The Tanglewood Flower Shop

by The Tanglewood Flower Shop (retail) (epub)

  The evening was a fine one, the sun dipping behind the western edge of the mountains, leaving tendrils of orange and pink across the sky.

  Puffing a little – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d hiked up the slopes – Leanne explained her predicament.

  ‘An office?’ Rex scratched his head, causing his hair to stick up as his fingers rippled through it. ‘I don’t do offices much,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I can help you with that. The only ones I’m familiar with are in the park centre, and those awful big ones you see on the TV. You know, where employees are shoved into little boxes with only a partition between them. Oh, and there are those big director’s offices, with board tables in them. Maybe you can…’ He ground to a halt.

  Leanne had also ground to a halt – a physical one. He’d said something about partitions… For a second, she forgot he was there, and when she came back to herself, it was to see him staring at her with that anxious look on his face again.

  ‘What? Are you OK? How’s your head? Did you bump it when the car hit you? Oh God, you might have concussion.’

  ‘No concussion,’ she reassured him, ‘but I have got an idea. Thank you!’

  She threw her arms around him and stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss on the cheek, but something went a little awry with the plan, because Rex turned his head at exactly the same moment so that instead of kissing him on his slightly stubbly cheek, her lips met his mouth full on.

  Her heart stopped.

  The kiss was feather-light at first, then he pulled her into him, tightening the embrace, holding her in a cage of solid muscle.

  Without conscious thought, she closed her eyes and melted into his embrace, the rightness of being in his arms sweeping her away and filling her senses. Nothing and no one existed except him. His mouth claimed hers, the firm insistence of his lips making her go weak at the knees, until the only thing keeping her upright was his arms. Her legs trembled, her heart thumped and fluttered, and she was suddenly breathless.

  Oh my – she’d never been kissed quite like this before.

  As she gave a small cry, her lips parted and his tongue slipped into her mouth, finding hers. The taste of him, the smell of him, was all she could think about.

  Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

  Rex broke the connection, abruptly dragging his mouth away, and Leanne felt lost and abandoned even though she was still encircled in his arms.

  She opened her eyes. He was staring at her in confusion, breathing hard. His eyes had turned a dark blue, almost navy. Although she could see the hunger in his expression, he was clearly regretting what had just happened.

  ‘Oops,’ she said inanely, desperately searching for a way to cover her embarrassment. ‘Oops’ didn’t do it, but it was all she could think of.

  A sudden chill went through her when he released her and took a step backwards. He’d been so warm, so vibrant… she’d enjoyed the encounter far too much for her own good.

  Rex focused on a spot over her right shoulder and cleared his throat. ‘Your idea?’ he reminded her, and it took Leanne a second to gather her scattered thoughts. What idea? What was he talking about?

  ‘Oh yes, the idea. Um… partitions,’ she muttered, her lips tingling and her voice somewhat hoarse. Her own gaze was on a clump of celandine at the side of the path. Absently she noticed the fresh green leaves and the beginnings of newly forming buds. Their eventual bright yellow flowers would be a welcome treat for her mother’s bees. In fact, there was one of the little insects now, not long out of hibernation, hoping to find a quick meal of nectar before bedtime.

  ‘Partitions?’ Rex sounded brisk, almost businesslike.

  Damn it, she thought. That kiss should never have happened. Now she’d jeopardised their new and fragile friendship, and all because he’d turned his head at the wrong time.

  It was a mistake, that was all, an accident; nothing but an unfortunate touch of lips.

  So why had it felt like so much more?

  Chapter 17

  Rex couldn’t sleep. For a long time he lay there listening to the diminishing sounds of a Tanglewood night, until no more noises could be heard except for the occasional car engine on the main street.

  At one point he thought he heard a fox bark and got out of bed to investigate, tugging the curtain to one side to peer out into the dark and earning himself a disgruntled grizzling from a sleepy Nell.

  Her complaining continued when he returned to bed. Unable to keep still, he tossed and turned until the dog shuffled over to the far side of the mattress and settled down again with a huff.

  ‘Sorry,’ he whispered, and saw the faint gleam of an open eye. ‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about – it’s all your fault. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t slipped your lead.’

  Maybe ‘slipped’ wasn’t a totally accurate description. Rex had been trying to do three things at once – lock the car, hoist his rucksack onto his shoulder and wrap Nell’s lead around his hand – so he had to take some of the blame.

  He shuddered at the thought of what might have happened. Things could easily have been a great deal worse, and if Leanne had been seriously hurt, he didn’t know how he would have been able to live with himself.

  ‘It’s all your fault,’ he repeated to the dog, getting a half-hearted wag in return. But he wasn’t just talking about the accident – he was also talking about the kiss. There had been an inevitability about it, as though Nell slipping out of his grasp was fated to end in him grabbing Leanne and forcing himself on her.

  ‘Forcing’ was a bit strong, but his attention clearly hadn’t been all that welcome, as her cry of dismay when his tongue had found hers had shown.

  Then she had let him off the hook and made a bit of a joke about it by saying ‘oops’. Except there’d been no ‘oops’ about it. He’d known exactly what he was doing when she threw her arms around him.

