Out of the Blue Bouquet (Crossroads Collection)

by Amanda Tru

  “It wasn’t all the orders,” Tylee spoke up, with a quivering voice. “Just a few that we know of so far. A few of the names were messed up, and the flowers ended up being delivered to the wrong people. I think some of the instructions were missing for one order, and the bouquet sent didn’t completely match what was requested. That’s all we know of so far.”

  “So, how many orders are we talking?” Brooke asked, hoping that maybe things weren’t quite as bad as Helen made it sound. “Maybe five orders?’

  “Three so far,” Tylee replied.

  Brooke barely stopped her breath from releasing in a huge sigh of relief. Three orders. That didn’t sound so bad after all. Nodding firmly, she spoke, ready to fix things the best she could. “If you give me the numbers of those who have called in about the order mistakes, then I will call, make an apology, and see what can be done to make things right.”

  “That will not be necessary,” Helen said coolly. “I have already made the apologies and refunded the money. All of the lost proceeds from those orders will be deducted from your pay.”

  Brooke kept her face stoic, but it was difficult. She didn’t want to show emotion in front of Helen, and she especially didn’t want to show the fear that Helen’s words caused. She knew that it was probably right that she pay for the mistakes made, but those orders wouldn’t come cheap. She was on a tight budget. The cost of three orders, she may be able to handle, but if any more order mistakes showed up, she might not be able to afford her bills with the dock in pay. How could she pay her rent without a paycheck?

  “I would still like to see the orders that were wrong,” Brooke insisted. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Helen. There didn’t seem to be any way around the fact that she’d messed up, but she had a driving need to know the details. “If I know what mistakes I made, maybe I can figure out if there were any other mistakes made, and I can prevent them happening in the future.”

  Helen sniffed in disdain. “Your job is to arrange the flowers. You will never handle another order again. We don’t have time to waste. I found out about yesterday’s catastrophe when I checked my email this morning. I then responded to the emails and sent refunds. I haven’t done anything else yet, as taking care of your mess has already put us behind schedule. The orders for today need to be sent out, and I can’t afford to have anything go wrong with them. My only consolation in all of this is that the mistakes were on the online orders. If you screwed up the local orders, it would have ruined me! It would have been all over town before breakfast!”

  There was no point in defending herself or getting Helen to change her attitude on anything. “I’ll go get prepped for today’s flower arrangements,” Brooke said dully as she side-stepped Helen to busy herself readying her supplies.

  Finally releasing Brooke from her glare, Helen bustled over to the computer. “I’ll print out today’s orders. I want them done by noon for Tylee to deliver. Any other orders that come in will have to be completed for Tylee to do a second delivery this afternoon. I need to handle the online orders, so you and Tylee will have to handle the calls.”

  Eager to please, Tylee hurried over to the phone and pressed the blinking light on the answering machine.

  A strained voice filled the shop. “Hi, ummm… this is Aimee Maxwell on Crescent Drive. I think there’s been a mistake.”

  Brooke froze mid-stride.

  “I just had some beautiful flowers delivered. But the card said they were from my mother for my birthday. Well, it is my birthday, but the problem is, my mother passed away from a sudden heart attack seven months ago. So if you could please give me a call back and let me know how I got flowers from my mother, I’d appreciate it.” The voice cracked in a sob. “I’m just really confused.” The phone number she mumbled was barely audible before the call ended.

  Beep.

  Brooke was going to be sick.

  A new voice spoke up. “Hi! This is Michelle Thomas. There were some flowers delivered to me, but I think there’s a mistake. The delivery girl just handed me the bouquet and said, ‘These are for you.’ I didn’t realize that there was a problem until after she left. The address is correct, but the card says Tara. There’s no Tara who lives here. I don’t know if you want to come back to get the flowers. I feel bad that Tara might not get them. Anyway, call me.”

  Her phone number was followed by another beep.

  “Hi! There were some flowers delivered—”

  “How many messages are on the machine?” Brooke interrupted.

