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“Is that how you came to be a gardener?”
He shrugged. “That came later, when we had to sell the farm. Gardening seemed like a way to keep working on land.”
“What happened to the farm?” she asked.
“It’s a block of houses now. Nice houses, too, with little fences and front yards.”
“Did you dig a trench after the sale?” The question slipped out before she could even think how rude or callous it was. “I beg your pardon, Macalister. It was unthinking of me to ask such a thing.”
“I dug two,” he said, his neutral expression never slipping.
Adele caught her laugh, pressing her fingers to her lips even as she tried to clear her throat to cover it.
“Ma didn’t make me fill those ones in,” he added. “You should try it.”
“Digging a trench?” she asked.
“A hole. There are a few more roses I need to heel in.”
“Heel in?”
“Plant them temporarily so that the roots don’t dry out. People in colder climates do it to protect them from frost, too, but there’s not much risk of that here,” he explained.
“I didn’t realize that had a name. It’s a kind offer, but I’m hardly dressed for the occasion,” she said.
He glanced in the direction of the house, the shallow peak of the roof just visible from where they stood. “You mean that there’s nothing for you to wear in that big house over there?”
Her brows popped. There was something almost teasing about the impertinent challenge, yet it didn’t bother her the way it should. Would Mrs. Whitley, the woman he knew only when wrapped in the cotton wool of her husband’s wealth, dare to do something as unladylike as dirty her hands?
“I suppose I should just change then,” she said.
When he smiled, it stretched into a full grin. “Suppose you should.”
chapter thirty-five ADELE
When Adele emerged from Rosewood House clad in a light blue cotton dress and straw hat with a frayed brim she’d sent up with a trunk of things she hardly wore some time ago, Macalister raised a brow.
“It is the oldest thing I own,” she said. “The hat, too.”
He huffed a little and then handed her a pair of thick cowhide gloves. “These won’t fit you, but you’ll be happy to have them after about ten minutes.”
She pulled on the gloves and then he gave her a wooden-handled spade before picking up his own to show her what to do.
It seemed simple enough at first when Macalister plunged the blade of his spade into the earth to loosen and discard it, but when he stepped back to give her the room to try, she found that the dirt didn’t give way for her the way that it did for him.
“Do you think I’ve hit a rock?” she asked.
His lips twitched. “Try again.”
She did, getting a bit more purchase on the earth this time.
“Now hinge it up, and move it to the side,” he instructed.
She did as she was told, lifting a dusting of dry brown earth and dropping it a little way off from the faint dent she’d managed to create.
She worked at her hole as he settled in next to her, digging faster and more efficiently than she did but not saying a word. After five minutes, her arms and shoulders ached. After ten minutes, she was certain she could feel a blister forming between her thumb and her index finger. Yet she continued to work, the loose, dusty topsoil giving way to a loamy, chocolate brown earth underneath.
After what felt like an eternity, Macalister stopped her and declared that the hole she’d dug was deep enough, pointing out a rose waiting in a wooden bucket of water.
