All They Need

Stupid, but for some reason Flynn Randall and his girlfriend had really rattled her cage. She didn’t quite understand why. Maybe it was simply that they reminded her of a time when she’d been miserable and full of self-doubt and constantly aware of all her shortcomings. Or maybe she was like Pavlov’s dog, forever programmed to respond with quivering servility when in the company of her social betters.

Now that’s a depressing thought.

She shrugged off her disquiet. They were staying one night, and then they’d be gone. Depending on their movements, she probably wouldn’t even see them again until they checked out.

Right now, that felt like a very good thing.

CHAPTER TWO

FLYNN WATCHED MEL stride away, her long, muscular legs eating up the ground.

She wasn’t conventionally beautiful—her facial features were too unbalanced and she was built on too grand a scale for that—but she was incredibly appealing. He’d forgotten that about her.

He wasn’t sure what it was that he found so compelling. Her gray eyes were clear and direct but otherwise perfectly ordinary, her nose was a little on the large side, her mouth slightly too wide. And yet the whole time he’d been talking to her he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her.

She, however, had seemed nervous. Not at all the way he remembered her.

Hayley joined him on the porch, sliding an arm around his waist.

“I like it here already. The air smells cleaner.” She rested her head on his shoulder.

“That’s because it is,” he said dryly.

She followed his gaze up the driveway. “She was married to Owen Hunter, wasn’t she?”

“That’s right.”

“I can remember seeing her around. She’s pretty hard to miss. She always used to remind me of Xena, Warrior Princess. Or Wonder Woman.”

“She’s tall, but she’s not that tall.”

“She’s taller than me. Were you there the night she fell into the Hollands’ fountain?”

“Yes.”

“Was it as bad as they say?”

“In what way?”

“In every way. I heard her dress was transparent, and that her husband marched her off and then spent the next month apologizing for her to anyone who is anyone.”

Flynn frowned. “She was trying to help. It’s not like she leaped into the fountain for kicks.”

Hayley held up a hand. “Whoa there. I didn’t mean to step on any toes. I didn’t realize you two were friends.”

Her gaze was searching, questioning, and he realized he’d spoken a little too heatedly.

“We’re not. I hardly know her. But that fountain thing was blown way out of proportion. Gabrielle Holland needs to get a life.”

“That’s true. She dined out on that story for a very long time.” She sounded amused, but she’d always been far more tolerant of the social piranhas amongst their circle than he had.

He checked his watch. “We should get going.”

“Let me grab my bag.”

She was back in a minute with her sunglasses and handbag. He backed his vintage Aston Martin out and cruised up the driveway. They were nearing the main house when Mel appeared around the corner, lugging a tall ladder. She leaned it against the back of the house beneath one of the sash windows before looking over her shoulder toward them. She gave a small acknowledging smile then turned to her task.

He hit the brakes and wound down the window.

“Hey. It’s been a few years since I’ve been down on the peninsula and old Gertie here doesn’t have GPS.” He patted the Aston Martin’s dash. “Do I turn left or right onto the Nepean Highway if I want to go to Summerlea estate?”

Mel approached the car, bending so she could see in the window. “You take a left. Then it’s the first street on your left, and the estate is at the end of the road.”

Her T-shirt sagged as she leaned down. It took more willpower than he cared to admit to stop himself from taking a good long look at what he suspected was a pretty spectacular view.

He was only human, after all, and she was built on very generous lines. “Great, thanks.”

“I guess it’s true then, huh? It’s up for sale? I heard a rumor but I didn’t believe it.”

“The owners have gone into a retirement home, according to the estate agent.”

“Really? That’s so sad. They both loved that place so much. It must be hell to have to give it over to someone else.”

“You know them?”

“Oh, no. Not personally.” She tucked a long, dark curl behind her ear. “I used to go to Summerlea when it was part of the Open Garden tour, and Brian and Grace were always there, talking to everyone. It’s been years since they last let the public in, but I can still remember how beautiful the gardens were. I’ve never seen flame azaleas like theirs anywhere else. And the roses… Mind-blowing.”

