face facts. Maybe somewhere on this ever-shrinking Earth is a man who would love me for who I am, but I can’t wait forever to meet him.”

Will traced a path through the condensation on his glass. If only he could have fallen in love with her. But he’d known Ida since they were children, long before the fryer incident and the scarring. He loved her like a brother; the right chemistry just wasn’t there. “You’ll meet someone. Thirty-seven isn’t old.”

Ida snorted. “My biological clock has turned into a time bomb. If it weren’t physiologically unlikely, I’d swear I was getting hot flashes just thinking about my next birthday.”

“What about that guy from San Diego—Rick, wasn’t it? The one who was here setting up the Melbourne outlet for Borders bookstore. He seemed nice.”

“He’s gone back to the States,” Ida said with the dismissive gesture Will had come to associate with her covering up some hurt. “He wasn’t serious.”

“You always downplay any feelings a guy might have for you.” Will had thought the relationship was serious, at least on Ida’s part. He’d liked Rick, but if Rick had hurt her, Will wanted to shake him till his brain rattled. Ida hated anyone feeling sorry for her, though, even him, so he just nodded and sipped his beer.

A rustle in the bushes next to the brick wall caught his attention. Maeve emerged on the lawn. Despite the shimmering heat, she looked cool as a spring flower in her loose white shirt. Unaware of his scrutiny, she was making notes on her clipboard, head bent, wisps of shining dark hair falling over her high cheekbones. Then the warm breeze ruffled the page, and she glanced up. Seeing him watching her, she smiled.

Will froze, glass to his lips, as the oddest sensation stole over him, a kind of warmth in his midsection. A smile curved his lips as their gazes held, and the warmth expanded throughout his body, transporting him to a state of unexpected well-being.

“Who’s that?” Ida asked.

“Huh? Oh, that’s Maeve. She’s a landscape gardener, and the daughter of my foreman at the factory. She’s got some sensational ideas for the garden.”

“She’s lovely. If you’re looking to settle down, you don’t need to look farther than your own backyard.”

“I asked her out and she refused,” Will said with a frown. “No reason. Just refused.”

“Maybe she was having a bad day.”

“Maybe.”

Maeve disappeared behind the Monterey Bay fig, and Will turned back to Ida. “I understand your wanting a child, but do you really have to do it on your own?”

Ida’s chin lifted. “What’s wrong with that?”

Will shoved both hands through his hair. “For starters, a child needs a mother and a father. I realize it doesn’t always work out that way and I’d never judge anyone whose marriage breaks up, but, damn it, you have to try.”

Ida leaned forward, her hazel eyes shimmering. “I have tried, Will. What do you think I’ve been doing for the past fifteen years—playing hard to get?”

“But think of the child. It’s not fair to deliberately deprive a kid of having a father.” No one understood better than he what growing up without a father was like.

Ida’s mouth pulled tight. “Life isn’t fair. Is it fair for me to remain childless when I want so badly to have a baby?”

“No, but…”

She got up and strode across the deck to lean against the post, arms tightly crossed. “I was hoping for your moral support. If that’s not possible, at least spare me your condemnation.”

Will rose and put his arms around her, and felt her lean into him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t try to talk you out of this crazy idea.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her wet cheeks with the heel of her hand. “My emotions are all over the place lately. I know what I want is selfish, but I’m feeling desperate. I hate that. It’s so pathetic.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Will said soothingly, and stroked her back. “You’re not selfish or pathetic. It’s just that you deserve more. Your baby deserves more. I thought you were waiting for Mr. Right to come along.”

She managed a ragged laugh. “Mr. Right must have taken a wrong turn. Or maybe he saw me first. I’ve given up, Will. I’ve tried so hard for so long. Plastic surgery can only do so much. My appearance is as good as it’s ever going to get. The only dates I’ve had since my accident have been with friends or co-workers who feel sorry for me.”

“And Rick,” he reminded her. “But I don’t believe he or anyone else went out with you because they felt sorry for you.”

With an impatient sigh, she pushed away from Will and paced back to her seat. “I thought Rick was different, yet when his time was up here in Melbourne, he just left.”

“Have you heard from him at all?”

“He phoned once, but I could tell it was just a duty call. I’m not prepared to wait around any longer on the off chance I might meet someone else. If I’m going to have a child, I want it to be soon.”

Will was silent a moment, struggling to accept what she was saying. He came back to his seat, prepared to be a help, not a hindrance. “Okay, you’re serious. Let’s take it from there. What about the father? Who will it be? Are you planning to tell him?”

“I don’t have an arrangement with anyone yet.” She gazed down at her hands with an oddly shy smile. “Although I do have a candidate in mind.”

Will relaxed a little and leaned back against his chair. At least, she wasn’t planning on a series of one-night stands with anonymous lovers.

“And, of course, I’ll tell him,” Ida went on. “It wouldn’t be fair not to. He could have as much or as little contact as he wished. My only stipulation would be that if he opted to take on the fatherhood thing, he be prepared to stick with it. For the child’s sake.”

