by Laura Drewry
How the hell did she come up with these ideas?
Jack stepped through the open door just as Snip came out from the back room looking even prettier than she had the other night. Her blond hair hung loose over her shoulders, the front bit held back by one of those little metal clips, and her blue eyes, deep in concentration as she stared down at the bunch of greenery in her hand, sparkled when she looked up at him.
And that smile…Whew.
It made him stupid. Plain and simple, that’s what it did, every single time.
“Hey, Snip.”
“You’re early. I thought we said five-thirty.”
“We did, but I, uh…” Clearing his throat, Jack took a couple steps closer, bumped the corner of a display, and had to scramble to save half a dozen ceramic mushrooms from crashing to the floor.
Laughing quietly, she hurried over to help, then took the ones he’d caught and set them all up again. “I still need to close up; can you give me a couple minutes?”
“Yeah. I’ll just…hang out.” Hang out, right. Like he hadn’t been doing that all day at the hotel, hanging out and counting down the minutes.
“Where’s Pete?”
“In the Jeep. Top’s down, so he’s all right.”
“I wonder if he’ll remember me.” Frowning over that, she headed back to the counter to answer the ringing phone. “Thank you for calling The Stalk Market, this is Maya.”
While she took the order, Jack wandered around the shop, making sure he kept a good distance from anything else that might tip.
The back half of the south wall was a massive cooler filled with all sorts of flowers; the roses and carnations he could pick out, but most of the other stuff was a complete mystery. And who knew roses came in so many colors?
The store itself was full of bright and colorful arrangements, crazy-looking cacti, and all sorts of knickknack things like garden ornaments and…really?…mesh bags filled with rocks. Sure, they were all clean and smooth and they looked good over in that glass vase with the bamboo stalk, but they were still just rocks, and he couldn’t imagine buying them when he could walk down to the river and get them for free.
All the shelving and display tables had been made from old pallets she’d found and refinished herself. He remembered Will saying it would look dumpy, but it didn’t; it gave the place a cool kind of rustic look that seemed to blend in perfectly with the rest of the store.
Maya stood behind the counter surrounded by what Jack would only describe as an explosion of creativity. Her work table lay buried under plant clippings, flower petals, scraps of thick brown paper, plastic sticks, a couple stalks of what might have been some kind of fern, two tipped-over brown plant pots, chunks of green foam, and a whole bunch of magazines and catalogs.
Half a dozen different-colored streams of ribbon dangled around her head, sticking to her hair when she moved. Swatting them away, her smile widened when she caught him looking at her, and for about the millionth time in the last two years, the same thought burned a streak through Jack’s brain: Will’s a fuckin’ idiot.
And as usual, that thought was immediately followed by a crashing wave of guilt. Just yesterday, he’d agreed to let it lie, so he needed to stop thinking things like that about Will. And while he was at it, he should probably stop thinking about how pretty Will’s wife was.
Ex-wife.
Like it made a difference.
Shit.
“Sorry ‘bout that.” Dropping the phone back into its cradle, Maya finished scribbling on the order pad then turned to face him, her soft smile making him smile back at her. “It’s so weird that you’re here.”
“Bad weird?”
“No, not bad weird. Just…” Leaning back against the work table, she crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged as a pink flush crept over her cheeks. “I don’t know. I’d given up on ever hearing back from you, and now suddenly here you are!”
“Yeah, here I am.” Jack ran his finger over a crazy-looking orange-and-purple spiky flower as he glanced around the store again. “This place looks great, Snip. You’ve done a great job.”
“Thanks.” There was a lot of pride in that one word, that one smile. “So where do you want to take him?”
“Hmm?”
“Pete. There’s a great trail down by the river.”
“Sure, yeah.” As he spoke, she headed out the front door and started wheeling the cart inside. “Is there something I can do to help? Something that doesn’t involve anything breakable?”
“No.” She laughed. “I just need to clean off the back table and cash out. Shouldn’t take long.”
