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Macalister glanced over his shoulder and then turned back to his task. “Verbena bonariensis. They should germinate in about eight to ten weeks and be ready to plant out into the borders.”

She edged closer. “Why do you not sow the seeds directly into the borders?”

“Lots of reasons,” he said as a spray of water cascaded down on the pots. “Birds could get at them. They could be smothered by other plants that grow faster. The wind could pick them up and carry them somewhere we don’t want them.”

“You’re putting order and control to things,” she said, understanding.

“As much as you can when gardening. Would you like to try?”

“Try?”

“Sowing seeds.” He reached for another folded envelope. “I have helianthus here.”

“Helianthus?”

“Sunflowers.”

She smiled. “I always loved sunflowers as a girl.”

He handed her the envelope and began pointing things out. “Pots are there. Soil’s there. Scoop a bit of it into a pot, then press the seed down a couple inches. Just plant one per pot. Helianthus are big, so they need a bit of room to grow.”

It was the first time he had invited her to take part in the gardening since she’d helped him heel in roses in the weeks after her father’s death, and she was not going to miss the opportunity to once again feel useful. She peeled off her driving gloves and set them on a clean spot on the potting bench.

“I don’t recall putting sunflowers into the border,” she said. “Aren’t they too tall?”

“This is a smaller variety,” he said. “You didn’t ask for them, but you’ve got a succession gap.”

She recalled reading the term in one of her books. Succession planting was planning a garden in such a way that flowers bloomed at different times, painting a garden with color for months until the late autumn when the first hard frost would come.

Adele worked side by side with Macalister for a few minutes. He’d finished watering the verbena and had begun scooping up soil and setting the pots in front of her, one after another, so that she could sow seeds uninterrupted.

“Macalister, I realize that it has been many months, but I never thanked you for the gloves you sent me,” she said.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him hesitate before setting down a final pot and brushing off his hands. “You might want to bring them next time. They’ll keep you from getting blisters if you decide you need to dig any more holes.”

“If I need an outlet for some of my frustration, you mean?” she asked.

He tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Or if you want to learn how to put some of those plans you’ve made into place yourself.”

“Ladies aren’t meant to become messy.”

He snorted. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

“Plants don’t care who digs the hole they sit in. My mother used to pick oranges and prune trees just like the rest of us. And everyone helped at harvesttime.”

“And I’m willing to guess that she also managed the farmhouse as well,” she said.

A tiny smile kicked up the corners of his mouth. “That she did. She was a hardworking woman.”

“Was?”

His hands hitched just a moment, but enough that she noticed. “Was. When we couldn’t service the debt anymore, we sold the family farm and moved in with my wife Annabel’s family. My mother-in-law had everything in hand around the house. Ma had no purpose anymore. She just faded away in the end.”

They worked in silence a moment until she asked, “Do you regret that your family had to sell the farm?”

He huffed out a breath. “What’s the point of regretting something that can’t be changed?”