The Sweetest Secret

by Jacquie Underdown

  Ellie—she deserved a man much greater than the man he had proven himself to be. And if he truly did like her, which he did, then after he made sure she was back on her feet at the shop, the best he could do for her to ensure her happiness was to stay the hell away.

  Chapter 11

  Ellie could cry and scream and get angry all she wanted, but it wouldn’t change the fact that someone had made In Bloom look like a rubbish dump.

  Yes, when she had turned up early this morning and strolled by the smashed-in front window, she allowed herself a couple of curse words, the harshest kinds she reserved for special occasions such as this.

  And then when she entered the shop via the unhinged front doors and stood amidst the broken vases and Sam’s supply of flowers all over the floor like wounded soldiers, she had groaned angrily.

  And when she skipped avoiding stepping in green and blue paint, which had been splashed over her beautiful floorboards and freshly painted walls, she let some tears fall along with a few ‘Why would anyone do this to me?’ , ‘Who would do such a cold-hearted thing?’ and ‘If I find out who did this, I will kill them with my bare hands’.

  The usual reactions.

  But a few hours had passed in a blur since then. She had spoken with the police, whinged to her parents on the phone, ushered well-meaning, concerned customers away, cried to her brother, kicked a few vases around, and picked up some broken stems and threw them on the floor while stamping her feet.

  Amy had dropped in with a cup of tea, macaroons, and the perfect dose of sympathy. Once she left, Ellie sat on her service counter and rubbed her face with her hands while shouting a few more of those worst curse words.

  She then made a long call to her insurance company and remained composed while talking with the two assessors they had sent over. But once they left, she cursed some more and kicked the wall.

  And now she was standing in the centre of the chaos a little breathless. The debris all around her taunted her, threatened her. She stared it down with her hands on her hips, a surge of defiance mixed with sheer stubbornness welling in her gut.

  This vandalism was a personal attack. Someone was trying to stop her for whatever reason. But no way was she going to take this lying down.

  Not anyone or anything was going to destroy the life she was trying to create here in Alpine Ridge. She’d been through too damn much to be deterred by this setback.

  She knew then that the only productive thing to do would be to stop moping around, start cleaning this horror up and get on with business.

  Determined, Ellie put a pair of earbuds in, hooked her phone up via Bluetooth, and started on the long list of calls to her clients to let them know she would be late with their orders.

  Yes, late. She was still going to deliver them even if it took her all day. Did whoever destroyed her shop think she was just going to bend over and cop this?

  No way.

  She hadn’t known she would come to this conclusion when the flower delivery arrived this morning and she had directed the delivery guy and his trolley over the carnage to the backroom. At that time, she wasn’t even thinking, was still in a shocked stupor.

  Ellie picked her way through the ceramic shards and flower stems, which crunched under her shoes, out to the back room. What a damn waste. All that hard work setting this place up only to have some lunatic come in and destroy it all.

  And for what?

  Ellie swept the stems and broken vases, shattered glass, bits of ribbons and accessories into a big pile in the centre of the room. She carefully put shelves back up on wall mounts, rewound the ribbon on their spools, and salvaged any little teddy bears, boxes and accessories she could.

  There was nothing she could do yet about the big pools of dried paint.

  Her phone vibrated; she answered.

  ‘Ellie,’ came a man’s frantic voice. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘I heard what happened. I’m so sorry. I’ll be there soon to help.’

  ‘Word travels fast,’ she said.

  ‘You sure you’re okay?’

  His concern moved through her and settled around her heart. ‘I’m fine. It’s my shop that’s broken.’

  A long, agitated sigh sounded. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s not for you to apologise.’

  Sam was silent. ‘It might be,’ he finally said, words spoken less emphatically.

  This made her stand more alert. ‘It might be? How?’

  ‘I think this may be Tiffany’s work. My glasshouse was broken into as well.’

  Ellie gasped.

  ‘That’s how I knew your store was trashed. I’ve just had the police over here.’

  Ellie’s heart beat faster, harder, her ears hummed with renewed anger. ‘Tiffany? The woman from the pub?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know. It could be. The police are checking it out.’

  She ran a hand through her hair, closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I’m speechless.’

  ‘So am I. Do you need me to pick anything up?’

  Ellie stepped closer to the front window that had a big, jagged hole in it. ‘Some plastic sheeting and electrical tape for the front window. You don’t have any old wine barrels hanging around do you, or some wheelbarrows?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find. See you soon.’

  Ellie ended the call and got on with cleaning, bundling rubbish in bags and lugging them out to the skip at the back. Staying busy was helping with the waves of emotions that kept tumbling over her.

  She couldn’t believe that Tiffany could be responsible for this simply because Ellie had nearly kissed Sam. But why else would Sam’s glasshouse have been vandalised too? What was the connection between Ellie and Sam? Was there a connection or was this simply a coincidence?

  She shook her head and sighed. No, it couldn’t be a coincidence. Tiffany, if she were a little deranged, out for revenge, and possibly the culprit, Ellie was going to have to watch her back.

  Sam arrived a little after noon, sooner than she had anticipated. His face was all sympathetic lines and one big frown when he stepped inside.

