She looked past me again toward the house and smiled. “This is a lot of property for just one gardener. Do you think I should hire someone to help you?”

As I shook my head to let her know I didn’t understand what she’d said, she stared up at me, as if she was studying my face for the real answer. Something told me she wasn’t sure about the man she’d hired to handle her gardening.

“Ethan, I just realized other than knowing you’re Ethan Cole, I don’t know anything else about you.”

Her tone possessed a sharp edge, but she didn’t sign her words. She was trying to catch me lying. Always my Nina, she hid a great brain behind those innocent blue eyes and gentle smile.

I shook my head and signed I don’t know what you’re saying to indicate I hadn’t been able to lip read her words, stifling my smile at her cleverness.

With great effort, she signed what she’d just said, and I signed in return, Ask me anything.

She signed How old are you? and looked more like Daryl tugging on his beard as he thought about some great question than making the sign to ask how old I was.

Before I could think about my answer, I signed the number 29 and my eyes grew wide at my slip up. I really should have been better at lying by now, but just being around her made all my defenses melt away. My age being the same as her fiancé’s didn’t seem to register with her, though, and she simply smiled.

Do you like gardening? she asked, fumbling over the sign for gardening and making it look more like a dog scratching for fleas than her fingers raking over her left palm.

I nodded, which was a complete lie. To be honest, I couldn’t wait for the moment I wasn’t Ethan Cole, mute and deaf gardener. Every night I waited for Daryl to call and let me know that he’d finally figured out the secret of what Karl wanted so I could finally return to my life as Tristan Stone and the woman I loved.

You’re doing a nice job, she continued, this time doing much better with her signing.

Thanking her, I added, And thank you for learning to sign. You’re very thoughtful.

In front of me, Varo stood about twenty yards away impatiently yelling Nina’s name. She didn’t even bother to turn around to answer him, preferring to stay facing me.

“Time for me to take the stage,” she said without signing.

Shaking my head, I shrugged to let her know I didn’t understand.

Smiling, she signed, It’s nothing. Just my pretend life. Nina turned to leave and stopped short to sign one more thing. Have a good day, E-t-h-a-n.

It wasn’t what she signed but that I got to hear her speak those sweet words, even if her voice was tinged with unhappiness. I hated knowing what I’d convinced her to do was making her miserable, but I had to tell myself that it was what had to be done.

That didn’t make it any better, though.

She walked away, her pace a little slower than when she’d approached me, I thought. My mind immediately began to spin out of control thinking about where they were going, what they’d be doing, and how I’d be standing there raking. Taking a deep breath, I told myself I couldn’t let that affect me. This was the way it had to be, and that was that.

By six o’clock, I hadn’t seen Nina or either of her bodyguards return home, so I left, needing a hot shower and something in my stomach. I had a newfound appreciation for the people who’d worked on my family’s properties. I’d always been so spoiled that I never once considered what their lives were like. Where did they live? Where did they eat lunch? What did they do when they weren’t landscaping the gardens or cleaning up after my family and me? My stint as Ethan the gardener had made all those people who’d been invisible to me for all those years suddenly come into sharp focus. To say that I didn’t like what I saw was an understatement.

It’s not that Nina or anyone at the house mistreated me. Quite the opposite, in fact. Nina was welcoming, and although Varo and West weren’t altogether friendly, they weren’t nasty or rude. I was, however, invisible there, for all practical purposes. Unlike in my life as Tristan Stone, no one wanted to spend time with me for meals or clamored to hear what I had to say about anything.

The change in my status was enlightening, to say the least.

Standing in the shower, I let the water sluice over me, loving the feel of its stinging heat on my skin. Working as a gardener was much harder work than I’d ever believed, and my body already showed the signs of its effects. Muscles that had atrophied for months when I was in exile now grew again, the result of hours of manual labor. I hadn’t seen a gym in nearly half a year, but I couldn’t remember my body being in better shape. Those muscles didn’t come easily, though, and the hot water only did so much to ease the ache of my day job.




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