“I can try,” she said.
He eyed her skeptically. “If you can create the illusion of childhood in a garden, I’ll believe you really are a magician.”
“The magic comes from within,” she said quietly. “You have it, too. Everyone does. You just need to find it.”
She paused to sip her drink, the melting ice cubes tinkling faintly as she lifted her glass. To Will, the curve of her throat seemed at that moment both unbearably vulnerable and unimaginably strong. Magic within? He didn’t think so. Not him.
She lowered her glass and repositioned her pen above the paper. “Did you have a special place you liked to go to as a child? A place that was yours and yours alone?”
“Why are you asking all these questions?” All of a sudden he felt vulnerable himself.
“I told you. I want to know you.” Her huge dark eyes were hypnotic; her smooth low voice was mesmerizing.
“There was a place,” he admitted slowly, “at the bottom of the garden where jasmine grew over the fence. The vines were wildly overgrown—they must have been at least six feet thick. Next to the fence I hollowed out a cubby for myself. On hot days it was cool and filled with green light. Perfumed by the jasmine.” He chuckled. “I would pretend I was an Arabian sheik living in my tent at an oasis. My golden retriever was my camel.” He threw her another skeptical glance. “Not the sort of landscaping you had in mind, I’m sure.”
“You’d be surprised.” She closed her clipboard. “I’ll just go take a few more measurements. I want to check out those lilacs by the brick wall.”
“Mind if I tag along?” Will said, rising. Then, through the open sliding doors came the sound of the door chimes.
“Saved by the bell—again.” Her mouth hinted at a smile, then she strode off across the lawn.
Will went to open the front door and found Ida, his oldest friend and practically his best mate, on the doorstep. With her auburn hair and creamy complexion, Ida would have been a knockout if not for the burn scars that marred the right side of her face, puckering the skin from the outer corner of her eye all the way down to her chin.
“Hi, Will. You’re not busy, are you?” she asked, stepping past him into the entry hall.
“No.” Even after all these years, Will never saw the scars without experiencing a stab of guilt.
Today Ida looked slighter than usual in a slim gray skirt and white fitted blouse.
“Good, because I need to talk.”
“Of course. Come through to the patio.”
They stopped in the kitchen to get Will another beer and to pour Ida a glass of chardonnay.
“Can I have some mineral water with that?” she asked, rummaging in Will’s pantry for pretzels. “I’ve been feeling a little queasy all week. Must have a tummy bug.”
Will handed her the wine spritzer. “What’s up?”
“Wait till we’re sitting.” Carrying her glass and the bag of pretzels, Ida led the way out the sliding glass doors to the patio table. When they were seated, she took a sip of her drink, put her glass down and looked Will straight in the eye. “I’ve decided to have a child.”
Will choked on his beer. “What?”
“I said, I’m going to have a child. On my own.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Ida waved a pretzel at him. “I didn’t mention it until now because I was afraid you’d try to talk me out of the idea before I’d even made up my mind. But I’ve thought long and hard and I’m very sure this is what I want. Now it’s just a question of finding someone to donate sperm.”
“But on your own! Don’t you want to get married someday?”
“Who’d marry me?”
“Come on, Ida,” Will chided. “You’re smart, successful, beautiful—”
“Stop it, Will. I might have been beautiful once,” she conceded, touching her forefinger to the fine ridges of scar tissue on her cheek. “Since this happened…forget it.”
Will fell silent, gnawed by guilt. Her scars, caused by burns from a deep-fat fryer in the fast-food joint where they’d both worked as university students, were his fault. She’d been standing over the fryer when he’d come along, on his way to the back room with his lunch. He’d stepped in a spot of grease, slipped, and his drink had flown into the fryer. He’d gone down, escaping the spray of boiling fat. Ida had caught it in the face. Thanks to her generous, forgiving nature, she’d never held the accident against him.
“Okay, so you’ll never make it in the movies, but you do all right, don’t you? I mean, your law practice is thriving, you own your house outright, you drive a brand-new BMW—” He broke off, wondering whether he was trying to convince himself or her.
“In terms of material success, yes, I’m doing fine. But it’s not enough anymore. What I want is a family.”
“I can understand that. I’d like a family, too. I’ve been thinking it’s time I settled down.”
“There you go. I’m thirty-seven, Will. It’s time to face facts. Maybe somewhere on this ever-shrinking Earth is a man who would love me for who I am, but I can’t wait forever to meet him.”
Will traced a path through the condensation on his glass. If only he could have fallen in love with her. But he’d known Ida since they were children, long before the fryer incident and the scarring. He loved her like a brother; the right chemistry just wasn’t there. “You’ll meet someone. Thirty-seven isn’t old.”
Ida snorted. “My biological clock has turned into a time bomb. If it weren’t physiologically unlikely, I’d swear I was getting hot flashes just thinking about my next birthday.”
“What about that guy from San Diego—Rick, wasn’t it? The one who was here setting up the Melbourne outlet for Borders bookstore. He seemed nice.”
“He’s gone back to the States,” Ida said with the dismissive gesture Will had come to associate with her covering up some hurt. “He wasn’t serious.”
“You always downplay any feelings a guy might have for you.” Will had thought the relationship was serious, at least on Ida’s part. He’d liked Rick, but if Rick had hurt her, Will wanted to shake him till his brain rattled. Ida hated anyone feeling sorry for her, though, even him, so he just nodded and sipped his beer.
A rustle in the bushes next to the brick wall caught his attention. Maeve emerged on the lawn. Despite the shimmering heat, she looked cool as a spring flower in her loose white shirt. Unaware of his scrutiny, she was making notes on her clipboard, head bent, wisps of shining dark hair falling over her high cheekbones. Then the warm breeze ruffled the page, and she glanced up. Seeing him watching her, she smiled.
Will froze, glass to his lips, as the oddest sensation stole over him, a kind of warmth in his midsection. A smile curved his lips as their gazes held, and the warmth expanded throughout his body, transporting him to a state of unexpected well-being.
“Who’s that?” Ida asked.
“Huh? Oh, that’s Maeve. She’s a landscape gardener, and the daughter of my foreman at the factory. She’s got some sensational ideas for the garden.”
“She’s lovely. If you’re looking to settle down, you don’t need to look farther than your own backyard.”
“I asked her out and she refused,” Will said with a frown. “No reason. Just refused.”
“Maybe she was having a bad day.”
“Maybe.”
Maeve disappeared behind