The Proviso (48 page)

There were old, old oaks, maples, and white birch
trees dotting the property, which would give the whole expanse
shade in the summer, and had not yet started to turn. It had been a
long, hot summer and October thus far had been unseasonably warm.
This should be a lovely flaming display in two weeks and in four, a
nasty mess to clean up when they all dropped and the November rains
began.

There was a roundabout in front of her door with a
shoulder-high black granite obelisk fountain in the middle of it
embedded in chunks of tumbled black glass. Between the roundabout
and the front door was a small brick courtyard bordered by a low
brick wall and fronted by layers and layers of flowers, which,
suiting the house, was a perfect reproduction of an English country
garden that was starting to wind down for the late autumn. The
chrysanthemums were on full display and brilliantly arranged by
color. There were a couple of ornamental apple trees, pear trees,
and dogwoods around the perimeter closer to the house that were
still green, though they should have been turning and dropping.

“Wow,” he whispered to himself as he got out of his
truck to walk around and inspect them more closely. Her garden had
surprised all the irritation out of him. He wondered if she had
done this herself or if she paid someone.

If
she
had done this, he was in awe of her
talent as a master gardener. He couldn’t help the smile that grew
when he imagined her digging in the dirt, planting, weeding, and
fertilizing. He touched the last-gasp cosmos of magenta and
tangerine. He noted a stubbled bed of what he thought would be
irises and wondered if he would find a Georgia O’Keeffe on one of
her walls.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have a chance. She opened
the heavy, rich mahogany plank door with a curved top and three
long black strap hinges across its face. Once outside and locking
it behind her, she said lightly, “I figured that if I didn’t come
out, you’d stand me up for these ladies,” and swept her hand over
her garden.

Sebastian started. “Was I that long?”

She laughed, and he loved that. “Yes. I was starting
to get jealous of my own flowers.” Then she came across the
courtyard and he caught his breath again at her beauty. The first
time she had ever looked completely comfortable to him, she had on
jeans and a navy rugby shirt, most likely because she thought she
should have to hide that magnificent bosom. And her hips! Sebastian
groaned when she turned away to smell a tea rose topiary in a large
urn. Her waistband didn’t touch her waist. She bought her jeans for
her hips and he appreciated every millimeter of difference between
them. Her ass was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.

Then she turned back to him, smiling, and she took
his breath away. A simple dime store headband held her hair back
from her face, which didn’t have a lick of makeup. She had no
jewelry on. She wore old beat-up penny loafers.

She pointed to his truck. “Are you a millionaire or
a billionaire?”

He looked over his shoulder at the old beat-up Ford
pickup truck he loved. “I’ve had that since I turned sixteen. I
find myself having to haul stuff around often enough that I keep
it. Otherwise, you said casual, so I took you at your word.
Warning, though: Air conditioner doesn’t work.”

That made her laugh and he did so love it when she
laughed.

“Did you do this, Eilis?” Sebastian asked. “This
garden?”

“Yes.”

“I’m— This is— Breathtaking,” he whispered and while
he wasn’t looking for a reaction, he happened to catch the look of
amazement that glanced across her face.

“Would you like a tour?” she asked, hesitant, as if
she didn’t trust his sincerity.

“Do we have reservations somewhere?”

“No.”

“Then yes, I would love one.”

She didn’t seem inclined to talk and neither did he.
He took in every bit of color and he knew she watched him for a
reaction. At this point, he didn’t know if he wanted more to stare
at Eilis or Eilis’s garden.

In the back of the house was a swimming pool, rare
enough here where one could only be used half the year and brought
property values down, not up. Cobbled paths wound around the
property and served as a simple framework for various beds of
autumn flowers that ringed the trees. Stacked stone formed the
walls of some of the beds and, on the hills and in the dales, some
flower beds had no boundaries whatsoever. One path diverged and
meandered through the lawn, then turned and disappeared into a
small glade. Sebastian wanted to take the road less traveled
by.

The trees cast an incredible shade, even now at
midday. Mourning doves and other birds called. Frogs croaked from
somewhere, so there must be a body of water nearby. He drew in a
long breath and confirmed that by scent.