She had a far-off look in her eyes. Then she seemed to recall herself. “Sorry. I’m holding you up.” She straightened and stepped back from the car, waving a hand to indicate he should go.

“Thanks for the directions.”

She gave an awkward little shrug. He drove out into the street.

“If you’re feeling guilty about looking, don’t,” Hayley said after a few seconds. “I looked. Couldn’t help myself. She has amazing breasts.” She sounded wistful.

Flynn glanced at her briefly before concentrating on the road. “I didn’t look.”

“Flynn. Come on. This is me. A blind man would have looked.”

“I didn’t look,” he repeated. He glanced at her again as he signaled to pull onto the highway.

She looked bemused. “Why on earth not?”

“Because I’m with you,” he said simply.

A slow smile curled Hayley’s mouth. “Sometimes I think you’re too good to be true, you know that?”

“If you believe that, I’ve got some swamp land to sell you.”

“I think I just might buy some swamp land if you were selling it.”

The real estate agent was already waiting for them when they parked in front of Summerlea’s familiar white fence. He scrambled out of his Mercedes as Flynn cut the engine.

“Flynn Randall? Spencer Knox. Pleased to meet you.” His eyes were assessing as they exchanged greetings.

One problem with being a Randall—everyone knew your net worth before you walked through the door.

“We really appreciate you moving the viewing time for us,” Flynn said.

“Not a problem, and it’s great to meet you both.” Spencer paused a moment before offering Flynn a shrewd smile. “We can talk about the weather a little if you like, but you’re a busy man and I suspect you’re keen to cut to the main event. So shall we?” He gestured toward the gate.

“Absolutely,” Flynn said, appreciating the other man’s bluntness.

Spencer walked ahead of them to the pedestrian entrance, situated to the right of the main gate. The paint was peeling off the wood and streaks of rust ran down from the lock. The main gate wasn’t in much better shape and Flynn took a step back to assess the fence line itself.

“As I mentioned on the phone, the old place has been a bit neglected in recent years,” Spencer said. “A combination of old age and money issues, I gather. So things might not be quite as you remember them.”

“Sure.”

The other man struggled with the latch for a moment before the gate swung open with a painful screech.

Hayley gave a nervous laugh. “That sounds a little ominous, doesn’t it?”

Flynn murmured something noncommittal, his focus on what he was about to discover on the other side of the gate. Adrenaline had his heart racing as he stepped into the grounds.

In many ways, Summerlea was where he’d first discovered his love of gardening. He could still remember dragging his feet as his mother led him into the grounds as an eight-year-old, past the crowds of tourists milling about the entrance. He’d been bitching and moaning all the way from the city, sure that he was missing out on doing something cool with his friends. The moment he’d gotten his first look at the garden his complaints had blown away like dust.

Rolling lawns, archways heavy with roses, whimsical benches made out of gnarled local tea-tree branches, copses of birch trees, their trunks silver-white in the sun… He’d been roped into helping his mother in the garden often enough by then to understand that he was looking at something special. A living treasure.

Twenty-six years later, he looked at the same view and saw that the rose arbor was rotted and falling down, the lawns patchy and overgrown, and the benches absent, no doubt having fallen prey to the weather or insects long ago. And still his heart soared, because he knew that not only could he fix all of the above, but he could also make it better. His fingers literally itched for pen and paper so he could start sketching and jotting down ideas and he had to stop himself from stooping to pull the nearest weed from where it sprouted between two paving stones.

He glanced at Hayley, keen to see her reaction, but she’d put on her sunglasses and most of her expression was hidden behind the lenses.

“What do you think?” he said quietly as they walked up the pathway toward the house.

“I imagine it was once very beautiful,” she said diplomatically.

He looked out across the garden once more, and again he felt the pull of possibilities. This place was special. It would be an intoxicating challenge to restore it to its former brilliance. He’d have to pare things back, rebuild. The lawn was a mess, the garden beds overcrowded and full of weeds. With water restrictions in place, the whole space would probably benefit from a modern reticulation system—

Aren’t you forgetting something?

