by Lyn Cote
At last, they drove up to Jo’s floral shop on its quiet side street. Don helped Leta out of the car and Bram did the same for Jo, looking puzzled. She didn’t have time to explain. The photographer she’d hired was waiting for them, looking antsy. The weather, at least, had cooperated with the festiveness of the day.
“Where do you want us?” Jo called to the photographer.
“Let’s do a shot of the bride and groom beside your front door first,” replied the harried-looking man with an assortment of cameras hanging around his neck.
Leta and Don obligingly posed by the door. Behind them was the window with the name Jo’s Bower emblazoned in shades of pink and red. While the photographer snapped still after still, Bram leaned toward her and asked, “Why are we here?”
“I wanted to use Leta’s flowers in a round of new media commercials for my shop.”
“Yes,” Leta chimed in, “isn’t it a great idea? Don and I will be on TV and in the paper.”
Bram muttered something Jo couldn’t hear, for which she should probably be thankful. She didn’t have time right now to deal with any distraction. This had to go quickly and smoothly so the newlyweds could get on to their reception within fifteen minutes or so.
The photographer motioned Jo and Bram to join the newlyweds in front of the shop window. Bram obeyed, but stiffly. The photographer took several more shots, his camera clicking away. “Now I want only the bride and maid of honor together holding their bouquets. That’s right. Face each other. Have the bouquets touching. Look happy. Look pleased.” More furious clicking.
The wedding party of four went through various poses inside and outside the store. All the while, Jo’s van came and went, loading up to deliver sweetheart gifts. Why Leta had asked her to be a bridesmaid on the busiest day of the year for florists escaped Jo. But her part-time helper and driver were doing a great job. Jo concentrated on the photo shoot. At last, the photographer said, “That’s all I need. Great. Really great stuff, Jo. This should give you the edge you want right when everyone is gearing up for summer weddings.”
“Thanks,” Jo said. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing the proofs.”
“I’ll give you a call as soon as I’ve got them,” the photographer replied, starting to collapse his tripod.
Don helped Leta back into the limo. Bram nudged Jo in after the bride. Just as Jo bent to enter, the best man stepped on the back of her hem. The metal hoop reared up and smacked Jo’s nose. “Ouch.”
“Sorry. Sorry,” Bram apologized. “Are you all right?”
Over her shoulder, she gave him a disgruntled look as she edged into the limo. Surely he hadn’t done that on purpose, had he? Then both of the men climbed inside with the ladies and the driver pulled away from the curb, heading toward the country club for the reception. Bram said nothing. His expression was stormy and held a trace of chagrin.
The man was unhappy about something and she guessed that the chagrin was from his stepping on her hem. She gave him another smile, saying “No hard feelings.” Then she turned to the bride. “Thanks again,” Jo said, ignoring the masculine thundercloud beside her. “You’re such a great-looking couple I couldn’t see passing up a chance for such a good shoot.”
“Well, I hope it does the trick,” Leta declared. “I can’t believe that Henderson’s is trying to grab your business. Don’t they have enough customers over in Hope to keep them busy? Why do they think we needed another florist in Prescott?”
Jo shrugged, her stomach burning. Henderson’s had opened another shop just down the street from her place over a month ago. “Competition is just part of being in business.”
The limo pulled up in front of the country club. The wedding party got out and paraded up to the door. Inside, Jo was swept up into the festive occasion. After dinner, the groom led bride to the table where they cut the cake and fed each other a tidbit. Then the staff began distributing the tempting dessert. At the head table, Jo forked up one of the pink roses and savored the sweetness.
“I can’t see how you can eat that,” Bram said with a look of distaste.
Trying not to react negatively, she looked over at him and smiled. “I get the feeling weddings aren’t your thing.”
He grunted.
She chuckled. “If you didn’t want to do all this, then why did you agree to be best man?”
“I like Don. He’s a good friend.”
“He seems like a good guy.” She forked up more gooey frosting, just to tease him. “You were friends when you lived here before, right?”
“What? Do you want my life history?” he asked.
Jo didn’t disguise her displeasure, stabbing her cake with her fork. “I’m just trying to make polite conversation. I see it’s lost on you.”
