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“You brute. At least give me a few days to enjoy having you here before you start annoying me.”
“I’m not making any promises. See you tomorrow, Val. I want to ask my assistant to buy that airplane ticket before she leaves.”
“Sure. Go ahead. See you tomorrow.”
After the line went static, I rose from my leather seat, looked out the window, and smiled. I was going home.
Cha
pter Two
Maddie
I straightened up when Val called my name, then sauntered toward the house, careful where I stepped. I’d transformed her front yard into a mess, but that was how landscaping worked in the initial phase.
“Here, I made some iced tea.” She set the tray on the large wooden table in front of the house and poured the tea into two glasses.
“Thanks!” I gulped it down greedily, the liquid cooling my throat. This was just what the doctor ordered. It was an unusually hot afternoon for the end of June in LA. Val’s ranch-style house was located on the northwestern side of the city, and the ocean was so far away that not even a wisp of a breeze reached us here.
“How is it going?”
“I’m done for the day, just waiting for the timber posts to be delivered. I talked to the driver a while ago. He should be here in ten minutes.”
Val finished her tea, sweeping her gaze across the yard. She’d commissioned me to transform her downward-sloping property into a terraced garden, and the first step involved breaking down the smooth slope into multiple levels. I’d started the project only this week, so right now it looked as if a meteorite had hit it squarely in the center.
“Okay. Landon will arrive from LAX soon. Do you want to join us for dinner? All my siblings are coming.” She smiled warmly. Val was an unusual employer. Unusual in the best way possible. I’d landscaped the yard surrounding her office building a few months back, and she’d loved the results so much that she commissioned me again.
She was friendly and fun, and I was more than tempted to say yes. I’d met her sister Lori and her son Milo, and they were fun too. And last Friday I’d been here to discuss the last details of the project with Val and caught a glimpse of the entire family—minus Landon, of course—arriving for dinner, and they seemed very tight.
I only had pizza leftovers waiting for me at home, and no company whatsoever, but I shook my head. I didn’t want to infringe on their family time.
“Thanks, but I’m okay.”
“Okay.” She drummed her fingers on the table, checking the time on her phone, her excitement palpable. When the unmistakable sound of a car pulling up to the front gate reached us, she rose from her seat and skidded down the patchy earth, her dark brown hair bobbing down her back. The house was at the top of the slope, the entrance gate at the very bottom. This place would look like the Garden of Eden by the time I was done with it. Shame it had to be in shambles exactly when her brother arrived.
I rose from my seat too, trying to decide on the best way to make myself scarce so I could offer them privacy. I ended up heading inside the house. I’d deposited my bag and a change of clothes in the foyer this morning, and I could check my e-mails while I waited for the delivery. Even though the bulk of the landscaping business was hands-on, I still spent one or two hours dealing with organizational tasks or finalizing designs for the next project. I only played in the dirt in one project at a time, but I typically completed the design phase for the next project at the same time. Unfortunately, I found my phone was out of battery. It must have died after I talked to the delivery driver. I debated changing out of my work clothes, but there was no point. I’d have to help unload the truck, and I’d just get my good clothes dirty too.
When I stepped out of the house again, Valentina and her brother were just finishing the climb up the slope, and holy hell. That was Landon Connor? When I saw the family last week, I gathered that the Connor gene pool was an enviable one.
The women were tall, with delicate and elegant features, the men even taller—over six feet—and very handsome. But in my humble opinion, Landon was the best-looking of all.
Of course, my opinion might have been skewed by the fact that he was wearing a suit right now. Since I worked outdoors, I mostly saw the opposite sex in tanks or short-sleeved T-shirts, soaked in sweat. I was a sucker for a man in a suit, especially one who wore it as well as Landon did. His hair was a darker shade of brown than Valentina’s, but their eyes seemed to be the same bright green. They both stopped talking upon seeing me.
“Landon, this is Maddie Jennings.”
“I hear you’re the one responsible for turning this”—he gestured to the terrain behind him—“unrecognizable.”
“Guilty as charged.”
The corners of his lips lifted. Oh my, that smile. I was wishing I had changed. Bits of earth clung to my jeans, and I’d smeared my T-shirt over the course of the day. My blonde hair was hanging in a limp ponytail. Not that I was trying to impress Landon, no matter how swoon-worthy his smile or how well he wore that suit, but I felt out of place between his pristine clothes and Val’s crisp pencil skirt and blouse.
Val elbowed him playfully. “Well, if you’d given me a few days’ heads-up, I could have told Maddie to start after you leave. There was—” A ringtone interrupted her. It came from the inside of the house, and ceased after two rings.
She groaned. “That could be the supplier’s call I’ve been waiting for all day. I promise I won’t be long, but I have to call him back. One of the lavender suppliers jumped ship, and I need to replace him right away.”
“I can pull some strings and ask in my circle about lavender producers—” Landon began, but Val interrupted him.
“Landon Connor!” She slashed the air with her forefinger. “You’re here on vacation. You haven’t had one in so long that possibly you forgot what it means. Yes to cocktails and fun and lazy days in the sun. No to work of any kind.”
