by Inara Scott
Rachel gasped as she watched a disaster unfold behind her. The SUV driver sped up just as the red car started to change lanes. The sports car tried to pull in back behind Rachel, but by that point she was going too slowly and he was going too fast, and it was too late. They collided with a grinding clash of metal. All Rachel felt was the sensation of the wheel being ripped from her hands. Her body lurched forward into the seat belt before everything went black.
§
“Thanks for coming by, Mr. Etherly,” Kaia said, handing the elderly man his single red rose. “You tell Mrs. Etherly happy anniversary for me.”
“I will, and maybe I’ll bring her back next week, dear. She’d like to meet someone who loves flowers as much as she does.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Kaia ran around and opened the door for the wizened man, who leaned heavily over his cane as he shuffled out of the store. A wave of hot, humid air hit her like a wall, and Kaia pulled the door closed as quickly as she could behind him.
She still couldn’t quite believe that there were humans like Mr. Etherly, who had been buying his wife a single red rose every year for seventy years. Just a week ago, she would have sworn that marriage was a farce and men couldn’t ever remain faithful to a woman, or love one woman all their lives.
But then she’d met Mr. Etherly, and before him, Mr. Blaustein, who asked her to make a bouquet for his wife’s funeral. Mrs. Blaustein had died of cancer at the age of sixty-five. They’d married in their twenties, and Kaia had never seen a man so devastated by grief. She didn’t know anything about their relationship—Mr. Blaustein could have cheated on his wife hundreds of times—but she doubted it. He’d loved her deeply. It was evident in every line of his face and every bone of his body. He’d known exactly what flowers she’d wanted: a simple mix of lavender roses, phlox, and sweet peas. He said the flowers were just like her—gentle, soft, and elegant.
Kaia almost wondered if Zafira had placed on her some kind of curse, which was making her care more and more about humans even as she was being forced to scheme and plot ways to use their capacity to love against them.
Garrett’s weakness, Kaia had realized, was his niece, Lexi. He was unguarded and relaxed with his niece in a way that he wasn’t with anyone else. There was also Garrett’s relationship with Portia. On the one hand, he joked about her being a dragon, a cruel creature who tormented his niece and made her life miserable while she was at the Manor. On the other hand, he was still in Miami, and still working in the family business despite the obvious fact that he was an adult now, as was his brother, Max, who he claimed to be protecting. And though Garrett complained about Portia, he also seemed to take a strange sort of pleasure when they sparred.
If she didn’t know better, she’d say Garrett loved his dragon of a grandmother, though he’d never admit it, maybe not even to himself.
As if Garrett had known she was thinking about him, the bell at the door of Rachel’s Roses tinkled and he walked in, his expression unusually somber.
Though he’d dropped her off less than eight hours before, her pulse leapt at the sight of him, tall and lean in a pair of pinstripe pants and tailored blue shirt that made his eyes gleam. He still made her shiver every time she saw him. If anything, sleeping with him for the past two nights had only made it worse.
It was early, about four-thirty, and he’d said he wouldn’t pick her up until six-thirty or seven. That was about as far into the future as they’d planned that morning. Max was back in town the following night, so Lexi could rejoin her father. There was no reason for Garrett to stay at the Manor beyond tomorrow. Kaia had no idea what that meant for her future with him, but guessed it wasn’t good.
“Kaia, I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
She looked into Garrett’s eyes and saw deep lines at the corners and a heaviness to their depths. A new fear ran through her. He’d found something out today. He’d traced her birth certificate, or that blasted social security number, and found it meaningless. The game was over. Kaia remembered the agony of her wings freezing and turning to ash the day Zafira sentenced her. Would it be like that when the Black Ladies had their fun? Would the pain ease over time, or would the searing wound stay with her, torturing her until she finally faded away? She pictured the eerie glow of their eyes and the skeletal outlines of their bodies, and nausea roiled in her stomach.