  Tylee pressed the stop button and looked up at Brooke, pure panic in her eyes. “Fourteen,” she whispered hoarsely.

  That’s when Brooke realized that Helen had been correct. Brooke had messed up all of yesterday’s orders.

  “This can’t be happening!” Brooke moaned. “I followed the lists!”

  Not able to bring herself to look at Helen, Brooke once again grabbed at the papers on her work counter. Her hands lit on the only white paper in the mess of brown coffee-stained ones. The list of local orders had been ruined, so they had printed out a new one, which Brooke had followed to every last detail. There was no way she could have made that many mistakes.

  Her eyes scanned the names on the list, seeing nothing unusual. Then her gaze moved up to the heading area and caught on the date.

  The month was right. The day was right. The year was not.

  Tylee appeared at her elbow, looking over her shoulder.

  “It’s the date, Tylee!” Brooke whispered.

  Behind them, Helen had once again pressed the play button. The litany of confused customers made for a nightmarish background to their conversation.

  Tylee shook her head. “That was yesterday’s date,” she insisted. “I looked at the calendar before I printed.”

  “The year.” Brooke pointed to the small set of numbers in the corner. “You used the correct date and month, but for last year. We sent flowers to a list of people from that date a year ago!”

  Brooke watched the look of horror replace confusion, as Tylee finally understood that this was not actually the year written on the paper.

  Tylee’s breath rapidly pushed in and out, promising that a full bout of hyperventilating wasn’t far off. “It’s all my fault!” she gasped.

  “No, it isn’t,” Brooke said firmly, reaching a gentle hand up to Tylee’s shoulder. “I looked things over before you printed. I didn’t see that the date was wrong.”

  “But I—”

  Tylee was interrupted by the cheery jingle of the bells above the door.

  Helen hurriedly pressed the pause button on the machine and turned to the man who entered the store. Her face lit up as if everything was right in the world. “Why, it’s our favorite customer!” she said eagerly, rushing forward in greeting. “What can I help you with? Do you have an order for today?”

  Even before he said a world, Brooke was overcome by a horrible premonition: Dylan Masters was not here to place an order.

  Brooke’s fingers once again scrambled through the papers. If the list Tylee printed was last year’s orders, then it would make complete sense that the Dylan Masters order hadn’t been included. Tylee had gone back in and reprinted that order. The question was, which order had she printed? One from last year, or the correct one from this year?

  Dear, Lord, please…

  Her fingers found the paper before she could finish the prayer. It shook in her hand as she brought it up. But the paper labeled with Dylan Masters name in tiny letters at the top did not list just one order. Instead, there were about ten separate orders with individual instructions for each. Completely confused, Brooke scanned each line, tuning out Tylee’s whimpers and the conversation between Helen and Mr. Masters. Brooke had sent out each order on this list, but if Tylee had printed out Dylan’s order separately, why would there be more than one on the page?

  Still confused, Brooke’s gaze returned to the top. Her eyes widened and her breath caught. There were too many tiny numbers at the top. There wasn�
��t just a single date. There was a range. The first date was the same wrong one from the other orders, the date that was a year old. But the second date was the correct one. Yesterday’s date. Tylee had apparently typed in Dylan’s name and the date to bring up the order, but the previous date she’d used had still been selected. The result was that the page in Brooke’s hand contained all of Dylan’s orders from the past year.

  Brooke shut her eyes, trying to breathe deeply, but Helen and Dylan’s words found their way through her attempt at calm.

  “Some women I know received flowers that I didn’t order. From me.” From the tone of his voice, Brooke knew this wasn’t the first time he had tried to explain the problem to Helen.

  Unfortunately, Brooke understood exactly what the problem was.

  “What is it?” Tylee asked urgently.

  “These are all Dylan Masters’ orders,” Brooke explained quietly. “Every order he made from the past year is on this page. Since this list doesn’t contain any personal information, just the order numbers and instructions, I didn’t know these were all from the same sender. When you filled out the cards, didn’t you notice they were all from Dylan?”

