Читать книгу The Australian Affairs Collection - Margaret Way - Страница 60

CHAPTER TEN

SHELLEY LOOKED LONG and hard at the door in her kitchen that, she now knew, led straight through into Declan’s kitchen. The door she had promised never to use. The key was in her hand. All it would take would be to slide it into the lock and—

She put the key—which she had attached to a pewter horseshoe key ring—back down on the countertop with a clatter.

It was five-thirty in the morning. She had been awake since four o’clock. Tossing and turning and unable to get thoughts of Declan from her mind. How it had felt to kiss him. To want so much more than a kiss. More than he could give. More than it was wise to want.

She looked at the key again gleaming on the countertop. Tempting her.

At four a.m. it had been way too dark to go out and start work in the garden. She’d tried to read a book—a new one on Enid Wilson she’d ordered from a specialist gardening bookstore—but could not concentrate. Television offerings at that time of morning had not been able to engage her interest either.

So she had baked muffins. Banana and pecan muffins with a maple-syrup glaze. She could have made a pie—she had apples aplenty arranged in a fruit bowl on the table. But both of her pie dishes—enamel ones given to her by her grandma—were not here. One was with Lynne and Keith. The other was with Declan still, from when she had last seen him three days ago.

Would it be a terribly bad thing to sneak into his kitchen, retrieve the pie dish and leave an offering of some warm banana muffins on the countertop for him?

She wanted that pie dish. She wanted it now. She was helping Lynne with the catering for her engagement party on Saturday night. Pie was on the dessert menu. The problem could easily be solved by asking Declan for the pie dish. But she didn’t want it to look like a pathetic excuse to see him.

He did not want to see her; that was obvious. But he was here in the house. Last night she had seen the light on in the window high on the second floor she assumed was his office. With that preternatural awareness of his presence she had developed, she knew he was there even without the light as proof.

She picked up the key again. It turned easily in the lock.

Still in her pyjamas, heart in her mouth, she crept into the kitchen of the big house. It was silent, it was creepy, it was almost dark—with only the faint lights on the stove and the computer-controlled fridge to lead her way. She searched for the pie dish in drawers that glided out silently. She found her dish in the third drawer she tried, quite possibly put there by the cleaners.

Mission accomplished.

She eased the plate of muffins down onto the marble countertop so it wouldn’t clatter. Then immediately berated herself for such an idiotic move—and blamed it on her lack of sleep. She doubted Declan would notice the absence of the pie dish. But the sudden appearance of a plate of freshly baked muffins? There would be no doubt who had left them there and that she had trespassed.

She picked them up again, and then the pie dish, and made to tiptoe back to her door and then to her rightful side of it. Then she heard the music. A faint pulsing, driving rhythm coming, it sounded like, from somewhere on this floor.

Curiosity killed the cat—remember that, Shelley.

Another of her grandmother’s sayings flashed through her mind. Advice that in this case she really should take. But the house was otherwise dark and deserted. She’d been wondering about Declan’s secret life inside this house since the day she’d first met him. She could not resist this particular temptation.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, she tiptoed out of the kitchen and down a very short corridor. She guessed that in the old days this might have led to a scullery or cellar. Just a few silent steps from the kitchen she saw a door with a glass pane at the top—it was only the dim light coming through the glass that let her recognise it.

The music was coming from downstairs. Was Declan there? What would happen if he saw her prowling around where she had no right to prowl?

She could not resist sidling up to the glass panel and looking through.

Not a cellar but a full-size basement gym filled with serious-looking workout equipment.

And Declan was working out.

She nearly dropped her pie dish at the sight of him.

Her breath caught in her throat and her heart started hammering so loudly she could hear it.

Declan, wearing only tight black gym shorts, his upper body completely bare save for a pair of grip gloves. Declan, doing pull-ups on a terrifyingly high multi-step pull-up bar. Declan doing ‘salmon pull-ups’, so called because they involved not just pulling himself up to the bar but pushing the actual bar up with him to the next step, like salmon swimming upstream against the current. It took incredible strength in both upper body and abs to master. Strength and willpower and endurance. And courage. One slip and he’d crash to the ground taking the metal bar with him.

