Always Be Mine: Sweetbriar Cove: Book Nine

by Melody Grace

  “I figured you were more of the same.”

  “Huh.” Griffin paused. “Seems like a lot of stress to me. How do you ever relax?”

  “With difficulty,” Lila replied wryly. She shifted, uncomfortable at getting personal with this stranger. “I would have handled them, though,” she added. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Clearly.”

  She looked over, but there was no sarcasm in his tone. “Anyway, I’m not far. Take a right on Clemancy Lane.”

  “I remember.”

  “Oh. Right.” She paused, remembering the bedraggled look on his face when she’d blasted him with water. “I’m sorry about the situation with the hose,” she said quietly, and although Griffin didn’t look over, she saw a smile spread across his face.

  “Situation? That’s one way to describe it.” He chuckled. “I’m all for cold showers, but usually I take mine indoors.”

  “You have to admit, you looked pretty suspicious,” she pointed out. “What was I supposed to think?”

  “You’re right,” he agreed, still smirking. “When I see a stranger, I immediately think ‘paparazzo trespassing to take secret photos.’ ”

  “You don’t have my life,” Lila protested.

  “You’re right. ‘Griffin Forrester digs a trench’ wouldn’t exactly make the front page.”

  “But ‘Lila Moore gets dirty’ would.”

  Griffin snorted. “Seriously?”

  “You have no idea. Once, my plumbing went out, and I made the mistake of going to the launderette instead of sending my assistant,” Lila recalled. “They ran photos of me folding laundry for a week, speculating that my career was in freefall, or was I researching for a new role, and did I have a secret endorsement deal promoting detergent?”

  He hooted with laughter, and Lila allowed herself a smile.

  “It’s funny now, but my publicity team called an emergency summit. I had to pretend to date that tennis player for a month, just to get the story to change.”

  “You do that?” Griffin looked surprised. “Fake relationships?”

  “No, not anymore. Most of the time it’s not faked, exactly,” she added. “You meet, hit it off, arrange to go to dinner like anyone else would . . . It’s just, your publicity teams make sure everybody knows about it.”

  “Sounds pretty complicated to me.”

  “It can be.” Lila paused, thinking again of Justin, her almost-husband. He’d promised their relationship would be just the two of them—which is why she hadn’t understood when tiny snippets about their lives started cropping up in the press. A gossip item here, a candid photo there . . . she’d thought one of her team might be secretly leaking info, but now, seeing how naturally he’d taken to the spotlight, she had to wonder now if it was him all along.

  “For some people, it’s worth it,” Lila found herself explaining. “The industry runs on fame. If you have a profile, that gets you roles in movies and TV shows. Now, they even cast actors based on how many social media followers they have.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “That’s Hollywood,” Lila said with a shrug as they pulled up outside the cottage. It was funny how many things seemed normal to her, but explaining them to an outsider now, they sounded utterly bizarre. “Anyway, that’s why I’m here. Taking a break from all of that. And when I saw the house . . .”

  She smiled. Backlit by the sun, framed with overgrown bushes, Rose Cottage was still as lovely as the moment she’d first laid eyes on it.

  “Those brambles could use pruning,” Griffin muttered. “And I don’t suppose you’re going to clear the weeds, are you?”

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how,” Lila admitted with a laugh. She grabbed her purse and scrambled down. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Fine. I’ll take the job,” Griffin announced.

  Lila blinked. “What?”

  “The gardens. I’ll fix them.”

  He didn’t exactly sound thrilled, but Lila was too surprised to argue. Besides, with summer coming, it would be wonderful to spend more time outdoors . . . “OK,” she found herself agreeing. “I mean, that would be great.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, first thing,” Griffin said briskly, starting the engine again.

  Lila quickly shut the passenger door and unstrapped her bicycle from the rack. “I’ll need you to sign some papers,” she said, back through the open window. “A basic non-disclosure, and—”

  “I don’t deal with that,” Griffin cut her off.

