by Staci Hart
“You starting at the shop tomorrow?” Kash asked, kicking my boot under the table.
“I dunno. Mom?”
“If you’re ready. Not that we have much business these days, but we always do more in the summers, especially when you’re on the counter,” she said, patting my shoulder.
Laney snickered.
“Yeah,” Kash said. “I’d be willing to bet Cougar Judy orders a couple of bouquets once she hears you’re behind the counter.”
Mom’s smile fell. “Judy always was one of our best customers. I wonder if she’s been getting her arrangements from Bower Bouquets.”
A collective chorus of derisive noise filled the room. Bower was the name on the company dartboard. They’d come in with a corporate swoop that put an end to almost every other shop in Manhattan. Ours had only survived this long because Longbourne provided wholesale flowers to neighboring shops and existed as a monument, a cornerstone of the neighborhood, and the only greenhouse of this size in Manhattan. The hip little boutiques and the big chains had driven everyone else out, and even the boutiques had to fight for scraps, what with Greenwich Village rent and the convenience of ordering flowers on 1-800-Roses4U.
“You know,” she started, “at garden club last week, Evangeline Bower was on her high horse about the new stores they just opened. She looked down her long nose at me through her whole humblebragging speech. She thinks I’m crass? Well, I think she’s a snob, plain and simple.”
“Maybe her French twist is too tight,” Laney joked.
“Judy’s not going to Bower,” Jett soothed. “She just loves Luke.”
Laney laughed. “We can put his pretty face in the front of the store and watch the ladies roll in.”
Mom softened, laughing when I framed my face and batted my lashes at her.
“Maybe we should put him in a sandwich board out front,” Laney joked.
“We can write Plant one on me on the front.” Jett smirked.
“Only if he’s naked,” Kash added.
“With a bell,” Marcus insisted.
“I mean, I wouldn’t say no,” I said with a shrug.
“You always were the one I couldn’t get to wear pants when you were little,” Mom said. “And by the fifth baby in six years, I found it hard to be bothered to care.”
“We cultivate many things,” Dad said. “Roses, poppies, and a penchant for exhibition.”
Mom laughed again, beaming at us as we volleyed. “All of the Bennets under one roof. It’s just a dream to have you home again.”
“Not all,” Marcus corrected.
Mom gave him a look. “Marcus Bennet, you are here every single night for dinner, and you do your laundry in my mud room. Do not pretend you don’t love it here, or I will call you a liar.”
He glanced at the ceiling and shook out his newspaper, but a ghost of a smile flickered across his lips.
As I scanned the faces of my family, I had to admit, I found my own sense of peace along with a shift I had yet to place. It’d been years since all of us were able to get home for a holiday, years more since we were in permanent residence. And now we were home, banded together with a sole purpose—save Longbourne.
I had the feeling it would take everything in us to do it. But if I had faith in one thing in the world, it was the Bennets’ ability to tackle every obstacle in our path like the feral, determined dogs we were.
And we wouldn’t give up the fight until we won.
4
LET HER BE WILD
TESS
“Daddy, I’m home!”
The door closed with a snick, and I flicked on the light in the apartment where I’d grown up.
There was the same old couch, the same dated table. The same old wallpaper Mom had loved so much and the same faded curtains that matched said wallpaper so exactly, you could barely tell where one stopped and the other began. It was a time capsule, left unchanged for fear we’d lose another piece of her to memory.
I dropped my bag by the door and made my way through the living room, setting my flowers on the kitchen table as I passed. “Daddy? You here?”
“Back here, baby,” he said, his voice dulled by walls and a hallway.
I wandered down the hall and into his office where I found him sitting at his table under the harsh light of a lamp, painting a tiny soldier under a magnifying glass.
He smiled up at me, his eyes warm over the top of his reading glasses. “Heya, Pigeon. How was work?”
I sighed, stepping into him to press a kiss to his forehead. “Terrible,” I said cheerily. “Luke Bennet showed up at the flower shop and made a mess.”
“Nothin’ new there.” He frowned, the effect wrinkling his forehead and echoing his days as a sergeant. His sergeant face was the kind that scared boys off and made men prepare for a long, painful set of push-ups.
I flopped down in an armchair with another sigh. “He’s working the counter and deliveries. Came back from California to help save the shop. Fat lot of good he’ll do. He’s such a train wreck. I wouldn’t put it past him to accidentally set the place on fire.”
At that, Dad smirked. “Well, I knew the boy was good-looking, but I didn’t think he was so handsome he could combust.”
“Oh no—it’d be from setting off Black Cats in a bucket or mixing something dangerous with the fertilizer.”
He made a noncommittal sound and turned to dab paint on the soldier in his hand. “Just keep your head down and ignore him.”
“That happens to be my specialty, but I’m a little out of practice after five years,” I huffed like a brat, and annoyed with myself, I changed the subject. “Did you eat dinner?”
“No, not yet. I’ve been snacking.” He nodded to a bag of trail mix on the corner of the table. “I didn’t realize how late it was. Nothing makes me lose time like assembling an army.”
I chuckled, hauling myself out of the chair. “Come on. Let’s get you fed.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, leaning back in his wheelchair as I grabbed the handles.