Shelley went to the gym when she could. But she had never seen anyone actually do salmon pull-ups.

She watched in awe as, muscles straining, he pulled both himself and the bar to the very top step without pausing. Then, again without pausing, he hooked his legs over the bar and executed a series of sit-ups punching the air as he jack-knifed his body into a sitting position—upside down.

His cut, defined muscles gleamed with sweat as he grimaced with the effort of the unbelievably tough workout he was forcing his body through.

So that was where the muscles came from.

Mesmerised, she could not tear her eyes away from him, even though she knew she risked discovery. This was a guy who described himself as a geek?

Declan working out was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. She was getting turned on just watching. Her whole body was taut with hunger for him. With pure and simple lust. She nearly fainted as he turned in mid-air to show his tight, powerful butt, the straining muscles of his broad back.

‘I don’t do meaningless flings.’

Her words of three days ago came back to haunt her.

She wanted him more than she had ever imagined she could want a man.

If she could stumble down those stairs and push herself against all that hot, hard muscle she wouldn’t be thinking about meaning. She had to cross her legs at the thought of it.

The force of her desire for him made her tremble and her knees go suddenly weak. She leaned against the door to support herself just as Declan dropped to the ground from the top of the bar to land with total control on a thick, foam mat. He looked up and her breath stopped but he immediately rolled into a series of alternating one-arm push-ups. He hadn’t seen her.

But she knew the longer she stayed there, the greater the risk of discovery.

Her heart started an even more furious pounding and she found it difficult to breathe. Not just with her overwhelming longing for him but with terror at the prospect of him catching her spying on him.

With one last look at his incredible body, she turned as quietly and as cautiously as she could and tiptoed back to the door that would send her through to her very short-term leased part of the mansion. The staff downstairs to his billionaire upstairs.

Once safely back in her kitchen, she stood with her back to the connecting door and braced herself against it, urging her heart to slow down, her breath to steady from short, urgent gasps to a more regular pattern.

How could she ever forget how Declan looked working out in that gym? How much she wanted him? Wanted this man who had made it so very clear he had nothing to give her.

Actually, when she thought back, even a meaningless fling was not on offer. He had kissed her. That was all. But it had been such a wonderful kiss, of course she had thought further to what that kind of kiss could lead to. Making love with Declan. If that one kiss had given her so much pleasure, what would—?

She could not go there. That would be dreaming an impossible dream. Declan was still deeply entrenched in his marriage—even though his wife had passed away two years ago, Declan had not moved on. The only outcome of letting herself fall for him would be heartbreak. And she had had more than enough of that. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

The grey light of dawn was starting to filter through the blinds of the apartment. She knew there was zero chance of getting back to sleep now. A quick, very cold shower and then get out into the garden.

She had a big day planned—and a surprise for Declan that he might like, or hate so much she’d never be able to face him again.

* * *

Mid-afternoon and Declan was surprised to get a text from Shelley asking him could he come down to the garden as soon as he could.

From his observation point in his office, he’d noticed a lot of activity in the grounds. A delivery of plants. Lots of digging on Shelley’s part. And the pool guys were there again.

He heaved himself up from his desk. He was tired and grumpy. He hadn’t slept at all the night before. But then what was new about that?

He’d worked right through. Burying himself in work was a better alternative to angsting about Shelley. Thinking about the difference she had made to his life. Not just because of Estella. In fact Estella seemed somehow peripheral now.

He realised now he had used Estella as a block to getting to know the real Shelley, not his imagined version of her. Estella had been self-protection.

There could be no doubt his attraction to Shelley made him see a glimmer of hope in the dark reality of his grief, a thawing of his long-frozen emotions. The kiss had made that very clear.

But the consequences if things went awry were huge—not just for him but for her. Shelley was an exceptional woman in every way—and he didn’t want to hurt her because he’d taken a step towards her too soon.

Perhaps she sensed his ambivalence and that was why she was determined to keep him at a distance, to concentrate on her plans for a career far away from here—and from him.