  Lila startled. “But—”

  “Papers don’t mean anything. You’ll just have to trust me,” he said, then he drove off before she could reply.

  Trust. She gave a wry smile. It wasn’t exactly second nature to her, not after the year she’d had. But she was starting over, wasn’t she?

  And the brambles really did need cutting back.

  4

  When Griffin said “first thing,” he meant it. He arrived at the cottage bright and early at 7 a.m. the next morning, expecting Lila to still be in bed. A few hours getting the lay of the land alone, that’s what he’d planned, but to his surprise, she was waiting to greet him at the back door, dressed in jeans and a simple sky-blue pullover, with the delicious scent of coffee drifting in the air.

  “Good morning!” she beamed, far too perky—and far too beautiful—for him to be dealing with so early. He was beginning to see why she adorned all those magazine covers, if she could look this luminous before the sun had barely risen.

  “Can I get you a drink?” she asked. “Tea? Coffee? I found an old machine in the pantry, so I’ve been making it with freshly-ground espresso beans.”

  “Coffee. Thanks. Black,” he added gruffly.

  “Coming right up.” Lila ducked back into the kitchen. Griffin let out a breath of relief. Maybe now he could focus on the job at hand. Clearly, she’d bounced back after that incident in town yesterday. He probably should have left her alone, Lila could obviously take care of herself, but something had made him intervene when he’d seen those cellphone cameras ready to capture her meltdown. It was the same something that had led to him accepting the landscaping job at the cottage.

  Griffin was just hoping that instinct was simple neighborly compassion, and not the fact that her smile could have lit up the whole Cape.

  He grabbed his bag from the Jeep, but he was only unloading his tools when Lila emerged again with a steaming mug in her hands. “What do you have there?” she asked, moving closer. “You said something about pruning the bushes, but you won’t cut them all down, will you? I love this overgrown look, it feels like something out of a fairytale.”

  “I’m not cutting anything yet,” he told her, retrieving his battered notebook and a stub of pencil. “First, we have to see what the garden wants.”

  “It has an opinion on that?” Lila looked amused.

  “Every landscape does,” Griffin told her. He accepted the coffee and took a sip. Damn, that was good.

  “Grinding the beans makes all the difference, doesn’t it?” Lila said, obviously noticing his satisfied sigh. “I’m trying all kinds of things from scratch now. Like pasta! I didn’t even realize you could make it with just some flour and water. It makes me wonder how those fancy restaurants can charge thirty bucks a plate.”

  Griffin was beginning to regret starting so late. Maybe at 6 a.m. he would have stood a chance for some peace and quiet.

  He headed deeper into the garden, but Lila followed, keeping up her stream of chatter. “. . . I think I’ll try bread next, and it would be great to have some herbs back here. Every time I try to grow them in pots, I kill them all, but maybe if they were in the ground—”

  “Would you be quiet?”

  Griffin’s request came louder than he’d planned, and Lila’s smile dimmed.

  “I just mean, it’s early, and I need to focus.”

  “Of course. Sorry!” Lila dropped back, and Griffin tried to get his head back to soil composition and shade patterns. He began
by making a rough sketch of the gardens, then slowly pacing the perimeter, noting the natural undergrowth and any signs of old plants and shade. Along the back wall, brambles had overrun any more delicate plants, but closer to the house, there were the remnants of flower beds, and some wildflowers dotted in the grass. He leaned over to pick a couple.

  “Bluebells.”

  Lila’s voice startled him. She was hovering nearby, watching. “I looked them up online,” she added. “And those are daffodils, right?”

  “Narcissus,” he corrected her. “But yes, they’re related.”

  He straightened up and made some more notes.

  “So, what is it you do?”

  He turned.

  “I mean, how would you even start a project like this?” Lila asked, looking interested. “I don’t know anything about gardens, or growing things. I can’t even keep a houseplant alive,” she added.

  “So, you’ll be wanting the automated drip system then,” Griffin said wryly, and made another note.