“Okay,” she said. “I was just going to start locking up anyway.”
Garrett leaned back against the counter, hands in his pockets, tapping his foot as she turned the open sign to closed and locked the front door. Apparently, he couldn’t wait to throw her out.
She stopped and assessed his impatience with a heavy heart. “Do you want to wait until I close the shades and lock the register, or should we talk right away?”
He didn’t answer, just took her arm and steered her toward Rachel’s office. “I think you’d better sit down.”
Kaia raised one hand to her chest. Her hands began to tremble. Her mind raced, trying to come up with excuses, new lies, anything to explain away whatever Garrett had discovered “You’re starting to scare me. What’s going on?”
He waited until she had sunk down into Rachel’s tattered office chair, behind the industrial metal desk with its clutter of old coffee cups and invoices to be filed.
“A couple of hours ago Rachel was in an accident. A serious one.”
Kaia sucked in her breath. A flood of relief for her own reprieve mixed with horror that Rachel had been injured. “Is she all right?”
“They think so, but she’s pretty banged up. It looks like she has a concussion, broke both of her legs, and bruised her ribs. They were still waiting for results from a few tests when Ted called. She’s in surgery right now.”
Hot tears stung the backs of Kaia’s eyes. They thought so? How could she have felt even a moment of relief for herself when stubborn, hardworking Rachel was suffering? Rachel, who’d taken a chance on Kaia when she was nothing more than a homeless woman with no references and no job history. Rachel, who was generous enough to share her home, invite Kaia to dinner, even try to set her up with her millionaire friend. “Is Ted with her?”
“Yes, Ted’s with her, and we’ve got the best trauma surgeon in Miami working on her. Regardless of what happens, though, it’s going to be a long time before she’ll be able to come back to the store.”
“Oh.” Kaia blinked. She tried to process what Garrett was saying. No Rachel at Rachel’s Roses? Impossible.
Garrett’s frown became more pronounced. “Yes, oh. Ted’s barely keeping it together. He called me right after he got to the hospital. He’s beside himself with worry that Rachel is going to haul herself out of the intensive care unit just to come to work. Apparently, she kept muttering something about a wedding, even while they were putting her in the ambulance.”
“Well that’s ridiculous. How is she going to come to work with two broken legs and a bunch of cracked ribs?”
“This is Rachel we’re talking about, Kaia. She’ll find a way.”
Kaia gave him a weak smile. She glanced down and saw Rachel’s planner book open on her desk. The rest of the week was a mass of red lines, circles, and squiggles. Wednesday was marked with a few anniversaries and a couple of centerpieces. Thursday was a dinner party in Coral Gables, Friday they were making bouquets for the opening of a ballet, and the weekend was… the Peterson wedding.
“Oh no… ” she whispered.
“What?”
“The Peterson wedding. That’s what she was talking about. We’ve got a huge wedding this weekend. We were going to be up all night as it was, with the two of us. Rachel was counting on the wedding to help her land a couple of other deals. She needs this to go well, Garrett. Things are so precarious for this store.”
“What do you mean, precarious? Ted’s always saying how busy she is.”
“She does everything on a shoestring. She barely has money to keep the business running. I know it seems like she’s doing real
ly well, and she is, but her rent is incredible, and she’s got these huge loans she has to pay for the coolers and the fixtures, not to mention the computers and flowers.” Kaia shook her head. “She tells me it’s always this way when you start up a business, but I don’t know. You can’t imagine how hard she works.”
“I know she shouldn’t have been driving that piece of crap,” Garrett said, staring at the planner with his mouth tight. “I offered to buy her a new car. She should have let me help. I’d give her a loan in a second to keep this place running. It’s one thing to be independent, but Rachel would rather put herself in a hospital than let someone help her.”
