Love Blooms

by Jo McNally

  With Lucy’s help, though, not only had Connie felt more rested, she’d also had to concede that Lucy had some real talent with flowers. Some of her ideas were a little too...out there...for Connie’s traditional tastes, but the customers seemed happy. And this past Monday was the first time Father Joe Brennan had ever stopped by to comment on altar flowers.

  “I won’t lie, Connie love. I checked the receipt to be sure they came from your shop.” The Irish-born priest had given her a wink. “It’s the first time I’ve seen a three-foot-tall flower arrangement on the altar, but ’twas lovely. And colorful, too. Rather youthful lookin’, I thought.” His soft accent made th’s sound like t’s, so the word came out sounding like taut. The priest knew everything that happened in Rendezvous Falls, sometimes seemingly before they happened, so surely he’d heard she had a young assistant. She also knew that whatever details the priest didn’t know tortured him, so she didn’t respond other than thanking him for stopping.

  She gathered up the miniature sunflowers and started snipping the stems. It was just as well she didn’t admit she had someone working for her, since it seemed that was no longer the case. Everyone would just have to be satisfied with Connie’s sturdy, if predictable, floral arrangements now that Lucy had clearly flown the coop...

  The shop door swung open so fast the brass bell above it just let out one angry clang instead of tinkling lightly. Connie almost dropped the whole bundle of sunflowers. She’d barely turned when Lucy rushed into the back room.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry I’m late, Connie. I know I promised to be here to meet the delivery, but something—” she looked away, then back again “—someone surprised me and I had to deal with it...him.”

  So it was a man she’d been hiding from. Not that Connie cared. The girl wouldn’t stay in this town, regardless of why she’d showed up. But just because Connie didn’t care didn’t mean she was heartless.

  “Are you...are you safe?” She caught the surprise in Lucy’s eyes and checked herself. That sounded dangerously close to caring. Connie’s carefully crafted don’t-give-a-damn attitude was slipping. She cleared her throat. “I don’t want some wild-haired drug dealer showing up in the shop and causing trouble.”

  The corner of Lucy’s mouth lifted. “Do I look like the type of woman who’d date a wild-haired drug dealer?”

  “Well,” Connie huffed. “You’ve got that pink hair, and you said you went to a tattoo studio last week, so...”

  Lucy laughed as she grabbed some lilies and put them in fresh water. “So pink hair and a tattoo make me a drug dealer’s moll? Besides, I decided to wait on the tattoo. That’s a big commitment. But lots of people have tattoos and dyed hair, these days. Look at Evie from the Spot Diner right across the street.”

  Connie didn’t answer right away. She’d known Evie and her husband, Mark Hudson, since Evie’s parents had taken over the diner from old man Hudson when Evie was just a baby. And yes, Evie had always been a free spirit, to put it mildly. The girl was in her thirties, and still sported a brightly colored streak in her dark hair. And she did have tattoos—morning glories wrapped around her leg, and a flock of swallows swirled around her arm and up her neck.

  “That’s different” Connie insisted. “Evie got those when she was in her rebellious youth.”

  “Umm...it was Evie who introduced me to Kat at Indigo Ink...” Lucy put her hand on her hip and arched one eyebrow. “Where Evie was adding more ink to her back.”

  Connie turned away and dropped the sunflowers into their container in the cooler. “Let me put it this way...tattoos and crazy hair may not mean drugs and gangs, but people in drug gangs often have tattoos and crazy hair.” She wasn’t sure what her point was, but it silenced Lucy for a moment. A very brief moment. She was pretty sure she heard her whispering “Wow.” Best to get this conversation back on track. “You never answered my actual question, you know.”

  She turned to find Lucy pulling fronds of various ferns and greenery from a box.

  “Which one? The one about me being safe or the one about a drug lord ransacking your flower shop?” Lord, this young lady had sass to spare. She also had a disarming smile, which she flashed at Connie after setting the greenery in the cooler. “Yes, I’m safe. At least physically. And no, my ex is not a drug dealer.”

