Hired by the Brooding Billionaire

Every garden was different. The same species of plant could vary in its growth from garden to garden depending on its access to sunlight, water and the presence of other vegetation. She suspected there would be surprises aplenty in a garden that had been left to its own devices and was now coming into her care.

A flash of purple caused her to stop and admire a lone pansy blooming at the base of a lichen-splashed stone wall. She marvelled at the sheer will to survive that had seen a tiny seed find its way from its parent plant to a mere thimbleful of hospitable soil and take root there. It didn’t really belong there but no way would she move it.

Not only had she learned to expect the unexpected when it came to Mother Nature, she had also learned to embrace it.

Declan Grant was unexpected, unexplained. She batted the thought away from where it hovered around her mind like an insistent butterfly. He was her boss. He was a widower. He wasn’t her type.

Her experience with men had been of the boring—she’d broken their hearts—and the bad boys—they’d broken hers. She suspected Declan was neither. He was a man who had obviously loved his wife, still revered her memory.

Her thoughts took a bitter twist. He was not the kind of man who cheated and betrayed his wife. Not like Steve, who had pursued her, wooed her, then not until she’d fallen deeply in love with him had she found out he was married.

Steve’s wife had confronted her, warned her off, then looked at her with pity mingled with her anger when she had realised Shelley had had no idea that her lover was married.

Shelley still felt nausea rise in her throat when she remembered that day when her life based on a handsome charmer’s lies had collapsed around her. She’d felt bad for the wife, too, especially when the poor woman had wearily explained that Shelley hadn’t been the first of Steve’s infidelities and would most likely not be the last. Even after all that, Steve had thought he could sweet-talk his way back into her affections, had been shocked when she’d both literally and figuratively slammed the door in his face.

The only vaguely comforting thing she’d taken away from the whole sordid episode in her life was that she’d behaved like an honourable ‘other woman’ when she’d discovered she was a mistress not an about-to-be fiancée. Not like the other type of ‘other woman’ who had without conscience seduced her father away from his family.

Now she swallowed hard against the remembered pain, took off her hat and lifted her face to the early-morning sun. Then she closed her eyes to listen to the sounds of the garden, the breeze rustling the leaves, the almost imperceptible noise of insects going about their business, the gentle twitter of tiny finches. From high up in the camellias came the raucous chatter of the rainbow lorikeets—the multicoloured parrots she thought of as living jewels.

Out here in the tranquillity of the garden she could forget all that had hurt her so deeply in the past. Banish thoughts of heartbreak and betrayal. Plan for a future far away from here. ‘You might have more luck with the English guys.’ She hadn’t known whether to laugh at Lynne’s words or throw something at her sister.

But she didn’t let herself feel down for long—she never did. Her spirits soared at the privilege of working in this wonderful garden—and being paid so generously to do it.

Getting used to working with a too-handsome-for-comfort boss was something she would have to deal with.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_ee9f9f01-0365-51d3-bba0-59fe0099dc1b)

DECLAN LOCATED THE keys to both the shed and the apartment without too much difficulty. But the tags attached to them were labelled in Lisa’s handwriting and it took him a long moment before he could bear to pick them up. He took some comfort that she would be pleased they were at last being put to use.

Before he took the keys out to Shelley, he first detoured by the front porch and grabbed her leather tool bag from where she had left it. He uttered a short, sharp curse it was so heavy. Yet she had carried it as effortlessly as if it were packed with cotton wool. No wonder her arms were so toned.

He lugged it around to the back garden.

No Shelley.

Had she been put off by the magnitude of the task that faced her and taken off? Her old 4x4 was parked on the driveway around the side of the house and he might not have heard it leave. He felt stabbed by a shard of unexpected disappointment at the thought he might not see her again. He would miss her presence in his garden, in his life.

Then he saw sense and realised there was no way she would leave her tool bag behind.

He soon caught sight of her—and exhaled a sigh of relief he hoped she didn’t hear.

His warrior-woman gardener had hopped over the wall and jumped down into the metre-deep empty pond that surrounded the out-of-commission fountain. There she was tramping around it, muttering under her breath, her expression critical and a tad disgusted as though she had encountered something very nasty. Her expression forced from him a reluctant smile. In her own mildly eccentric way, she was very entertaining.

For the first time, Declan felt a twinge of shame that he had let the garden get into such a mess. The previous owner had been ill for a long time but had stubbornly insisted on staying on in her house. Both money and enthusiasm for maintenance had dwindled by the time she had passed away. When he and Lisa had moved in, he had organised to get the lawns mowed regularly. But even he, a total horticultural ignoramus, had known that wasn’t enough.

In fact he had mentioned to his wife a few times that maybe they should get cracking on the garden. Her reply had always been she wanted it to be perfect—compromise had never been the answer for Lisa—and she needed to concentrate on the house first.

Her shockingly unexpected death had thrown him into such grief and despair he hadn’t cared if the garden had lived or died. He hadn’t cared if he had lived or died. But now, even from the depths of his frozen heart, he knew that Lisa would not have been happy at how he had neglected the garden she had had such plans for.

Grudgingly he conceded that maybe it was a good thing the neighbours had intervened. And a happy chance that Shelley Fairhill had come knocking on his door.

Not that he would ever admit that to anyone.

She looked up as he approached, her face lit by the open sunny smile that seemed to be totally without agenda. Early on in his time as a wealthy widower he had encountered too many smiles of the other kind—greedy, calculating, seductive. It was one of the reasons he had locked himself away in self-imposed exile. He did not want to date, get involved, marry again—and no one could convince him otherwise no matter the enticement.

‘Come on in, the water’s fine,’ Shelley called with her softly chiming laugh.

Declan looked down to see the inch or so of dirty water that had gathered in one corner of the stained and pitted concrete pond. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,’ he said with a grimace he couldn’t hide.

He intended to stand aloof and discuss the state of the pond in a professional employer-employee manner. But, bemused at his own action, he found himself jumping down into the empty pond to join her.

‘Watch your nice boots,’ she warned. The concrete bottom of the pond was discoloured with black mould and the dark green of long-ago-dried-out algae.