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Jamie jerked to the side with a pickax poised above his head. “Oh, Jesus. It’s you.”
“Who did you think it was?”
He raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Someone walking through the gate of my yard without invitation?”
“Ha! Silly.”
Jamie took off his gloves and wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his shirt. “What’s up? Is everything okay?”
“Sure.” She turned in a slow circle, taking in the transformation of his yard. “When did you have the yard landscaped?”
“I’ve been working on it for a while. I started it last fall.”
“You did this?”
He shrugged and walked to the deck to grab a bottle of water.
Wait a minute… “You’ve got a deck? But I was here… When was that? In January?”
“Yes, I cleverly hid my activities beneath a thick blanket of snow, but you’ve found me out now. Want some coffee?”
“Sure,” she breathed, still taking in the landscaping. Not only was there a big wooden deck, there was a Jacuzzi set into a little gazebo, a rock path that wound through a garden and…whatever he was working on in the back corner. She squinted toward the giant pile of dirt and rocks, trying to figure out what it might be.
“Here,” Jamie said, gesturing with a cup of steaming coffee. “Sit down.”
She took in the brand-new planks of the deck under her feet, then lowered herself into a red Adirondack chair.
“Sugar and milk,” Jamie murmured as he handed her the mug.
“Thanks. What are you making back there?”
Staring toward the pile of dirt, he sipped from his coffee. “Water feature.”
“What does that mean?”
He sighed and cut a sideways look at her. “A waterfall.”
Tessa’s coffee went down the wrong pipe, and she coughed and hacked until her eyes teared up. “A waterfall?” she finally gasped.
“Just a little one. And a lily pond.”
“That’s…” She searched for a word. Uncharacteristic? Unexpected? Bizarre? “Great,” she finally finished.
He rolled his eyes. “With the yard split down the middle, it’s long and narrow. I wanted it to lead to something instead of just looking like half of a lawn.”
“Okay, but…since when do you do landscaping?”
“I bought some books,” he muttered.
Tessa reached past the space between the two chairs to take his hand. “It looks like something out of a magazine, Jamie. It’s amazing.”
“Thanks.”
“Is that an apple tree?”
Jamie cleared his throat. “Why’d you stop by?”
“I just wanted to see you.”
