the house and Flynn stooped to collect his jacket and sweater. He washed his hands on the garden tap at the bottom of the stairs as she raced into the house to grab the keys.
“You’re not in Red Coat this time, I’m sorry. I had a previous booking, so you’re in Tea Cutter, the cottage we passed on the way to plant the tree,” she said as she descended the steps to rejoin him.
“I noticed there was another car in the parking lot. Interlopers.”
She smiled at his small joke and handed the key over. “Good luck with your inspection. When do you take possession?”
“Next weekend.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t muck around.”
“You know what they say, life’s short. It suited the vendors to have the sale go through quickly and it suited me.”
He pulled his car keys from his jeans pocket and she realized she was holding him up.
“Take notes on the orchard grove for me.” She took a backward step to signal she was letting him go. “I’m basing my new orchard on memories of my last visit to Summerlea so I might quiz you on it later.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Are you admitting to shamelessly ripping off my new garden’s design, Ms. Porter?”
“Um…yes?”
He laughed. “I’ll take some photos for you.” He turned to go, then swung back. “Unless you want to come to the inspection with me?”
It was her turn to laugh. “Sure. I could give you advice on your renovations. Tell you how a pro would do it.”
“I’m serious. I’d actually appreciate hearing your opinion.”
He was sincere, she could see it in his face. Once she got past her surprise, her first impulse was to say no—she’d gotten into the habit of saying no to a lot of things during her marriage, for a number of reasons—but it had been ten years since she’d seen the gardens at Summerlea. It would be beyond helpful to see how Edna Walling had designed the orchard and how the garden had matured.
Mel hesitated for a moment, then caught sight of her muddy jeans. She was caked from the knees down, her sweater blotched with yet more muck. The Lord only knew what was going on with her hair—something bad, she suspected, because it rarely behaved itself.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m not really fit to be seen in public right now.”
She indicated her muddy clothes.
“It’ll only be me and the real estate agent. No film crews or paparazzi.”
She opened her mouth to issue another polite excuse.
“All right. If I wouldn’t be in the way,” she heard herself say. “I’d love to come.”
“Do you need to lock up?”
“I do. I won’t be a tick.”
She went into the house to secure the front door and grab her house keys, and all the while a voice in her head screamed at her to go back and tell him no, thank you, and send him on his way. The voice told her he was simply being polite, that he couldn’t possibly really want her tagging along, that even if they’d had a perfectly nice, perfectly normal conversation, she was bound to say or do something wrong because that was what she always did.
She ignored it, because it was her husband’s voice, and her mission over the past twelve months had been to get him out of her head now that she’d gotten him out of her life.
An ongoing challenge, obviously. But she was getting there.
Coat in hand, she pulled the door closed behind her and started down the stairs. “I’m ready.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME you saw Summerlea?” Flynn asked as he reversed out of the driveway.
Mel glanced at the man sitting beside her. “I guess about ten years. I attended the last open garden weekend they held.”
“Really? So did I.” He shot her a speculative look and she knew he was wondering if they’d crossed paths all those years ago.
She was almost certain they hadn’t. Even though she hadn’t known a Randall from a rhododendron then, she would have noticed him if she’d seen him. He was a strikingly handsome man, and she’d been twenty-one and constantly on the lookout for anyone of the opposite sex who was taller than her. He would have stood out as prime flirting material to her younger self.
“All the tea tree benches are gone,” he said as he turned out of her street. “The roses are a thorny mess. And the herb garden is a flat-out disaster.”
“I loved that herb garden,” Mel said, remembering its pleasing mix of orderly English box hedge, sandstone paving and flourishing herb varieties. Edna Walling was famous for designing garden “rooms,” and in Mel’s opinion the herbal one had been among the most beautiful of the “rooms” at Summerlea.
“I’m telling you all this so you can be prepared,” he said. “The old girl ain’t what she used to be.”
“I’ll brace myself.”
A silver car was parked beside the open main gate when they arrived. A portly, middle-aged man emerged from the driver’s side and waved them onto the grounds. The gravel driveway was rutted and choked with weeds, and the car dipped from side to side as Flynn drove slowly past the house to where a dilapidated double garage stood.
“Okay. Let’s go see what I’ve gotten myself into,” Flynn said.
Mel unfolded herself from the low bucket seat and followed him as he walked down the driveway. The real estate agent was huffing and puffing his way toward them, his face already flushed with exertion. “Spencer.”
“Flynn. Good to see you again.” The other man’s grin was broad as he greeted Flynn. As well it might be—Flynn had guaranteed this man a very healthy payday by buying a property that had to be well into the millions.
“This is Mel, a friend,” Flynn said easily.
“As you can see, Flynn dragged me away from the garden,” she said when the other man glanced at her muddy clothes.
“More power to you. Draw the line at wielding the lawn mower myself, and even then I usually pay one of the local kids to do it.” The agent switched his focus to Flynn. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but we’ve had a bit of an emergency come up and I need to cover another agent’s open home. If it suits you, I thought I could leave you with the keys so you could look around at your leisure, then drop the keys at the office either today or tomorrow.”
“Sure. No problem,” Flynn said.
“Terrific, much appreciated. I hate having to bail on you like this but there’s no one else available to fill in.”
Mel drifted away as Flynn and the agent talked business for a few minutes. She was studying the bare branches of what she suspected was a flame azalea when Flynn joined her.
“The keys to the castle,” he said, holding out his hand to reveal a chunky collection of keys, many of them old-fashioned skeleton keys.
“I hope he told you which one opens the front door.”
There were at least twenty keys on the ring. Flynn looked alarmed for a minute before singling out a key that had been marked with an asterisk.
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