  “No,” Tylee moaned. “He never includes his name on the card! It’s like he just assumes the women know it’s him. My paper didn’t include the sender either. Just the order number, message, and recipient info. Grammie prefers it that way. She insists it is proper privacy procedures.”

  Brooke swallowed and turned to Helen and Dylan. Both were already visibly flustered. Helen couldn’t conceive of what order mistakes Dylan was attempting to report. And neither realized that the scope wasn’t just on the level of simple errors, but more on the level of debacle.

  With a vise-like grip on the evidence that would condemn her, Brooke strode forward, knowing she was headed for the gallows.

  Five feet before she reached Helen, Dylan’s gaze swung up and met her own. Gray eyes flashed.

  Brooke’s heart leaped. She held his gaze steady, but only with great effort. She knew that in minutes, this man would hate her.

  It wasn’t just “some women.” All of his many ex-girlfriends from the past year had just received flowers, and they thought they were from him.

  Brooke knew the truth, and before she even said a word, she knew the anger she would face from both Helen and Dylan.

  There was no way out of it, and nothing Brooke could do to make it better.

  The simple facts were that Dylan hadn’t sent the flowers. Brooke had.

  “You’re sure I can’t just call these women up and apologize?” Brooke asked in desperation.

  “No,” Dylan said flatly, his eyes never leaving the road. “I already told you. When we broke up, I blocked and deleted their numbers. I have no way of contacting them.”

  “Plus, there’s the added bonus of making me miserable,” Brooke grumbled.

  “Well, there is that,” Dylan said seriously. “If you make a mistake like sending every woman a man has dated flowers supposedly from him, then you should have a little responsibility for trying to make it right.”

  Brooke’s lips tightened into a thin line as she did all she could to bite back a retort. It wasn’t enough that Helen was going to dock her pay for every order that was sent. Brooke probably would not receive a paycheck at all this month. It also wasn’t enough that Brooke offered to call each woman up and apologize. Dylan instead insisted that she go to each delivery address in person to make the explanation. Even more humiliating, he insisted on accompanying her to make sure she completed the task.

  So now they were on their way to girlfriend number 1 in Dylan’s Porsche.

  Brooke shot a sideways glare at the man beside her. He really was freakishly handsome. With his dark hair that waved perfectly away from his forehead and the hint of a 5 o’clock shadow, Brooke understood why he had a never-ending line of girlfriends. Any woman would probably be giddy to be sitting in the passenger seat of Dylan’s Porsche. That is, any woman but Brooke.

  “I have a list of ten women. That means you’ve had ten girlfriends in the past year.”

  Dylan shrugged. “I don’t send flowers to every woman I date.”

  Brooke struggled to control her laughter. “And none of your relationships ended well enough to not block and delete them from your contact list?”

  Again, Dylan shrugged. “Consequence of the game, I guess. Besides, it’s easier that way.”

  “You know, we wouldn’t have been in this mess if you would have bothered signing your name to your flower deliveries. If it had been included in the instructions, then Ty—, I mean, we would have realized there was more than one order being sent from ‘Dylan.’“ Brooke refused to cast blame on Tylee. She had so far kept her friend’s part out of all her reports. After all, Brooke had been in charge. She had approved the lists before Tylee printed them, and she’d been in such a hurry that she hadn’t thought about the orders beyond yet another bouquet of roses.

  Only too eager to lay all the fault at Brooke’s feet, it didn’t seem to occur to them that she might be protecting someone.

  Even now, Dylan didn’t notice her slip-up and eagerly retorted, “It’s never been a problem before. I shouldn’t need to clarify which of my girlfriend’s boyfriends is sending her roses. Besides, I’m not the one who sent last year’s orders, or the one who gave the wrong information to people in other countries, or the one who had flowers delivered to the wrong people, or the one who repeated a customer’s every order from the past year. I believe the blame lies solely with you, Miss Hutchins, and I don’t think you should try to share.”