Before dawn he had gone down to the basement gym and driven his body through a punishing regime. Extended his body to its limits in a gruelling workout so that no thoughts could intrude—just pure physicality.

Even then—on the point of utter exhaustion—he couldn’t sleep. After his workout he had showered in the gym bathroom, then made his way up to the kitchen.

Breakfast was the one meal he was expert at preparing. Protein and lots of it was required after such an intense workout. So why in hell had he been hit by a craving for banana muffins? He’d wanted one so badly he had sworn he could smell them fresh out of the oven right there in his kitchen.

He’d been forced to phone through an order to a local bakery and have banana muffins express delivered. They tasted nothing like how he had anticipated—dry and unpalatable. There wasn’t a crumb of Shelley’s pie left either. He’d bet she’d bake a muffin that would taste a hundred times better than the ones he’d had delivered and that had subsequently landed in the trash.

His unsatisfied craving had made him grumpier than ever. And that was on top of his craving for her.

Now Shelley wanted to see him to show him something in the garden. Oddly enough, he was looking forward to it. Seeing the garden emerge from the mess it had been was more satisfying than he could ever have imagined. Shelley had vision; there was no doubt about that.

He texted her: I’ll be down in half an hour.

She was waiting for him by the fountain—familiar Shelley in her khaki gardener garb. She coloured high on her cheeks when he greeted her—the previous time they’d met he’d been kissing her.

Inwardly he groaned. He wasn’t good at this. The last time he’d dated a woman had been when he’d met Lisa—and there hadn’t been many before her in spite of what Shelley might think.

‘Notice anything?’ she asked cheerfully.

Other than how beautiful you look—even in those awful clothes?

He nodded. ‘There’s water in the pond.’

‘And it’s not leaking away. It’s been in there for forty-eight hours. I think the pool guys nailed it. Well, not literally nailed it, of course. If they had, it would be leaking more than ever, wouldn’t it? I mean...’ Her voice trailed away.

In spite of his grumpiness he smiled; Shelley seemed to always make him smile. ‘I get what you mean.’

He inspected the pond and its surrounds, now all mellow sandstone free of grime and mould.

‘It looks awesome, doesn’t it?’ she said, eyes wide seeking his approval.

Even if it didn’t look awesome, he would say it did just so as not to extinguish that light in her eyes.

‘It’s awesome, all right. What about the fountain—does it work?’

‘That’s why I asked you down here,’ she said with a flourish of her hand. ‘You are formally invited to the grand ceremonial switching on of the fountain.’

She took him around to the back of the far wall of the pond and showed him a small, discreet box housing a switch. ‘The pump is behind there and all safely wired up to low-voltage electricity. All you have to do is turn it on.’ She paused. ‘Go ahead, you do this. It’s your fountain.’

‘But you’re the driving force behind it,’ he said. ‘The honour should be yours. You’ve put so much into it.’

Her smile dimmed. ‘It’s my job, Declan. This is what I do. And when I finish this job there’ll be another garden somewhere else.’

He ducked down to turn on the switch, hoping she wouldn’t see the sudden pain her words caused him.

Standing beside her—and noting how carefully she kept her distance—he watched as the water started to pump through the fountain, shooting up from the top and cascading down the tiers. The water sparkled as sunlight caught it and refracted off the droplets. Now he knew exactly what she meant about adding movement to the garden. And a different element of beauty. But Shelley was the most beautiful thing in this garden.

‘It’s just wonderful, isn’t it?’ she said softly. ‘I knew it was worth saving. Sometimes the things you have to work hardest to restore become the most valuable.’

‘You’re right,’ he said, his voice suddenly husky.

It was his garden and she a paid employee. But she had put her heart and soul into this restoration.

While he was pleased at how the garden was progressing, he wished he could slow down the progress to give him time to come to terms with what Shelley meant to him. As it was, the days were ticking away until the time she’d pack up her tools and move on.

Unless he stopped her.

Right now he didn’t know how that was possible.

