by Staci Hart
Either way, it was going to be a thrill. We were going to make this place everything it was meant to be, everything it had once been. We were going to save it.
I wandered into the front while their attention was off of me, making lists of inventory, considering how we might organize it. Golden streetlight streamed in through the grate outside the window, and I made a mental note of the approximate size and depth of the window space, noting the casings and devising ways to hang things from it without ruining the old wood. There were so many things I could build out of raw wood, and I felt a greedy anticipation at what I’d find in storage. A hundred seventy years of history, I supposed, history we’d bring back into this space with its second life.
My siblings weren’t wrong, ribbing me about the lemonade stand. I loved the rush and possibility of new ideas, but follow-through had never been my strong suit. The only thing I’d really tried to stick out was my marriage, which taught me two important things: sticking things out could ruin you, and I was terrible at relationships.
But this time? Right now? This would be different. Quitting wasn’t an option, and giving up wasn’t on the table. It was do or die. And I was prepared to ride or die.
It was why we’d all come home, and our future was at stake. Our family was at stake. And one thing I would never walk away from was my family.
“Hey,” a gentle voice said from behind me.
I started at the sound, so lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t heard Tess approach.
She chuckled. “Sorry to scare you. I … I just wanted to say thank you. For suggesting that I take on so much responsibility.”
“You act like you haven’t been running the shop for years.”
I noticed her cheeks flush, even in the dark shop. “Maybe, but I’m not a Bennet. I feel lucky to even be included in these kinds of meetings.”
I turned to face her, pinning her with a look I hoped communicated my earnestness. “Tess, you are as much a part of this family as anyone. You have been Mom’s hands for years. She taught you everything she knew, and then you did the unthinkable—you surpassed her.”
Tess drew a shallow breath.
“Don’t you dare tell my mother I said that.”
Her surprise left her on a laugh.
“This store is just as much yours as it is ours. More maybe. Other than Kash, you’re the only one who didn’t leave. So please, don’t thank me. It’s me who should be thanking you.”
She watched me for a moment with a smile on her lips. “Well, how about that? Ivy was right.”
I frowned. “Right about what?”
“Maybe you aren’t such a dick after all.”
Laughter shot out of me, a little too loud and completely unbridled. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Tess.”
She shrugged a small shoulder, smiling sideways as she turned to walk away. But as she left, she looked back over her shoulder. “Really, Luke, thank you.”
I slipped my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “You’re welcome,” was all I could say.
Surprise had otherwise rendered me speechless.
7
PRINCES AND PIRATES
TESS
It took entirely too long to decide what to wear to paint a flower shop.
Clothes lay in a heaping pile to rival Everest, so many that a glance into my gaping closet showed little more than hangers. In my defense, I had a lot of needs to fill—must be old and-or disposable enough to get paint on them, must be appropriate for climbing ladders, and most importantly, must be adorable.
If my ass was going to be in Luke Bennet’s eyeline all day, it’d better look good.
I shifted three-quarters, inspecting my reflection. Auburn hair in a messy bun, bangs thick and shaggy, a blue bandana tied in a band with the knot on top. Mom’s old Cure T-shirt, dotted with paint from my bathroom when she’d painted it years ago. I’d knotted the hem to make it look fitted, cuffed the sleeves to put them at a modern length. And I topped it off with a pair of overall shorts because that seemed too obvious to pass up. My face was fresh and untouched by makeup, but I wasn’t so confident that I was willing to ignore mascara.
I was the poster girl for the basic bitch painting uniform and resisted the urge to change again.
“You’re just painting the shop, not auditioning for Top Model, for God’s sake,” I muttered at myself, annoyed.
I blew out of my room before I could change my mind again.
It was anxiety, I realized, and took a second to catalog the details I was aware of. I didn’t exactly hate Luke anymore. I mean, he was a pig and a flake, but when he’d stood at the head of that table and told us his ideas, the energy in the room had shifted in his direction. He could be a force to be reckoned with—when he applied himself. When he had passion.
That was really the thing that was the most astounding—witnessing his passion. He cared more than I’d realized, worried more than I had known. He believed we would succeed with optimism and hope, and he imagined all the ways we could make it happen.
We. All of us. Even me.
It was the cherry atop the humble pie I’d promised to eat. Now that I was paying attention to the good, the bad had fizzled out like a bunk firecracker—still full of gunpowder, might blow my hand off if I touched it, but probably harmless.
Probably.
Dad was in his recliner in the living room, listening to The Allman Brothers, reading glasses on the tip of his nose and a book about the Civil War split open in his lap.
“Hey, Pigeon,” he said, smiling when I walked in. “Don’t you look adorable?”
My nose wrinkled as I moved to the kitchen to change the water in my vase.
“What? You don’t want to look adorable?”
“No. I mean, yes, I like to look pretty, but I don’t know that I should want to look adorable.”
“Ah. Luke will be there, then.” He didn’t ask. He stated.
I huffed, setting the bouquet on the counter and turning for the sink to wash the vase. “It’s not easy or simple. Nothing is when it comes to him and me. But he … well, he wants to save the flower shop, and he put his trust in me. Makes it kind of hard to want him to swan dive off the Flatiron Building.”