He hated when I pushed his wheelchair but accepted my doting as the affection it was.
He’d lost his legs in Afghanistan, third tour, IED. And he was the lucky one, the only one in his unit to survive. We moved to New York just after that, into an apartment left to my mother by her mother. Four years later, Mom was gone. It’d been me and Dad ever since.
By the time they’d found her cancer, it had spread to her lymph nodes and bladder. Chemo slowed it down but couldn’t stop it. One year from her diagnosis, and she slipped away from us. Before she’d died, she’d made me get genetic testing—I always assumed to ease her mind, make it easier to let me go. The results were good, although she still put me on preventative birth control and helped me organize a plan for my doctors, including regular screenings to be insisted on, no matter my age.
I hadn’t been the only planner in the family.
Much of the last year of her life she had spent teaching me how to adult, preparing me for what would come next as best she could. By failing to prepare, you prepare to fail, she’d quote Benjamin Franklin with a smile. Grocery shopping. Managing bills. Budgeting. She showed me the best way to clean around a faucet and how to get out every imaginable stain from laundry. I learned how to help Dad when he needed it—though not through practice. He was so hell-bent on the idea that he didn’t need help, it inspired a level of independence not always seen in people who had lost so much freedom. Never had I heard him complain. Never had he asked me for help.
I was always there to offer it anyway. And on occasion, he even let me.
Like when it came to cooking. His recipe repertoire was limited to cereal, hot dogs, and chili, but Mom had left me recipes on recipes, all written in her hand and housed in a box my father had made her when I was a baby.
I pushed him up to his spot at the table, the space with the missing chair, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.
“What do you think tonight? Betsy’s famous beef Stroganoff
or Meatballs à la Betsy?”
“Stroganoff. I’ve been dying for that sauce for what feels like ages.”
I chuckled, heading over to the recipe box. My fingers lingered as I flipped through the cards, the corners curled and soft, some speckled with grease or sauce. I found the one I had been looking for and set it on the counter even though I knew every word by heart.
“What’d you bring home today?” he asked to the sound of crinkling paper as he picked up my flowers.
“Bells of Ireland, love-in-a-mist, Iceland poppies. Nimbus sweet peas. Ranunculus.”
“Those the big orange ones?”
“Mmhmm,” I hummed with a smile as I moved supplies from the fridge to the counter.
“These should photograph nicely.”
“I hope so. The color combination is going to get me a load of likes on Instagram. I’m so glad Mrs. Bennet lets me bring home the flowers bloomed too far to sell.”
“So am I,” he admitted. “There’s nothing so inspiring as to have such fresh beauty delivered daily. Makes the house feel alive.”
I smiled at him over my shoulder. “Our house looks like a crazy plant lady lives here.”
“Well, one does.” He smirked at me before sticking his nose in the flowers.
It wasn’t a lie. Our house was full of plants, every corner teeming with broad leaves. Pots of ivy hung above, the vines led across the ceiling by hooks. They were Mom’s, and I’d kept them alive all this time. I had a recurring nightmare that I came home one day and they were all dead, crisp and brown and withered.
“It’s genetic, I suppose. Can you imagine what your mother would think if she could see Matilda now?”
I glanced at the biggest of the ivy plants, which spilled out of its pot like a waterfall. A few years ago, it’d grown so heavy, I had to bolt the hook into a beam to keep it hanging.
“She’d probably tease me for living in a virtual jungle and tell me to get out my pruning shears.”
He chuckled. “You’d never do it.”
“Not in a million years would I trim that beast back. Let her be wild.”
“It’s good advice, Tess. You could stand for a little more wild in your life.”
“Hey, I can be wild,” I said, dumping the steak into the pan with a sizzle.
He made a teasing noise.
“What?” I asked as I grabbed the big pot and filled it with water for noodles.
“You’re about as wild as a goldfish.”
“I’ll have you know that wild goldfish can take over a river within a year. They are a force to be reckoned with.”
“I’m just saying, it wouldn’t kill you to go out every once in a while.”
“I go out,” I insisted. “Last week, Ivy and I went to dinner.”
“You were home by nine-thirty.”
I shrugged. “I’m just saying. I do things.”
“The same things.”
“I like when things are the same. Predictable. Is that so wrong?”
“No, I suppose not. We all crave the predictable. It’s just a little easy, that’s all. A little adventure wouldn’t kill you, you know.”
“Some adventure could. Like skydiving. Or shark diving.”
“A date wouldn’t.”
I sighed, smiling as I turned for the table while dinner simmered. “Maybe I’m happiest when you’re the only man in my life.”
He watched me pick up the flowers and move to the island. “Tess, if the only man in your life is an old one with no legs, you might need to reevaluate your priorities.”
He was teasing me. I didn’t think it was particularly funny, but I laughed it off anyway, spreading my fare out on the island and reaching into a cabinet for the vase I wanted.
“And where would I meet someone?” I asked, convinced there was no answer.
“One of those apps. Bundle or Timber?”
