Love in Bloom

by Arlene James

  Shaking his head, he said, “I can’t help wondering how you figure on getting around out here without your own transportation.”

  “Oh, I’m going to live in the apartment above the shop.”

  “Yeah, I know, but—”

  “I’m told there’s a grocery up the street.”

  “Sure. It’ll do if you’re not too picky.”

  “And there’s a doctor a couple blocks over.”

  “Tuesdays and Thursdays only.”

  He pulled the truck over to the curb in front of the shop and killed the engine but made no move to get out.

  “What about restaurants?” Lily asked.

  “Uh, well, there’s the grill at The Everything for lunch and dinner. That’s like half a block behind you, but the menu’s pretty limited.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I’m not quite sure what you can get at the Cozy Cup Cafe after it opens, not much more than some fancy coffee and snacks, if I remember the prospectus correctly.” He glanced at the shop on the corner next door, adding, “The bakery will open soon, too. That ought to get you breakfast and some yummy desserts. That’s about it, though.”

  “Okay. Well, I probably ought to be eating in more often anyway.”

  “That’s what we do.”

  She thought for a moment of all the lovely dinners out that she’d enjoyed in Boston, of the oyster bars and bistros, the pizzerias and one-of-a-kind “fusion” restaurants, the Back Bay seafood and Beacon Hill steaks. She thought of friends and family left behind, and her spirits wavered, but then she thought of new friends to be made and a business of her own, a new life in a new place. Her chin rose in determination.

  A sound came from the backseat of the truck, the kind a sleeping child makes when perfectly at ease and content. Little Isabella Bronson of the flaming red hair and bright blue eyes slept peacefully behind them in her father’s pickup truck, apparently as content as if she were at home in her own bed. Smiling, Lily looked up at that awning and the front of the shop. Her gaze rose to the darkened windows above the awning. Her apartment. Her own shop and home. It was a far cry from Boston, but it was hers, her chance to do something real, something besides practice law and be miserable. This was her chance to break the mold, to prove herself, to be someone she liked and admired, not just a failed Farnsworth clone, yearning for what could not be.

  Dorothy, she thought flippantly, we are in Kansas!

  And maybe this wasn’t a mistake. Maybe, for once, she’d done the right thing.

  Oh, Lord, she silently prayed for the thousandth time since she’d read that article and filled out the application, please help me do the right things. For once in my life, please help me get it right.

  * * *

  Glancing into the backseat, Tate saw that Isabella still slept soundly. She’d dropped off soon after they’d left the environs of Kansas City, which was no surprise considering that the hour had been well past her normal bedtime. He should have left her with his parents instead of dragging her along on this trip, but that would have meant allowing her to sleep over, and he hated when she did that. Even after all these years he couldn’t get used to sleeping out at his place alone. When he’d first brought her home from the hospital, a new father and a widower, he’d wondered if he’d ever sleep again. But they’d found their way together, and now he couldn’t seem to manage without her even for a single night. His mother said that he sometimes held on to Isabella too tightly, but he didn’t know how else to hold her.

  Lily Farnsworth got out of the truck and all but skipped across the sidewalk to the door of her shop and back again, her excitement palpable. Tate took the keys from the pocket of his jeans and tossed them to her. Catching them easily, she graced him with a smile before spinning away again. He watched her fit the key into the lock and turn it. The door swung wide. Lily reached inside and flipped on the lights; then she glided over the threshold into the bare space filled only with two small glass-fronted humidifiers to display the flowers, several large flat boxes, a small unpainted waist-high counter and a steel worktable half-hidden behind a wall at the back of the room.

  She poked around for a bit while Tate unloaded suitcases from the bed of the truck and hauled them onto the sidewalk. Emerging from the building a few minutes later, she pronounced the place, “Perfect.”

  “Looks like it needs some work to me,” Tate teased, unable to resist her enthusiasm.

  Her smile instantly dissolved. “What I mean is, it’s perfect for my purposes.”