With the door locked and the CLOSED sign in the window, she reached for a little hand broom, but Jack tugged it away from her and nodded toward the register.
“You do the math, I’ll do the sweeping.”
A couple times she had to duck around him to get things out of the back room, and every time she did, he pulled himself back as far as he could to avoid touching her. Maybe having both of them working in such a small space wasn’t such a good idea, especially when she kept smiling at him like that.
Damn!
“Okay.” She pulled a small bouquet out of the cooler and gave the place a final once-over. “I have to run home and change first and then I have one stop to make. D’you want to come with me or—”
“Sure.”
Her long blue skirt swirled around her legs, and her flip-flops slapped her feet as she led him out the door and locked it behind them. “I rent the apartment above Jayne’s bookstore.”
He followed her past the barbershop, a papered-up building with a FOR LEASE sign in the window, and on toward Dandelion Books, where old copies of Frank Herbert and Mercedes Lackey novels stood in the window. Excellent choices.
“Hi, guys.”
“Jayne. Good to see you again.” Jack wasn’t even sure she heard him, because her eyes were trained on Maya, unblinking, as though silently asking something. A brief shake of Snip’s head dismissed it, and Jayne turned a huge smile Jack’s way.
“Good to see you, too. I hope we didn’t scare you too much the other night.”
“Nah,” he said, then laughed. “Not too much, anyway.”
Unlike other bookstores Jack frequented, Jayne’s didn’t stock picture frames, cooking utensils, or blankets. There were no wicker baskets, no stationery, and no toys. There were only books, lots and lots of books.
The shelves were too solid, too old, and just slightly too imperfect to be anything other than handmade. In fact, everything about the store screamed old, original, and quirky, from the weathered and knotted wood that made up the counter, to the set of encyclopedias that lined the shelf under the widow, to the floor itself, which was made up of thick wide planks like something you’d see in an Old West movie.
“Wow,” he muttered. “You don’t see that very often.”
“It’s my favorite part.” Jayne grinned, running the toe of her shoe across the knot in one of the planks. “I was worried Nick would have to pull it all up when he did the renovations, but he made it work.”
“How long have you had this place?”
“It was my grandmother’s. I grew up here, spent my first eighteen years in the apartment upstairs, and then when Gran died, she left it to me.”
“Come on.” Snip laughed as she unlocked the door at the back. “I’ll give you the grand tour. Watch your head.”
With the door secured behind them again, she led him up a steep, narrow staircase to what had to be the smallest apartment ever built. With less than a quarter turn of his head in either direction, he could see each of the four rooms clearly. Actually, it was really only three—a bathroom, a bedroom, and the room he was in now, which was divided into both a living room and a kitchen.
“I’ll just be a minute,” she said, passing him the bouquet. “Would you hold those please? Take a load off.”
“Where?” he muttered. “There’s cubicles at work bigger than this.”
�
�It’s a little small, but—”
“A little? I feel like Gulliver.”
He loved the sound of Maya’s laugh: the soft, gentle breath and then…yup…the snort.
Glossy magazines covered the narrow coffee table near the couch, the top one opened to a two-page layout of different flower arrangements. From where he was standing, it looked like Snip had taken a Sharpie to it, circling parts of the pictures and crossing out other bits.
Jack stepped over to the table and lifted the stack of magazines to uncover the DVD case poking out from the bottom of the pile. Apparently she still had a thing for Denzel Washington.
“Okay,” she said, coming out of the bedroom, her skirt and blouse replaced by a pair of faded jeans and an orangey-pink tank top. “I’m ready.”
“2 Guns?” Jack waved the movie cover back and forth. “Interesting choice.”
“Awesome choice, you mean.” Her left brow lifted as her mouth curled into a teasing grin. “The two most beautiful men in the world together in one movie—what more can a girl ask for?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I bet your friend Griffin might have something to say about it.”
