“Oh sweet baby Jesus, it is! I picked it. I picked it myself—or did I?” Still gripping him, Emily turned her head toward Darby, narrowed her eyes. “Did I really pick it? I think she has some sort of mind control. I’m not kidding.”

“Take a breath, Em.” To help her out, he gave her a hug. “I can say one thing for certain. The stonework looks awesome.”

She looked down at the walk. “It really does. She’s a genius. I mean, I see it in every bungalow she’s finished, but—”

“Keep breathing. You know what else? I like the swing.”

Emily breathed. “Damn it, so do I. Somehow she always ends up being right. Distract me from my madness. How’s it going with you?”

“Good. I’ve got a handful of clients. Maureen is pretty damn perfect, and I’ve got a line on a summer intern. If I pick the one I’m leaning toward, I’ll be outnumbered by women. Oh, women,” he remembered. “Ashley’s having her baby.”

“Now?”

“Now. She started having it in my office. It was beyond weird.”

Emily tipped her head toward his shoulder. “We’re having a day, aren’t we?”

“You could call it that.”

Her phone signaled, and after a glance at the readout, Emily kissed Zane’s cheek. “I have to run down to the office.”

“I have to get home anyway. Get some stuff done. But here’s that paperwork you asked for.”

“Oh, thanks. Come for dinner tomorrow night, when I’m less crazed.”

“It’s a date.”

He started to walk up, say hi and bye to his cousins, when Darby stopped the machine, hopped off. So he crossed to her instead, studied the trenching.

“So. A shrubbery?”

“It’s always best to appease the Knights Who Say Ni.”

He had to grin. “So I’ve heard.”

She took off her cap to swipe her forehead.

Just what the hell color was that hair? he wondered. Not brown, not really red. But more red than brown in the sun, more brown than red in the shade.

“You’re just the man I wanted to see,” she said as she put the cap back on.

“Need a lawyer?”

“Not right this minute, but I’m always looking for clients. How about I come take a look at your new place?”

He felt a little of Emily’s panic. “You look pretty busy.”

With a shrug, she pulled on work gloves. “You have to look ahead. I’ve got some ideas, but I want a better look at things, with you factored in. I can come by in a couple hours.”

She headed to her truck, called for the crew. He had a minute with his cousins before she pulled them in. He saw a lot of black plastic, a lot of black hosing.

And figured he should get gone before she tossed him a pair of gloves and sucked him into the work.

As he drove home he reminded himself he did want a few little things added to the exterior. And he wasn’t a pushover, so he wouldn’t end up with trenches and shrubberies.

Maybe a tree. He wouldn’t mind a nice shade tree he could watch grow year after year. Maybe put a hammock under it for lazy Sunday afternoons. Or a couple of trees with a hammock slung between them.

He’d give her a tree, Zane decided, possibly two. Maybe a couple of bushes or shrubs—was there a difference? They didn’t call it a bushery, right?

Anyway.

He’d hold the line on shrubbery/bushery. And that would be that.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Darby admired the drive up to Zane’s. She knew just where the property line started, and knew she’d plant redbuds, or azaleas, maybe mountain or bay laurel. Scatter them up that drive so it looked as if nature put them there.

Not only would visitors have that “ah” moment as they ascended, but they’d show from the house, and from points below.

Gracious, lovely.

The house itself was, in her opinion, a kick-my-ass-sideways feat of architecture. All wood and stone and glass perched on the rise, just lording it over everything. Decks, porches, patios just begging for her touch. The big main entrance—and since they were in the South, that would be a veranda rather than a porch—screamed out for sleek stone urns—maybe concrete—filled with color and height.

Hell, she’d make friends with Zane just for the chance to spend some time up here as it was. But if she talked him into letting her get her hands on the place? She’d give him a mountain paradise.

She parked, looked up. The man didn’t even have a chair on the deck—and she’d call that a terrace—off the master bedroom suite.

Clearly, he needed her.

He stepped out the big double doors onto the covered veranda, and she felt the click. He suited the house, to her eye, and the house suited him. That made it easier.

He was a tall one, so all those high ceilings, the soaring windows, the wide-open floor plan on the main level worked well.

She’d fix it so the grounds worked well for him, too.

Long legs that didn’t have to hurry to cover ground, and a good, strong build that still hit the edge of lanky.

What woman didn’t give an mmmm over a long, lanky, green-eyed man?

“You’ve got a hell of a place here, Zane.”

“I’m not used to it yet.” He stepped up to her, turned around, looked as she did. “I drive up here every time and think: Whoa, how about that.”

“I have the same reaction to mine. Often add a little hip-shaking boogie. It’s good to be home, isn’t it?”

“You made the transition fast and smooth.”

She turned, gestured to the view of mountains, the lake, the town, the everything. “Why not? I bet you stand in one of those gorgeous windows and think: Whoa, how about that.”

“Every freaking day.”

“It’s a killer view. You know what it’s missing?”

He felt his shoulders tighten. Hold the line, he reminded himself. “I figure you’re going to tell me.”

“You need a stone retaining wall, along here.” She walked closer to where the ground began its long slope down. “Not only for erosion, but for structure—and safety. You might get married, have kids.”

A tree, he reminded himself. Maybe a couple bushes.

“It feels like a wall would close things in.”

“Not a high wall, nothing that would block the view from up here, or down there. Something to enhance. We’d go with man-made stone—I’ll leave you a brochure. You pick the tones, the design. We’d add lights.”

“Lights, but—”

“Not just for illumination, for magic.” She reached in one of the pockets of her cargo jeans, offered him a small copper strip. “We’d use them—your choice of finish—on both sides. I’ve got some pictures to show you how they look at night. Just a nice, pretty glow.

“I get the previous owners wanted the house itself to be the wow, didn’t want much else in the front. But they didn’t have small kids.”

“Neither do I.”

“Yet. Plus, your sister has a little girl, and she’ll be running around here. You don’t want her to go tumbling down this slope.”

He hadn’t thought of it, but now he could see it. And the image moved his line, then and there. “Okay, a wall. Low wall.”