Flynn tore his gaze from the garden and fixed it on Hayley’s slim back as she walked ahead of him. He didn’t have time to indulge this dream. He was responsible for Randall Developments now, and things would only become more intense with his father.

This was too much for him to take on right now. No matter how much a part of him wanted to.

And yet the thought of walking away from this opportunity made him want to grind his teeth. He’d already walked away from Verdant Design and the career of his choice. He needed something of his own. Some way of keeping a small part of his dream alive.

Hands thrust deeply into his jacket pockets, Flynn climbed the steps to the house. For better or worse, the next twenty minutes had the power to change his life.

THEY WERE BOTH QUIET on the way back to the cottage. Flynn was lost in his own thoughts, shuffling things around in his mental diary, formulating scenarios for himself and his parents that would allow him to have his cake and eat it, too.

Not that any of that was going to change the outcome of today’s inspection. At a certain point in the tour he’d given in to the inevitable and admitted to himself that he was going to put in an offer for the estate. It was too rare and precious an opportunity for him to pass up. He had no idea how he was going to make it fit with everything else, but he would work it out.

Somehow.

He turned off the engine when they returned to their accommodation but made no attempt to get out of the car. Instead, he looked at Hayley, who was staring pensively out the windshield.

“What do you think?”

“I think that it’s terrifying, frankly. That house needs new everything. And the garden… I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“I would.” He could hear the relish in his own voice.

She looked at him, a small, curious smile on her face. “Which is why you’re going to buy it, of course.”

She knew him so well.

“Yes. I am.” Anticipation spiked through him as he finally said it out loud.

She opened the car door. “Come on, then. There’s a bottle of French bubbly in the fridge thanks to our efficient hostess. I think this calls for a celebration.”

He followed her into the cottage. She opened kitchen cupboards until she found long-stemmed flutes and he tore the foil and the wire cage off the top of the champagne bottle. The pop of the cork sounded loud in the small space and Hayley laughed and pulled a comic face when the sparkling wine foamed up over the neck.

“Don’t waste it!”

He poured them both a glass and Hayley raised hers in a toast.

“To finally getting something you’ve always wanted,” she said.

They clinked glasses and drank, and Flynn kissed her. She surprised him by deepening the kiss, one hand sliding behind his neck. She wasn’t usually aggressive sexually but she pressed herself against him and kissed him deeply, her fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulder. When she finally broke the kiss she looked at him for a long moment, her gaze very intent and serious.

Then she took his hand and tugged on it. “Come into the living room. There’s something I want to say to you.”

Flynn smiled. “This is all very mysterious.”

“It won’t be for long, trust me.”

She led him to one of the cream couches and pushed him onto the cushion. Then she sat beside him and took his hand in hers. She looked into his eyes, then she squeezed her own shut for a long beat.

“Wow. This is harder than I thought it would be.” Her hand was trembling.

Flynn frowned. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. At least, I hope it is.” Hayley opened her eyes and gave him a small, nervous smile. “Remember what you said this morning about not knowing what you’d do without me and how I told you to hold that thought?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately, about us. And the future. I’ve been thinking about what I want, how I’d like things to be.”

Flynn tensed. He had a feeling he knew where this was going. “Look, Hales, I know that things haven’t been great lately. I know that I’ve been working all hours and the situation with Mom and Dad has been chewing up my spare time, but—”

Hayley smiled and pressed her fingers to his lips. “Relax, Flynn. I’m not breaking up with you.”

Flynn’s shoulders dropped a notch. “Good.”

“I’m asking you to marry me.” She slipped onto one knee on the floor and opened her hand, palm up, in front of him. A simple gold wedding band rested against her pale skin. “So, will you, Flynn? Will you marry me?”

It literally took Flynn a full ten seconds to comprehend what she was saying. She knelt before him, her brown eyes fixed intently on his face, a faint, hopeful smile on her lips, and his brain simply refused to work.