“So what do we do?” Kaia asked. She’d never felt quite so small and helpless before. Humans had such intense lives, filled with so much purpose and stress. The Fey existed in a different time, in a different space. They existed to enjoy the beauty of the earth, to celebrate music, and seek pleasure. That all felt so petty now, when considering Rachel, hurt and in the hospital, confronting the loss of her beloved business.
Not to mention Garrett, who worked so hard to take care of his niece and manage his irascible grandmother. Garrett, who would surely have done anything to help Rachel had he been given the chance.
“Ted wants you to take over.” Garrett glanced sidelong at her, gauging her reaction without looking her full in the face. He turned to a schefflera on top of a filing cabinet and fingered one of the leaves. “He said Rachel has confidence in you. Apparently, Rachel raves about the way you put flowers together. She says it’s like you’ve got some kind of magic touch.”
Heat poured into Kaia’s cheeks at the compliment but she shook her head. “That’s really nice of them, but I don’t think I can do it. I want to help, I really do, but I don’t know how to run a business. All I do is put together the flowers and clean the store. I can run the register, and I lock up sometimes when she sets up for an event. I have no idea how to handle the program Rachel uses to run the store and balance the inventory.”
Garrett waved away her concern. “I’ll find someone who knows the flower business and send them in here for the week to worry about the computer. I’ll throw money at them if I have to. I’m not worried about it.”
“And Rachel will be okay with that?”
“Rachel is in the hospital, Kaia. I don’t really think she’s in a position to argue, do you?”
“I suppose not,” she said, staring reluctantly at the red-lined planner. “If that’s the case, why not just find someone to run the whole thing? You don’t really need me at all.”
Garrett frowned. “I can hire someone to run the business end of the store. I can’t hire someone to duplicate Rachel’s style. If Rachel trusts you to keep her clients happy, the work of keeping this store going is really in your lap. The only question I’ve got is whether you’re up for the job.”
Kaia leaned back against the chair, her head spinning with the list of things she would have to figure out before 9:00 a.m., when the store was supposed to open. Rachel called around to wholesalers each morning to place orders for delivery. She’d have to do that. She’d have to figure out what flowers to order, the length of the stems, and how many of each she thought she’d need for the day. She’d have to contact the delivery service Rachel worked with to find out what their availability was for later that week, now that Rachel’s car was unavailable. She’d have to…
“So?” Garrett prompted.
“What?” She looked up, confused. “Oh, well, yes. I suppose I’m up for the job.”
Garrett cleared his throat. “Are you sure?”
Kaia deliberately strengthened her voice. “Yes. Absolutely. I’d do anything to help Rachel. Anything.”
“Good. Now, what else do you need to do tonight before we leave?” he asked.
“Well I can’t leave tonight.” Kaia turned back to Rachel’s planner and started flipping through the pages. “There’s far too much to do. I’ll have to stay here at the store. Rachel told me that there’s a bedroom up above.”
She pulled open the desk drawer and rifled through the contents until she found a silver key with a small handwritten label. She held it up with a triumphant smile. “See? It says spare room. Rachel stores extra supplies up there and sleeps there during the big holidays—Valentine’s Day, Easter, and whatnot. This way, I can work all night long if I have to.”
Garrett frowned. “I don’t like that idea. You don’t know this neighborhood. What if there’s an emergency?”
“I’ll call 9-1-1.” Kaia stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “It makes perfect sense. You can’t be expected to wait here for me to figure out what I’m doing, and Lexi’s going home in the morning so there’s no reason for you to stay at the Manor. I’ll stay here, and you can go back to your apartment.”
Her voice quailed, just a little, when she told him to stay home. She had only been with him for two nights—why did it seem so impossible to imagine not having him there tonight?
“You don’t have any of your things. And Rachel doesn’t know you’re staying here.”
Kaia planted her feet and raised her chin an inch. She was not, absolutely not, going back to the Manor. That much was clear. “If you can insist that Rachel accepts someone to help out with the books, I can insist on staying at her store.”
