The Unfinished Garden

by Barbara Claypole White

  “Care to explain?”

  “I became hyper,” he snapped, and sped up.

  A slither of bright light peeked through the overgrown opening ahead. They had reached the kissing gate.

  “So how does all this end up on my nursery doorstep?” she said.

  “They’re instituting clinical trials at Duke University in exposure therapy. I sold the business, my apartment in Chicago, the farm, and moved south to be part of those trials. Unfortunately, they’ve been postponed until the spring, and I’m not a patient man. So I created a plan, one that involved you. Although my original idea was to watch you garden, then ease myself in when no one was around. But you’ve altered everything.” He smiled. “And given me an opportunity. Do you believe in fate, Matilda Rose?”

  The past brushed across the nape of her neck, and for a moment she considered bolting for the kissing gate, leaving James and his probing questions behind. No one ever called her Matilda Rose, except for her father.

  “How do you know my full name?” Was he a stalker after all?

  “Baptismal roll. I took a nocturnal walk yesterday and found the church open. I was quite surprised—I expected it to be locked.”

  “It should have been.” She marched toward the kissing gate, but James reached it before she did. He held the gate steady, preventing her from swinging it around and squeezing through.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Do you believe in fate?”

  He had done it again—jabbed at her weakness. Yes, she used to believe in fate, the same way she used to believe in forever. After all, without fate, how could she explain the random act of meeting David? But to talk about fate shifted the balance between her and James. Fate was a word with serious connotations. It was like glimpsing the tail of a black snake on the garden—a harmless snake, but still a snake—and knowing that she was in its territory, destined to spend the rest of the summer gardening with one eye casting around for its presence.

  “I want to believe that people who need each other find each other.” She stared up into eyes that had grown tawny in the light of The Chase, speckled with gold like a stone flecked with mica. “And I want to believe that you can move through another person’s life and make a difference, feel richer for the experience.” And if not, what did she have to lose? A fortnight, a fleeting period of time. Little more than a hiccup.

  “Tell me what I need to know,” she said, “if you hit a ten.”

  James grinned. When he smiled, really smiled, it transformed him, smoothed out the sharp edges. And suddenly, she yearned to touch his face.

  “Did Isaac have night terrors,” James said, “when he was younger?”

  She nodded. “Some.”

  “How did you handle them?”

  “Guided him back to bed and then lay on the floor until he slept peacefully.”

  “Then you know what to do. Once I start spiraling it’s a question of waiting out the storm. I’m sorry. You don’t need this right now, do you?”

  “I was widowed at thirty-four. I can weather the odd storm.”

  James stepped back and Tilly entered the confined space created by the swinging gate. She was neither in The Chase, nor in Bramwell Hall’s park. She was in no-man’s-land.

  “There is a positive side,” James said, “to hitting a ten. Your body can’t sustain a level of anxiety that high for long.”

  “Lovely. Remind me of that when we’re both in hell. What if we forget digging and start with pruning, the favored chore of gardening neat freaks? Some gardeners will tell you to prune in the spring, some in the fall, but it’s codswallop. You prune when your secateurs are sharp. Are you game to try?”

  “Terrified, but it won’t stop me.” He held out his hand and they both watched it vibrate. “And now that I’ve scoured myself raw, you’re still here, Matilda Rose. Why is that?”

  Tilly stared at the barbed wire fence that penned the sheep in the park. A cobweb of wool, snagged on the wire, shivered in a snatch of breeze. “I used to prattle endlessly to Isaac about plants. ‘Shall we pot up those salvias? Have an adventure and sell them at the farmers’ market?’ My hobby became our lifeline and then my business. Gardening saved my sanity.”

  “But it destroyed mine.” James followed her through the kissing gate.

  “Exactly. And that’s the most heartbreaking thing you’ve told me today.”

  Chapter 16

  “I’ve found nirvana,” Tilly groaned.

  James dragged his hands up her back, elbowed her straw hat into her lap and slowly stretched her spine. If not for his hands keeping her upright, she would dissolve into a puddle of bliss all over Lady Roxton’s bench. His fingers crawled up into her hairline and kneaded her scalp in lazy, circular strokes that tingled through every nerve ending.

  “Where did you learn massage?” she wheezed.

  “I pay attention to what feels good.” James leaned over the back of the bench and she caught the sour odor of sweat. After two hours of hauling debris to the bonfire in fierce afternoon heat, she felt pretty ripe herself, not that it seemed to bother James. He leaned closer still. “Your nirvana is called the will-you-marry-me stroke.”

  “And the answer would have to be yes,” she said and tensed. Bugger. Was she flirting? Worse, would he think she was flirting? She was so out of practice with men, and trying to make sense of where she was heading with James was harder than driving on a country road at night in a doozy of a thunderstorm—with a flat tire and no headlights.

  He collapsed beside her, legs flung open, arms flung out. How could someone who waged a constant war against his mind be so assured in his body? Every time he stretched she got goose bumps, honest to God. Were his fluid movements payoffs from all that yoga? Amazing, that he could stand on his head every morning—chest bare, eyes closed—and not even wobble. Headstands balanced his mind, he’d explained. And revealed his abs, Rowena had commented.

