Forget Me Not

by Crystal B. Bright

  His heart started pounding in rhythm with his knee bouncing. He drummed his fingertips on the table but quickly stopped when he caught his mother’s disapproving glare. “We ran out of stock. The right thing to do for customers looking for flowers was to refer them to another location. You’re the closest one.”

  “I appreciate it. It was our best day ever.” Janelle faced him for a moment before turning away to stare at Elizabeth. “I’m sorry for how I treated you earlier.”

  “What happened?” Queen split her attention between Gideon and Janelle.

  “Victor called me at the hospital to see if I could help him get more stock. I went over to Janelle’s to see if I could get some.” Gideon let the story stop there. He wanted to hear what Janelle had to say about the situation.

  When she remained quiet, Queen pressed on with her questioning. “Janelle, were you able to offer him some?”

  Janelle didn’t say anything. She grabbed for her water as though stalling for time. He wouldn’t allow her a chance to spin the story in a way that made her come out looking like the victim.

  “Had to hit several places to get enough inventory to satisfy your current orders.” Gideon turned to Janelle, waiting for her to respond.

  “Oh, Lord. You shouldn’t have had to do that.” Queen made a face like Victor had plopped a heap of compost on her plate. “Why couldn’t you offer Gideon any of your inventory?”

  Janelle put her fork down and gazed at Elizabeth. “Thelma quit.”

  Queen put her hand to her chest. “She was amazing. She was responsible for that beautiful butterfly garden at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.” She turned to Gideon. “You remember that exhibit there.”

  Gideon had. The few times he’d been able to take a break in the springtime, he would take his mother to the location so that she could view the colorful gardens. The butterfly garden had been a recent favorite.

  Janelle nodded. “I know.” She turned to Gideon. “You caught me at a bad time. I shouldn’t have taken my frustration out on you when I lost Thelma. I had some other personal things going on at the same time. Everything hit me at once. I am so sorry.”

  “You’re not sorry, dear.” Elizabeth smiled sweetly. “You apologize. There’s nothing sorry about a young woman who is a business owner and has everything riding on her shoulders.”

  Gideon felt like a heel, like a weed choking out grass and plants. “I’ve seen that work at the Botanical Garden. She did a great job.” He looked Janelle in her eyes. “I understand why you would be upset if you lost someone like that.” He placed his hand on the table next to hers.

  He felt the slight heat coming from her delicate fingers. He inched his pinkie toward her and brushed it against her hand. When she’d opened up about her misfortune, he’d felt compelled to comfort her. She certainly hadn’t given off the vibe that she needed help. He couldn’t ignore the sexual tension between them.

  “So you lost an employee.” Shay shrugged. She stabbed her fork into a piece of carrot. “If someone like Gideon had approach me, I would give him whatever he wanted.” She winked before she licked the tip of the carrot and slid it into her mouth.

  Janelle moved her hand away from his. “I have to go.” She sprang to her feet and went to the closet to get her coat. “Thank you so much for the meal.”

  As soon as Janelle stood, Gideon got up as fast as he could. He followed her to the closet where his mother secured Janelle’s coat. Janelle slipped one arm into the outerwear but got assistance from Gideon on the other sleeve.

  “You have to go so soon?” His mother wiped her mouth with her cloth napkin.

  “Yes, I have some things to take care of.” Janelle zipped up her coat. “Dinner was great. Thanks again for inviting me.”

  “Have a good evening, Janelle.” Gideon meant that. He’d gotten brief insight into this reserved woman who had likened him to a weed.

  Janelle took two steps off the porch before she stopped and turned back to him. “Thanks for understanding. And you’re not a weed.”

  Gideon stepped outside. “Yes, I am.” He smiled to let her know he hadn’t taken what she’d said to heart. “I’m relentless.”

  From the way she smiled back, he assumed she understood.

