by C L Bauer
The door buzzed and a man in a grey suit entered. He nodded to the agent and held his hand out to Lily.
“Ms. Schmidt, I’m FBI Agent Tom Fullerton and we’re assisting the DEA with the surveillance.” He looked to Agent Pierce. “The view is great. We’ve got a clear view of the back alley and the back room. Those cameras are working. This one is looking good.” He pointed to the wall above Pierce.
“Ms. Schmidt we really appreciate your assistance. We realize that this is a huge inconvenience. Agent Pierce will stay out of your way as much as he can and we all will do our best to keep you safe and to get this over with as soon as possible.”
Lily liked this agent immediately. He was seasoned, confident and he looked like an FBI agent - whatever an FBI agent was supposed to look like in Lily World. She could see Agent Fullerton’s badge latched onto his belt buckle with the big letters FBI. Well, if Agent Pierce was a member of the Cartel then his disguise was pretty good and he seemed to be very comfortable with Fullerton. Lily decided to have complete faith.
“Now, Ms. Schmidt if you need anything Agent Pierce is in charge. We are just assisting. Thanks again and here’s my card if you need anything or you can’t get him.” Lily grabbed it and looked at the address. She’d call her friend at one of local television stations to check it out but then she’d have to lie to her about why. Crud. Undercover work was not honest.
“See you, Dev. Great catching up with you last night.” He was almost out the door.
“You too, Tom. That was something seeing George Brett. I’ll call you if I’m still here next week, maybe do that sushi place on the Plaza?”
“Sounds good.” He was already on the sidewalk. Lily’s face must’ve shown some degree of astonishment.
“What?” Pierce asked. “I have to eat.”
“George Brett? What does he have to do with all of this?”
“We ate at his restaurant. He happened to be there. Tom’s brother had been on the Royals’ farm club in Omaha, he sat down, we talked.”
She just nodded and looked at him. “Great. Well, um, I need to buy flowers. Abby will be here any minute and I’m off.” She grabbed the file folder off her desk and headed toward the front of the store.
“And I’m going with you.”
She turned back around to look at him. “Um, no. I’ll be fine.”
He smiled. “Um, yes. I’m going with you.”
He smiled. What a smile. Lily took it in. He had almost perfect teeth except for one little tooth on the bottom that was off just a bit. She’d been wrong when she said he was the mysterious handsome stranger…in jeans and a shirt he was attractive, yes, but he was cute. Devilish cute, like a little boy caught stealing a warm cookie.
“We had a deal, Ms. Schmidt. Remember?”
She nodded and turned away from him to look through her file. She had a country club area wedding this weekend. What was she going to to do with him? If he insisted on being her constant companion then she hoped, sort of, that everything was solved before Saturday.
Producing a large wedding was nerve wrecking, adding a high maintenance client with an over- the-top coordinator was insanity, and piling on a DEA agent who was there to solve a case and protect her was the perfect definition of a world gone mad.
“Fine. When Abby gets in the door, we make sure she has coffee. If she doesn’t have coffee, she will need to get some. You do not want to see Abby without coffee.”
He came up beside Lily and looked down at her. “We also need to bring her up to speed on what is going on and introduce your new employee.”
“My employee?”
“Me,” he said proudly patting himself on the chest. “By the way, what is an Abby without coffee?”
“Ah, Abby without coffee is, well, to put it nicely: Frankenstein. The monster Frankenstein, not from the Mel Brooks’ movie. Got it?”
“Got it. Coffee. Abby must have.”
She smiled. “Mel Brooks, not Yoda.”
Bubbling, happy in love Abby, with coffee in hand strode into the shop. She pulled up short as she looked at Lily and then the man.
“Well, hello stranger.” Her lyrical greeting was reminiscent of the old Hollywood actress Mae West and her sultry salutations.
Lily just shook her head. Oh Lord, he was going to be a distraction in so many ways. He already was for her but if the agent wasn’t careful this college sweetheart would forget her latest Jeremy and fixate on his very prominent dimples when he smiled. Now Lily was doing it again.