  The turn of his head had been totally and utterly deliberate.

  He’d not stopped to consider the consequences. He’d acted purely on instinct; on a desire to taste those full, luscious lips and to feel her body close to his.

  What had he been thinking?

  Clearly he hadn’t been thinking at all right then, but he was certainly thinking now, and was desperately hoping he’d not scuppered their fledgling friendship.

  But she’d felt so good in his arms.

  Stop it this very second, he told himself. Don’t go there. She doesn’t want you except as a friend.

  Feeling a right idiot, he threw in the towel and got up.

  Two cups of coffee later, he was still restless and out of sorts, so he decided to go for a walk – anything to take his mind off his churning thoughts.

  As soon as Nell heard the jangle of her lead, she leapt off the bed, going from an apparently deep sleep to excited watchfulness in the blink of an eye and dancing around his legs uttering excited little barks.

  ‘Behave yourself this time,’ he warned her, clipping the lead onto her collar, then he opened the door and they disappeared out into the night.

  The river was a different place in the wee hours, he noticed, unlatching the gate and making Nell wait for him to go through first. He took every opportunity to instil manners into the dog, and he didn’t see why a midnight walk should be any exception. Once the gate was safely closed behind them, he made her sit and wait while he let her off the lead.

  ‘Go on,’ he said in a low voice, and she took off at a rate of knots, nose down, tail up. ‘Don’t expect this every night,’ he warned, although he supposed that if he saw much more of Leanne Green, this wouldn’t be the last walk he and his dog would be taking in the middle of the night.

  The river was up, recent rains swelling it, and the gurgle of the water and the sound of the wavelets lapping the bank went some way to soothe his troubled soul.

  As Nell cast back and forth, sniffing out rabbits and chasing down interesting smells, Rex tried to stay foc
used on the dog’s antics, especially when the squeak of a small rodent had her charging into the undergrowth, but he found he couldn’t get Leanne’s stricken expression out of his mind. Nor the way she’d leapt at the chance to pretend nothing had happened between them. At least he’d managed to help her with her next task, albeit unwittingly, so some good had come of the evening.

  Partitions was a good idea. He could picture it now: walls of living plants instead of plastic and metal separating the various work areas. It was a proven fact that people felt better when surrounded by greenery – maybe it had something to do with the increased oxygen levels in the air, besides providing something inherently pleasing and calming to look at.

  He knew Leanne would instinctively choose slow-growing plants that needed the minimum of care, and he hoped the idea was good enough to get her through to the next round, as he knew how much it meant to her.

  There was only one problem, though: if she got through to the end and actually won the damn thing, she’d probably be gone from his life for good.

  And he had no idea how he felt about that.

  Chapter 18

  Concentrate, Leanne told herself for the umpteenth time that morning. She was in the shed, trying to construct a partition and not making a very good job of it. She blamed her lack of focus on the constant bleating of the newborn lambs and their mothers coming from the lambing shed, but in reality she knew it was because whenever she thought about her design, Rex’s face was superimposed upon it.

  ‘Whatcha doing?’ Saul strolled into the shed, bringing with him the pungent, unmistakable smell of sheep.

  ‘Go away, I’m busy.’

  ‘I can’t, not until I find the wire cutters.’ He rooted around in the massive toolbox, disturbing her concentration even further. ‘Anyway, shouldn’t you be working?’ he asked, making more noise than a JCB on a construction site. That was Saul, she thought. You always knew when he was around.

  ‘I am working. This,’ she pointed to the half-completed wood and chicken wire ensemble, ‘is work.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like any flower arrangement I’ve ever seen,’ her brother said, his hands on his hips as he eyed the contraption. ‘What are you trying to do?’

  She told him.

  ‘That’s not going to work,’ was his ill-considered verdict. Ill-considered because Leanne was sorely tempted to throw the hammer she was holding at his stupid head.

  ‘It will,’ she insisted. ‘It’s an excellent idea.’ Although she said it with a degree of certainty, she was actually far from confident. She couldn’t even get the basic structure right, for goodness’ sake.

  ‘It needs to be on castors, for a start.’

  ‘Castors?’ Leanne scowled at him. What a daft thing to say.

  ‘Those kinds of offices that have partitions are a movable feast,’ he explained, ignoring her surliness. ‘The whole idea is that they’re fluid and can be arranged to suit the circumstances.’

  It was Leanne’s turn to put her hands on her hips. ‘What do you know about offices?’

  ‘I dated a girl who worked in a call centre in Hereford. She showed me around once.’ He grinned and waggled his eyebrows, so Leanne guessed there’d been more to it than a simple guided tour. She rolled her eyes in disgust; her brother was incorrigible. Her mother despaired of him ever finding a nice girl to settle down with. Leanne didn’t care if he did or didn’t. She just wanted him to explain his castor thing.

  ‘If the partition is on lockable castors, it can be moved a lot easier than if it’s static,’ he continued. ‘It’s going to be a fair old weight, what with the structure, the soil and plants, not to mention the water. I think we’ve got some around here somewhere, from when we took the butcher’s block out of the kitchen.’