  It was pointless. The man had no mercy for what had happened and no shame in his robust dating history.

  “Fine. I admit it. It’s completely my fault.” Right now, she just wanted to finish her sentence and go home. Unfortunately, even after she completed Dylan’s tasks, she still had a long list of local calls to make. Helen had insisted Brooke take as long as necessary to solve Dylan’s situation first, since that one was obviously the biggest fiasco. While Helen was going to call the list of the other local order mistakes, Brooke was supposed to call to make personal apologies after Dylan released her.

  Brooke had no doubt that in a small town like Crossroads, she would be infamous by morning.

  She hadn’t cried yet, and wasn’t about to start now. She would in no way give Dylan the satisfaction of detecting any weakness. If she could make it through the day, she would have a good, long cry when no one had a chance to see her.

  She looked down at the list of Dylan’s ex-girlfriends, and the same one she had delivered flowers to yesterday. She put her finger on the first name on the list “So is this Shauna Waterson the one we are headed to now?”

  “No, we’re going to Janice Thornton first.”

  “But she’s the middle of the list. And the address is in the city!” The town of Crossroads was about forty-five minutes from a larger city called Brighton Falls. Crossroads Floral did deliver there, sometimes for an extra charge, but it seemed like it would be a better idea to take care of the closer orders first.

  “Yes, but Janice is the craziest,” Dylan said simply, as if that answered everything.

  Great. She had to explain to Dylan’s crazy ex why she received roses from Dylan.

  And with that, Brooke stopped talking. She stopped asking questions. She stopped protesting. It was obvious at this point that every little bit of information she gained made things so much worse. She would go where Dylan told her and say what he wanted her to say, but she just didn’t want to know anymore.

  Twenty minutes later, Brooke realized she should have been watching Dylan’s speed. He was pulling into a parking lot across from the Brighton Falls courthouse, and she was not at all ready to be at their destination so soon.

  Dylan turned off the car and nodded at the courthouse. “Janice is in there. Just ask for Janice Thornton. She’ll be hard to miss.” Dylan glanced at his watch. “You may have to wait a while, but hopefully she�
��ll have a break soon.”

  Brooke waited for Dylan to step out of the car first, but he remained seated, took out his phone, and began checking his email as if she was dismissed.

  “Aren’t you coming with me?” Brooke asked, the irritation clear in his voice.

  Dylan blinked up at her. “I’d rather not. Janice and I didn’t end things on the most pleasant of terms. I doubt she’ll be happy to see me. And like I already told you, she’s crazy.”

  Brooke leaned her head back and folded her arms across her chest. “If we know she works at the courthouse, I can easily call and ask for her. I thought you were my bailiff and were going to follow me to make sure I got the job done. If you don’t care, I see no reason to embarrass myself at her workplace when I shall get adequate embarrassment over the phone.”

  Dylan sighed. “Fine, I’ll go with you. But I’ll just point her out and then stay out of sight while you handle it. You have to do it in person. There’s no way she’ll take your call.”

  Dylan hopped out and hurried around to open Brooke’s door, but Brooke exited before he had a chance. She didn’t like this man; she didn’t intend to give him any opportunity to redeem himself by acting the gentleman.

  Dylan strode swiftly to the front steps of the courthouse, with Brooke a half-stride behind him. Once through the front doors, Brooke slowed, taking in the high ceilings and impressive architecture, but Dylan, acting like he knew exactly where he was going, marched up to the front desk.

  “Can you direct me to Janice Thornton please?” Dylan asked, flashing the woman on duty a smile.

  “She is in the courtroom on the second floor,” the woman answered, flashing him a flirtatious smile in return. “They are in session now, but you can speak with one of the security guards about where to meet her if you have an appointment.”

  “Thanks!” Dylan said.

  Brooke was sure Dylan added a quick wink the brunette’s direction.