“I hope whoever you’re thinking of is good enough for you. He’d have to be a pretty special guy.”

Ida glanced up at him. “Oh, he’s special, all right.”

Will gazed at her determined, tear-stained face.

She gazed right back at him.

Light dawned. “You mean me?”

“Would you? I hate the idea of using a sperm bank and having a complete stranger father my baby.”

“I—I’m incredibly flattered. I just don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think.”

“You don’t have to make up your mind right away. I know it’s a lot to spring on someone. But would you at least contemplate it? Please?”

His gut reaction was to decline, but for Ida he would consider the proposal. “Sure. I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you.” She checked her watch and sighed. “I’d better go. I’ve got so much work to catch up on.”

Will walked her out to her car. Ida opened her door and paused to search his face worriedly. “Will, whatever you decide it’s okay. I don’t want anything to hurt our friendship.”

“Nothing will hurt our friendship.” He still felt a little stunned as he leaned down to kiss her lightly on the lips. He wanted to be a father, but this wasn’t the way he’d expected it to happen. What was the point of having children if you weren’t part of a family?




CHAPTER THREE


MAEVE CLOSED her clipboard and wandered back to the patio. Her plan wasn’t as complete as she would have liked. But then, she didn’t feel she knew everything she needed to about Will. Sometimes she just had to start with the barest of an idea, and elaborate as she got to know her characters, the way a writer might.

She spread the sheets of graph paper with her roughed-in design on the table and waited for Will to return from seeing his friend—girlfriend?—out. He came through the sliding doors looking as though he’d been hit hard over the head and was still seeing stars. “Everything all right?” she asked.

“Huh?” He gave his head a little shake. “Yes. Fine. Are you finished taking measurements?”

Maeve indicated the graph paper. “See what you think.”

Will turned the paper sideways to read her tiny writing. “It’s all Greek to me.”

“Latin, actually,” Maeve said. “Sorry if it’s confusing, but using the species names of plants is second nature.”

“Where did you study?”

“Melbourne University. I have a PhD in botany.”

Will’s eyebrows disappeared upward into a lock of sun-streaked chestnut hair. “I would have thought you’d be teaching or doing research, with a degree like that.”

Maeve shrugged. “I experiment in situ in my own modest way, but I prefer growing plants to studying them, especially when I have the go-ahead to do my own thing. Which is really your thing, of course. You can get back to me on the estimate, if you like. My phone number’s on the letterhead, or you can e-mail me.”

“When would you be able to start?” he asked.

She thought for a moment. “I’m booked solid for the next two weeks, but I’ll try to rearrange some of my less-urgent jobs. I could get back here on Monday to take out that tree by the bungalow.”

“I appreciate your rearranging work for me.”

She knew he wouldn’t understand if she told him his garden was already growing inside her mind. “You…you’ve been so good to my father.”

“Nothing he didn’t earn.” For some reason Will’s mouth flattened and a frown line appeared between his eyes. He went into the house and returned a moment later carrying a checkbook. “You’ll be needing money for materials, I presume?”

Maeve handed him the second piece of paper from her clipboard. “Half of that will be enough to get me going. Labor costs are charged at an hourly rate.”

Will glanced over the itemized list and scribbled off a check. “Might as well pay for all the materials now to avoid delays in the future.”

“If you say so.” Clients weren’t usually so quick to offer money—especially those supposedly in financial straits. Mentally, she gave herself a shake; sometimes she analyzed things too much. She wrote him out a receipt, then folded his check and tucked it into her breast pocket. “I take it this means I’ve got the job.”

“Looks that way.” He stacked the papers and set them aside. “Are you busy Saturday night?”

“No, but—”

“There’s a jazz concert at the Briar’s winery this weekend,” he said over her objection. “We could take a picnic supper, sit under those big old gums and watch the cockatoos flap home to roost while the sun sets over the hills…”

Maeve smiled and held up a hand to stop his flow of words. “That sounds wonderful, but I can’t.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” he asked bluntly.

She hesitated, glanced away, then faced him squarely. “Won’t.”

“May I ask why?”

“I…don’t get involved with clients.” She couldn’t meet his eyes.

He shook his head. “I don’t buy it.”

“Okay. How about, I don’t think seeing you is a good idea given that you’re my father’s employer.”

“Bullshit,” he said politely.

“Okay…” Time to get serious, even though—no, especially because—part of her badly wanted to see him again. Her chin rose. “I don’t find you attractive.”

Will didn’t even flinch. He studied her face as though trying to decide why she was lying to him. Finally, he said quietly, “Tell me the real reason.”

She drew in a deep breath, shaken that his calm rational eyes saw through her so easily. When she spoke, the truth made her voice tremble. “I’m just not ready for a relationship right now. Sometimes I don’t know if I ever will be again.”

His frown softened into concern. “You must have been hurt badly.”

She glanced away. “You could say that.”

“Your ex-husband?”

“He…was part of it. Look, I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s personal and deeply painful, and not something I share with many people. Trust me, it wouldn’t work between us.”