  A few years ago, their mum had insisted on having a new kitchen installed. However, true to farmers everywhere, nothing went to the skip. The old dresser had been sanded down and repainted, and now had pride of place in the dining room, adorned with their great-grandma’s china. The cabinets had found their way into the feed barn, where they held various bowls, buckets, scoops and ladles. The butcher’s block – minus the castors – was used as a workbench.

  Saul found the wheels and insisted on fixing them on. ‘You do know you need some kind of irrigation system?’ he said to her, standing back to admire his handiwork.

  ‘Duh! I know.’ Leanne pointed to several lengths of hosepipe.

  ‘Right then, let’s get started,’ he announced.

  Leanne was shocked. When they were children, Saul had always made the best constructions out of Meccano and Lego, but he’d never offered to help her. More than once he had stated that girls were as capable as boys at that kind of stuff, but if he helped her, she’d never learn. She used to think it was because he couldn’t be bothered.

  Brother and sister worked side by side for the next couple of hours, bending metal tubing and attaching wires. Saul dug out an old enamel trough, one of the smaller ones, and together they secured it to a plinth. They even found an old pump that had once been part of a water feature.

  Finally the whole thing was ready for planting. Leanne had initially thought to use climbers, but understood quite quickly that it would be too simplistic, so she attached small plastic pots all over the structure and filled them with compost, ensuring that each one was rigged up to the irrigation system. Then she filled the trough with water, connected the plug to the mains and switched on the pump.

  For a moment, she thought it wasn’t going to work, but after a pause, the motor roared into life and she let out a whoop.

  Saul bumped her shoulder. ‘Will it do?’

  ‘Will it ever! It’s brilliant. Thank you.’

  ‘You can repay me when you’re rich and famous,’ he said with a laugh.

  She put her arm around him. Annoying big brothers could come in handy sometimes, she decided. They stood watching the water drip for a while before Leanne turned the pump off.

  ‘It’ll only need switching on for a few minutes every day,’ she said, ‘and depending on the time of year and the temperature, you could probably get away with checking the reservoir about once a week.’

  ‘What’s next?’ Saul asked.

  ‘I’ve got to do the planting, and I need to find some kind of lid for the reservoir.’

  ‘You do your planty thing, and I’ll make the lid,’ Saul suggested. ‘We’ve got some marine plywood somewhere.’

  When Leanne showed him what she wanted, he set about his task with enthusiasm while she went off in search of her plants.

  By dinner time, she was finished, and she stood back to admire the display. She’d aimed for year-round colour, and had interspersed the body of green foliage with spring, summer and autumn flowering plants. At the moment, it was resplendent with late-flowering primroses, the last of the dwarf narcissi, tiny nodding Spanish bluebells and hyacinths.

  She surveyed it for a long time, walking around it, scrutinising it critically, adjusting and fiddling as she went. Several scribbled notes later, she felt she was as ready as she could be.

  She also made a mental note to take the plants she’d used today to the local nursing home, as she did with all the flowers that had gone past their prime. Thankfully for her profit margin, she didn’t have a great deal of wastage, but she always took a few bunches over to the home regardless, never letting on that some of the flowers were actually prime stock.

  It was only when the display was in bits that she wished she’d taken a photo and sent it to Rex.

  Ah well, too late now. It was probably for the best anyway – she didn’t want him thinking she was chasing after him or anything.

  Chapter 19

  ‘Show me your shoes,’ Rex instructed.

  Eleven little feet waved in the air, the children they belonged to hopping unsteadily on the other.

  ‘Great! Show me your backpacks.’

  Eleven little bodies turned around in unison.

  ‘What have you got in
them?’ Rex shouted. ‘Hands up. You?’ He pointed to a cutie with blonde pigtails.

  ‘Gloves,’ she lisped.

  ‘Hands up if you’ve forgotten your gloves.’ He stared at each child in turn. All shook their heads. ‘What else?’ he cried.

  ‘Hat,’ another child called out.

  ‘Who’s forgotten their hat?’

  No one put their hand up. He could see that every pupil had a waterproof coat on, so he didn’t need to check that.

  Miss Harding, the Class 3 teacher, had brought a selection of spare clothes as instructed (he knew from experience that at least one small person would fall in the stream), and Rex had persuaded the National Park to fork out for cake and nibbles to supplement the pupils’ packed lunches. He’d also supplied paper, pencils and paints.

  It was promising to be a fun day out. They were in the car park below one of the reservoirs, and the plan was to walk for about half a mile until they reached a stream that fed into it.

  He’d chosen this stream because it was shallow and not particularly fast-flowing –although if it rained, that could quite quickly change – and he knew that some of the tiny rivulets leading into it contained tadpoles. The stream itself was alive with brown trout and insect larvae, and if the children were quiet enough, they might catch a glimpse of a wagtail or a nightjar.

  Ravens, skylarks and red kites were a given, as were the ever-present sheep, although only last year’s youngsters were out on the hills now. If they were really lucky, the pupils might spot one of the tiny herds of semi-wild Welsh ponies that roamed the park. At this time of year, one or two of the mares might even have a foal at foot.