  James rumbled through a slow, deep moan. And Tilly had the same weird feeling she experienced when a thunderstorm brought the smell of ozone to the forest—that palpable awareness of unharnessed energy surrounding her.

  “Didn’t I warn you gardening was a serious workout?” Tilly tried to move, but the muscles in her lower back had locked. “Think of the fortune you’ll save on gym fees.”

  “Right,” James said.

  High above, jackdaws mocked.

  Tilly winced as her right shoulder blade throbbed with sickening persistence. She had overdone it, again, and would have to relinquish a chunk of her evening to lying supine on the floor, legs stuck up in the air with a hot water bottle jammed under her spine. Still, it was worth it. Those perennials in the white border finally had room to breathe. The bed was too neat, like an overclipped show dog, but as the season wore on the plants would settle; the garden would find its character. A job bloody well done. Sari might have been right, about expanding into garden design. Although Tilly’s talent appeared not to be creating, but rescuing. Garden rescue, now that was an idea to ponder.

  After James flew home at the end of next week, she would finish what they had started. Sadness nudged at her. In six days, she and James had established routines. She would miss them, and she would miss James. Although probably not his endless need to check the bonfire every few minutes. No, she would miss that, too. And the way he pruned: legs split, breathing even, bottom lip caught between his teeth. He pruned only from the path—refusing to step on the garden—but
even so, his spirea was the first symmetrical spirea she’d ever seen. Too symmetrical; Tilly preferred her plants unkempt.

  Slowly, so as not to aggravate her back, Tilly reached down and snapped off a piece of creeping thyme. “Monday morning we move on to deadheading perennials. For the sake of the shrubs.” She crushed the thyme between her fingers and inhaled the citrus scent. “Here, smell this.”

  James cupped his hands under hers, raising her palm as if to drink from it. His hands were steady and his breath warm, but he twisted a fraction, as if to rest the weight of his head in her hand, and the bristles of his beard grated across her skin. Tilly couldn’t help it—she flinched. And James pulled back.

  “Smells like thyme,” he said, as if nothing had happened. Maybe it hadn’t.

  Tilly sighed. “Exactly. I think you should start with a herb garden, when you get home.”

  “Good idea.” He blinked slowly. His eyelashes, the color of a sable paintbrush, were too long, too beautiful for a man. “But I won’t be returning home for a while.”

  Now what was he up to? And why did she have a niggling feeling it included her?

  “I’ve changed my flight to an open ticket.” He tossed back his hair. “You won’t learn anything at the appointment, so I’m staying until you have the results. What have you told your mother and Isaac, about next Friday?”

  The gardening spell broke; the day was ruined. After the letter had arrived that morning, Tilly had told James about the appointment, then pushed it from her mind. But he couldn’t leave things alone, could he? He had to pick at the details.

  Tilly considered the foul-smelling dipping pond. Behind it, the now-silent cherub fountain held open its arms as if to say: “This is all I have left to offer, a putrid spill of algae slime and mosquito larvae.”

  “I’ve told them another lie.” She kicked at the gravel, and the letter from the breast clinic crinkled in her back pocket. “That we’re visiting a specialist nursery. And I’m rancid with guilt.”

  “Rancid with guilt?” James gave a small smile.

  “Isaac accused me of being mean, for not allowing him to join us. It’s the first time he’s said anything hurtful to me.”

  “Wait until he’s sixteen and vows to hate you for the rest of his life.” James stood, clasped his hands behind his back and bent slowly at the waist. Tilly looked away.

  “I’ll make it up to Isaac,” James continued. “But you’ll have to deflect questions about the outing. I’m not wired for lying.”

  “An OCD thing?” Tilly turned back to watch him, her interest piqued.

  “Obsessive truth telling.” James ran his hands up and down the small of his back.

  “Really?” What fabulous information. Too fabulous to ignore. “How’s your sex life?”

  The world around them was as still and as quiet as her forest during a snowfall.

  Omigod, how could I ask that? Tilly grabbed her wide-brimmed straw hat and shoved it back on, hoping to conceal her flaming cheeks. “That was totally out of line. I can’t begin to apologize for being so, so…it’s just there’s a level of comfort when we’re…you know…I feel I can say anything, well, obviously not anything.” She shook her head. “You can help me out here, you know. Jump in, anytime.”

  “I’ll take it as a compliment that you asked.” He raised his eyebrows. “Although I have no intention of answering your question.”

  “See? This is why I don’t want clients. I get too friendly and then ask completely inappropriate personal questions.” Why did she feel so ridiculous? Most men she knew would leap into any conversation about sex, but never divulge one thing about their emotional lives. With James, who could fathom the ground rules? It was as if he did everything backward. There were moments when she knew him intimately, followed by moments—this being one—when she didn’t know him at all.

  “Let me redeem myself by asking something totally bland,” she said. “What do you do for fun?”