  “But you were hiding from him.”

  Lucy took a deep breath, and her forehead furrowed. “I don’t know if hiding is the right word, but... I didn’t tell him where I was.”

  “If he’s your ex, he doesn’t need to know where you are. Unless...do you have children together?”

  “No.” Lucy moved the box of black-eyed Susans near the sink and started snipping the ends of the stems like Connie had been doing. “But...he didn’t become my ex until...” She paused, staring blankly into the sink. “Until I didn’t show up for our wedding a few weeks ago.”

  “No...” Connie breathed out the word in shock. Sure, Lucy had sass, but she hadn’t seemed unstable. To leave a guy waiting at the church? “You didn’t really... you left him at the altar?”

  Lucy started snipping away sharply, making Connie worry about the girl’s fingers. Those scissors were razor sharp.

  “Technically, I don’t think he ever made it to the altar.”

  Connie had never heard of that happening outside of some soap opera. “Was it a big wedding? Or should I say was it supposed to be a big wedding?”

  Lucy sucked a corner of her mouth, puckering her face. And avoiding Connie’s gaze. She plunked the yellow flowers into the container and marched to the cooler. She didn’t reply until she’d put them inside and grabbed the large box of carnations, returning to the sink.

  “Obnoxiously big,” she finally said, separating the flowers by color and putting them loosely in the containers. Her southern accent grew thicker. “His mother, bless her heart, hijacked the plans and left me watching from the sidelines. Pretty much the same way her son did with our relationship. I was just watching from the cheap seats.”

  “But wasn’t the wedding ceremony the beginning of your life together?”

  She shrugged weakly. “You’d think, right? But it didn’t feel like Owen cared one way or the other. I’m frankly shocked he cared enough to show up this morning and call me his fiancée.” She jabbed the carnations into the buckets with a little more force now. “I mean, he didn’t care when I was there, so why should he care if I left?” She looked at Connie, her eyes suddenly bright with unshed tears. Oh, crap. They were getting into the dreaded feelings zone that Connie usually avoided. But there was something in Lucy’s expression that made Connie’s heart tighten.

  “So you were engaged to a man you didn’t really love?”

  “I did love him, at least at first.” A quick smile flitted across her face. “But he was in the Army and deployed, then deployed again, and the closer the wedding got, the less we seemed to...connect. He was all closed up when he came home this last time. It felt like...like he didn’t want me to even try to connect.” Her eyes hardened. “He actually referred to our wedding day as something we had to get through, as if it was some terrible burden he was bearing.”

  Connie thought about her own wedding day. Danny had been so handsome in his white tux. The bridal party—which included Cecile Manning and a few other members of the Rendezvous Falls book club—had followed the trend of the day, dressed in a rainbow of pastel colors. Like her, the bridesmaids wore wide-brimmed white hats. Memories of Danny usually made her sad, quickly followed by angry. But she couldn’t help smiling when she thought of the naughty words he’d whispered in her ear as they headed down the aisle as husband and wife. They’d had a good start.

  “A wedding should be a happy day,” she conceded. “I mean, marriage is hard work, but the wedding...well...it should be happy. For both of you. It’s a beginning, like swinging open the door to the rest of your life as a newly formed family unit.”
/>
  “Pardon the pun, but that’s pretty flowery for you, Connie. You had a happy marriage?”

  She nodded. “For a while. How about your parents? Did you have a good example for married life, or...?” For someone who didn’t care, Connie sure was blurting out a lot of personal information and questions.

  Lucy started cutting up the boxes and folding them for the recycling bins. The way she brandished the box cutter after Connie’s question made her nervous, but she didn’t interfere. Lucy slammed the last box flat and looked up angrily.

  “I thought I had a good example in my parents’ marriage, but they’re divorcing. Divorcing.” She hit the button that closed up the razor’s edge on the box cutter. “I found out the night before my wedding.”