A tiny blue wren flew through the spray of the fountain, fluffing his wings as he went. He was immediately followed by his little brown mate.

‘Oh, look at that,’ Shelley cried in delight.

‘The local wildlife seal of approval,’ he said.

‘I hope everything else in the garden works out as well,’ she said slowly.

‘I’m sure it will. It’s all starting to look very civilised,’ he said.

She took a few steps away from him, then turned back to face him.

‘There’s something else I want to show you,’ she said. ‘Something I... I didn’t discuss with you. I’m hoping it will meet with your approval.’

He was used to her being nervous around his forbidding self. But this was different. She had paled under her light tan and was wringing her hands together. He couldn’t imagine why.

‘You’d better show me,’ he said.

‘Just before I do,’ she said, ‘I want to let you know that I did it with the best of intentions, no matter what you might think.’

His interest roused, he followed her to a prominent bed in an open part of the garden behind the fountain. Looking from the house, he realised it would be in the line of vision from most of the windows of the house.

The stone wall behind the bed had been cleaned and repaired and the two antique planters put back in their place and planted with some spiky-leaved plant.

But that wasn’t what Shelley was showing him. The actual garden bed had been completely cleared of weeds and whatever plants had turned up their toes from years of neglect. The earth had been freshly turned over. He realised this was where he’d seen Shelley digging and planting for most of the morning.

He drew his brows together. ‘They’re plants, I know, but they look to me like a whole lot of brown sticks with a few green shoots here and there.’

‘They’re roses,’ she said. ‘This is a perfect aspect for roses and I hope they’ll thrive here. I’ve planted two varieties of roses here. In late spring they’ll be glorious.’

‘Yes?’ he said. What was the big deal here?

She looked up at him, her eyes a little wary. ‘At the back I’ve planted a vibrant orange and pink rose called “Lisa”.’

Declan’s heart seemed to stop beating and he felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead.

Shelley didn’t seem to expect any response from him as she continued. ‘The smaller bushes in the front have an exquisite pale pink bloom with a sweet scent. The rose is called “Miss Alice”.’

Declan felt as if his throat were swelling to choke any attempt at speech. The grief he’d felt at the loss of his wife and daughter came flooding back. But with that grief came a new emotion of gratitude for the woman who had made this gesture.

‘Thank you,’ he finally managed to get out. ‘It was very...thoughtful of you.’

Shelley expelled a great sigh of relief and he realised the tension she had been holding. ‘The “Lisa” rose is probably what you could call a...a vivacious rose. Like Lisa herself, you told me.’

Shelley’s eyes were misting with tears. His tears had long run dry.

Her voice was so low he had to lean down to catch it.

‘This was Daphne’s garden and the daphne she planted remains a memorial for her,’ she said. ‘Then it was Lisa’s garden and I hope the roses will be a beautiful tribute to her and...and to baby Alice.’

Declan was astounded at how thoughtful Shelley had been. It was something his billions could never have bought. But it was almost too much for him to be able to deal with.

‘Thank you. What you’ve done is...extraordinary. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me. And for honouring Lisa and Alice in this way.’

He didn’t mean for those words to sound so final but it was the best he could do. His remembered grief was all mixed up with his gratitude for what Shelley had done for him. Something that was so utterly right. He honestly couldn’t think of anyone else he knew who would have the heart, the compassion and the imagination required.

He started to shake and before he knew it Shelley’s arms were around him and he was holding her tight.

* * *

Shelley closed her eyes and leaned against Declan’s hard strength, loving the feel of those powerful arms around her. During those secret, stolen moments watching him work out this was what she’d been wanting.

Was he hugging her—or in his memory was he hugging Lisa?

This was a man who had genuinely loved his wife. So devastated by grief at her loss he was unable to move on.

She had not believed in such love. Certainly had not experienced it. But now she’d seen it, she wanted it for herself.

She wanted it from him. She couldn’t deny that any longer. The lying to herself had to stop.

But was Declan’s love all used up?

It would be a tragedy if that was the case. Not just for him but for her.

Because she was falling for him in spite of the very real risk to her heart.