  He felt like a heel. Irritated with himself, he waved a hand at the door beside the shop, the one between her business and the bookstore next door.

  “If you’ll open that door, I’ll carry these up to your apartment.”

  “Oh, most of those don’t go to the apartment,” she said, pointing into the shop. “They go in here.”

  Tate reached up to push back the brim of his hat, realized he’d left it in the truck and parked his hands at his waist. “What about the boxes?”

  “Most of those go into the shop, too.”

  “Didn’t you bring anything to set up housekeeping?”

  “A few things. It’s mostly shop supplies, though. You know, vases, foam, tubes, frogs, wires, tape, cones, hooks, hangers, ribbon, pins, charms, feathers, silk flowers…”

  “Frogs?”

  “Uh, to hold pins. They’re not real frogs.” She seemed embarrassed. “They don’t even look like real frogs.” She shrugged and bowed her head. “That’s just what we call them.”

  Tate swallowed a chuckle and shifted his weight from one booted foot to another, finding her shyness kind of cute. “I figured you’d order supplies.”

  “Well, yes, I have ordered some things, but why order what I already have? Especially when I didn’t have to pay for these things. They were gifts from my former employer and coworkers at the flower shop in Boston. Going-away gifts. ‘Success gifts,’ they called them.”

  The lady knew how to pinch a penny. “Okay, I get it now. So which of these suitcases goes upstairs?”

  “Just the big one.”

  “All right. Let’s get these others inside, then I’ll take that one upstairs.”

  They rolled the other suitcases into the shop. Lily positioned them behind the work area wall while Tate went out to remove the boxes from the backseat of the truck. Isabella woke as he worked, rubbed her eyes with both fists and pronounced herself in need of a potty.

  “Go inside there,” Tate instructed. “There’s a bathroom in back.” He heard her asking Lily, and the two of them went off to find “the ladies’ room,” as Lily called it. Tate knew that it was a modest little necessary tucked into a corner.

  “That’s going to need some attention,” Lily muttered upon their return.

  By that he assumed she meant decoration, which was her department. He nodded to the boxes. “Any of these go upstairs?”

  She pointed out only two of the smaller ones.

  “All right. Then if you’ll each tote one, I’ll take the big suitcase, and we’ll go up.”

  Nodding, Lily took the larger of the two boxes and stood by the door while Isabella easily carried her box and her father followed. Lily glanced around once more, shut off the lights and stepped outside to close the door and lock up before moving to the door that led to the apartment upstairs. Lily began searching for the appropriate key.

  “Uh, I’m pretty sure that door’s not locked,” Tate told her.

  She pushed her glasses up on her nose and looked at him as if he’d suddenly grown a second head. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the workmen were coming and going, and no one could say exactly when the bed you ordered would be delivered. It was just easier to leave it open.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Even after the bed came?”

  “Sure. I didn’t see the point in…” She found the light switch and flipped it on, illuminating the narrow, enclosed staircase. “Why lock the door on an empty apartment?” he asked as she slipped inside and
started climbing the stairs. Tate stepped up and blocked the door open with his shoulder, calling after her, “No one locks their doors around here, not to their houses.” She ignored him and kept climbing.

  Tate indicated with a nod that Isabella should go next. Shrugging, she started up after Lily, who quickly reached the small landing at the top and let herself into the apartment. A light came on in the small foyer. Isabella followed. Tate came last into the dark but spacious living and dining area.

  “What is this place?” Isabella asked.

  “This is my home,” Lily told her, coming out of the dark hallway behind her. Lily quickly moved into the small kitchen and switched on a light there. “Not many overhead lights in here. I’ll need to buy some lamps.”

  “You’re going to live in town?” Isabella asked doubtfully.

  “Right above my shop,” Lily confirmed, “in the very heart of Main Street.”

  “We live in the country. Right, Dad?”

  “Yep.”

  “On the ranch. Right, Dad?”

  “Right.”

  “Grandpa, though, he calls it the farm. Don’t he, Daddy?”

  “That’s because he’s in charge of the farming end of things.”

