of art, really, multilayered wooden platforms sporting potted trees and barrels of flowers and water, benches and planters.
On the top platform, connected to her house by a lovely set of French garden doors, she sat at a patio table beneath a colorful umbrella, surrounded by wicker baskets full of dried flowers and baby’s breath. She was bent over something, her pink tongue stuck between her teeth in concentration, the sun on her hair turning it to flame.
He looked for a place to dump the flowers he had brought. The wilted bouquet was a ridiculous offering given the wild profusion of blossoms in her yard.
She glanced up, saw him, and froze. Then she glanced at her watch, confirming his suspicion that she would have been long gone had he waited for the appointed hour. But, by the look on her face, she had meant to be gone by now, and had gotten caught up in something, become lost in the task at hand.
He went up the stairs toward her, holding out his bouquet, a drooping peace offering.
She didn’t reach out to take it, folding her hands instead over her chest, and regarding him with wide brown eyes.
He saw she was working on an arrangement of dried flowers and what looked to be a dried corn stalk twisted into a bow shape. A glue gun was at her elbow. Given the simplicity of the items she was working with, the arrangement was nothing short of breathtaking.
“That’s very good,” he said inadequately.
She shrugged. “It’s what I do. My business.”
He sensed even this short explanation was offered to him reluctantly.
“How did you get in here?” she asked.
“I jumped the fence.”
For the slightest moment just a hint of laughter leapt in her eyes, but she doused it swiftly.
“Then you can go back out the same way.”
He ignored her. “Mark built the deck, didn’t he?”
He watched her eyes soften as she glanced around. “Yes.”
She still loved him.
Uninvited he sat down, placing the humble nosegay on the table. “He did a nice job of it.”
“You know how he loved to build things.”
“Yeah. I know.” The tree house that had been in progress since they all turned thirteen came to mind. Mark had always been the idea man. The result was a tree house that had been the envy of every boy and girl within a hundred miles. Windows with shutters, a rope ladder that wound up and down, a sturdy deck out the front door.
“Is the tree house still—?”
“Still at my mom and dad’s. Being enjoyed by the grandchildren, now. The tree house. This deck. They’re all he ever built. He never became an architect. He got sick before he completed his degree.”
“I’m sorry.” And he was. But the word grandchildren was begging for his attention. He looked around for toys, for signs. Surely he would have heard. “The kids enjoying the tree house aren’t yours, are they?”
She shook her head, looked away quickly. “My sister. Margie’s.”
He remembered her sister, Margie, only vaguely. She had been much older than them. Or so it had seemed at the time. Four or five years now wouldn’t be quite the same chasm.
“Mark got sick very shortly after we got married.”
“Aw, Tory. I didn’t know.”
“Would it have made any difference?”
He didn’t know, so he didn’t say anything. She didn’t seem to expect him to. Unless he was mistaken, she was still in her pajamas, a kind of fuzzy two-piece short suit with pudgy angels frolicking in the pattern of fabric.
Not intended to be the least bit sexy, he found it unbelievably so.
“Is that coffee I smell?” he asked wistfully.
She glared at him.
“I’ll trade you this little posy.” He wagged his eyebrows at the flowers, hoping she would laugh.
“You’re offering those in trade? They look pretty near to death,” she said scornfully.
“The coffee’s an unknown. I tried cookies you baked on three or four occasions before I wised up and fed them to old Brewster.”
“No wonder that dog was so monstrously fat. I suppose it wasn’t just you, was it?”
This was encouraging. She was asking him questions.
“Mark, too,” he admitted, “and your dad.”
“My dad?” She was trying to look outraged, but he thought he could see a bit of smile trying to press out past the prissy set of her lips.
She took the flowers, got up and marched into the house. The shorts were really very short. Her legs were gorgeous. It looked like she could still ride a bicycle fitteen or twenty miles without breaking into a sweat, or shinny up a tree in five seconds fiat.
She glanced back and caught him looking. He half expected her to slam the door behind her, turn the key in the lock and then stick out her tongue at him, but she didn’t.
She came back out a few minutes later, a carafe of coffee in one hand and an extra mug in the other, a long white terry-cloth robe hiding her delectable little knees from him.
She poured him a coffee as the birds rioted in her yard.
“What a beautiful space you’ve created for yourself, Tory.”
She looked at him uneasily. “I grow most of these flowers for my business.”
“What is your business?” He took advantage of the tenuous peace between them.
“I make dried flower arrangements, like this one, and sell them to upscale gift shops like the ones on Kensington and in Mount Royal Square. I have some contracts in Banff, too.” There was a hint of pride in her voice.
She’ll need to know she can make it on her own.
“You’re doing well, aren’t you?”
“Extremely. Better than I ever expected. I call my business Victoria’s Garden.”
He wanted to pull her in his arms and swing her around at the pride he saw shining in her eyes. But that brought thoughts of what her body, wrapped in the fluffy robe, would feel like after all these years.
Now, for the first time, his mind going down a very dangerous path—thinking wayward thoughts of her—
“Adam?” she asked.
“Coffee’s great,” he said gruffly, taking a sip. It really was great Exotic. Like coffee and chocolate and mint all mixed together. “Have your cookies improved?”
“I seem to have better luck with flowers. Adam, what are you doing here?”
“I told you. Taking you Rollerblading.”
“But I don’t want to go Rollerblading!”
Neither do I, he thought. It was not on his list of the one hundred and one things that he most wanted to do in his life.
“Why not?” he asked, sneaking a look at her over the rim of his coffee cup. She looked beautiful. Flustered, her curls scattered around her face, the freckles standing out on her nose. Her freckles always stood out on her nose when she was upset.
Somehow the purpose of this exercise had not been to upset her.
“I’m too old,” she said.
He almost spit out his coffee. “Too old to have fun?”
“Oh, Adam.” she said. “I stopped believing life was fun a long time ago.”
And