“Maybe if I ask you again in a week or two—”

“No! I mean, I’m sorry, but there’s absolutely no hope that I’ll change my mind. You’d just be wasting your time.”

She gazed at him, troubled to see that his expression was one of quiet determination.

“I won’t pressure you,” he said. “But when you change your mind, I’ll be waiting.”

“Don’t,” she said, putting her hat on. “Don’t wait for me.”

WILL ROSE AT FIVE the next morning, groggy with the heat. He’d spent a sleepless night, his mind in turmoil over the upcoming meeting with Paul, his company accountant and friend since university. Electronic engineering, not economics, was Will’s field, but he didn’t have to be John Kenneth Galbraith to realize that his company was in trouble.

Today he had to make a decision on the financial consultant’s recommendation to close the Mornington factory and relocate offshore. Production costs were high; wages were higher. Cheap imports threatened his place in the market, and shareholders were pushing for an increased profit margin. After an initial, almost phenomenal, success, his tamperproof, infrared security alarm was being priced out of the world market. The only way to keep his business afloat, the money boys said, was to transfer production to Indonesia.

Such a move would throw his employees out of work. He hated that idea; it went against everything he stood for, everything he’d worked for. On the other hand, if Aussie Electronics went down, they would all lose their jobs anyway.

He ate a fried-egg sandwich while he stood at the edge of the patio in nothing but his shorts. When the hell would this weather break? Not a cloud marred the pure-blue sky, although the towers of Melbourne in the distance were hazy with smog. Usually a cool change blew through after a four- or five-day cycle of rising heat, but this was the seventh day in a row of temperatures over one hundred degrees.

The image of Maeve’s trusting smile appeared before him. You’ve been so good to my father.

Maeve herself, with her graceful movements and her perceptive dark eyes, had been on his mind in spite of his efforts to forget her. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she could see into his heart, and was at least intrigued with what she saw. So why this refusal to go out with him?

Then, there was Ida. Her astonishing request completed this triumvirate of mind-boggling, gut-wrenching problems. He wanted to help her out. He couldn’t see any logical reason he shouldn’t help her out. But something in him balked at being nothing more than a sperm donor.

He arrived at his factory an hour later. Aussie Electronics occupied a long, low-slung building in an industrial park on the outskirts of Mornington, twenty miles north on the peninsula. Will parked the Merc in front of the building, noting that Paul’s car was already in one of the visitors’ slots.

“’Morning, Renée,” Will said as he walked through reception. Renée was a petite blonde in her forties who’d trained as a secretary, then stayed home with her children while they were young. Will had rescued her from a dead-end job and he’d been more than repaid by her organizational skills and efficiency.

Renée’s hands stilled on the keyboard of her computer. “Paul’s waiting for you in the meeting room.”

Will felt her troubled gaze follow him as he walked through the door that led to the inner offices, and he clenched his fists. Surely, with good references and a record of five years’ steady employment she wouldn’t have to go back to flipping burgers.

Paul was seated at the long oval table, papers spread around him. His short dark hair glistened with gel and he wore city garb—a black suit and a conservative gray tie. He was more than an accountant to Will’s company; Will relied on him for many of the business management tasks he himself had little time for.

“Paul, you old bastard,” Will said, grasping his hand in a firm shake before pulling out a chair across from the accountant. “Don’t you know it’s summer?”

Paul gave him a mildly reproving once-over. “I hope you’re not going to wear that bloody Hawaiian shirt when we meet with the Indonesian delegation in Jakarta next month.”

Will glanced down at his colorful attire, and grinned. “Don’t you know the casual look has reached this country’s boardrooms?”

Paul gave a bark of laughter. “And you’re such a slave to fashion.”

Will’s smile flickered. “Time to get serious, Paul. Kmart and Target both canceled their orders for my security alarm. They’ve decided to stock the Japanese model. It’s manufactured in Singapore and sells for ten percent less.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Exactly.” Will dropped his briefcase on the table and sat heavily. The Japanese alarm, new on the market, was almost identical to his own invention, with just enough superficial differences to get around the patent laws. “I’ve not only lost my number-one position in sales, but I’m being pushed right out of the market.”

“You’ve got other products,” Paul said. “Timers, switches, medical instrumentation…”

“Sure, and they’re doing okay, but they’re not big earners. Not big enough to make up for losing the tamperproof alarm, at any rate. And since I floated those shares on the open market I’ve got third parties demanding increasing profit.” He indicated a sheaf of papers in front of Paul. “So you’ve looked at these documents sent over by the Indonesian Department of Trade?”

Paul nodded. “They’re offering all sorts of tax incentives. Economically, it’s very viable.”

“True,” Will said. “Although Indonesia’s had a lot of internal political trouble lately. The people aren’t too keen on foreign investors.”

Paul spread his hands. “No sweat. The government officials I’ve communicated with assure me the situation is under control.”

“I saw on the news the other night that students are protesting in the capital.”

Paul shrugged. “Students are always protesting. It’s what they do. The government will love you for creating jobs.”