  Gideon stepped back in the house and locked the door. The more he thought about Janelle, the wider the silly smile that sprang over his face got. Before he turned around, he made sure to arrest it before his mother could catch him.

  When he turned, she said, “She is pretty special, huh? And pretty in general.”

  “Then maybe you should date her.” Gideon strolled back to his chair and finished his dinner.

  “I would, but I don’t want to cheat on Fred.” She furrowed her eyebrows. “Dear, you have something on your face.”

  Gideon started wiping his cheek and around his lips. “Did I get it?”

  “Nope. You’re still smiling.” She giggled as she ate her dinner.

  He sighed. “I actually missed this torture?”

  After dinner and dessert, Shay helped clear off the table along with Gideon. Then she retired to the apartment over the garage.

  Gideon sat on the couch with his mother. “So what’s going on with Gunnar? I noticed you didn’t want to talk about it in front of Shay.”

  Elizabeth held Gideon’s hand. “Gunnar is going through some issues. I know a small bit about it, but I had fully expected for him to handle his business by now. Because I knew something about it, he’s not very pleased with me.”

  Gunnar could be pigheaded when he wanted to be. That stubborn streak existed in Gideon as well. Coach Brick and Gideon’s agent had been calling him all day. He’d used the excuse of the store being busy to avoid the calls.

  “What’s going on with you and Janelle?” Queen nudged Gideon’s shoulder. “I noticed you had a hard time looking at her during dinner.”

  “That’s because she was sitting next to me. It’s a little awkward to turn my head and look at her while she eats.” He leaned back on the couch. “Maybe you should have put her across from me so I could stare at her all night.”

  “Good idea. I’ll be sure to do that the next time.” She winked.

  He shook his head. “You can give up the fight. She called me a weed.”

  “Marijuana?”

  He snickered. “No. Wild violet. It was her way of saying I was persistent.”

  “You are. When you get it in your head about something, you don’t stop until you get it. I remember when you wanted to learn how to dance. You would watch videos and copy the moves you saw until you got them.”

  “I’m still a better dancer than Gunnar.” He stretched his legs out in front of him, mainly to give his knee a rest.

  “Darling, turtles are better dancers than your brother. He never wanted to try to learn how to dance. Speaking of trying something new, did you make a doctor’s appointment?” Elizabeth stared at Gideon.

  “No, ma’am. I was busy today.” Now he had another person he could use that excuse with today.

  “And I appreciate your hard work in my store.” She reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “That’s why I took the liberty of setting you up with an appointment tomorrow.”

  Gideon felt a stone drop into his belly as he accepted the paper. “Mom, you really didn’t have to do this.”

  “It was no problem. While I was visiting your brother, I went over to the orthopedic wing of the hospital and found a nice doctor who knew you, well, knew of you, and he said he would be happy to check your knee out.” She smiled. “Now do you want to play cards?”

  “Against you? Not tonight. You’re too slick for me.” Gideon chuckled.

  “Funny.”

  The smile slipped down Gideon’s face and he held his mother’s hand. “Tell me about you. What’s going on?” He pointed to her chest. “How bad is it?”

  Queen Elizabeth held her head up and smiled wider than he had ever seen before
on her. “I’ll be fine, sweetheart. A simple in-and-out surgery. I’ll be back on my feet in no time.”

  Gideon squeezed his mother’s hand. “You’ve never lied to me. Ever.” He shook his head. “Please don’t start now.”

  She opened her mouth like she had planned on refuting his claim, then she stopped. “I need bypass surgery. Double, possibly triple. The surgery will be next week. I asked them to postpone it until your brother gets out of the hospital.” She nodded and attempted to smile like she needed to reassure him.

  “Oh, wow. Are you able to wait that long? I can take care of Gunnar if you need to reschedule your surgery.” Gideon had watched his mother during dinner. She hadn’t eaten much. Now he understood why she looked so preoccupied.