“Please.” Maya rolled her eyes and headed for the door, lifting a black hoodie off the hook as she did. “If he’s no fan of Denzel or Marky Mark, he’s no friend of mine.”
Back downstairs, Jayne glanced up from the paperback she was skimming. “See you later. Oh, hey, how about dinner at our place on Sunday?”
“I’m in.” Maya was still nodding as both she and Jayne turned to Jack.
“Me? Uh, yeah, sure. Thanks.”
“Great—bring a salad! And Pete!”
With a final wave, Snip zipped up her hoodie then hesitated when they hit the sidewalk. “Where’d you park?”
“Around the corner there.” He waited until they made it to the barbershop, then stopped. “Brace yourself.”
Circling his thumb and middle finger, he let out a short sharp whistle, then stood back and watched as Snip’s face lit up. Pete came bounding around the corner from where Jack had left him in the Jeep, took one look at Maya, and bolted straight for her.
Anyone who didn’t believe dogs could smile had never met Pete.
Snip didn’t even hesitate, just dropped to a crouch and wrapped her arms around his neck as he smothered her face in a barrage of wet, sloppy kisses.
“There’s my Sweetie Petey,” she cooed. “Who’s a good boy?”
“Guess he remembers you.”
The more she scratched him, the harder he pushed against her, until she was teetering back on her heels; but she didn’t stop.
“Such a handsome boy, aren’t you?” Taking the dog’s face in her hands, she kissed him between the eyes and went to stand, but Pete wasn’t done lapping up her attention quite yet, and with Snip not quite balanced, all it took was one more push of his shoulder against her leg to send her stumbling backward.
Jack was already in position behind her and managed to catch Maya under the arm while holding the flowers up out of the way.
“Thanks.” She laughed. Even back on her feet, she still kept scratching Pete’s head. “I forgot he did that.”
“Only with you.” Sure, Pete nudged other people when he wanted attention, but he’d always gone full-on bulldozer with Maya and she’d never once complained, not even when it left her covered in dog hair and slobber.
She drew the line at having a seventy-five-pound Lab sit on her lap, though, so he had to settle for resting his chin on the back of Maya’s seat. All a ploy to have her keep petting him and telling him how handsome he was.
It worked.
“You’re too young to be going gray,” she murmured, giving Pete’s chin a gentle rub. “Poor thing.”
“Yeah,” Jack snorted at his pathetic dog. “You can see how much he’s suffering. Where to?”
The Parkside Retirement Home was a newish-looking four-story building surrounded by redbrick walkways over thick green grass. Three floors up, a little old woman in a flowery blue Hawaiian dress welcomed Maya with a big smile and a kiss on the cheek.
“Come in, come in.”
“Thanks, but we can’t stay, we just wanted to drop these off.”
“You dear girl.” The old woman’s eyes welled up as she held the bouquet under her nose and inhaled deeply. “They’re beautiful, thank you, but—”
“Never you mind.” With a quick flick of her hand, Maya waved away her concern; then before the other woman could argue, Maya took Jack by the elbow and tugged him forward a little. “Mrs. Goodsen, this is my friend Jack. He’s working in town for the next couple of months.”
If Jack felt like Gulliver before, it was twice as bad when he wrapped his hand around the old woman’s—so small, so fragile.
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said.
“Jack.” The old woman’s eyes softened as she closed her other hand around his and squeezed. “My late husband was a Jack.”
Mrs. Goodsen’s gaze narrowed a little, but she never looked away from him, just smiled slowly. And damn if she didn’t wink at him!
“I’ll tell you this, Maya,” she said. “You can’t go wrong with a man named Jack. They’re good people.”
“True story.” Jack grinned, hoping to derail her before that twinkle in her eye got out of control. “Except for the ones who have things like ‘The Ripper’ attached to them. You probably want to avoid those Jacks.”
“You don’t look like one of those.”
