All They Need(36)
“I know someone has to do it. I know it has to happen. But I don’t want to be the one who says no to him.”
She thought about it for a beat, trying to understand, trying to find a way through this for him.
“I guess it’s a bit like parents with children,” she said slowly. “It’s always a balancing act between what they want and what’s good for them.”
Flynn blinked rapidly and brushed the back of his hand across his eyes. “Sorry. Usually I’m good with all this. I guess I’m just tired—”
“I’d be a basket case if this was happening to my family.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“I don’t know. Your high level of competence and compassion, maybe?”
He smiled slightly. “Got you fooled, haven’t I?”
She eyed him seriously. He had had her fooled. She’d thought he was living a blessed life. But he was as human and frail as the next person.
“Would you like some lasagna?” she asked.
It took him a second to switch gears. “That depends on whether I’m stealing your dinner or not.”
“Absolutely not—you’re stealing tomorrow night’s dinner. I always cook for two. Saves cleaning up. Plus it means I only have to come up with three meal ideas a week.”
He smiled. “In that case, lasagna sounds great.”
She crossed to the counter to collect cutlery and place mats.
“I’ll do that,” he said when she returned to set the table.
“Thanks. Push all that junky stuff to the other end.” She’d been doodling with some ideas for the orchard earlier and there was a stack of scrap paper and a fistful of pens and pencils cluttering the table.
She busied herself at the oven, using a knife to check that the pasta layers were tender before sliding the dish from the rack.
“You’ve been working on your orchard design.”
She saw that Flynn was studying one of the rough sketches she’d made that afternoon. “Butchering it, more like. Design is definitely not my forte.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Apart from the fact that I really suck at thinking in three dimensions, you mean?”
“Apart from that.”
She cut the lasagna into two portions and slid one onto each plate.
“I want to include a vegetable garden into the design, but I can’t work out how to integrate it with the orchard.”
“Right. That’s what these boxy things are. Garden beds.”
She shot him a look. “Are you making fun of my stick drawings?”
“Only a complete boor would dis a woman’s stick drawings when she was about to feed him lasagna.”
“Exactly.”
She ferried the dishes to the table. “You might want to give it a moment to cool.”
“So, do you want to use the whole clearing for the garden?” he asked.
She saw that he’d grabbed one of the scraps of paper and taken up a pencil.
“I don’t see why not. It seems stupid not to use all the available space.”
“The thing with incorporating different design elements into the one space is about making sure they either complement or contrast with each other…?.”
He quickly blocked in the cottages and the surrounding pathways and trees, creating a site plan.
“Is that all from memory?” she asked, impressed.
“Sure. Obviously it’s not to scale, but it’s an idea.”
“It’s bloody close to scale. It’s amazing.”
She studied him and his sketch intently as he added the orange tree and shaded in a few other details. Bits and pieces of information came together in her mind. His gardening expertise, the way he’d spoken about “incorporating design elements,” the way he’d rendered her garden plot in a few easy pencil strokes…
“I thought gardening was a hobby for you. But you’ve had training, haven’t you?”
He glanced at her and smiled briefly before returning his focus to the page. “Three years of horticulture and landscape design. I even had my own design firm for a while.”
“What happened to it?”
“I folded it.” He shifted in his chair, angling the piece of paper toward her a little more as he added ideas onto the page. “I think the key to making this work might be materials, and making a virtue of the demarcation between orchard and garden. How do you feel about using railway ties to create a series of interlinked garden beds? Keeping things really rough and rustic?”