  “And lavender,” she said, with a wistful smile. “I want lemon trees and lavender, in gorgeous manicured rows, like something out of the South of France.”

  “No.” Griffin turned back to the garden, but Lila frowned.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’? It’s what I want. I’m paying you here. A truly exorbitant amount, by the way. And the customer is always right.”

  “Not when it comes to Mother Nature.” Griffin looked up and found her scowling at him. He let out a sigh. “See, this is why I don’t do drama,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  Griffin shook his head. “If you’re going to act like this for the rest of the job, then I may as well quit right now.”

  “I just don’t understand.” Lila folded her arms stubbornly. “Are you one of those eccentric designers who can’t possibly do something as simple as give your client what they actually want?”

  “It’s not my problem, it’s the garden’s,” Griffin informed her. “Lemon trees and lavender need a warm, mild climate, year-round. Hence the South of France. They’ll last about five minutes here, until the first frost. Plus, you’re facing east,” he added. “Which means that half of the garden will be in shadow most of the year. No sun, no blooms—not unless they’re a hardy variety.”

  “Oh.”

  Griffin braced himself for a tantrum. He’d seen his share of them, usually from demanding clients—right before he walked out the door. On the one hand, he could understand the disappointment, having a vision for a place that would never come true.

  On the other, they were usually just assholes.

  But instead of throwing a fit and demanding he install the trees regardless, Lila just shrugged. “Well, you should have just said so. About the climate. What would work here then, do you think?”

  “Uh, I was picturing an English country garden.” Griffin scrambled to recover his train of thought. “To match the cottage. Rose beds, creeping ivy up the walls, some hydrangeas for color . . .” He pointed to the different areas he thought would suit. “If you want fruit trees, we could try apple instead of the citrus. They stand up better to the winters here.”

  “Roses . . .” Lila slowly smiled.

  Griffin continued, encouraged. “A small paved area, back here to the side. Room for a table and some chairs. You don’t want to put in a pool, do you?”

  “I don’t know.” Lila shot him a smile. “What does the garden want?”

  He chuckled. Now she was learning. “No pool. You’d have to lose these mature trees, and that would be a damn shame.”

  “I love the trees,” Lila agreed. “And the patio idea. Maybe over here, near the kitchen, so I can just keep the doors open in summer and be in and out?”

  “That would work.” Griffin nodded, pacing it out. It was sheltered there, too, and he could already tell it would be a sun-trap come the warmer months. Maybe Lila would get her lavender, after all—but in planters, to protect them from ground frost . . .

  There were a hundred possibilities, the part of the job he loved the most. Imagining all the ways he could transform the space, the way the client could enjoy the garden.

  Griffin got out his notebook and got to work.

  Lila watched Griffin roam the garden: pausing to check the soil, snap cellphone photographs of the different corners, and even pluck a couple of leaves from a nearby bush and bring them to his mouth for a taste.

  Now there was a curious man.

  Lila hadn’t realized there was so much involved with planning a garden. Back in the Hollywood Hills, her place came with the landscaping already complete: a complicated terraced affair with sun decks, a pool, and bubbling water features at every turn. “It will photograph great,” her realtor had assured her, but Lila had never quite felt at home. There were no shady spots, no scented blossoms brightening the scene, not like here, where new flowers burst everywhere she looked, and birdsong drifted through her windows every morning.

  But when it came to the design? Lila was already fascinated. She figured it would be a simple question of deciding what she wanted and Griffin just making it happen, but hearing the way he talked about the natural landscape, it was clear that wasn’t the way he did things.

  Lila left him to the leaf-nibbling and headed back inside. She made a slice of toast, spread thickly with a tart blueberry jam she’d picked up in town, and then settled in at the table with her laptop for some good old-fashioned research.

  OK, snooping.

  She opened up a search window and got to clicking, and soon, she was looking at hundreds of results for her gruff new gardener.

  He was famous.

