Any Blooming Thing: Contemporary Second Chance Romance Novella (Clean Romantic Comedy) (Flower Shop Romance Book 1)

by Marisa Logan

  “Well, I loved it, I thought it gave you a very regal look. Not to say I don’t like how you look now. I still think you're the most handsome man I’ve ever known."

  “So after that night you and Jessica started dating each other exclusively, or at least that's what you thought. She always went back to you at the end of the day, so to speak. I think it was only because her flings weren’t interested in taking care of her. I watched this going on and it broke my heart, because I wanted to tell you so bad. I didn’t want to see her break your heart, because all I’ve ever wanted was to have it for myself. That’s a big reason why I disappeared out of your lives after that first year.”

  “I went off to school to try to find myself, but I couldn't get you out of my mind. I always hoped Jessica would grow up and be good to you. When I got the invitation to the wedding I was happy and sad at the same time. I was overjoyed that you two were happy and getting married. But I knew I couldn’t maintain the fantasy of us being together after that. I was really happy though, because I thought Jessica had finally grown up and settled down. That she was ready to be the woman you should have.

  “I was proven wrong. Jessica slept with another man tonight. It’s so horrible, and I didn’t know how to tell you. I’m ashamed for her. She showed no regret for any hurt she caused. She even told me that I was more than welcome to be with you, but you wouldn’t want me. I know she’s right, and it just hurts so bad.”

  I start crying. Steve handed me a tissue and put an arm around me. “Why do you think she’s right? You’re an amazing woman, I thought so years ago and I still do. Had I known back then how you felt, everything might have turned out different. Even back then part of me knew that this would never last.”

  I turned and buried my face in his chest, holding onto him like my life depended on it. I could feel him start to cry and tighten his grip on me, taking as much comfort in me as I was taking in him.

  “Steve, I’m so sorry about everything that's happening to you. All I ever hoped for you was happiness, even if it was with someone else. I’m going to go back to school tomorrow and I don’t know how I’m going to cope with everything. Can you just promise me one thing?” I ask.

  “Anything,” he said. “Please don’t lose touch with me again. After we reconnected tonight, I don’t think I could handle losing you again.”

  Steve put his hands on my face, while tears still rolled down my cheeks. “I promise I won’t. I want to talk to you every day.” I smiled at him and pulled him into a hug. When the hug broke I started to pull away, but he held on and pulled me back. He put his hand on the nape of my neck, and pulled me into a deep passionate kiss. I hoped with all my heart that it was real this time, as we laid down together.

  “Steve, I truly do want to be with you, but you went through a lot today. I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow and have regrets about tonight. If anything were to come of this, and I’m not being presumptuous enough to assume it will, I want to take it slow. I feel silly for saying it, but I’ve always been waiting for you, and I’ve never been with anyone before. Even just saying it is so ridiculous, I feel embarrassed.”

  He broke into a huge smile.

  “Don’t be embarrassed Christina. I’ve never been with anyone before either. I always dreamed of waiting for the right one. I guess I never knew for sure that Jessica was the one, so I waited until we were married before I slept with her. Maybe that’s why she went astray. She didn’t want to wait for me to be sure. I know it’s a hard thing for most people to wrap their head around, especially nowadays. I’m sure even you are thinking I’m a total square.”

  “I don’t think that. I’ve always believed in waiting for that special one. The problem for me was that no man ever measured up, because I always believed you were the one I was waiting for. I still do.”

  Steve pulled me toward him, in an intimate embrace. His other hand rested on the back of my neck, and we fell into a romantic kiss. I felt his hand start to slide down my body, exploring my curves. I slid my hands down to his waist and pulled his shirt over his head. All I could think was that if this was another dream, I never want to wake up.

  “I love you Steve.”

  “I love you too, Christina.”

  THE END

  Keep reading for another bonus book.

  Bonus Book 4 -- My Chance

  A Contemporary Romance Novella

  (Clean Version)

  J.L. STARR

  Copyright © 2016 by J.L. Starr

  All rights reserved, worldwide.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Book Description

  When Donna's grandmother dies, it brings her family together for the first time in five years. She and her siblings discover that Grandma left them all a sizable inheritance. But there's a catch: in order to collect the money, they need to first obtain in a college degree or forfeit their share.

  Donna is stuck in a desperate situation. She dropped out of college years ago in order to raise her daughter. She's drowning in debt and desperately needs this inheritance to make a future for herself and her daughter.

  The only way to get the inheritance is to head back to school and try to juggle college life, working a day job, and raising a daughter all at the same time. There's little room for her new friend Connor and no room for error.

  This is a 20,000 word clean romance. A sexual relationship is implied, however there is nothing more explicit than kissing in the story.

  Chapter 1

  I hadn't spoken to my younger brother and sister for about five years before the day of our grandmother's funeral.

  We each sat in different rows during the small church service. Dad sat somewhere partway between all of us. He'd been stuck between us for years, juggling everything to keep us separated during the holidays.