  “Right now I’m fine. Just a little tired sometimes.” She got quiet for a moment as her smile slowly disappeared. “The day of my surgery, I can’t go to the hospital with makeup or scented lotions. I won’t feel like a woman.” She put her hand to her chest. “I’ll have a scar.”

  Gideon recognized fear hidden behind his mother’s vanity. “Don’t worry. Fred will still love you. You should have invited him to dinner instead of trying to fix me up.”

  His mother patted his leg. “Can’t a mother want the best for her son?”

  “Of course.” He kissed the back of her hand. “I’ll be there with you the day of your surgery. And don’t worry about the businesses. We’ll take care of them for you.”

  Queen nodded. “I know. I raised good men.”

  Gideon liked this moment, this quiet time with his mother before all hell broke loose. At that thought, his cell phone rang. He peered down and saw Coach Brick’s name across the screen.

  “Answer it.” Elizabeth patted his knee. “I’m going to go to bed early. I’m a little tired.”

  “You okay?” Like the gentleman she raised him to be, Gideon stood when his mother did.

  She nodded. “Take care of business. I’ll be fine.” She kissed his cheek and walked up the stairs slower than normal.

  Once he knew his mother couldn’t hear his conversation, Gideon answered the call. “Coach, how are you?”

  “Now you can answer the phone.” Irritation and frustration dripped from each word his coach said. Gideon imagined the squatty man getting red faced as he spoke on the phone.

  “I’ve been busy. My brother had gotten shot the night of—”

  “I know. I saw it on the news.” Brick exhaled. “You close to your house?”

  Gideon’s stomach twitched. “Maybe thirty minutes away.”

  “Get here. I’m waiting at the gate for you. This guard won’t let me in.”

  “No, sir! No one gets up to Mr. Wells’s place without permission or appointment. Try sneaking past me and I have fifty-thousand volts for your ass.”

  Gideon heard Pearl through his coach’s phone. The woman deserved a raise. No way would that cheerleader have gotten past her.

  “Get here quick before this woman fries me.”

  Gideon grabbed his coat from his mother’s closet. “On my way.”

  Chapter 8

  “Holy shit!” Penny screamed that phrase over and over while on the phone with Janelle. “I don’t think we’ve ever sold out of everything.”

  Janelle agreed with her friend. As she drove home from Queen Elizabeth’s house, she recalled how the shelves that held vases of rose bouquets now sat empty. Racks that had greeting cards now resembled bare wire trees. Janelle’s baby had remained the only plant in the store. To call today a good day would be an understatement.

  “They bought everything.” Penny squealed again. “What a great frickin’ day!”

  “Yeah. Amazing.” Janelle knew the reason for her sudden good fortune.

  As though reading Janelle’s thoughts, Penny said, “Gideon.”

  Janelle slammed on her brake at a stoplight harder than she’d intended. Hearing Gideon’s name had a jarring effect on her.

  Penny continued. “It had to be him. I bet he sent folks over. How else could you explain this feeding frenzy?”

  Janelle took a deep breath before revealing the truth. “He did send customers our way.” She shouldn’t have been so hard on him earlier.

  “How do you know?” Penny asked.

  “I went over to Queen Elizabeth’s house for dinner, and he was there.”

  “Really? You went to her house for a meal, huh?”

  Janelle heard the suspicion in Penny’s voice. “Yes, I did. He’d told me that he planned on going to the hospital to see Gunnar. I didn’t think he would be at her house.” Not that she’d minded seeing him again.

  He’d looked even better at Queen’s house. The soft lighting in her home had given him an approachable appearance. It helped that Elizabeth had treated him like her child and not like some sort of superstar. It also helped that he’d acted like a gentleman, opening doors for her, pulling out her chair at the table, waiting to be seated until after all the women sat. Janelle could get used to that type of behavior from a man.

  “So now what?” Penny’s question broke Janelle’s thoughts.