“Bumble and Tinder,” I corrected on a chuckle. “I don’t know. It just seems so … random. And unnecessarily risky. I’d rather meet someone in real life and forge a connection than pick someone from a stable like a horse.”
“That’d require you to actually get out of the house.”
I frowned down at my hands as I trimmed stems. “You sound awfully judgy tonight, Dad.”
A sigh, heavy and full. “Sometimes, I worry I’m holding you back,” he admitted openly, as was his way. As was mine.
But I shook my head, eyes on the flowers, heart in my throat. “You’re not holding me back, Daddy. You’re holding me steady.”
A pause, long and pregnant. “Come here,” he said gently.
For a moment, I didn’t move. But there was no denying him, not of one single thing he wished. When I met his eyes, they were sad and deep. I didn’t know when he’d gotten so old. In my mind, he was still young and smiling, his face smooth and hair thick and shaggy. But in moments like this, his life was etched in the lines of his face like a story on stone.
He took my hand. “I love you, Tess. And I want you to make me a promise.”
“Anything, Daddy,” I said softly.
“Be wild. Because life is lived in the moments you don’t see coming. Not in the comfort of predictability, but in the thrill of the unknown.”
My heart folded in on itself at the thought. “But I … I don’t know if I know how.”
But he smiled. “Then that’s what you should figure out. Do one thing this week that scares you. Just one. And if you can’t think of anything, ask Ivy. I’m pretty sure she has a running list.”
At that, I laughed, the sound catching in my throat, tightened from emotion.
I couldn’t deny him. But I didn’t know how to honor the request.
The acrid smell of meat a little overdone hit my nose, and his too.
“Better get that,” he suggested, effectively letting me off the hook for an answer.
I hurried to the stove and grabbed the pan, picking it up to cool it a little as I salvaged dinner and digested what he’d said.
He wasn’t wrong, which was perhaps the most bitter taste left once I’d swallowed his words. I hadn’t been on a date in an unspeakable amount of time, and since Ivy had landed herself a bun in the oven and a serious boyfriend—fiancé soon, if I had to bet—we’d barely gone out at all. Not that we’d gone out much before. I was as bland as my father had suggested. There wasn’t much time to party when you were up at four every morning and at the flower shop at five, six days a week. By nine, I was toast, crispy and rough and in desperate need of some buttering up.
I wanted more out of life, I did. Someday, I hoped for the dream—a doting husband, a couple of kids, a house in the Village, summer vacations. I wanted my student loans paid and a hefty amount of money in savings. I wanted my wishes to come true, but now? Well, now I was focused on what was in front of me—the flower shop, my father, and my dream of someday publishing my own books about floristry.
I’d squeaked out nearly twenty thousand followers on Instagram and collected a decade of notes, a list of titles and themes just waiting to be explored. And someday, I would.
But first, today. And today was for predictability.
Wild could wait.
5
THINGS YOU CAN COUNT ON
LUKE
“You’re late.”
Tess scowled at me from behind the counter, her palms flat on the surface and her apron already streaked with dirt.
“Good morning to you too,” I said cheerily as the door closed behind me.
She rolled her eyes before turning to the shelf behind her. “You already have deliveries, so don’t bother getting comfortable.”
“It’s only eight in the morning.”
“No, eight was when you were supposed to be here. It’s eight-thirty,” she said, thunking a vase on the counter.
“Three orders this early? Who says we’re not busy?”
“Don’t get excited. They’re all to Judy.”
A laugh shot out of me. “News travels fast.”
“You’re disgusting, you know that?” Thunk went another vase. She pinned me with a glare before turning for the last.
“All I did was come back to town.”
“You’d send your mother to an early grave if she knew you were running your gigolo clients through her flower shop.” Thunk.
“Please. I haven’t been a gigolo in years.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits, and I got the distinct impression she was trying to explode me with her corneas.
“I’m kidding, Tess.”
Another roll of her eyes as she slapped the ticket next to the vases. “The truck is out back. By all means, take your time coming back.”
“You wound me,” I said, smiling at her like a fiend, fueled by her scorn.
“The indestructible Luke Bennet?” She snorted. “You act as if I don’t know you.”
I stalked up to the counter, my smile tightening. “Oh, I don’t think you know me as well as you think you do.”
She took a step back as if to keep the distance between us. “Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.”
At that, my smile fell completely. “You sure are full of venom for this early in the morning.”
“Some of us are here before the sun.” She turned for the back. “It’s not early.”
“Hey,” I called after her, “I’m sorry again, Tess. For yesterday. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that whether I thought you were Ivy or not.”
She shrugged a small shoulder with a flick, the motion anything but blasé. “No, you shouldn’t have. But if you leave with those bouquets in the next five minutes, we’ll call it even.”
The lie rolled off her tongue, but I didn’t buy it any more than she meant it. So I let it go, recognizing a brick wall when I saw one.
“Think you’ll manage the counter without me?”
She shot a look back at me, her small nose down and her eyes narrowed. “Beyond all the odds, we’ve somehow managed all this time without you. I’m sure we’ll survive.” She turned, striding away. “Tell Judy we said hi,” she said just before disappearing around the corner.
“Ohhhhkay,” I muttered, grabbing a box for the vases.