“He’s not.” With a gentle kiss to Mrs. Goodsen’s cheek, Maya and Jack said their goodbyes and headed back down to the parking lot.
“D’you do this a lot?” Jack asked, thumbing over his shoulder toward the building. “Bring her flowers for no reason.”
“Usually on Wednesdays, but I got held up last night. Before she moved in here, she lived in a big old log house that her husband built like fifty or sixty years ago. She loved that place, especially her flower gardens, but she can’t get up and down like she used to, so even if they had a garden here, she wouldn’t be able to work in it.”
“So you bring her flowers.”
Snip just shrugged. “Every once in a while I’ll have some flowers that don’t sell and are getting past their prime. I used to take them home with me, but then Mrs. G moved in here and it just made sense to give them to her—perks the place up a bit.”
“Yeah, but the ones you just gave her didn’t look like they were on their way out. They looked pretty fresh to me.”
“They were.” Her smile widened. “It’s a couple flowers, Jack, and you saw how happy they made her, so what the hell.”
It might only be a couple of flowers to Maya, but it was obviously more than that to the old woman on the third floor.
—
The smell of the river sent Pete into a tizzy before Jack even pulled the Jeep to a stop in the gravel lot, but he knew to wait until Jack gave the okay. Once free, Pete bolted straight for the river, where he splashed and dug around for rocks and sticks until Jack whistled him back up on the trail.
Worn down by feet and bike tires, the leaf-covered path was just wide enough for Maya and Jack to walk side by side.
“It’s usually so pretty here in the fall,” Maya said, looking up at the bare treetops. “But we’ve had so much rain lately that it’s like the leaves got washed off the trees before we could even appreciate the colors.”
With the number of maples crowding in on both sides of the trail, Jack imagined it was something to see in the fall, spring too, probably. But he didn’t care; he wasn’t there to admire the scenery. He was there to be with Snip.
“So what’s going on with you?” Maya asked. “Are you still with Christine?”
“Nah, she dumped me a while back.” He’d liked Christine, maybe even loved her a little, but she was too smart for him. She knew he’d never love her the way she deserved, so she’d cut her losses and ended it. No drawn-out drama, no wringing her hands, just called him on it and left
. “What about you? Is this thing with Griffin Carr serious?”
“Yes and no.” Maya’s snort-laugh made him laugh, too. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, I sort of figured it would be.”
Maya’s eyes seemed to stutter over a blink then quickly looked away from him. When she didn’t say anything, he kept on.
“What’s that like, anyway, dating a big movie star? Don’t you get mobbed everywhere you go?”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. “Truth is, aside from Jayne and them, you’re the only one who knows I’ve been out with him.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“Easy. We didn’t actually go out.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve had dinner together twice, and both times we hid up in my apartment. The first time he brought sushi for us and the second time I made him dinner.”
Quiet dinners alone in her apartment with Griffin Carr…nope, Jack refused to let his imagination take that any further. Instead he cleared his throat and struggled to come up with something to say. Considering he made his living with words, it really shouldn’t have been this difficult and it really should have been something a little less shallow than what he came out with.
“I guess it beats finding your face plastered all over the tabloids, which is probably what would happen if you tried to go out anywhere together.”
“Yeah.”
“People like him can’t even sneeze without it making the front page.”
“Mm-hmm, yeah.” Again with the spacing out, just like she’d done at the pub the other night, and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out it had something to do with Griffin.
“What’s up, Snip?” Jack stopped walking and waited for her to turn before he asked, “Is there something going on with him? Did he do something to you?”
“What? No!” Maya was many things but an actress wasn’t one of them, so Jack didn’t doubt her sincerity for a second. “No, it’s just…I actually haven’t even seen him in a while and, well, it’s complicated.”
“You said that already.” They started down the path again, neither one saying anything for a while. “If it’s stressing you out, maybe you should just walk away, there’s lots of other guys out there, you know. Maybe not as rich or as famous, but still…”