Around the bend of the path, a very wide stone
bridge spanned a creek. In the creek, she’d planted rushes and
lemon grass to keep mosquitoes away, and had strategically placed
rocks so as to get a gurgling sound that she could probably hear on
a still night and to clean the water as it went through. Minnows
and tadpoles could thrive in the small standing pools.

“We don’t have to go across the bridge if you don’t
want to,” she said softly. “My greenhouse is back there as well as
my compost pile.”

He didn’t answer, but crossed the footbridge
eagerly, absently noting that her stride matched his. The back of
the property wasn’t quite as tidy as the front. In fact, it was a
downright mess. Here, a four-runner with a garden trailer behind
it. There, a lawn tractor with an enormous bag and vacuum hose
behind it. The greenhouse looked more like a storage shed, and the
biggest compost pile he’d ever seen covered a lot of ground. She
had a small Bobcat backhoe with its bucket buried in the pile.

“I have to turn the compost quite a bit. I make a
lot of compost tea and my worms have to come up for air
occasionally.”

“Vermiculture? Really?”

“Yes. It’s difficult for me to find a convenient
time to get horse manure. Worm castings are almost as good. You
know about gardening?”

“Not really. What I do know came from spending a
week at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh trying my hand at
it.”

Eilis gasped and he looked over at her, not down,
which very much pleased him. Her hand was over her mouth. “You’ve
been there?”

“Yes, Eilis,” he said softly. “I’ve been around the
world several times. I could go around it another hundred thousand
times and not see everything I want to. I always find the
gardens.”

She blushed a little and turned away from him. “My
little garden here must not compare.”

“Eilis,” he said earnestly, his attraction to her
only increasing exponentially at this display of artistry and
skill, “you’re a master gardener. I might not know much, but I do
know that. You’ve done this magnificent work yourself and I—” He
stopped and looked around. “I’m awed. I could spend days lost in
here.”

She sniffled and he went around her to find her with
her hand to her nose.

“What? What did I say?” he asked, almost panicking
because he thought he’d said the exact wrong thing.

“My—” She gulped. “David— My ex-husband. He thought
it was a waste of time, but it was one of the only things that
pulled me through my marriage. Allowed me to stay with him long
enough to do what I needed to do.”

Sebastian decided to talk to Knox about this David
Webster person pronto, then gripped her arms in his hands. “Eilis,
look at me.” He knew she didn’t want to, but she did anyway.

“The man embezzled almost a hundred million dollars
from you, half of which Knox wasn’t able to recover. Why would you
care about his opinion?”

“I don’t
care
, exactly,” she said, “but I had
to redo my entire garden because it reminded me of what he did to
me.”

“Eilis, this is a work of art,” he murmured. “I’ve
been to the best gardens in the world and this—this work you have
created with your own two hands—rivals them all.” He could see that
she
wanted
to believe what he said, but didn’t really.
“Eilis,” he continued, saying her name every chance he got. “I
speculate in art. I know greatness when I see it.
This
is a
great work of art, whether you want to believe it or not.”

This time he didn’t ask permission first. He
enfolded her in his arms, the back of her head in his palm, and
kissed her. Lightly at first, he felt her acquiesce; deepening the
kiss, his tongue teasing hers, pleading with her to come play with
him, he felt her melt into him. If he thought Knox wouldn’t crack
his head open for it, he’d lay her down in a bed of dying
wildflowers and make love to her right then and there, amongst the
wonder she’d built and nurtured.

Sebastian drew away slowly and searched her face for
some sign of healing. He ran a finger down her scar and murmured,
“I’ll do that however many times it takes for you to remember
my
opinion of your garden and forget his.”

That made her smile, but the moment was interrupted
by the loud rumble in her belly. Embarrassed, she pulled away and
tried to laugh, but . . .

“Time to eat,” Sebastian pronounced, deliberately
killing the mood so he could feed her. He hadn’t forgotten how she
had reacted to his offer of food at the Ford exhibit, nor had he
missed the way she’d eyeballed the remains of the pizza he had
shared with Karen. He couldn’t count how many times he’d heard her
stomach rumble, but he did know how many times he’d seen her eat:
zero. “Where are we going?”

