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He suddenly straightened up, as if someone had poked him in the backside.
“I’ll just collect these cuttings, shall I?” He gestured to the pile of debris she’d stacked up.
Drat and double drat.
“Of course,” she replied, mentally cursing the blush rising in her cheeks. “Take everything around to the garden shed, please.” She reached for the whisk broom. “I’ll sweep up the walkway.”
She commenced sweeping with a great deal of vigor. It was rather silly, really. Of course she liked Grant. What sane woman wouldn’t? That didn’t mean anything would come of it—orshouldcome of it. Despite some minor indications to the contrary, they truly had nothing in common. Besides, she had a plan for her life, and it didn’t include either a husband or living in Scotland.
“I saw your designs for Lochnagar’s gardens.”
She turned to find him only a few feet away. “What did you think of them?”
“They’re very good,” he said. “You have an excellent eye for composition.”
“You sound surprised.”
Dappled sunlight through the trees made his hair gleam like polished copper. “I don’t mean to.”
She narrowed her gaze on his inscrutable features. Grant Kendrick was very good at hiding his thoughts. “You don’t think women are capable of that sort of thing?”
“Don’t be daft.”
“Then what?” she challenged.
“Gardening seems a rather staid avocation. And you are anything but staid, Kathleen.”
“I thought you liked staid.”
He gave an exaggerated wince. “Touché. I’m afraid we can’t all be as exciting as Mr. Brown.”
She laughed. “That was actually rather mean.”
“It was, wasn’t it? But youaretalented, and Iaminterested. Why gardening?”
The answer to that question was tangled up with so many memories, some of them painful.
He patiently waited. Kathleen had the feeling he could wait for a hundred years if he really wanted to know something.
“It’s because of my mother,” she finally said. “Our estate, Greystone Manor, has some of the prettiest gardens in Ireland. Parts of it were planted over three hundred years ago. Mamma loved to garden, and she spent a great deal of time tending to them and expanding on the original designs. Our gardens became rather famous because of her. They were her favorite place in the world.”
For that reason, they would always be Kathleen’s favorite place, too.
“You obviously inherited her talent,” Grant said. “Both your designs and your drafting skills are excellent.”
His praise made her feel a bit shy. “I’m not a patch on my mother. After she died ... well, learning how to draft and design gave me something to do.”
Truthfully, it had been much more than justsomething to do. It was a major source of comfort in the dark months after her mother’s unexpected death.
She hesitated, but then shrugged. “Gardening makes me feel like she’s still with me, at least a little bit. Does that sound silly?”
“Anything but,” he quietly replied. “When you lose a parent at a young age, you look for them everywhere. And you try to hold on to them by loving what they loved.”
Kathleen had to swallow twice before she could answer. “Yes, you lost your mother at a young age, too.”
“I was seven.” He had that faraway look again, as if he were gazing down a long, black tunnel that led to nowhere good.
She rested a tentative hand on his chest. “I’m so sorry, Grant.”