  Well, about as famous as you can get in the landscape design world. There were breathless magazine profiles, photo spreads of his VIP clients showing off his work, and photos of Griffin looking uncomfortable in a tux at various formal events. Some of them showed him on the arm of a beautiful brunette woman, and Lila couldn’t resist clicking through to read more.

  Griffin Forrester and wife Ruby Levine at the American Fashion Foundation annual benefit . . .

  Lila blinked. Griffin, attending a fashion event?

  Griffin, married?!

  Lila slammed her laptop shut. She was itching to find out more, but it felt wrong to be clicking around on the internet like some kind of stalker.

  If, on the other hand, she happened to get chatting to someone who knew Griffin better . . .

  She knew just the person.

  Lila grabbed her jacket. “I’m just heading out!” she called from the back door. Griffin gave her a vague wave, on his knees by some bushes, so Lila hopped on her bicycle and rode into town, along the breezy shore road to where Alice’s office sat, crammed in the front room of a house near the beach.

  “Hello?” she called, tapping on the door that swung ajar. “Alice?”

  “Back here!” the reply came from deep inside the cluttered hallway. Lila carefully navigated her way past teetering file boxes and old books to the kitchen, where Alice was standing over the old teakettle, reading a dense legal brief through her cat’s-eye spectacles.

  “Lila!” Alice smiled, looking surprised. “What brings you over here? I was just making tea,” she added. “Strong tea. This boundary dispute is just about putting me to sleep.”

  Lila smiled. Alice was a lawyer—and a talented one at that. The first time Lila had dropped by, she’d taken one look at the towering stacks of boxes and sagging bookcases and panicked, wondering if she’d made a huge mistake. It was certainly a far cry from the gleaming offices of her legal team back home, with their marble lobbies and sweeping city views. But Alice had whipped out an iron-clad purchase agreement for the cottage—complete with an anonymous shell corporation, so nobody would ever link it back to Lila—and proved she could more than keep up with the job. She’d been the first person Lila had told about moving here . . . and her first friend on the Cape.

  “Tea would be lovely, thanks,” Lila replied.

  Alice set out a
nother mug and helpfully moved a stack of books from one of the chairs. “Sorry about the mess,” she apologized, pushing back her curly dark hair. “My mom tried reading that de-cluttering book, the one where you’re supposed to thank all your possessions and send them off into the world with grace? Anyway, she made it halfway through and then we just… gave up.”

  Lila laughed. “I could never go in for that minimal, simple-life thing. Someone came to help reorganize my closets, and we nearly came to blows over my high-school theatre costumes.”

  “Well, obviously.” Alice grinned. “Who knows when you might need them again?”

  “Everything comes back into style eventually,” Lila agreed. “Even spangled Wicked Witch costumes.”

  Alice prepared the tea and brought it to the table. “Cake?” she suggested. “A client dropped some by the other day, as thanks for a particularly sticky divorce filing.”

  “Yes, please. I have fifteen years of no-carb diets to make up for,” Lila added, her mouth watering at the sight of the luscious carrot cake Alice produced. “It’s hard work, but I think I’m up to the challenge.”

  “I believe in you,” Alice grinned, cutting an extra-large slice for her. “Aim high.”

  Lila took a happy mouthful. Pasta, cinnamon rolls, and now cake . . . Her nutritionist would probably faint at the thought—or the fact he hadn’t eaten solid food in a year.

  “So what brings you over here?” Alice asked, taking a sip of tea. “Everything OK with the house?”

  “Everything’s great,” Lila replied. “Griffin has just started on the gardens today.”

  Alice’s eyebrows shot up. “He took the job? Oh.”

  “You heard about the . . . incident, then?” Lila gave a rueful smile, and Alice grinned.

  “I wish I’d been there to see it. But I’m sorry you got such a shock,” she added. “I was going to call you and set up an introduction, but, well, it didn’t occur to Griffin you might have a problem with a complete stranger digging around in your yard. He’s a genius with plants,” she added, “but when it comes to people . . .”

  There was the opening Lila had been looking for.