He chuckled.
“I stayed up half the night, sketching out ideas for window installations. I’m not going to let Mrs. Bennet down. Longbourne will survive—thrive—if I have anything to do with it.”
“I don’t doubt you’ll make it so, Tess. You’ve done everything you’ve ever set your mind to, and I can’t fathom this will be any different.”
I stuffed a paper towel in the vase, drying it off before filling it up again. “Text me if you need anything, okay? Leftovers are in the fridge for lunch. I have a feeling we’re not going to finish painting today. I researched it last night, and I’m not even sure Luke knows how to paint brick properly. We have to wash all the brick, wait for it to dry, and then caulk the cracks before we can even prime it. Knowing him, he’s just gonna slap paint on there, willy-nilly.”
“You act like the poor boy couldn’t find his way out of a paper sack.”
“Sometimes, I wonder,” I said, depositing the bouquet back in its vase and fiddling with the arrangement.
“Well, good luck. Try not to kill him. I don’t think Mrs. Bennet would ever forgive you.”
“No, her precious golden boy can do no wrong, and she would be unamused if I dumped a can of paint on his head or hog-tied him and hung him up as our first window display. I could put some pansies in his mouth and call it a day.”
I made my way over to his chair and kissed his forehead.
“Have a good day, Daddy. Don’t get into any trouble, all right?”
“I’ll try to contain myself,” he said with a half-smile.
And when I pulled on my Vans and snagged my bag, I was out the door.
We lived around the corner from the flower shop, which sat proudly on Bleeker Street among the shops and cafés of the Village. The July heat hit m
e like a wall, that heavy humidity that clung to you like an aquatic second skin, the kind of heat that made you forget winter ever existed or what it was like to be comfortable.
The bad news was that it was only eight in the morning.
But there was little that could dampen my cheer. I felt the winds of change—even if I couldn’t feel the actual wind on that still summer day—sensed the beginning of something big, something magnificent. And it was just around the corner.
Presumably behind the old green door of Longbourne.
I pushed open the door to the familiar ting-a-ling of the bell and stopped just inside.
Music floated around the room from a speaker on the register counter. The room, which was usually full of old display tables and buckets of flowers, had been cleaned out but for the massive, square farm table in the center of the room. The black-and-white floor tiles had been covered in plastic sheeting, and two ladders, a pile of supplies, and a bucket with a push broom sat proudly next to one of the long walls.
And beside them was Luke.
He was already glistening with sweat and had shed his shirt, leaving him in nothing but basketball shorts and sneakers. The golden hue of his skin spoke of countless hours of leisure, and the rolling topography of his musculature spoke of countless hours in the gym. I’d always hated basketball shorts, but on Luke Bennet’s ass, they looked like they were meant to be there. I found I didn’t have a single complaint.
Especially not when he turned around and I caught sight of the anaconda he was packing.
God bless the man who invented those shorts.
“Morning, Tess,” he said with that patent smirk of his, hands still on the broom he’d been using to wash the brick.
To my surprise, the surface was filthy—the brick he’d already cleaned was cheery and red and what he hadn’t was a grimy shade of brown.
I blinked at it. “That’s what the brick looks like?”
He leaned on the top of the broom handle, flicking a glance at the wall. The effect broadened his shoulders and narrowed his waist, fanning his forearms out. Sweat trickled down my neck, and I couldn’t be sure it was strictly from the heat. It really was indecent, him running around topless like that.
“I know. I’m thinking we leave the brick in the back of the store, just clean it up, paint the rest white.”
“I love that,” I said, scanning the space and imagining what it would look like.
“Good.” He smiled, not only like he was genuinely pleased, but like he could eat me for breakfast.
Not that I was special. He looked at every female and food product exactly like that.
I moved for the extra push broom, effectively putting my back to him and breaking the moment.
“So,” I started, taking a second to inspect the wall, “let’s start with you and me cleaning this wall together, then one of us can clean the next wall while the other caulks this one.”
I could actually hear him smirking. “Think you can handle the caulk?”
I shot him a look over my shoulder. Stupid, handsome bastard. “Oh, I can handle the caulk.”
“You sure? It’s got to be squeezed just right—not too hard, not too fast, just the perfect amount of pressure so you can fill all those holes.”
“Lucas Bennet, you are disgusting.”
He wet his brush in a paint tray full of water. “Contracting is a dirty job, Tess.” With a salacious flick of his brows, he turned his attention to the wall. “So much hammering and nailing and wood. Screwing. Laying studs. We’ve covered the caulk.”
I snorted rather than respond, unable to think of anything to say with the dirty-mouthed, half-naked figure scrubbing the wall in front of me.
I didn’t look at the muscles of his back bunch and stretch as he scrubbed. I didn’t watch the heavy bead of sweat run down the valley of his spine. And I most certainly didn’t watch his ass bounce when he jumped a little to reach the very top of the wall.
Not intentionally at least.
With an inward slap, I dipped my brush in the water and moved past him. “I’ll go low, you go high,” I suggested by way of command.
