CHAPTER THREE

      DECLAN PACED THE marble floor of his entrance hall. Back and forth, back and forth, feverish for Shelley to arrive for her first day of working on his garden. He’d actually set an alarm to make sure he wouldn’t miss her early start—something he hadn’t done for a long time. He raked his hands through his hair, looked down at his watch. Where was she?

      In the ten days since he’d met with Shelley at the house, he had lived with the fantasy warrior-woman character who was slowly evolving in his imagination. Now he was counting down the minutes to when he got to see his inspiration again in the flesh. Not in the actual flesh. Of course not. His musings hadn’t got him that far.

      At eight a.m. on the dot, she buzzed from the street and he released the gate to let her in. Then opened the front door, stepped out onto the porch and watched through narrowed eyes as she strode up the pathway towards him.

      He took a deep breath to steady the instant reaction that pulsed through him. She didn’t disappoint. Still the same strength, vigour and a fresh kind of beauty that appealed to him. Appealed strictly in a creative way, that was. He had to keep telling himself that; refuse to acknowledge the feelings she aroused that had nothing to do with her as merely a muse. As a woman, the gardener was off-limits.

      Any woman was off-limits. He hadn’t consciously made any commitment to celibacy—but after what had happened to Lisa he could not allow himself to get close to another woman. That meant no sex, no relationships, no love.

      Shelley wore the same ugly khaki clothes—her uniform, it seemed—with a battered, broad-brimmed canvas hat jammed on her head. She swung a large leather tool bag as if it were weightless. It struck him that if the gardener wanted to disguise the fact she was an attractive woman she was going the right way about it. Her attire made him give a thought to her sexual preference. Not that her personal life was any of his concern. Perhaps he could make his prototype warrior of ambivalent sexuality. It could work. He was open to all ideas at this stage.

      ‘Good morning, Mr Grant,’ she carolled in a cheerful voice edged with an excitement she couldn’t disguise. She looked around her with eager anticipation. ‘What a beautiful sunny morning to start on the garden.’

      She really wanted to do this—he could have got away with paying her half. Not that he would have haggled on the price. He was scrupulous about paying people fairly—despised people who didn’t.

      Her words were accompanied by a wide, generous smile that revealed perfect teeth. The smile lingered in her eyes. Eyes that were the colour of nutmeg—in harmony with the honey-gold of her hair. Not that he could see more than a few wisps of that as it was jammed up under her hat. He wished he could see her hair out and flowing around her shoulders. And not just for inspiration.

      ‘Call me Declan,’ he said. ‘Not Mr Grant. He’s my father.’ Though these days his father went by the title His Honour as a judge in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

      Besides, Declan didn’t do people calling him ‘Mister’. Especially a girl who at twenty-eight was only two years younger than himself. Her age had been on the résumé she’d emailed him. Along with an impressive list of references that had checked out as she’d said they would. She appeared to be exactly what she said she was, which was refreshing in itself.

      ‘Sure, Declan,’ she said. ‘Call me Shelley. But never Michelle. That’s my full name and I hate it.’

      ‘Shelley it is,’ he said.

      She buzzed with barely harnessed energy. ‘I’ll start clearing some of the overgrowth today—show your nosy neighbours you mean business. But first I really want to have a good look at what we’ve got here. Can you show me around?’ She put down her leather tool bag.

      His first thought was to tell her to find her own way around the garden. But that would sound rude. And he wanted to correct the bad first impression he’d made on her. Not only because he was her employer. But also because if he was going to base a character on her, he wanted her to stick around. He had to stomp down again on the feeling that he would enjoy seeing her here simply because she was so lovely. She was out of bounds.

      ‘There’s not a lot I can tell you about the garden,’ he said. ‘It was overgrown when I bought it.’

      ‘You can leave the plants to me. But it’ll save time if you give me the guided tour rather than have me try to figure out the lay of the garden by myself.’

      He shrugged. ‘Okay.’

      ‘Is there a shed? Tools? Motor mower?’

      ‘I can show you where the shed is—from memory there are some old tools in there.’

      ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope they’re in working order, though I do have equipment of my own, of course.’

      ‘I bought this house as a deceased estate,’ he said. ‘An old lady lived here for many years—’

      ‘So I was half right,’ Shelley said, her mouth tilting in amusement.

      ‘What do you mean by that?’

      ‘I imagined an eccentric old lady living here—a Miss Havisham type. You know, from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.’

      ‘I am aware of the book,’ he said dryly. He hadn’t expected to be discussing literature with the gardener.

      ‘Or a cranky old man.’ Her eyes widened and she slapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh. I didn’t mean—’

      ‘So you encountered a cranky younger man instead.’

      She flushed, her smooth, lightly tanned skin reddening on her cheekbones.

      ‘I’m sorry, that’s not what I—’

      ‘Don’t apologise. I do get cranky. Bad mannered. Rude. Whatever you’d like to call it. Usually after I haven’t had any sleep. Be forewarned.’

      She frowned. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

      ‘I work from my home office and I’m online until the early hours, sometimes through the night.’

      ‘No wonder you get cranky if you don’t get enough sleep.’

      He would bet she was an early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise type. Wholesome. That was the word for her—and he didn’t mean it as an insult.

      ‘I catch up on sleep during the day,’ he said.

      ‘Like a vampire,’ she said—and clapped her hand over her mouth again. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.’

      ‘You don’t have to apologise for that either. I actually find the idea amusing.’

      ‘I’m sorry— There I go apologising again. What I meant to say is that I sometimes speak before I think. Not just sometimes, lots of times. I’ve been told I need to be more...considered in what I say.’

      ‘So far you haven’t offended me in any way.’ She was so earnest he was finding it difficult not to smile at how flustered she’d become.

      ‘I’ll stay out of your way as much as possible, then.’

      ‘That might be an idea,’ he said. Then wondered why he didn’t like the thought of her avoiding him. He’d been living on his own for a long time and he liked it that way.

      Reclusive. Aloof. Intimidating. The labels had been hurled at him often enough. By people who had no idea of the intensity of the pain that had made him lock himself away. People who expected him to get over something he’d never be able to get over. Never be able to stop blaming himself for.

      ‘What do you do that makes you work such unsociable hours?’ Shelley asked.