  He raised his eyebrows again.

  “Other than cooking,” she said with deliberation.

  “I go rollerblading.”

  She gawked at him, open-mouthed. Was he joking? The guy who was terrified of everything had a lethal hobby? You couldn’t pay her to strap on a pair of Rollerblades!

  “I’m attracted to speed.” James shrugged. “You’re not a fan?”

  “I’m fearful of wobbly things with wheels. No sense of balance, you see. And besides, I took a nasty header over some handlebars when I was Isaac’s age.” She paused, remembering chewing with a swollen face, rolling onto bruises at night, and stiffness that lingered in her joints for weeks. “I have a long memory for pain.”

  “I gathered that. However, it is heartening to know you’re fearful of more than worms.” He bent down and began retying the lace on his right sneaker, even though it was tied in a flawless double bow. “What’s your greatest fear?” he said. “Dying?”

  “No. Dying and leaving my child alone.” She banged her palm against her head. “Sod it. I really don’t want to think about this, James. Please don’t make me.”

  His hair, which had flopped forward to shield his face, was almost long enough now for a ponytail. Underneath it was mahogany-colored, untouched by gray. He must have been a heartbreaker when he was younger. Although probably not as sexy as he was at forty-five.

  She gouged out some dirt from under her fingernail.

  “Distraction will ease you through the week ahead, lower your anxiety.” His voice sparked with mischief. Whatever he was planning, she didn’t want to know. “Which brings me back to Rollerblades.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I need less stress in my life, not more. And I was perfectly distracted until you brought up the subject, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Think of it as your exposure.”

  “That’s a cheap shot.”

  “How about a pact?” James straightened up. “If I can restore Rowena’s herb garden by myself, you come skating with me. The old road behind the Hall is perfect for Rollerblades. Perfect.”

  “It’s full of potholes. Very, very, very not perfect.”

  A scenario popped into her mind: James fighting with a lover, slamming a door, then rushing back into the room to apologize and throw himself into earth-shattering makeup sex. Fabulous, now she was a voyeur. Or was that a pervert?

  “The potholes are at the far end.” One corner of his lips puckered in a quivering smile.

  Crap, he looked far too smug. “And you know this how?”

  “I’ve been skating there every morning.” He pulled his sunglasses from the V of his T-shirt and put them on. “I never leave home without my blades.” His smile grew. She was stumped, and he knew it.

  She rose and was instantly eclipsed by his height. “You travel with Rollerblades? In your suitcase? You’re weird, you do know that. I mean, I like weird…weird is good, outstanding really, but— What’s wrong?”

  James was transfixed by a pile of rubble on the other side of the Tibetan rhubarb. Silently, he pushed Tilly behind him and held her there. “Hey, what the—”

  “Yes!” he whispered. “I thought it was—a female adder.”

  “What?” Tilly poked her head around his arm and spied a flash of something that resembled the pattern on a copperhead’s skin. She gulped.

  “Snakes were my childhood obsession. A good obsession for once. I love snakes.”

  “Bully for you, because they terrify me shitless. Why do you think I hate worms?” Th
e tattoo was about a boyish fantasy? Snakes and Rollerblades. Unbelievable. She kept searching for some common denominator, but really, there was nothing to bind them beyond grief.

  “Is Isaac still reading his comic book on the lawn?” James gave her a gentle push. “Go, fetch him. I’ll keep an eye on the adder.”

  “I am not bringing my child near a venomous snake.”

  “Tilly, I know what I’m doing. Trust me.” His head moved from side to side as he appraised the snake. “Aren’t you beautiful,” he said.

  He made it sound so simple: Trust me. But trust was a quagmire. Take one step too far and you sank. And so could your child. To relinquish control of Isaac’s safety to James was to hurl herself into the unknown, and possibly place her child in danger. And that was not a risk she was willing to take, which didn’t explain why she was halfway to the gate.

  * * *

  “You told me England didn’t have poisonous snakes, Mom. Right after we found the copperhead. You said that if we lived in England we wouldn’t have to worry about poisonous anything.” Isaac glared at her, hands on his hips. Where had this new contrariness come from? Was he mimicking Archie, or was he resentful of James?

  “Did I say that? I’m sorry.” See? She should know better than to lie to her child. If she wasn’t careful he would excavate her biggest lie of all and discover that she and James were visiting a breast clinic the following Friday, not a nursery in the Chilterns.

  “Is it dead?” Isaac inched toward the snake, but James held out an arm, like a protective bar, to halt him.

  “Sluggish in the heat.” James squatted down to Isaac’s eye level. “Would you like to help relocate her?”

  “Absolutely not!” Tilly yelled. “This isn’t a Boy Scouts’ cookout.”

  “Can I, Mom? Please?” Big Haddington eyes melted Tilly’s resistance.

  “I know what I’m doing,” James said to her. “As a teenager I spent summers working for a wildlife expert, rescuing snakes from yards and playgrounds. He trained me well. Very well. I’ve dealt with water moccasins.”