  He came to her, no ‘hello, Ellie’, or ‘how are you, Ellie?’ but simply gripped her hips and pulled her to him. She didn’t resist, couldn’t, her body sighed for the comfort.

  Head laid against his hard chest, his big heart beat loud and strong under her ear.

  His arms circled her waist, not too tight but with purpose, and she slid her arms around him. He was a wall of solid warmth, and she was well aware of each slope and incline of his muscles against her arms and chest.

  Ellie closed her eyes.

  No words passed their lips, only long breaths in and out. His masculine aroma, a little soap, a little deodorant, and a lot of man, filled her senses. Everything else slipped away.

  ‘You sure you’re okay?’ he whispered in her ear after what felt like a very long time.

  A gentle throbbing in her heart. She nodded against his chest, then slowly and reluctantly lifted her head and shifted back, releasing her arms, moving more until he too freed her from his hold.

  Somehow that felt like the most tragic part of the day.

  She took a step backwards, peered into his concerned eyes and nodded again. ‘I’m fine. And all this,’ she said gesturing around at the mess, ‘can be fixed. Insurance is covering it.’

  ‘Good. That’s a positive.’

  ‘What about your glasshouse, though? All those plants.’

  He swallowed hard, breathed in through his nose. ‘All gone.’

  She shook her head, his sorrow filling the fissures within her own body. She knew very well how much time he put into those flowers and insurance didn’t make things grow. ‘What a big fat bloody waste.’

  He rubbed his jaw with his palm and sighed. ‘Yep.’ He turned away from her. ‘I’ll do all I can to get you back on your feet here.’

  ‘I don’t blame you, Sam.’

  He spun to face her again, hands on his hips. �
��You should.’

  She shook her head. ‘No way. You didn’t come here with your paint tins and whatever else the real culprit used to destroy this place. You’re just as much a victim in this as I am.’

  He flinched at her last sentence for reasons she didn’t understand and rolled his head to one side, let his neck crack, then tilted in the opposite direction, nice and quick. ‘I’ll go grab the plastic sheeting and stuff out of the ute.’

  She narrowed her eyes, regarding him for a moment. Something was off with him, and it was deeper than what had happened here or to his glasshouse. ‘Sure. Thanks.’

  Sam lugged a medium size wine barrel from the car and two wheelbarrows with a few rust patches and flat tyres. She had him set them up beside each other along the sidewalk under the front awning.

  With the plastic sheeting and electrical tape, Sam set about weatherproofing the front window. Meanwhile, Ellie selected bunches of flowers from the back room.

  She cleared her preparation desk, found her pruning shears and scissors, some rubber bands, and started on preparing the flowers.

  Next, she tackled the arrangements for the local businesses while Sam cleared more rubble out to the bins. Janine came in for duty, and Ellie set her off in the van immediately for deliveries.

  Ellie accessed her online orders from her phone and started on those next, ready for when Janine arrived back.

  With the remaining flowers, Ellie buzzed around the room, creating big colourful bunches of natives and succulents and wildflowers. She pushed them into moist floral blocks and laid them in the first wheelbarrow out the front—a micro-garden of myriad pale-pastel greens, mauves and blues blossoming above the rim of the barrow.

  Next, she arranged a display of orchids.

  The wine barrel was reserved for roses—blood red, sunrise yellow, golden orange, white and pink—bursting from the rustic timber holes in the top.

  Ellie walked between her displays feeling their accord within her, adjusting and adding here and there until her body hummed with rightness.

  As Sam stood in the doorway observing her creations, she felt his focus upon her, like little tingles of awareness fanning across her skin. ‘You’re a genius.’

  Ellie smiled broadly; it felt good to do so under the circumstances. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as a genius, but thank you.’

  ‘I stand by my compliment,’ he said with a chuckle and went back inside to continue cleaning.

  Within ten minutes, a couple of cars pulled over to inspect the displays. A few people walking down the street stopped in on their way past. Some bought flowers, some didn’t.

  The customer's jaws would invariably drop open when they saw the rubble the shop was left in, then concern would fill their eyes. Nearly every local vowed to keep an eye out in the future for anything untoward.

  Sam knew many of the customers and chatted with them as they came and went.

  A local carpenter pulled in with the intentions of buying flowers for his girlfriend, but ended up, once he saw the damage, grabbing his tools out of his ute and re-hinging the front door for Ellie.

  He then called his mate, a local floor layer, to come in and assess what could be done about the floorboards.

  The floor layer said he knew a good glazier and called her on the spot. She arrived within half an hour to measure up the front window for a replacement.

  Late in the afternoon, Amy dropped in with donated boxes of cupcakes to share with customers who came in to support Ellie.

  Sam stayed with Ellie the entire day, never ceasing with his emotional support and help to return the shop to a semi-state of order.

  As horrible as the circumstances were, Ellie had never felt more connected or valued by her customers. Out of tragedy, she was learning the friendly, helpful and supportive side of this small town. It was wonderful.

  At closing time, Ellie stood in the doorway looking at all that had been accomplished today. Her chest was filling with such foreign emotions—of being valued, cared for.