Garrett looked as though he were trying to figure out what to say in opposition. He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing several times. “Fine,” he said. “If you’re staying here, I’m staying with you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
By the time Garrett got in his car and headed toward the hospital, it was after nine. He had taken Kaia out for dinner, but she was too distracted to do much more than stare into space and mumble about wire services and how many dahlias and zinnias she needed to order the next morning. He finally dropped her off at the shop just to avoid the rabid light in her eyes. As he drove across town, a light drizzle started to fall, and he lowered the windows a few inches to smell the rain as it soaked the warm asphalt.
He remembered running in the rain once, with his mother, back in Chicago. He must have been six or seven, and they’d been at a park together and neither of them had coats. The rain had come down in sheets and his mother had been laughing as they ran to the car. She’d picked him up when they were halfway there and spun him around.
He didn’t have a lot of memories of her, and the ones he did have were clouded with time and resentment. He remembered her messy car littered with fast-food wrappers and crumbs. The way she’d show up at his school sometimes, with her heavy makeup and ripped clothes, looking so much like a teenager that no one would believe she was his parent. He remembered how fierce she’d looked when she left him and Max at the Manor, and how he loved and hated her all at once. She’d told him she loved him but wasn’t a good-enough mother to keep him. He remembered her mascara running down her cheeks, and the way Max cried after she left.
Despite all that, his memory of spinning and laughing in the rain remained untouched. Pure.
The water sprinkled on him as he trotted from the car to the glaring lights of the emergency room entrance. The wide doors parted automatically, yielding sterile halls and endless, identical corridors. By the time he reached Rachel’s recovery room, Ted was just leaving, his face haggard, the top button of his shirt open and his tie askew. As the door closed, Garrett caught sight of Rachel stretched out on the hospital bed, her legs wrapped in bulky bandages with metal sticking out of one side. Her face was a ghastly shade of grey, IV tubes stretching from one of her arms while a machine beeped in the background. An older woman, who he assumed was Rachel’s mother, slumped in a chair beside the bed.
Nausea rose inside Garrett at the sight. “What did the surgeon say?”
Ted wiped his hands over his face and slumped against the door. “She’s going to be fine,” he said, letting the air out of his lungs with a whoosh. “She’s going to be fine.”
Relief coursed through him. Garrett grabbed Ted’s sho
ulders and shook him gently. “Well, that’s good. That’s really good, man.”
Ted looked up, his dark eyes dazed. “I know. If she hadn’t...”
He didn’t speak again for a moment, his exhaustion palpable. He shook himself and took a deep breath, pressing his thumbs hard against his eyelids. “The surgeon says there’s no internal bleeding. They had to put in some pins to reconstruct her right knee. It’s going to be a long time before she’s up and about again, but she’s going to be all right.”
Garrett took Ted’s arm and guided him to a waiting area with three matching armchairs and a sofa with orange plastic cushions. “I think you better sit down.”
Ted obeyed, swaying slightly as he walked. “When her mom called me… ” He choked up again and closed his eyes. “Never mind that. You don’t want to hear about that.”
Garrett found a box of Kleenex and handed it to him. Ted stopped again to breathe and Garrett had to look away, unable to watch the emotions cresting on his friend’s face. It was as if Ted’s heart had been opened up and made visible, each new wave of fear and self-reproach displayed in painstaking relief. “Sure I do.”
“I just hope you never get that call, you know? You can’t imagine what that feels like. Not knowing. It’s the not knowing that kills you. And the regret. What if? Why didn’t I? That crap. It’s like someone burning a hole in your gut.”
Ted blew his nose fiercely and continued. “Anyway, after the surgery Rachel was really out of it, but she did wake up long enough to remind me that she needs Kaia keeping up the store while she’s out. So tell me—is she going to do it?”
“She said she would. I’m not convinced it’s a great idea, but she said she would.” Garrett left out mention of his own plans to hire additional help to keep the books in order. Ted and Rachel would figure it out soon enough.