“Abby, sit down. We need to talk to you.”
“Yes, mommy,” she laughed as she sat down. “Do you and daddy have something to tell me? I knew there was something up between you two when he came in.” She was laughing full out as she looked at their blank faces. Lily now had her hands on her hips and was very serious.
Abby stopped laughing. “Oh, geez, you are either firing me or someone died.”
“Not yet, and not yet.” Lily was not amused by anything right now. “This is Agent Pierce with the DEA. Our burglaries of those stupid packets and the ice blocks have something to do with a drug shipment. He,” she stopped to motion to him, “is here to surveil and to keep us safe for a few days until they make sure we are safe. He’ll be around, that’s all. Also, we have added security including cameras so don’t do something stupid while you’re working.”
“Like pick my nose or something?” She still wasn’t taking this seriously.
“Like something,” Agent Pierce finally said. “This is serious. We want to make sure you and your boss are safe so just do what you do and I’ll do what I need to do. We can go into everything after we get back.” He was not smiling and there were no dimples showing. He seemed to emphasize the word 'need' and Abby finally stopped joking around. She took a drink of coffee and nodded affirmatively.
“So,” Lily interjected. “We are off to buy flowers as usual. We’ve got those vases back there that need to be set out and then the to-do list is by the back phone. Just get as much done as you can. Then after we process the flowers we’ll call for pizza. I’d like to get as much done today as possible. We have the Ward Parkway wedding this weekend. And we have Gretchen.”
“What’s a Gretchen?” Agent Pierce asked quickly. “Anything I need to be concerned about?” Abby and Lily shared a knowing look between them.
“You should be very afraid,” Abby answered seriously. “Very afraid.”
“I never knew so much went into just flowers for a wedding,” Agent Pierce admitted on the ride back to the shop. “You have to do all that matching stuff every weekend?”
“Sometimes. This weekend the one client is very, very particular so it's mandatory. Most of the time it is easier but not with this one. Brides and moms are very special people. Something happens to most women when they’re planning a wedding. It’s some unexplained phenomenon that is just in a female’s DNA. DNA…your expertise?”
He chuckled. “DNA, huh? Well, Neal seems nice. Very nice people down there. It’s a shame this has happened to all of you.”
That was nice of him. Yes, it was a shame and a nuisance, one she didn’t need…ever. Certainly not this weekend nor any weekend. She had been just plodding along nicely if not quietly boring. Life hadn’t been the same lately. Now it wasn’t the same at all.
The car was quiet when he finally asked, “What’s this processing thing you do with Abby when you get back?”
“Well, it’s our word for it but basically we unpack all the flowers, cut and hydrate them, making sure they get clean water with some solution to keep them fresher longer. Some flowers get refrigeration and others need to sit out and open their blooms.”
“So, I can be useful. I’ll unload the van, you all do your processing thing. I can also use a phone and order a pizza.”
She smiled at him while they waited for the red light to change. “Can you now? That does take talent not to mention, what kind of pizza were you ordering, Agent Pierce?”
“Well, Ms. Schmidt, I
’m going to order what you all want. I learned a long time ago to just eat whatever was in front of me.”
The light was green and she looked ahead. “Disciplining mother?”
“No, actually it was a corp cadet.”
“Huh?”
“West Point. You needed to eat what was in front of you or you’d starve between the hours, the classes, the physical exertion. I learned it after two weeks there. I never thought I was a picky eater and because of that cadet, Cadet Phillip S. Branford, I am not to this day. Well, him and MRE’s.” He saw her confusion and it begged for more explanation. “Meals-ready-to-eat, you know, those packaged meals the Army hands out to you in the field? Didn’t you see them on TV during coverage of the war after 9/11?”
It finally dawned on her. “Oh, yah. Like rations during World War II. Sorry, my brain went silent for a bit. So, you were in the Army? You were in Afghanistan or Iraq?”