“Yes, ma’am,” he snarked.
I scrubbed for a minute, satisfied on some deep elemental level as the brick came clean and fresh. “Did you get the right kind of caulk?” I asked with no small amount of skepticism. “It’s got to be the quick dry, the kind that—”
“Cures under primer. I know. That’s what I got,” he answered lightly. “It’s like you didn’t believe I could do this right, Tess.”
“Well, you have to admit—you’re not the most reliable Bennet.”
“No, that title belongs to Marcus.”
I chuckled. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m impressed, that’s all. I didn’t realize you knew so much about this kind of thing.”
“Well, I’ve worked somewhere in the neighborhood of a kabillion jobs. I had a buddy in LA who’d call me in when he needed help renovating houses he flipped. I’d met him bartending in Hollywood.”
“Ooh, sounds swanky,” I teased.
“It was a pain in the ass but good money. I think I met a million people working there—that at least was a good time. Though the best time was when I worked at Cirque du Soleil for a summer.”
A laugh shot out of me as I rewet my brush. “Tell me you wore spandex. Or feathers. And that they pushed you off of something.”
“Nah, I worked the ropes. It’s more fun backstage. Less pressure.”
“Is there anything you haven’t done?”
“Rocket science,” he answered without hesitating. “Ride a unicycle, though not for lack of trying. Underwater welding—Mom wouldn’t let me. Too dangerous, she said. I even worked on a rig in the Pacific for a few months. That was some Groundhog Day action—every day the same thing, same view, same tiny room and clanging machines. I’d never been so happy to get my feet on dry land.”
“And nothing led to a career?” I asked, unsuccessfully attempting to school the judgment from my voice.
He shrugged his wide shoulders and kept on scrubbing. “I get bored and move on. Part of it, I think, is that I love to learn. I want to know a little bit about everything.”
“Without actually becoming an expert at anything,” I added with no small amount of criticism.
But Luke, as always, was unfazed. “If I’d found something I wanted to become an expert on, I wouldn’t have moved on.”
A brief thought of what kind of thing might convince him to stick around was overridden by, “How do you know if you’ve never had a long-term job? I mean, have you ever had a job for longer than six months?”
He frowned at me, affronted. “Of course I…” His brows ticked a little closer. “No. I guess I haven’t.”
I laughed, waving around my rightness. “Exactly.”
“Easy for you to say. You’ve never worked anywhere but here,” he said with unmistakable disdain.
“And what’s so wrong with here?” I snapped.
“Nothing. It’s just not where I want to work. Not forever at least.”
I scowled at the wall, scrubbing with more force than was necessary.
“Oh, come on, Tess. This shop is my home. Who wants to stay home forever?”
“Me. I love living at home, and I love living here.”
“But don’t you miss that … I don’t know. Adventure?”
“I’m not interested in adventure. I’m interested in stability. Comfort.”
He stopped scrubbing, turning to face me as he leaned on the handle again.
I studiously ignored him.
“You mean to say, you don’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable? When was the last time you did something that scared you?”
“This morning, when I came here to help you.”
A chuckle. I still wouldn’t look at him.
“I don’t know, Luke. I’m too busy to run off on adventures. I have my job here to think about, your mom to help. I take care of my dad. I like to take pretty
pictures of flowers. And by the time I’m done with all that, there’s not a lot of time left to thrill-seek.” Or have a life.
He stilled. “I forgot you took care of your dad.”
“Yeah, well, you forget a lot of things,” I snapped at the wall.
But he didn’t notice. He’d already started scrubbing again. “It’s true. I have the memory of a goldfish—by the time I swim around the bowl, I forget everything I saw, heard, or tasted.”
Flake. Unreliable. Undependable. Unaware flake with too many muscles for his own good.
“How long do you think it’ll take us to finish painting?” I asked, annoyed at my annoyance and desperate to change the subject. Luke inspired that in me—the irrational urge to fight. I hated that urge.
Worse—I was beginning to realize that it was me who was the problem, not him.
“We should finish tomorrow, if we play it right. Man, I can’t wait for Mom to see this. Oh, and? I found a bunch of stuff in storage. I’ll show you when we finish for the day. Maybe you can use something for the installation.” He paused, and the sound of music and brushes on brick filled the space between us. “Have any ideas?”
“I was thinking something with succulents,” I said. “It’s so hot and sunny, I thought maybe passersby would find it fitting.”
“I like it.” The genuine enthusiasm in his voice disarmed me.
“We’ll see. Maybe there’s something in storage we can use. I’ve got some sketches, but I want to see what we find back there before committing.”
“Tess? With a plan at the ready? Never.”
I huffed a laugh.
“I have a good feeling about this,” he started. “I’ve been thinking … you know how Mom always talks about the old magazine feature Home and Garden did on my grandma?”
“I’ve stared at that framed magazine cover in the shop for ten years. It’s one of her proudest memories of her mother, I think.”
“I know. And I was thinking that maybe once we get things on track with the shop and find a groove with the window installations, we could approach some magazines.”
A smile spread as I imagined it. “Oh my God. She’d die. Like, you might actually give her a heart attack.”