“Too bad I have to destroy them here,” Will said sharply.

“Listen, mate, good guys finish last. You’ve got to close the factory and make your move while you’re still solvent. Six months from now your Mornington employees won’t even remember your name.”

“They’ll be cursing it.” Will pushed back his chair and rose to gaze out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond the paddocks where horses grazed, rows of grapevines curved up the slope of the hill. Over the years Will had gotten to know each of his employees. Most of them were skilled, hardworking and loyal. He didn’t want to let them down.

Or lose control of what he’d worked so hard to build.

But he knew Paul was right. Close the factory was the only logical thing to do. Will’s chest squeezed tight, as though he were being crushed. “After all the satisfaction of growing the company, it hurts to send it down the drain.”

“Not down the drain, just overseas. It’s not the same thing at all,” Paul assured him. “If you want, I’ll make the announcement and you can distance yourself from the dirty deed.”

“No,” Will said, straightening. “I’m responsible to my employees. I’ll tell them.”

Paul passed across some stapled pages. “I’ve drawn up a list of employees and their redundancy payouts. Everything’s ready to go. I just need your signature.”

Glancing down the page, Will frowned. “These amounts are awfully low. Most of my employees have families.”

“They’re the minimum entitlements required by law.”

“Double them.”

“You can’t afford—”

“Just do it!” Will swore softly but fervently, rubbing a hand across his face. “Sorry, mate, I know you’re only trying to do what’s best for the company.”

Paul leaned forward and gripped Will’s shoulder. “Everything’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

Will nodded, and forced himself to concentrate on what had to be done. “To fulfill current contracts, production has to continue for another three months.”

“I’ll notify the appropriate people in Jakarta and put the paperwork in motion,” Paul said. “I’ve got agents there looking for suitable factory space. Do you have anyone in mind to go over and help with the start-up?”

“Art Hodgins would be my first choice.” Three months. He was giving his employees the ax and then expecting them to continue to work for him for three whole months.

“If I were you, I’d delay making the announcement until closer to the shutdown date,” Paul said, as though he’d read Will’s thoughts. “You’re only required to give two weeks’ notice. Any more than that and you’re asking for trouble.”

“People need time to find new jobs. It won’t be easy for some,” he said, thinking of Art Hodgins—and Pat and Mick and Vlad and a dozen others over the age of fifty. Although, in the case of Art, Will could delay the problem by getting him involved in the set-up overseas.

“You’re shooting yourself in the foot,” Paul said. “But maybe for you they’ll carry on. I’ve never seen a company with so few industrial relations problems.” He glanced at his watch as he tucked the rest of his papers in his briefcase. “I’ve got another appointment in Mornington—but what do you say we meet for an early lunch at the Grand Hotel?”

Just the thought of sitting in a pub, pretending to have a good time right after he’d lowered the boom on his employees, had Will shaking his head. There was only one place he wanted to be after this—alone on his surfboard between the sky and the sea. But that would have to wait until the end of the working day. “Thanks, mate, not today. Let’s get together soon, though.” He pushed himself to his feet.

And then, all too quickly, Will was facing the expectant faces of the hundred or so men and women who worked for him. There was some nervous laughter as he cleared his throat, and a few people exchanged apprehensive glances. When he began to speak, the room fell quiet. From the shocked looks on every face as his message sank in, he realized that whatever rumors had gone around, no one had expected the factory to actually close.

Shock swiftly gave way to muttered whispering. Then, McLeod, a hard-bitten man who’d been with the company only a few months but who seemed always to be complaining, demanded belligerently to know why.

Art Hodgins quelled the rising storm of protest, shouting that Will Beaumont wouldn’t be closing his doors unless he was up against the wall. When the noise died down, Art turned to Will with quiet dignity. “I’m sure we’re all sorry you’re losing what you’ve worked so hard to build.”

Will nodded briefly, fighting a rising sense of shame. Paul stepped forward to outline the steps being taken to save the company, namely, relocating to Indonesia. Rumblings of anger and betrayal echoing in his mind, Will escaped back to his office to deal with the morbid and mortifying task of burying his dead company.

MAEVE KICKED OFF her boots and pushed through the front door of her cottage. She’d just been to the wholesale nursery to order plants for Will’s garden and had gotten an excellent mid-season sale price on two dozen gardenia bushes, plus found a gorgeous specimen of a deeply scented mauve rose called Moonlight Mist. She couldn’t wait to see how they looked in Will’s garden.

“Hi, Dad,” she called. “I’m home.”

No answer. Art’s boots were in their usual place on the mat outside the front door. The mail had been collected and piled on the hall table. She walked down the long hallway, passing the shut bedroom doors, listening to the silence. “Dad?”

The house seemed unnaturally quiet. The kitchen was empty, with no signs of cooking. Or indeed, of any life at all.

Apprehension jabbed under her ribs. Quickly, she strode back down the hall to his bedroom. Wherever he was, Art was fine, she told herself. He’d walked down to the milk bar for a paper or a pouch of the tobacco he rolled his single cigarette of the day from. But if that was the case, why hadn’t she passed him on the street?