  The front door bell tinkled softly as the first customer of the day came in. Connie was glad to have a way out of this very personal conversation. She rushed toward the doorway to the shop, patting Lucy’s shoulder as she passed her.

  “I’ll get this if you’ll get the cardboard out to the bins. Then we can start planning the weekend.” She hesitated. “I hate to tell you this, but we have two weddings this weekend.”

  Lucy had recovered from her melancholy, and waved Connie off. “I won’t hold my antimarriage stance against the bouquets, I promise.”

  After the customer, Rick Thomas from the college, left with a bundle of yellow rosebuds, Connie rejoined Lucy in the workroom. The conversation stayed in safer territory—small vs. large table arrangements, roses vs. lilies in bridal bouquets, colorful vs. traditional white flowers. They couldn’t start making the wedding arrangements yet, but they separated out the stems they’d use into the far end of the cooler. That way they wouldn’t accidentally sell flowers they needed for orders. They did have two birthday bouquets to create for the next morning, courtesy of an online floral website. That was when Connie’s mood began to sour again.

  “Bastards barely give us enough percentage on these orders to pay for the gas we use to deliver them.” She flipped open the guidebook to see what the first arrangement was supposed to look like. “But if I didn’t accept their orders, they’d have that florist in Watkins Glen delivering to my customers.”

  “Don’t you have your own website?”

  “Some kid from the college put one together for me a few years ago. It was an extra credit project for him. But I haven’t looked at it in ages.” Connie had a smart phone and used some social media. She wasn’t afraid of technology, but she didn’t understand how how the website worked. “The one time I tried to update the website on my own, I removed it from the internet completely and had to call Evie over from the diner to restore it.” She hated needing help, and she really hated anyone knowing she needed it.

  “You don’t...look at it?” Lucy tipped her head to the side. “Connie, that’s how people find you so they can order right from...” She paused, probably noting Connie’s tension. “I’ll tell you what—when the shop is quiet, I’ll work on updating your website. What platform is it on?” When she didn’t get an answer, she rushed ahead. “Never mind. I’ll check with Evie. She’ll probably remember.”

  Connie should probably thank her. Instead, she scowled. “I don’t care about a damn website. I have enough to keep up with. Besides, it’s not like you’ll be here to keep it up.”

  Lucy’s eyes went wide. “Why do you say that?”

  Connie rolled her eyes. “Please. That man of yours came all this way to sweet talk you right back to North Carolina.” The thought made Connie more disappointed than she’d expected. “I’d put money on you being gone by next week.”

  “He can sweet talk all he wants. It won’t change a damn thing.” Lucy flipped her hair, looking defiant.

  “You say that now, but it wasn’t that long ago that you were ready to marry the man. And even after you dumped him, he wants you to go home with him.”

  “That’s just the problem.” Lucy pursed her lips. “The problem wasn’t just Owen. It’s...home. I don’t know if I ever want to go back, with or without him.” She sighed, looking up at Connie. “But he has to go back. His family is depending on him.”

  “But weren’t you going to be his family?

  “I wouldn’t have been as important as the rest of them.”

  “Well,” Connie said, “that’s definitely a problem.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LUCY WALKED BACK to the Taggart Inn a few hours later, still annoyed by Connie’s conviction that she was going to pack up and run home again. She sniffed. As if. Just because she’d bailed on her wedding didn’t mean she was some flighty child. Her pace slowed. She could see how other people might think so, though.

  She smiled at a young family walking two large dogs and two small children. The parents scurried to grab the leashes, even though the kids were protesting that they could hold on to the dogs. The dad smiled apologetically, but Lucy waved it off and patted the two dogs. This place was a lot like Boone, the town where her grandmother had lived. Rendezvous Falls wasn’t a mountain town, of course, but it was a tourist town, with a tight-knit base of year-round residents. It was more colorful here, with each Victorian home having a wilder paint combination than the last. Piper told her the history of the place...how it had grown after a famous architect had returned from the Civil War and wanted to bring joy to his hometown with his fairy-tale homes.