He was silent for a few seconds. “Well, yes, yes and yes. That’s all Ms. Schmidt.”
And the door of open conversation was shut soundly. The sharing was dismissed with the uttering of her label. The silence was deafening for a few minutes.
“What is this Ms. Schmidt stuff? It is way too formal. Everyone calls me Lily. Since you will be unpacking my van you’ve sort of become an employee. Besides, if anyone hears you they are going to know something is up. They won’t know what but they’ll think it is a little weird.”
“Ok, Lily. I suppose if I’m your employee then you should just call me Dev.”
“Not Devlin?”
“Either is fine. We should drop the agent moniker as well, just in case someone is listening.”
And he was back at work again and not only had a door shut once in this conversation, but now all the windows were being closed. The draft of information flowing had been too much for him. He was on the job, and she was the job. He remembered that but why couldn’t Lily keep that in mind? He wasn’t a date; he was an agent working on a drug case. He wasn’t someone who had popped into her life to save her from the world she had created for herself. He was there to save her from a world that was existing around her. She had to remind herself that he was on the clock and when the clock chimed midnight in her fantasy world he wouldn’t be there to grab her shoe or keep her from falling.
Chapter Seven
Saturday came way too soon for Lily. This week was proving a little overwhelming and it was all because her schedule had been compromised. All this criminal hubbub was just too much. If she wasn’t thinking about it while she worked on arrangements, she was looking at it, at him… Devlin Pierce. He tried to blend in by making sure Abby and she were fed, that the phone was answered and that every customer who came in the shop in the last few days were welcomed and handled. He could handle people with that boyish smile she saw now and then. It seemed like his eyes sparkled especially when he spoke to women.
He wasn’t Heathcliff but he could brood. His brow furrowed and those sparkling eyes went dark, almost hazel in color. She caught him with all smiles when Mrs. Notte and her grandson picked up her usual bouquet (Mrs. Notte announced he was a great addition to the shop’s ambience.) but when he turned to retrieve the arrangement out of the cooler his face had completely transformed. Dark secrets were revealed on his face but she could only imagine what they were. Lily also noticed the usually well mannered and totally sophisticated garden- party-loving Mrs. Notte checking out the agent’s physique. Her grandson, Garrett, preferred to slump in one of her chairs and look around the store. He was an odd one, a trust fund baby who had nothing better to do than jet set all over the world. Mrs. Notte had told her he had just returned from Argentina.
Her octogenarian client was now watching Dev walk away from her to go to the cooler. She was admiring the back of his jeans. Lily almost laughed out loud when the lady was nearly caught as Dev brought the arrangement to her too quickly. She had managed to pretend she was searching in her purse for something. Whew, that was a close one! She started to study him as he interacted with the now giggling elderly customer. Lily had noticed the perfect shoulders before but now she saw the the lovely tapering of his torso and strong muscled legs. Could a man be lovely? He could when his eyes sparkled, it had nothing to do with the body. She shook her head and went back to work. Enough. He will do his job and then he’ll be gone to God knows where. Besides, she had her own job to do.
By Saturday morning she was in wedding mode and devoid of Devlin Pierce’s charms. He was just another set of hands helping to load the van.
“No, that arrangement doesn’t go with us. We’re only using the hydrangeas.” Dev looked at Lily, looked down at the flowers in his hands and then back at Lily.
“Ok,” he muttered. Abby magically showed up behind him and grabbed the flowers out of his hands.
“She means these white ones. These are hydrangeas.” She passed a box full of white blooms his way. “You’ll catch on, newbie.”
She giggled as she walked away but winked at Lily.
“Oh, Abby, go grab boxes out of my car. We can use them to pack the bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages. I’ve been meaning to bring them. My keys are by the phone.”
“I’ve got your keys right here.” Abby was on her way to the side parking lot.
“I sincerely doubt I will ever catch on, “ Dev acknowledged. “You all have more names for more flowers than I will ever remember or ever care about remembering.”