“Dad?” She knocked at his closed door. “Are you in there?”

Pressing her ear to the door she heard a grunt of assent. Sighing with relief, she opened the door. “Are you okay?”

He was lying on his bed, hands folded on his chest, staring at the ceiling. Fear clutched at her again. He hadn’t gone to bed during the day since his heart attack. When he turned his head to look at her, his face was gray and the lines on his forehead and around his mouth appeared more deeply etched.

She came farther into the room. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’. Was just about to fix dinner.” He pushed himself to a sitting position and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then seemed to lose the energy to get up.

Maeve sat beside him and put an arm around his shoulders, alarmed to smell whiskey on his breath. Art liked a shot of Johnny Walker now and then, but he was too frugal to go in for drinking in a big way. “What’s wrong?” she repeated. “Are you ill? Tell me.”

Art sighed and dragged a hand over his stubbly face. “My job is finished. Aussie Electronics is closing the Mornington plant and moving to Indonesia.”

“What! When?” Her father had survived one redundancy, but at his age he’d been lucky to get hired at Aussie Electronics. For him, getting another job would be virtually impossible.

“Three months.” Art reached for the empty glass on the bedside table and swilled back the last drops of whiskey. Then he stared at the floor.

“But I don’t understand. Why?” Her father’s morose apathy scared her. The past five years had been hard on him—first Mum going, then Kristy, then his heart attack. Now this. Her father was no longer the big, bluff man she’d believed invincible when she was a child.

“Supposedly we can’t compete with cheaper imports. They claim wages here are too high. A hundred jobs gone, just like that—” he snapped his fingers “—and me only three years away from retirement.”

“But you said Will Beaumont prided himself on his company being Australian owned and operated. Why would he move it overseas?”

Scowling, Art rose and paced the bedroom. “Money, what else? He’ll make better profits if wages are lower. How do these bastards think the average Joe is going to buy their fancy imported products if they keep shipping jobs out of the country?” he demanded. “Answer me that!”

Behind the fury, she could see that Art was frightened. Not that he would admit such a thing to anyone. Especially to his daughter. “Can’t you do something?” she asked. “Organize the employees to take over the company?”

As quickly as his outrage had flared, it died. Art lowered himself into a chair with the slowness of the aged. “Buy out a multimillion-dollar electronics business that requires ongoing research and development of new products? Not a hope. Will is a proud man. He’d never agree to handing over control, much less being an employee in his own company. Nor could we carry on without him.”

“Oh, Dad.” She knelt beside his chair and put her arms around his shoulders. She’d meant to console him, but she ended up shaking him. If her father sank into inaction, he was lost. “Don’t give up. You can fight it somehow.”

Art seemed to make a conscious effort to straighten his shoulders. “I’ll be right, Sprout, you’ll see. Nothin’ for you to worry about.”

She squeezed his hand and managed a reassuring smile, knowing she would worry, even though she could do nothing about her father’s predicament.

On the other hand, she could control what she did with her life. She was damned if she would work for the man who’d dumped her father back on the unemployment heap. And to think she’d been feeling sorry she’d turned down Will’s invitation to the jazz concert.

“I need to do something,” she said, rising. “Don’t worry about dinner. I’ll pick up some fish and chips for us on my way back. I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

She was halfway to Sorrento before it occurred to her that she could have called Will Beaumont on the phone to cancel the job. But she’d still have to mail his check back, and, damn it, she wanted to give him a piece of her mind. If she called, he could simply hang up on her.

Her hands gripped the wheel as her foot pressed harder on the accelerator and she took a curve at ten miles an hour over the speed limit. The thought of her father pottering around the house like an old man when all he wanted was to be working and earning his own way fueled her indignation. Art had a right to a job. A right to his full pension after decades in the workforce. She thumped her fist on the steering wheel. A right to dignity.

She came over the rise that led into Sorrento. Before her, the ferry dock jutted into the bay and the limestone heritage buildings mounted the hill, interspersed with trendy boutiques and surf shops.

Will Beaumont seemed like a decent man, she told herself as she drove through town. She should give him the benefit of the doubt, not blast him. But when she pulled up his long driveway and saw him untying his surfboard from the roof rack of his silver-gray Mercedes, she was outraged. While her father had been drowning his sorrows, the man responsible had been out surfing.

Bastard.

“Maeve. G’day,” Will said, his voice lifting in surprise as she got out of the ute. He was still in his wet suit, the top half peeled to his waist, exposing a chest and shoulders lean and hard with muscle. His smile faded as the look on her face registered. “I see you heard the news.”

“I heard, all right. Why are you shutting down the factory and moving it overseas?” She pulled the check he’d given her from her breast pocket, prepared to rip it into pieces. She’d been going to create a wonderland in his backyard. A special place for him and his future family. Not bloody likely.

His warm blue eyes turned cold as he spied the check in her hand. “The move is necessary to save the business.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that you’ll be putting my father and a hundred other workers out of jobs?”