Probably because this was the last thing he’d been expecting. They’d been seeing each other a little under a year, living together for six months. Things were good between them. Comfortable. But he simply hadn’t gotten around to thinking about marriage. He simply…hadn’t.

The silence stretched. He needed to say something. Now.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a little blindsided here. I wasn’t expecting anything like this.”

“I can tell. You look like I hit you up for a loan.” Her smile wobbled a little and she curled her hand into a fist around the ring. “I was kind of hoping we were on the same page with this. But I guess I was wrong.” She was still kneeling and Flynn reached out to guide her onto the couch.

“I need a minute to get my head around this, that’s all.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything. Flynn took a deep breath, trying to get his thoughts in order, trying to find the one right thing to say that would take away the hurt dawning in her eyes.

“I think you’re great, Hales. You know that. I’ve always thought you were great. We get on well, we understand each other.”

“I know, and I’ll admit I was kind of hoping you would beat me to this. Then I remembered that this is the twenty-first century. Women are supposed to go for what they want, right? And I want you, Flynn. I always have.”

For the second time in as many minutes, he was without words. He’d given Hayley a black eye with his soccer ball when he was six. He’d danced with her at her debutante ball when she was seventeen. He’d laughed with her at any number of parties and theater shows and functions over the years, caught up with her for lunch every now and then—with or without other friends in the mix. He’d always thought of her as a good friend, and only recently had he considered her as anything more than that.

“I didn’t realize,” he said, then immediately kicked himself. Could he sound like more of an idiot? He wasn’t an inarticulate teenager. He was thirty-four years old. He’d had his fair share of lovers and relationships. Yet he was handling this with all the sophistication and finesse of a pro wrestler.

“I guess that means I’m a better actor than I thought. Mom has known for years.”

She was watching him intently. Flynn realized he hadn’t answered her question yet.

It should have been a no-brainer. She was beautiful. Their parents were friends. They had everything in common, from their acquaintances to their educations to their tastes in wine and food and art. She was elegant, clever and kind.

She was perfect and she would make the perfect wife.

So why couldn’t he look her in the eye and say yes? Why was he feeling trapped and uncomfortable and deeply guilty all of a sudden?

An image flashed across his mind’s eye—his mother capturing his father’s face in her hands this morning and telling him clearly and unequivocally that she loved him, no matter what. The love and devotion in her expression had been undeniable, as had the love and devotion in his father’s eyes. They were crazy about each other, always had been. They preferred each other’s company to anyone else’s, finished each other’s sentences, tickled each other’s funny bones…?. They were a matched set. Soul mates. Inseparable.

They were the best example of marriage a man could have, and Flynn had taken the lessons he’d learned from watching them to heart. When he married, he planned for it to stick. He wanted to grow old with the love of his life, to mellow with her, to store away memories and take on challenges and evolve with her. He wanted a forever kind of love, the kind that only increased and grew richer and deeper and broader with time. A love that was strong enough to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and then some.

He looked into Hayley’s eyes and tried to imagine the two of them twenty years from now. He tried to imagine their children. He tried to imagine the two of them dealing with the tectonic shift that his parents were experiencing.

And it just wasn’t there. He couldn’t see it. Hayley was his dear, dear friend. But she was not the woman he wanted to marry.

His chest was suddenly tight. He was about to hurt her—the last thing he’d ever wanted to do.

He looked at her hand in his, her skin very pale in comparison to his, trying to find the words. “Hayley, I care for you a great deal. You’re one of my best friends. The past year has been great. Really great. But marriage is a big step. And I don’t feel even close to ready to take it with you.”

She was very still for a moment. “One of your best friends.” He could see the disappointment and hurt in her face.

Flynn stared at her helplessly. If it was in his power, he’d flip a switch and love her with the same fervor that she apparently felt for him. But it wasn’t, and he didn’t.

“I’m sorry. There’s been so much going on…?. I never meant to create expectations.” His words sounded lame, even to himself. He’d fallen into a relationship with her, allowed her to move in, shared his days and his nights with her, but he’d never once thought about where they were going, or wondered what she thought their relationship was about. He’d been too busy flailing around in his own crap after his father’s diagnosis—winding down his own company, stepping up to take over the reins of the business, trying to support his mother, trying to do anything and everything to ease his father’s distress.

