"No, though I did enjoy looking at the neighborhood. It's beautiful. " She looked around the yard, gestured to encompass it. "This must have been, too, once. What happened?"
"Couple lived here fifty years. He died a while back. She couldn't handle the place on her own, and none of their kids still live close by. She got sick, place got rundown. She got sicker. Kids finally got her out and into a nursing home. "
"That's hard. It's sad. "
"Yeah, a lot of life is. They sold the place. New owners got a bargain and want the grounds done up. We're doing them up. "
"What've you got in mind?"
He took another slug from the water bottle. She noticed the mulcher had stopped grinding, and after Logan sent a long, narrowed look over her shoulder, it got going again.
"I've got a lot of things in mind. "
"Dealing with this job, specifically?"
"Why?"
"Because it'll help me do my job if I know more about yours. Obviously you're taking out the oak and I assume the maple out front. "
"Yeah. Okay, here's the deal. We clear everything out that can't or shouldn't be saved. New sod, new fencing. We knock down the old shed, replace it. New owners want lots of color. So we shape up the azaleas, put a weeping cherry o
ut front, replacing the maple. Lilac over there, and a magnolia on that side. Plot of peonies on that side, rambling roses along the back fence. See they got that rough little hill toward the back there, on the right? Instead of leveling it, we'll plant it. "
He outlined the rest of it quickly, rolling out Latin terms and common names, taking long slugs from his water bottle, gesturing.
He could see it, he always could - the finished land. The small details, the big ones, fit together into one attractive whole.
Just as he could see the work that would go into each and every step, as he could look forward to the process nearly as much as the finished job.
He liked having his hands in the dirt. How else could you respect the landscape or the changes you made in it? And as he spoke he glanced down at her hands. Smirked a little at her tidy fingernails with their coat of glossy pink polish.
Paper pusher, he thought. Probably didn't know crab-grass from sumac.
Because he wanted to give her and her clipboard the full treatment and get her off his ass, he switched to the house and talked about the patio they intended to build and the plantings he'd use to accent it.
When he figured he'd done more talking than he normally did in a week, he finished off the water. Shrugged. He didn't expect her to follow everything he'd said, but she couldn't complain that he hadn't cooperated.
"It's wonderful. What about the bed running on the south side out front?"
He frowned a little. "We'll rip out the ivy, then the clients want to try their hand at that themselves. "
"Even better. You've got more of an investment if you dig some yourself. "
Because he agreed, he said nothing and only jingled some change in his pocket.
"Except I'd rather see winter creeper than yews around the shed. The variegated leaves would show off well, as would the less uniform shape. "
"Maybe. "
"Do you work from a landscape blueprint or out of your head?"
"Depends. "
Should I pull all his teeth at once, or one at a time, she thought, but maintained the smile. "It's just that I'd like to see one of your designs, on paper, at some point. Which leads me to a thought I'd had. "
"Bet you got lots of them. "
"My boss told me to play nice," she said, coolly now. "How about you?"