His fingers curled around the edge of his surfboard, knuckles white. “I’m sorry about your father. And the others, too, of course.”

She glared at him, not bothering to hide her anger. Some things were too rotten to gloss over with the mask of politeness. “My father is fifty-seven. Where is he going to get another job at that age? Or do you think he should go overseas and work for fifty cents an hour?”

“It’s not what I wanted to happen. I’ll do my best to help my people find other employment.” His quiet voice held an edge.

“‘Your people’?” she spat. “You don’t own them. Save your hypocritical explanations and useless platitudes for the factory. Just don’t count on anyone believing a word.”

He propped the surfboard against the car and faced her squarely. “You’re a businesswoman. Surely, you can understand that if you’re not turning a profit you won’t stay in business for long.”

“Not turning a profit? How can that be? Your top-selling product is a super-duper alarm system that not even my father can afford to buy.”

“A rip-off model has come on the market, undercutting me,” he countered sharply. “I don’t want to move production offshore, but it’s that or shut the business down altogether.”

“How can you afford this house if your company is doing so poorly?” she demanded. “I don’t see you suffering.”

“I bought this house five years ago, when times were good and real estate prices were low. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“You drive a Mercedes,” she said, grasping for ammunition. She had him on the defensive, so why did she feel she was being backed into a corner?

“I wanted a car with safety features…a family car,” he said, his voice hardening with every word. “Are you finished?”

Damn it, she wanted so badly to hate him. The surfboard caught her eye. Aha, Nero fiddling while Rome burned. “Shouldn’t you have been thinking up ways to save Aussie Electronics, instead of going surfing like some irresponsible teenager?”

He didn’t flinch from her accusing gaze. “Surfing clears my mind. It puts me in a head space where I can see alternatives to problems.”

Intrigued despite herself, she cataloged the information. “Really?” she had to ask. “What is it about surfing that does that for you?”

“I’ve got a theory,” he said slowly, taken aback at her abrupt change of tack, “that the ocean’s horizontal planes promote lateral thinking.”

Was he joking? He looked serious. Yet as she stared at him, he grinned sheepishly, as though he knew that even if his theory made sense to him, it sounded crazy to others.

“But waves are vertical,” she objected.

He slapped the roof of the Mercedes. “This is the surface of the ocean.” Then he slanted his hand at a sixty-degree angle to the roof. “This is the wave.” With his other hand he intersected the wave and the ocean. “This is the surfboard with me on it. At the juncture of the two tangible planes is a third, imaginary, dimension, where anything can happen.”

It didn’t make rational sense, but, God help her, she could see it. Her mind translated his abstract notion into a vision of cascading drifts of blue and white flowers with, here and there, the unexpected blossom of red or purple—

No, it was too late for that. The check fluttered between her fingers in the light breeze.

He glanced at it, seeming to catch her thoughts. “I hope you’ll still do my garden.”

Her fingers tightened, crushing the flimsy bit of paper. With Art out of work, they would need the money. She gazed into Will’s blue eyes and saw intelligence and compassion, qualities as attractive to her as his physical appearance. He was a good man caught in difficult circumstances.

Then she thought of Art, a broken man.

And she just…couldn’t…do it.

“Go to hell.” She stuffed the check in his hand, ran back to her utility truck and tore down the driveway and out of his life, before she could change her mind.




CHAPTER FOUR


BLOODY HELL. She had no right to blame him. No one wanted Aussie Electronics to stay in Australia more than Will Beaumont.

Will watched her ute’s rear lights flash red as she braked briefly at the end of the driveway, before squealing across the bitumen and roaring down the road.

Still cursing, he hauled his surfboard to the back of the house and flung it against the wall, salt crusted and sprinkled with sand. After peeling off his wet suit, he dropped it beside the board, little caring he was committing the unpardonable sin of leaving board and suit unrinsed.

Nor did he bother rinsing himself off after discarding his damp bathing suit; he just pulled on a pair of gray shorts and a dark-purple short-sleeved shirt, grabbed Maeve’s quotation off the hall table and strode back out to the Merc.

He wanted his garden fixed up, damn it. She’d signed a contract. She couldn’t just quit because she thought he was some evil capitalist who destroyed people’s lives for fun and profit.

Glancing at the address on the letterhead, he brought the car’s powerful engine to life and sped out of the driveway, steering with one hand and doing up buttons with the other.

He caught up with her in the town of Rosebud, where traffic slowed for stoplights and beachgoers streamed across the road from the waterfront park to the takeaways and ice cream parlors on the other side. Waiting at the red light, he had a moment to wonder whether stress might be forcing him into uncharacteristically irrational behavior. He was chasing his gardener up the peninsula, for goodness’ sake.

Whether, however, his actions were foolish or merely futile, a big part of him, he realized, wanted to confront not Maeve but her father. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Art alone after he’d broken the news to the employees, and he hated to think Art saw him as the bad guy.

So if he wasn’t the bad guy, who was? Some banker who wouldn’t be happy until he made three-thousand-percent profit? The government for relaxing import tariffs? Or did fault lie with people who bought cheap imported goods? Supporting local industry had become a luxury not everyone could afford.