  I'd said on more than one occasion that I wouldn't mind us seeing each other for family gatherings. There was no reason we couldn't be civilized towards each other. But the last time we made the attempt, my little brother had gone into a full-blown panic attack in Dad's driveway on Christmas Eve. I wasn't quite clear on what had been going through his head—I never had been, since we were little—but apparently he had been so scared of what we would do and say that he had a complete breakdown. I remember standing in Dad's living room, watching as he carried Jimmy's Christmas presents out to the car, before Jimmy and his girlfriend had driven away.

  I looked across the church at him, wondering how he was doing. His wife—not the same girl from that Christmas, she'd apparently cheated on him a few years later—held his hand in her lap, stroking his fingers to keep him calm. He was quiet the entire time, though I'd expected that. He tended to get quiet during emotional times, sometimes shutting down completely. I was pretty sure he was somewhere on the autism spectrum, but as far as I knew, he'd never gotten checked out.

  My little sister Amanda was the only one who was crying. She was also the youngest; she'd just turned twenty-two, and her college graduation was in a few days. Not that I'd been invited.

  When the priest asked if anyone wanted to say a few words, Amanda was the only one that got up. I watched her walk up to the front, wiping the tears from her eyes. I wondered what she could possibly say about Grandma. Grandma had suffered from Alzheimer's that had slowly robbed her mind over the course of the last six or seven years. I hadn't even bothered to visit her for the last five. I didn't see the point, since she never recognized me. And we'd never had a relationship. Amanda couldn't have had any better memories of Grandma than I had. She'd been a teenager when Grandma started losing her mind, so her only real memories of Grandma would probably have been of Christmases and Thanksgivings from years past, and that su
mmer we spent at Grandma's while our parents were getting divorced.

  “My Grandma was really special to me,” Amanda said. “I remember how hard it was, helping take care of her when she first got diagnosed with Alzheimer's. There was this one time, she was convinced these shortbread cookies were made out of wood...”

  I looked down into my lap, tuning out the rest of the story. Amanda had still been living with Dad when he took Grandma in. I guess I'd never thought about her helping taking care of Grandma as she deteriorated.

  While Amanda was telling her story, I noticed my daughter, Ariella, had her phone out. She was holding it low in her lap, probably thinking nobody would notice. I tapped my fingers on it and gestured for her to put it away. She ignored me. I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Put that away. This is a funeral for God's sake.”

  She huffed and gave me an annoyed look, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Mom, I'm bored,” she whispered. “I didn't even know her.”

  “Put it away,” I hissed, holding my hand out to grab the phone if she didn't listen. She rolled her eyes and tucked the phone in her pocket.

  I didn't blame her for not wanting to be here. I didn't want to be here, and I'd at least sort of had a relationship with Grandma when I was younger. Not much of a relationship, since she'd lived in Tennessee most of my life, so we only saw each other on the holidays. But Ariella had been in diapers when Grandma started losing her mind. As far as I knew, she had no memories of her great-grandmother at all.

  “It won't be much longer,” I whispered. I put an arm around her. She leaned her head against my shoulder and pretended to pay attention to what her aunt was saying.

  When Amanda finished, the priest stepped up and asked, “Would anyone else like to say anything?”

  I looked around at my estranged family members. No one made a move.

  The priest went through the final blessings, then closed the casket. The funeral procession on the way to the cemetery was small. Aside from Dad, my stepmom, my siblings, and Ariella, the only people there were my Dad's sister and my cousins from North Carolina. I didn't know them very well either. Before they came up for the funeral, I hadn't seen them since the summer we spent at Grandma's when I was twelve. Though we sort of kept in touch on Facebook.

  I stood quietly as they lowered Grandma into the earth. I thought about all the years that I never called her, never visited. It wasn't like I'd had time to visit her in Tennessee. Raising a daughter on my own had taken up most of my time. But as the coffin disappeared from sight, I realized that I didn't know a single thing about my grandmother. Oh, I knew the basic facts. She'd grown up on a farm. She'd worked for awhile as an Avon lady. She'd been really racist and strict. But I didn't know any of the real details of her life. What her first kiss had been like. What kind of job she'd had as a teenager. Whether she'd ever traveled when she was younger, or whether she'd been stuck in Tennessee her whole life. Why she'd divorced my grandfather, a man I'd never even met.

  There was no way I was ever going to learn those things now. She was gone, and all of her hopes and dreams, her secrets and lies, her fears, her sins, and her mysteries, they were all lost forever. Maybe Dad could tell me a few things about her life, but he couldn't know what was really in her heart. He couldn't tell me what her favorite movie was, or her favorite color. He couldn't tell me what she'd thought about me, whether she'd respected the decisions I'd made in my life.

  I cried then, thinking about the things that were lost. Not for the woman herself. I hadn't known her well enough to mourn her. No, I mourned the relationship that we'd never have. I mourned the lost chance to get to know her. The knowledge that it was too late to go back to the days before Alzheimer's took her mind, pick up the phone, and call her just to say hi.