  “And Daddy, he does the horses and the cows and all the animal stuff. And he helps with the farm, too, and sometimes the tractor stuff. And he and Grandpa do the oil lease stuff together.”

  “You talk too much,” he told her, nudging her with the suitcase. He looked to Lily and asked, “So where do you want these?”

  She took the box from Isabella, saying, “I’ll put this in the bathroom. You can just leave that there, though.”

  Tate nodded. “If you didn’t notice, there’s a coat closet here.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “And there’s a walk-in closet in the front bedroom. I had them set up the bed in there. The back room is really small, but you could put a twin bed in there for company.”

  She looked around the empty living area and said, “I think I’ll concentrate on a couch first.”

  Tate chuckled. “Yeah, or a chair at least.”

  She smiled and nodded. “I understood there was a washer and dryer.”

  “That closet in the kitchen,” he said. “It’s one of those stacked jobs with the dryer on top.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Okay, well…”

  Isabella pointed at the trio of bare windows overlooking the vacant, softly lit street. Tilting her curly head, she asked, “Who’s that?”

  Tate and Lily both moved toward the window, staring at the wildly waving figure in the window of the building across the street.

  “Oh, that,” Tate said with a grin. “That’s Miss Ann Mars. You know her.”

  “Sure. Ever’body knows Miss Mars. She’s had her shop in Bygones forever.”

  “I guess you didn’t know that she lives downtown above her shop, too.”

  “This ‘N’ That,” Lily read the sign on the awning across the street. “What sort of shop is it?”

  “Um, sundries,” Tate answered. “You know, needles and pins, candles, handkerchiefs, coin purses, hand mirrors, little stuff. That’s in the front. Out back, now that’s—how do I put this?—mostly junk, I guess.”

  Lily raised her eyebrows. Her glasses slid down her nose, so she pushed them back up. Tate fought the urge to smile for some reason. Clearing his throat, he turned away from the window at the same time Miss Mars did.

  “Miss Ann is on the committee,” he told Lily, pulling a card from his shirt pocket. “If you need something and you can’t reach me, you can always tell Miss Mars.” He pressed the card into Lily’s hand and started for the door.

  “I’ll walk you down,” Lily said. “I want to take another look at the shop.”

  Shrugging, he turned a sleepy-eyed Isabella toward the stairs. He ushered his daughter out onto the landing then slipped past her and down a few steps before turning and gathering her into his arms. She laid her precious red head on his shoulders. Laying his cheek against those bright curls, he thought of his late wife, Eve, and the old familiar ache of loss filled him. If their daughter could have known Eve for even a little while, she’d give up her matchmaking ways, but the imp had never known her mother.

  After carrying his daughter down the stairs, he nodded at Ann Mars, who scampered across the street in her bedroom slippers and housedress, the coil of her long white hair sliding to and fro atop her head. The tiny, bent old woman had to be eighty if she was a day, and as far as Tate knew, she had never married. If she had family, he was unaware of them. Stepping up onto the curb, she crossed the sidewalk to greet Lily.

  Tate made the introduction. “Miss Mars, Lily Farnsworth. Lily, Miss Ann Mars, SOS Committee member and your neighbor.”

  “So happy to meet you!” Miss Mars exclaimed, bending far backward to get a good look at the newcomer. “You’re aptly named for a florist.”

  Lily smiled and pushed her glasses up. “I guess I am, at that.”

  Miss Mars stuck her nose to the window of Lily’s shop, asking, “What are in those big boxes in there?”

  “Glass shelving.”

  “You’ll have to put it together, I expect,” Tate stated, and Lily nodded. “You have the tools for it and everything?”

  She blinked behind those round glasses. “Uh, not exactly.”

  Not exactly. Tate shook his head. He supposed he’d better show up tomorrow morning prepared to get those shelves together for her.

  “I have to get my girl home to bed,” he said, carrying his daughter to the truck.