He pulled up behind Maeve, but she didn’t notice him. Or refused to notice. He considered beeping the horn but decided against it. He didn’t want to appear aggressive; he just wanted to talk to her. As the light changed to green, she spotted him in her rearview mirror.

Maybe she would pull off into the small parking lot that ran parallel to the road. Then again, he mused as she sped off, maybe not.

He followed her all the way home. She didn’t look in the mirror again until she turned off the highway into the village of Mount Eliza. He smiled. She was woman enough to want to know if he was still following. Maybe to want him to keep following. Yeah, right. Just like she wanted to go out with him.

Through the leafy streets, down a winding, dead-end road he trailed her, before pulling up at last in front of a sage-green weatherboard cottage with painted wooden filigree lining the veranda roof. Wandin Cottage, proclaimed a sign above the door. The garden was a mass of flowers, shaded by huge golden-limbed gums with sun-dappled leaves.

Maeve parked and went inside, shutting the door firmly behind her without a glance his way.

A minute later Will was tapping the brass door knocker. Five minutes passed. Now she was just being rude.

Art opened the door. His hair was smoothly combed and his white T-shirt was tucked neatly into work pants.

Will suddenly felt like a sixteen-year-old facing his father. Despite their employee-employer relationship, Will had sensed that Art had always taken a paternal interest in him; even, Will sometimes thought, a fatherly pride.

Today Art was a troubled man, angry with his favorite son.

Will pushed a hand through his hair and did up his top button. “G’day, Art. How’re you going?”

Art nodded, his seamed face wary, but appeared prepared to be friendly. “What can I do for you?”

“I came to see Maeve. You may not have known, but she gave me a quote on some landscaping the other day, and I wanted to talk to her about it.”

“Maeve said she’d canceled on you.” Art looked more troubled than ever. “I want to apologize for her, Will. I told her that my job and hers were two separate things and that she should honor her contract. But she wouldn’t have it.”

Hell, Will said silently. Art wasn’t angry at him; he was upset because his daughter hadn’t done the right thing. Or maybe he was angry, too, but felt conflicted out of loyalty and a belief in fair play. Will never should have come here, invading their space, imposing on Art’s good nature. However, he would look frivolous if he left now. “May I talk to her?”

“Don’t know that it’ll do any good, but go ahead and try.” Art stepped back and allowed Will inside. “She’s in the backyard. Come through.”

The dim hallway was cool, papered with pale floral print and hung with botanical drawings of flowering herbs. In the kitchen, newspapers were spread out on the table. The employment section. Ouch. With a glance at Art, Will pushed through the screen door.

Maeve was reaching high on a bush to snip a long stalk bearing a lush white flower almost as big as her head. Peonies. His grandmother had grown them.

“Hi,” he said.

She ignored him and laid the blossom in the basket at her feet.

What flowers grew in Maeve’s garden? They were too many and various for him to identify even half of them. From brightly colored to delicately pale, they grew at every level from ground to tree. They twined along the fence, overflowed from tubs, hung in pots from the veranda. Beside a swinging garden bench of carved wood was a raised herb garden planted in a hexagram. On the other side of the yard, next to the garage, was a miniature nursery with rows of potted seedlings and baby shrubs. Behind a low hedge in what still must be her property was a greenhouse.

“This is really nice,” he said, truly impressed. The whole place was cool, fragrant and inviting. Except for her.

Aggressively, she thrust the hand holding her clippers forward; her other hand was planted on her hip. “What do you want?”

“A fair trial, for starters.”

“You chased me all the way up the peninsula just to persuade me that deep down you’re really a great guy? That none of it’s your fault. You’re ruled by global markets, free trade, forces beyond your control? Listen, mate, I’ve heard it all before and I’m sick of it. If you believe in something, you make a stand.”

“It’s not that simple,” he began. “You see—”

“Save it,” she said with indifference, then turned back to the peony bush and lopped off a dead head. “Anyway, what do you care what I think?”

Good question. And one he wasn’t prepared to answer right now.

“I just want you to do my garden.” He brandished her signed, typewritten quote. “We made a deal.”

That instant he remembered that he’d made a deal, too—with her father. A contract signed before Christmas, which had more than ten months to run. She met his gaze with a level, sardonic stare.

“So sue me.” She bent to pick up her basket.

“I’ll pay you double.” He saw her hesitate, and triumph surged through him. Until he remembered it was because of him that she and her father would be hungry for money.

Holding her basket in front of her with both hands on the curving handle, she eyed him with disdain. “You can’t keep your company in the red. How could you afford to pay me double?”

“That’s not your concern.” From the corner of his eye he glimpsed Art’s face at the kitchen window. Then Maeve’s father ducked away.

“You can’t buy my respect,” Maeve said. “And I wouldn’t take your blood money if I was starving.” She reached into her pocket for a small note-pad, scribbled something on it and handed it to him. “Just to be nice, I’ll give you the number of a colleague of mine—Peter Davies. He’ll do a good job.”