“You didn’t create expectations. I did.” Her voice was heavy with tears but she was doing her best to hold them in.

“God, Hales, I’m so sorry.” He pulled her into his arms, guilt a physical burn in his chest.

She might be prepared to let him off the hook, but he wasn’t. He’d been selfish, taking comfort where he could find it. Not thinking about the consequences. Not thinking about tomorrow at all.

She rested her head on his shoulder but didn’t try to return his embrace. After a moment he let her go. Her eyes were filled with tears and she brushed them away with her fingertips.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not quite meeting his gaze. Then she stood and rushed from the room.

Flynn heard the bedroom door click shut. He mouthed a four-letter word, angry with himself, angry with the situation. He fell back against the cushions and raked his fingers through his hair.

He had no doubt that right now, Hayley was howling her eyes out on the bed they were supposed to share tonight. He swore again. He was a bastard. A stupid, selfish, thoughtless bastard.

The urge to get up and go gripped him, to walk away from the cottage and the scene that had played out, but he didn’t move. The least he could do was be here if Hayley needed him. The very least.

MEL SPENT THE first half of the afternoon repairing the rotten windowsill. Her thoughts drifted from topic to topic as she chipped away the damaged wood with a hammer and chisel, but she kept coming back to Flynn and his girlfriend.

They were an attractive couple, with his dark good looks and her pale skin and fiery hair. They were socially well-matched, too, both bringing equal clout to the table. No one would look down their noses when they arrived at functions or events. No one would whisper behind their backs or laugh and speculate about how long their relationship would last and what, exactly, Hayley had done to land her man.

The chisel slipped and Mel’s breath hissed out as the sharp metal sliced into the fleshy part of her thumb. She sucked on it for a second before inspecting the wound. Blood welled, but it was a shallow cut. She’d live.

She went inside for a bandage and returned to finish the repair, replacing the excised wood with builder’s filler. Afterward, she made the ten-minute drive to her parents’ place to help her mother finalize the invitations for their upcoming thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. She stayed for an early dinner, then drove home.

She was in the bedroom, ready to pull on her pajamas for a cozy night in front of the TV, when a knock echoed through the house. It came from the back door, and she quickly pulled her cargo pants on. She fastened the stud as she made her way to the kitchen and the door.

It was Flynn, his face shuttered, his body half turned away. “Sorry to disturb you. I need to give you this.” He handed over the key to the cottage.

Mel stared at it for a second before lifting her gaze to his. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Is something wrong with the accommodation? If there’s a problem, I can offer you one of the other cottages.”

“It’s nothing to do with the cottage. Everything’s been great. Something has come up.”

She tried to gather her thoughts. She’d had last-minute cancellations, and she’d had no-shows, but she’d never had guests walk out halfway through their stay.

“Okay. Well. I hope you enjoyed your time here. What there was of it, anyway.”

“We did, thanks.” He gave her a small, tight smile before turning and walking down the steps.

She watched him for a minute, frowning. Maybe it was her imagination, but he looked tired. Defeated.

She caught her own thoughts and made a rude noise. Flynn Randall was filthy rich, better-looking than any man had a right to be and in the prime of his life. He probably didn’t know how to spell defeat, let alone how to experience it.

She, on the other hand, was an expert.

On that cheery note, she went to get ready for bed.

CHAPTER THREE

THREE WEEKS LATER, Mel stooped to wrap her arms around the hessian-covered root ball of the orange tree she’d excavated from her front yard. She’d pruned the branches and dug the roots out in stages, giving the tree time to adjust to the brutal surgery she was practicing. But now it was time to haul it to its new home. She felt a little like the horticultural equivalent of Atilla the Hun in uprooting the tree from its old home, but this was a necessary evil—it had been badly sited by the previous owners and would never thrive or even bear fruit in its current position.