“On a picnic, apparently, since you’re so hellbent
on being a lawn jockey.”

Sebastian laughed out loud then and caught her
staring at him. “What?”

“You look—you look so different when you smile and
laugh. The difference is amazing.”

He continued to chuckle as they walked up the path
to the driveway and led her to the pickup truck that seemed to
amuse her. Sebastian helped her in and closed the door behind her.
“Now, I wasn’t kidding about air conditioning. I didn’t think I’d
have to worry about it until spring. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I grew up without air conditioning.”

“So did I. Here’s to growing up piss poor. Now, you
know,” he said after he started the truck and before he let off the
clutch, “we can’t go anywhere unless you tell me where that
is.”

“Seventeenth and Brooklyn.”

Sebastian thought his heart had stopped. “You’re
kidding.”

“Nope. I feel like getting some nasty, dirty
barbecue.”

And again he laughed at the surprises she held. When
she began to laugh because she apparently liked what happened to
his face when
he
laughed, he didn’t even try to hold back.
He leaned over and kissed her again, softly as before, touching her
lip with his tongue to make sure she remembered the one in the
garden. While he kissed her, he looked straight at her and she him.
He could tell the minute she decided to go with it, but she never
closed her eyes—and he liked that. He liked her two different eyes,
liked watching the play of emotion across her face.

“I decided not to ask today,” he said as he drew
away, “in case you said no again.”

She flushed a little. “I still think it’s not a good
idea. I’m not very good at judging men.”

His eyebrows rose as he started to follow the
roundabout, then up the driveway. “Does that mean you think I’d be
a bad choice or that you don’t trust yourself to make good
decisions?”

“I don’t even know why we’re having this
conversation. Stop a minute.”

They had passed the gate and Sebastian stopped the
truck, this part of the driveway barely sunlit. She had pulled out
her Blackberry and thumbed in a command that made the gates close
behind them.

“You’re my court-appointed babysitter,” she
continued dryly once she indicated the property was secure, “and
I’m the teenager who can’t be trusted with the house to
herself.”

He laughed again. “Okay, okay. I get your
point.”

* * * * *

45:
SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS

Sebastian drove unerringly to Bryant’s. Once he
turned onto Brooklyn, however, she said slyly, “So. I’m not the
only fan in this wreck.”

“Oh no,” he murmured as he looked for a parking spot
and found one—a block away. He helped her out and they began to
walk. He was careful to walk on the outside of the sidewalk, his
fingers lightly touching her back. “Bryant’s is a rite of passage.
I end up getting Bryant’s almost every Saturday while I’m out and
about. Some time I’ll take you to get the best homemade kielbasa
ever.”

“Are you talking about that broken-down little
grocery just south of the Truman Road viaduct? Peter May’s?”

He groaned. “Oh, no—you’re a native.”

“Oh yes. I know all the good little spots. Although
I will say that the Strawberry Hill povitica isn’t as good as
mine.”

He slid her a look. “Not possible.”

“Is too. I roll the dough thinner, more like baklava
than cinnamon rolls. I also use more filling.”

“Now I just can’t surprise you.”

“Maybe not with food, no.”

Sebastian’s eyebrows rose. That was packed with
innuendo and he’d like to think she’d said that on purpose, but he
couldn’t tell.

From the outside, Bryant’s looked like a typical
mid-century diner with red awning-covered glass facing west. On
Saturday afternoon, at least half a dozen of the city’s movers and
shakers stood in the line that went back half a block. Eilis tapped
him to point them out, and they traded amused glances.

Sebastian knew why she’d brought him here; she
wanted to test his barbecue tolerance as a measuring stick of his
worthiness. He knew this because he’d done the same thing with the
few women who’d ever consented to a date. Sharp and vinegary,
grainy with spices, Bryant’s sauce was not for the faint of heart
and those who preferred ketchup-with-molasses were suspect in
Sebastian’s milieu.