Will crumpled the scrap of paper. He wanted her. He wanted the magic she’d promised. And although he hated to admit it, she was right. He wanted, at least in her eyes, to not be the bad guy.

He was losing perspective, he told himself. Having lost control of his company, he was desperate to control other aspects of his life. He forced himself to smooth out the paper, fold it properly and tuck it in his pocket.

The garden wasn’t that important. Maeve’s opinion of him wasn’t life threatening.

“I need to talk to your father before I go. I’ll catch you later.”

He was about to return to the house, when he spotted a solar panel lying on its side up against the wall of the garden shed. “What’s this?”

She shrugged, clearly through talking to him but bound by innate courtesy to answer. “Just part of an experiment I’m running. Dad was trying to figure out a way to increase the energy output of the solar panel so I could heat a large volume of running water. So far he hasn’t had any luck.”

Will crouched to examine the electronic control box connecting the solar panel with a twelve-volt battery. “You wouldn’t get a lot of heating capacity out of a panel this size,” he agreed. “Why not use a larger one?”

“I can’t afford it.”

“What’s your experiment about?”

“Look, don’t worry about it. It’s just something I was trying out to help my friend Rose. She raises hydroponic herbs for a living.”

“Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“I doubt it.” He waited. “Oh, all right. You know that in hydroponics, plants grow in a soilless medium and water containing nutrients flows over the roots.”

He nodded.

“Well, my experiment aims to determine the optimum temperature of the hydroponic solution so as to boost production. I want to test growth rates of a variety of herbs at three different temperatures.”

“That sounds interesting. How are you regulating the water temperature?”

“That’s the other problem,” she said, sounding frustrated. “I’ve got a water heater but not the technology to produce three different temperatures simultaneously, which I have to do to ensure that—”

“Other factors influencing plant growth are equal. I get it.” He turned the control box over in his hands. This was just the type of problem he loved to sink his teeth into. “If I could take this to my workshop, I could have a go at fixing it.”

“No, thank you.” She plucked it out of his hands. “Goodbye.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He cast a last reluctant glance at the solar panel, and went back to the house. After knocking once, he pushed open the screen door.

Art looked up from his newspaper, unabashed at openly searching for another job. “Get what you wanted from her?”

“Er, no.”

“Expect the worst and you’ll never be disappointed,” Art intoned with grim satisfaction.

“I disagree, although I can see why you might hold that opinion. But there’s a silver lining in every cloud. I planned to talk to you at work tomorrow about an offer I hope you’ll take up, but if it’s convenient, we could talk now.”

“All right. Will it affect Maeve?”

“I suppose it would, indirectly.”

“Then I’ll call her in. Care for a beer?”

“Thanks.”

Art reached into the fridge for a pair of thick green bottles, the type that usually contained imported German beer.

“I brew my own,” Art said, setting the bottle and a clean glass in front of Will.

“Ah.” Will reached for it, anticipating the cold tart flavor with relish. “Where did you get all the bottles?”

Art tipped his head and winked. “That, me old son, was a labor of love.”

The phone rang, and Art crossed the kitchen to answer it. “Hello? Yep, hang on a tick.” He carried the receiver to the back door, stretching the phone cord as far as it could reach. “Maevie! Phone.”

Maeve came in, dropped her basket on the counter and took the receiver from her father, averting her gaze from Will as she leaned against the counter. “Hello?”

As Maeve listened, her face turned pale. Lowering her voice, she walked as far away as the phone cord would allow, to stand in the doorway between kitchen and lounge room, her back to them.

“Pour carefully,” Art said, pretending not to notice. “You don’t want the sediment in the bottom of the bottle.”

“I used to make beer when I was at university.” Will expertly tilted his glass and poured, then held it up to the light, all the while aware of Maeve. “Nice color. Wheat beer, is it?”

Art looked pleased. “Bit of an aficionado, are you?”

“Passionate.” His gaze flicked to Maeve. Her shoulders were hunched and stiff. “What footy team do you barrack for?”

“Collingwood Magpies,” Art proclaimed. “Like my father and grandfather before me.”

“I’m a Carlton Blues fan myself.” Will sipped his beer. “Hey, this is good.”

Art nodded, but his smile was forced. He, too, was aware of Maeve’s tension. “Her ex-husband,” he explained in a low voice.

“We should give her some privacy.” Will started to rise.

Abruptly, she hung up.

Art swiveled in his chair. “Maevie, love, you okay?”

Dry-eyed and drawn, she nodded. She glanced at the full beer in Will’s hand. “I’ll be out in the garden.”

“Will has something important to discuss with me,” Art said, as she started to leave. “You’re to stay and hear it, too.”

“More bad news?” Her voice was bitter.

“Maevie, be polite,” Art said quietly.

“You might as well listen,” Will said. “I’m sure Art will want to talk it over with you, in any case.”

Maeve got herself a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and sat next to her father. She pushed up her sleeves and leaned on the table, faint scratches visible on her tanned forearms. “Well, what is it?”





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