  Lily called out her thanks as he belted Isabella into her seat. Already thinking about what he would need to bring with him in the morning, he shut the truck door, walked around and got in behind the wheel. He’d be more comfortable about the whole thing if Lily Farnsworth looked less like a fetching, ballet-dancing librarian and more like Miss Ann Mars, but Tate was not one to shirk his responsibilities, no matter how much he might want to.

  * * *

  Looking up from the half-finished shelving unit the next morning, Lily tilted back her head to peer through her glasses and the thick beveled glass insert of her shop door. She’d already hung a little brass bell over the heavy green door, and it tinkled pleasantly, evoking a smile even before she recognized Tate’s tall, muscular figure. He carried a heavy, somewhat battered metal toolbox at his side. Pushing back the bill of his faded red cap, he stared down at her, his frown at odds with the dimples in his cheeks.

  “How’d you get that together without tools?”

  She lifted a screwdriver with one hand and a pair of pliers with the other, wishing she’d worn jeans instead of baggy leggings and a cute top instead of this shapeless, oversize T-shirt. Then again, when was she ever really at her best?

  “Miss Ann had a few things out back of her shop. We dug around out there after breakfast, although I have to tell you, I think she knows exactly where to find every item in the place.”

  “Huh.” He set down the heavy toolbox and parked his hands at his belt, brown to match his round-toed boots.

  “Where’s Isabella?” Lily asked, getting up off the floor and dusting off her behind with both hands, though earlier she’d swept the finely refinished wood floor with a broom that she’d picked up at the This ‘N’ That.

  “With my folks.”

  “Ah.” Not with her mother then.

  He glanced around at the spring green walls. The short wall in the back had been painted a rich scarlet. He pointed at the unpainted counter. “You didn’t specify what color you wanted that, so the contractor just left some cans of paint in the back.”

  “I’m thinking lavender,” she told him, “with the logo and name of the store on the front. I can freehand it later.”

  “Really? You can just grab a paintbrush and do that by hand?” He lifted an eyebrow skeptically. “Okay, if you say so. What about the humidifiers?”

  Confused, Lily shook her head. “They don’t need
painting.”

  “I mean, have you decided how to fasten them down? State code requires it. Better let me take care of it now. Where do you want them?”

  “Hmm, the one in the work area needs to be in the back corner facing this direction.” She held up her hands to demonstrate how she wanted it to face, and he went off to take care of it while she continued to work on the shelving.

  Fifteen minutes of scraping and drilling later, he was back in the front of the shop and ready to tackle the display unit there.

  “Where do you want this one?”

  She pointed to the corner. He shoved the humidifier easily into position, but then she changed her mind. For a good half hour after that, he shoved the thing around from one spot to another, finally winding up right back where they’d started.

  “I’m sorry. I—I just wasn’t certain.”

  He shrugged, and got out his drill. “Better to be sure.”

  They worked in relative silence, the buzz of his power drill the only sound. Every once in a while, a vehicle rolled down the street, stopped at the four-way stop sign and went on its way. People walked along the sidewalk, looked in the windows, smiled and waved, then walked on. Lily wasn’t gregarious enough to go out and introduce herself, but she smiled and waved back. After receiving a couple calls on her cell phone from friends in Boston, Lily realized that the reception wasn’t great, so her next call was to the telephone company to order a phone package for the shop and apartment, including land lines and cell service. The representative promised to send someone out the very next day for installation and activation.

  Tate packed up his toolbox and prepared to leave, saying he had work out at the farm to get done. “Will you be okay here on your own?”

  “Of course. I’m meeting Miss Mars for lunch in a little while. Then I’ll be back here getting ready for the opening.”

  “That’s good. I don’t suppose you’ve met any of the other business owners yet.”

  “Uh, no. I imagine they’re all doing what I’m doing, getting ready for the Grand Opening on Monday.”

  Tate nodded. “Well, if you need anything, let me know.”

  Lily smiled and nodded, wishing it was that easy. How many times had she heard her sister, Laurel, say that it was a simple matter of just asking for what you wanted? Lily could never make her outgoing younger sister understand how difficult such a thing was for her.