  Ariella put an arm around me. I don't think I'd ever cried in front of her before.

  My tears didn't last long. The priest's final words were simple and generic. He hadn't known her, either. When it was all done, Ariella and I headed for the car.

  “Can we go home now?” she asked. She had her phone back out. I was starting to regret buying it for her for Christmas. I'd argued for awhile that a nine year old was too young to have her own smartphone. She'd convinced me that since she was “almost ten,” she deserved to have one.

  “We have to go to the reading of the will,” I said. “Then we're stopping at your grandfather's house for awhile.”

  “Cool,” she said. She never minded going to Grandpa's. He had an XBox. For a man in his fifties, my dad was a pretty hardcore gamer. He'd bought Ariella an Xbox of her own for Christmas, and I was pretty sure he'd only done it so that they could play Gears of War together online.

  I wondered if Grandma had ever played a video game. I guessed I'd never know.

  Chapter 2

  The lawyer's office was a bit cramped when we got there, even with how few of us there were. I sat there, as bored as Ariella was, not seeing much point to this part of the day. Grandma hadn't had any money, at least as far as I knew. I supposed there would be the sale of the farm, but I couldn't imagine that was worth much. Any other money she'd had would no doubt have been spent on her medical bills over the years. I remembered my father talking about the financial burden of taking care of her, and I had to assume she'd been broke and he'd been the one covering the expenses towards the end.

  The lawyer read through some legal definitions and explained some of the details to us, then started reading the will. It started off fairly standard, with Grandma leaving the farm to one of my dad's cousins who lived in Tennessee and had basically been running it for the last ten years anyway. It wasn't until the last couple of paragraphs that things started to get strange.

  “And finally,” the lawyer read, flipping to the last page, “my pension from my retirement after my service at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, held by the First National Bank of Tennessee.”

  I exchanged looks with my siblings and cousins. Grandma had worked for the FBI?

  “It is my desire that this money go towards the education of my grandchildren,” the lawyer read, “Donna, James, Amanda, Charlotte, and Benjamin. The sum total of this account shall be divided equally between them, with the condition that the funds first be placed into trust, and used solely to cover the cost of tuition, books, and other expenses related to their educations. In the event that I pass after they have completed their educations, the funds may instead be allocated to paying off any student debt they have acquired, or reimbursing them for out of pocket expenses already paid. Any money left over in each of their trusts may only be released for personal use when the above expenses have been covered, and upon successful completion of a program granting at least a bachelor's degree.”

  I frowned, not quite sure what to make of the restrictions Grandma had apparently put into our inheritance. Though the will had surely been written back when all of us were in high school. I doubted Grandma had updated it in the later years when her mind was deteriorating.

  “What does she mean by 'personal use'?” Amanda asked. “And does it have to be a college degree? I mean, I paid for Beauty School.”

  “The specific conditions are laid out in another document,” the lawyer explained. “But to summarize, the criteria make it clear that she didn't want the money being squandered on things like video games and expensive clothing, that sort of thing. It was her wish that this money be used responsibly, to help you all get a better future.”

  “How much are we talking about here?” Jimmy asked. “I've got over forty grand in debt, and most of that is student loans.”

  I had plenty of debt myself, but it had all been the result of raising a child without child support from her father for the past nine years. PJ was a complete sleaze, and even before he got thrown in jail for statutory rape a few years after we split up, he hadn't paid me a dime for years.

  The lawyer opened another envelope and scanned the contents. “According to the most recent statement released to me by the ba
nk, the sum total of the account currently stands at $914,111.68. That's to be divided equally between you. Which comes to...one moment.”

  He pulled out a calculator while we all gawked. I'd had no idea Grandma had been sitting on that kind of money.

  The lawyer held up the calculator and cleared his throat. “Divided equally among the five of you, that comes to $182,822.33. Each.”

  “Holy cow,” Jimmy said.

  “Sweet,” Amanda whispered.

  Charlotte raised her hand. The lawyer turned to her. “And after paying off student loans,” she said, “the rest, whatever's leftover, we get to keep?”

  “That's correct,” the lawyer said. “You should understand, of course, these funds have been collecting interest since your grandmother's retirement twenty years ago. According to the documentation, she originally retired with $250,000. But, compounded interest over twenty years...” He spread his hands.

  I stared at the wall, trying to clear my head. Ariella bounced up and down in her seat, no doubt imagining all the things I'd buy her once we collected the money. Except there was just one problem.

  “Umm,” I said, tearing my eyes off the wall and looking to the lawyer, “I never went to college.”

  “Well,” the lawyer said, looking through his papers, “there are stipulations for that. Let me see...yes. It says here that the funds must be used in their entirety for the above stated purposes either within five years of your grandmother's death, or before each of your twenty-fifth birthdays. You are...over twenty-five, I take it?”

  I nodded, licking my lips.

  “Then,” he said, setting the papers down on his desk, “you have five years to acquire a college degree, or else you will be considered in breach of trust.”