  Lucy had barely communicated with anyone in North Carolina since her departure. Nikki texted almost daily, and they were working out the logistics of getting the convertible back to her. Her sister, Kris, had checked in a few times, mainly to lay on the guilt about being left to deal with the fallout from Lucy’s actions. Her parents had called, but Lucy was too hurt and conflicted to deal with their drama.

  “Hi, Luce.”

  She stopped abruptly at the familiar voice. She hadn’t even realized she’d reached the inn. Owen sat on the wooden steps to the wide front porch, one arm resting on his knee, watching her solemnly. He was in cargo shorts and a Rendezvous Falls T-shirt she’d seen for sale at the Spot Diner. So he’d been downtown, right across the street from the flower shop. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Have you been following me?”

  He sat up sharply. “Jesus, Lucy. This morning you said I could stay. I mean, yes, I followed you to New York, but...” One arm swung up in the universal gesture of what the hell

  She pointed to his shirt. “So you weren’t downtown because of me?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “I was downtown looking for lunch and bought a shirt. If you were anywhere on Main Street, I swear I didn’t know. Look, I don’t want us snapping at each other like this. Can we talk?”

  They stared at each other like a pair of suspicious cats scoping out a potential rival. Connie’s words came back to her.

  ...you were ready to marry the man...

  But she hadn’t married him. As much as she wanted to hang on to her anger, the man deserved to know why that happened. She sat on the steps a few feet away from him.

  “Did I ever tell you I took piano lessons as a kid?”

  “Uh...no. I don’t think so.” Owen sounded cautious. “I’ve never seen you play...”

  She waved her hand, pushing the memory away. “You haven’t. I had to give up my lessons with Mrs. Quakenbush when Kris got sick. Mom and Dad said money was tight and they were so busy with Kris that they couldn’t afford the lessons or the time to take me there. They asked me to understand, and of course I did. Anyone would, right?” She watched a beetle work its way across the sidewalk in front of the inn.

  “When I was fifteen, my aunt needed help with her flower shop.” She turned to face him. He stared at her as if he had no idea what she’d do next. Join the club.

  “I loved that flower shop. Aunt Shirley said I was a natural. I dreamed that one day she and I would run it together. Even Shirley said it was a great idea.” Lucy saw herself, even then
, living a life surrounded by flowers. Until it came to an end. “A few years later, Shirley met a man and fell in love and sold the shop. Just like that. She and my new uncle moved to Atlanta. I begged Dad to buy the shop, but he couldn’t afford it, and he said I needed to stay in college. And I understood.”

  She stretched her legs out in front of her. “I was accepted by a couple different schools, but Mom and Dad told me to find somewhere close that they could afford. So I went to App State. I took accounting because Dad said it would give me options. And I understood. I understood all of it.”

  She looked into his eyes, those beautiful golden-brown eyes. His forehead wrinkled slightly, as if he was trying to work some equation that refused to be solved. That equation was her. But at least he was listening—the one thing she’d accused him of not doing. Her voice softened.

  “When I met you, I had that job at the tax place in Wilmington. It was a bore, but I had a part-time job at a florist shop, remember? I was probably the happiest I’d ever been. You met me at my peak, Owen.”

  His mouth lifted into a smile. “You were something else when we met, Lucy Higgins. You upended my entire life when we met at Topsail Beach.”

  She nodded. She’d never expected to fall for an oh-so-serious soldier. And he’d called her his sunshine surprise. “It was easy for me to fall in love when I felt like I was already living a dream. Then reality came crashing down, asking for my understanding. Again.” She stared at the dark red Oriental rug beneath their feet. “Grandma’s cancer came back. You were getting ready to deploy, and you said I should go help. That we could wait to get married. That you wanted me to be with family instead of alone on base. So I went home. I understood.” She gave a soft laugh, staring out across the parking lot. “That’s what I’ve always been, I guess. An understander.”