He loaded the box into the van and went off to catch up with Abby to help with her load. He could just picture the scintillating conversation in a Georgetown bar with his coworkers one night…
"Yes, those hydrangeas are just gorgeous, don’t you think? I wonder if they’re from South America.” His female colleagues would swoon and the guys would wonder what had happened to him in Kansas City. What could happen to you in Kansas City?
And why were they giggling about the whole hydrangea thing anyway? Dev knew something was up between Lily and Abby and it was at his expense. What had he done? He had picked up the wrong arrangement. He didn’t know what hydrangeas were…he stopped in the parking lot and held his head down. Damn, he was losing his touch. A good agent remembers his lines and he suddenly recalled his lie when he had first entered the shop. A good agent didn’t have to deal with a wedding florist, one who seemingly remembered conversations verbatim and made incessant OCD- leaning lists. Lily had known there was something up with him from the very beginning when he lied about hydrangeas being his mother’s favorite flowers. He was more adept in a cave or a desert in the Middle East dealing with terrorists than in a flower shop in the middle of America.
Abby and he carried back the boxes. Abby began to fill them with more flowers. Lily was looking at her order and going over it one more time. Yep, she was definitely OCD. Dev had that right. Did the woman ever just look at anything one time? She was constantly writing down this, taking a note there, checking and double checking. She could produce a piece of artwork with her post-it notes alone. He continued to step back and watch as bouquet after bouquet was unwrapped, checked, rewrapped and packed into the boxes.
Dev had seen this week’s list. She had added “try to do a wedding with HIM”. Did she think he was an imbecile? He wasn’t always an agent or a soldier. He’d worked all through high school, first as a sacker at the local grocery store, junior year at McDonald’s and senior year at Corman’s Law Office. He wasn’t some privileged pretty boy who had his entire life plotted out and paid for with his grandparents’ money. His middle class family worked only hourly paid jobs. His mother wept, actually sobbed as he walked across the stage to receive his degree.
He was the first one in their family to do so. And when he threw his hat up in the air in celebration at West Point his mother was worried to tears that he might not find it! You never find it, the local kids pick those up. It was the American dream as far as they were all concerned. Their son had graduated from West Point. It seemed so long ago with so many memories growing between that h
appy day and now.
They should see him delivering flowers. They’d be so proud! They packed the last boxes into the front of the van and when Lily said they were ready to go he jumped into the passenger seat and buckled up. Hopefully he would make his family proud.
“It smells like a funeral home in here,” he complained. Lily was placing her sunglasses on but he still knew she was glaring.
“It’s supposed to. They are flowers.” She began driving down the alley and on to the large wedding.
“When we get there, if you’ll just start bringing in the flowers that would be great. Begin with the last three boxes we put in the front part of the van. That’s their personal flowers. I’ll keep them near me. The rest, we will separate according to rooms once we unload everything. I don’t want dead flowers out in a hot van.”
He laughed out loud. “I believe dead hydrangeas created this whole mess and gave you a new employee.”
She paid attention to the road but smiled. “Yes, I suppose so but we don’t want or need them today. Oh and don’t try to be anything but a delivery guy today, please. This is a large home wedding, city known client who is difficult enough without having to explain you.”
Dev began to complain, at what he didn’t really know, but maybe it was her tone. Again, he wasn’t an imbecile.
“Ms. Schmidt, I do know how to act around people. First, my mother taught me skills and then I have taken a few training courses.”
“We are talking people, Agent Pierce. We are talking about a bride, her mother, her father, her wedding coordinator. Oh just wait. I can’t wait to hear your assessment on Gretchen.” Lily laughed out loud. “I can’t wait to see you try to boss her around, so just take your lead from me and please, please don’t deviate or try to get cute. Gretchen is a force of nature or black magic. None of us have figured it out yet.”
He grinned and allowed his silence to say everything until he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“I’m always cute. At least, that’s what Abby thinks, oh and that nice Mrs. Notte.”