  She smiled a watery smile at Sam. ‘How can I feel so lucky after a day like today? I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such support.’

  Sam moved to her, his lips drawn into a straight line, eyes intense. ‘This town was built on that sense of community. It’s what really matters most.’

  She nodded. He was exactly right. Today she had had her first lesson in the value of community and friendship.

  ‘And you deserve to reap the benefits of that, Ellie. And I’m also a little sad you’ve never had that before now …’ He parted his lips, breathed as though to say something else, but he stopped.

  She peered into his eyes, contemplating this wonderful man before her. As much as she convinced herself that she didn’t want anything to do with him romantically, everything he did and said worked at changing her mind. ‘Why do you have to be so—’ She cut herself off abruptly and looked away to gather her thoughts.

  Her heart was racing, breaths came a little shorter. She was going to ask: why did he have to be so nice?

  But why would she ever expect a man to be anything other?

  Wasn’t this what the last year was about? Trying to discover what she truly deserved and trying to fix that broken part inside of her that justified relationships with men who were anything but nice.

  ‘Ellie?’ Sam asked, voice gentle and deep.

  She turned back to face him.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  She looked into his deep chocolate eyes, at the concern mirrored there. ‘I’m fine.’ A buoyant giddiness rose from within, and she giggled. Her mind had tipped sideways and was now seeing things differently.

  Goosebumps sprung up along the back of her neck, sat alert on the flesh of her arms. ‘I’m more than fine.’

  Sam smiled then too, such relief in the curl of his lips ‘That’s good.’ But despite the smile, there was another emotion there she hadn’t noticed before now, and it sat in the corners of his mouth and in the tiny creases below his eyes.

  And now that she had seen it, she knew that it had always been there: melancholy.

  Was this the past that Amy had hinted of? And only now that Ellie was aware of it, she was able to see it in the background of all that he showed to the world.

  ‘Maybe I should be asking you the same question?’ she whispered.

  He frowned. ‘I’m fine.’

  He most obviously wasn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry your glasshouse was destroyed. I know how much sentimental value it holds for you.’

  A fleeting flicker of pain crossed his features. He scrubbed his hands over his face and when he looked at her again, his strong-man mask was front and centre. ‘I’ll get over it. Anyway, I’m going to head off. I’ve got to meet with a carpenter about building a fence at the front of the property.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Yeah, sure. Of course. I’ll … I’ll see you later?’ Ellie hadn’t meant for that to be a question, but she had the strong sensation he was blowing her off, and it wasn’t a short-term deal.

  He had no glasshouse at the moment, so it’s not like he could continue to supply her with flowers either.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure we’ll run into each other.’

  ‘You’ll let me know when you’re back in the flower business?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not sure I will be.’

  ‘That’s really disappointing, Sam. I’d hate for you to give it all away because of some destructive loser.’

  He shrugged, the mask growing more and more solid. ‘That’s life.’

  Ellie thought back to the hug he gave her when he arrived earlier this morning and saw it in a completely different light now.

  He was pulling away, saying goodbye, but why?

  Chapter 12

  Sam had never seen his glasshouse so bare, so lifeless. He couldn’t quite look at the space left behind head-on, only from the corner of his eye because it would conjure painful tightness in his body.

  Nor could he contemplate the glasshouse’s emptiness i
n its entirety, quickly banishing the thoughts when they arose.

  He shovelled the last remnants of soil and plants and broken pots into a garbage bag and hoisted it onto the back of his ute along with the other myriad of bags.

  After jumping into the front seat, he started the engine. He wanted the ruins gone from sight as quickly as he could so he didn’t have the visual reminder of what had been taken from him.

  So many years of passion, not only his but his grandmother’s too.

  There were flowers—all the fairy primrose—that Gran had planted, and Sam had kept healthy after she died.

  There were unique varieties that he had sourced seeds and bulbs for from all over the world that would take years to replace.

  There were the billy buttons he had grown especially for Rachel because they were her favourite. Billy buttons he had picked and placed on her grave as soon as they came into season.

  There were African violets, Mum’s favourite, that he always picked for her before visiting her in the nursing home.

  All gone.

  He didn’t give a shit about the financial waste because his glasshouse was never about money. It was always about so much more than that.

  Those flowers were a part of him, living memories of his childhood with his grandma, spending afternoons with his hands in the soil right next to hers, learning about pH levels and soil nutrition and seasons.

  Those flowers were living fragments of his loved ones—Rachel coming to the house with a box of cupcakes and leaving with a big bunch of billy buttons.

  Those flowers were the physical representation of his hopes and dreams and passions.

  But, mostly, they were his lifeline. On so many occasions after quitting university to escape Tamara, they had grounded him, allowed him to trust himself again.

  And someone had come in here and taken that all away. Not to mention the damage to Ellie’s store.

  Sam slammed his palm against the steering wheel and swore, the worst words he could come up with in quick succession. But his anger wasn’t entirely because of what happened, but, more so, how his lifestyle had a part to play in making it happen.

  On the way home from the dump, his phone rang. He answered it via his hands-free connection. ‘Sam speaking.’