High Noon

of French doors onto the back veranda. And there, scanning, she took a sip of wine. “Nice—the wine,” she qualified. “The rest? It’s like a little piece of fairyland, isn’t it?”
    “Lots of secret places. I got carried away with it once I really started.”
    “So…” She stepped down, crossed the patio. “Why aren’t you hiring whoever designed and created this to design and create the gardens you want at this shop you’re planning?”
    “You talked to Ava.”
    “She’s terrified and thrilled in equal measure.”
    “Well, here’s the thing. This? I sort of designed some of it. Not really designed, but fiddled around. I had help, and it’s kind of evolved and shifted and changed its original layout.”
    “Whatever the original, this suits you.” Phoebe turned a slow circle. “Fanciful, as I said, and its lack of formality enhances the charm.”
    He was looking at her now, only at her. “You standing in it enhances the charm.”
    She made a mock curtsy. “Aren’t you gallant?”
    “If I were, I’d have come up with something romantic about blooms or blossoms.”
    “You did fine. As to Ava?”
    “Yeah, Ava, and the place. I don’t think I’m going to have time to fiddle so much with that project, and I didn’t really want the team sensibility. I wanted a woman’s, a woman who understands a house like that one, an area like that one, and knows how to, well, lay the landscape, to put in the flourishes and the color so people walking or driving by will say, ‘That’s Savannah right there.’ I like what she’s done with the house on Jones.”
    He pushed through an ornate iron gate. Phoebe saw instantly what he’d meant about secrets. It was a little island on the island, one of tranquillity and whispers, with its little pool with floating lilies, its fanciful statue of a winged fairy.
    She walked over to a small curved bench of white marble, sat. “Not just a good deed?”
    “I don’t mind good deeds or suspicious minds, as yours tends to be. But I don’t mind profiting by being a good judge and picking people for projects they’re suited for.”
    “Ever pick the wrong person?”
    “A few times. I don’t think Ava’s one of them.”
    “She won’t be. She had this house in West Chatham when she was married, and she created the most amazing gardens. She even got written up in Southern Homes …You knew that, didn’t you?”
    His dimple flicked on. “I might’ve come across something.”
    “Smarter than you look, and that’s a pure compliment.”
    “You, too.” He leaned over, kissed her breezily. “Want to walk around a bit, maybe down to the pier?”
    “Yes, I’d like that.”
    Bricked paths, arbors and trellises, copper urns going soft and green, and pretty music as the evening breeze stirred hanging glass and wind chimes.
    The sun was sinking, turning the marsh into shimmering colors. From the pier she could see other homes, other gardens, and what she thought was a young boy sitting on the edge of a pier with his line in the water.
    “Do you ever do that? Fish off here?”
    “I’m a crappy fisherman. Rather just sit here with a beer and let someone else drown the worms.”
    She turned around, noted how far they’d walked. “The grounds are more extensive than I realized.” And there, she noted, were the sparkling waters of a swimming pool. “A lot to maintain. I’m still having a hard time seeing you as the country gentleman. How about that long story on how you ended up here?”
    “It’s not all that interesting.”
    “Not all that interesting to you, or potentially to me?”
    “Probably either.”
    “Now, of course, my curiosity is piqued and, unquenched, will depend on imagination to satisfy. Such as you built it for a woman—unrequited love, heartbreak—who left you for another man.”
    “Not that far off.”
    She sobered instantly. “I’m sorry, bad joke. We should start back to the house, don’t you think? I’d hate to miss the pizza boy. I’d love to eat on the veranda, or in the garden,” she continued as they walked up the pier. “Wouldn’t—”
    “I built it for my mother.”
    “Oh.” She heard the echoes of deep unhappiness in his voice, but said nothing else.
    “I guess that’s not the beginning of the story. My mother was seventeen when she had me. What we could call a very big oops. My father was barely older. For whatever reason they—or she—decided to go through with the pregnancy, get married. I’m grateful,