  “What do you mean?” Janelle pulled off from the light. A few more miles and she would be home.

  “We have no inventory tomorrow. Were you able to get a rush order?”

  Janelle had ducked into her office and tried ordering additional flowers to supply her store. At her first supplier site, she’d hit the submit key after entering her order and got a message that until she resolved her past debt with them, she wouldn’t be able to complete her order. She’d encountered that message with two other sites.

  Now that she’d had a great sales day, she could pay off some of her debts. That would require depositing the money in the bank, waiting for the funds to post before she could make her payments to these suppliers. She would have nothing to show in the store tomorrow.

  Great.

  “Uh, no. There were some issues.” Janelle couldn’t tell her remaining employee about her money woes. “I’ll resolve them tomorrow.”

  “What about the store? We won’t have anything to show customers.”

  Janelle moved her phone to her other ear. “We have samples. We’ll have to take orders.”

  “That’s cool for future orders. What about same-day? How are we going to—”

  Janelle interrupted her friend. “Tomorrow. All will be fine tomorrow.”

  Janelle would have to come up with a plan. Today had turned out great. She needed more. To keep her business afloat, her employee paid, and a roof over her head, she would need more than one good day.

  Two traffic lights away from her apartment, she thought about Gideon. First, she thought about him as the man who intrigued her. His eyes, his hands, his incredible ass.

  Janelle gripped the steering wheel and wrung her hands back and forth. She glanced over at the passenger seat and saw the crumpled paper that contained Gideon’s phone number, the one he’d given her. He’d willingly shared his personal number with her.

  She took a deep breath. The least she could do would be to call him and thank him again for the additional business and for dinner, especially after the way she’d bolted at the end.

  She recalled seeing his large hand on the table next to hers, making her hand look small. She also remembered the molten heat permeating from his body. At the slightest touch, she’d wanted to strip every bit of her clothes from her body. Janelle knew if she’d remained there a minute longer, she would have embarrassed herself. It had been bad enough that she had to admit her failings to him and his mother, her competition.

  Janelle started to reach for the paper and stopped. Never had she experienced this level of fear and trepidation. She’d ignored guys like Gideon in high school and college, mainly because they’d paid no attention to her.

  She had to stop thinking of herself as that shy girl. Like Queen had said over dinner, Janelle had proven herself by starting her own business and keeping it going. She
had shown she had grown over the years. She could call Gideon. Maybe she could ask him if he wanted to do the coffee thing with her. As she reached for the number again, a car horn blaring behind her stopped her.

  She looked up and noticed the green light. Janelle pulled off and quickly drove home. There, she parked her car in front of her apartment building but left it running.

  Janelle made sure to douse her headlights to not alert Buddy and Althea of her arrival. She needed some alone time to fully concentrate on her conversation with Gideon. Having the elderly couple asking her if she wanted cookies and cocoa would kill the vibe.

  She removed her phone from her purse and stared at it for a moment before deciding to dial Gideon’s number. She ran scenarios in her head of how Gideon would answer the phone. Would he be cool and smooth like earlier? Or would he be cold because of how she’d treated him? Hell, would the man even answer the phone at all?

  She didn’t have to ask him out for coffee. She could thank him and see where the conversation went.

  Janelle picked up the paper and unfolded it. With shaky hands, she punched in Gideon’s number and waited. The phone rang once, then twice. At the third ring, she nearly disconnected the call.

  “Hello?”

  Gideon’s strong voice had a way of rendering Janelle immobile. She balled her free hand into a fist before she spoke. “Uh, hi.” Think like a boss. “Hello,” she said again with a bit more authority. “This is Janelle Gold. You came to my establishment today.”

  Janelle squeezed her eyes shut. Too much. Now she sounded impersonal, like she wanted to do his taxes.

  “And you came to my mother’s house for dinner.”

  She could almost imagine him smiling—no, laughing—at her.

  “Did you forget something? Are you okay?”