“At least, I don’t use my relatives on their wedding day for cheap publicity for my business.”
His scathing tone sliced through Jo and the explanation of his obvious displeasure was now revealed. For once, she couldn’t speak. Too many words jammed in her throat. She picked up her cake before she tipped it into his lap and swished away to her best friends, Hannah West and Elizabeth Sinclair, sitting at a table in the rear.
“What’s eating you?” Hannah, a striking brunette and owner of the local Mimosa Manor Bed and Breakfast, asked as Jo sank into the chair beside her.
To her horror, Jo felt tears start in her eyes. Bram’s cutting words echoed in her mind. She pursed her lips. “Do you think I was awful to ask Leta to pose for publicity photos today?” she asked Hannah and Elizabeth.
“It was up to Leta. I think she loved the idea,” Hannah replied immediately.
“It was a great idea,” Elizabeth, a successful local Realtor and a very pretty one with golden-brown curls, joined in. “Leta’s lovely and the bouquets! Jo, you outdid yourself.”
“Absolutely,” Hannah agreed. “If the bride and groom liked the idea, that’s that.”
“What made you think anything was wrong with the shoot?” Elizabeth asked.
“Bramwell Dixon.” Jo felt her face drawing down into a grim expression. “He’s the rudest man I’ve ever met. I was just trying to make polite conversation—”
“He hates women,” Hannah interrupted. “Didn’t you know that? He even glared at the cheerleaders during all the football games.” Hannah grinned.
“I’m not into sports.” Jo grimaced. “I know he’s done a great job with his first year as coach because that’s all anyone talked about all fall and winter. Big deal.”
“He’s notorious,” Elizabeth added. “He gave all the single mothers of his team short shrift. Turned down every invitation to a ‘home-cooked meal.’”
Jo grinned suddenly. “I’ll just bet he did.”
The call for all the single women to come forward for the tossing of the bouquet trumpeted through the hall. Jo, Hannah and Elizabeth didn’t even flinch. Their eyes met in a unanimous “not in a million years” look.
Aunt Becky fluttered over. “You girls get up there.”
“We’re not girls any more, Aunty,” Jo objected.
“And we aren’t interested in catching Leta’s bouquet,” Hannah said airily.
“I pass, too.” Elizabeth held up one hand and waved away the idea.
“No, you don’t.” Aunt Becky literally pulled them up and herded them to the small cluster of giggling single women. Jo rolled her eyes. Elizabeth shook her head. And Hannah folded her arms.
“Ready or not,” Leta called out and let loose her bouquet.
Startled, Jo looked up just as the bouquet landed in her hands.
Chapter Two
“Tassie, get down here!” On Monday morning, Bram shouted once more up the stairwell of the two-story house he’d bought last fall. “We have to leave in ten minutes and I want to see you eat breakfast!” He’d tried and failed to keep the exasperation out of his tone.
“I don’t want any breakfast!” his nearly fourteen-year-old (as she kept reminding him) sister yelled back at him.
“Then I won’t drive you to school. You’ll be stuck with the bus. Take it or leave it.” He walked back to the blue-and-white kitchen and picked up the weekly Nevada County Picayune again. He turned the page and there he was smiling back at himself in front of Jo’s Bower. His aggravation boiled up again. I should never have signed that permission form, he thought.
But what could he do when Don asked him right in front of Leta and that bridesmaid of hers? Why hadn’t Don realized he was letting that bridesmaid use a private, very personal moment for cheap publicity? Why hadn’t the groom put his foot down? Was Bram the only one who got it?
Even though more than a week had passed since the wedding-slash-photo shoot, he still couldn’t free himself from his irritation or from thinking about Jo Woodward. Her image—red hair cut short and a little spiky and skin like rich cream—flashed into his mind. He brushed aside the memory of how she’d walked gracefully down the altar steps in spite of having to deal with a hooped skirt.
“All right.” Tassie appeared in the kitchen and said with true teen-age disgust, “what do I have to eat?”
Bram looked over his newspaper and ran his eyes over the wrinkled black T-shirt and blue jeans she was wearing. Fortunately for her, she hadn’t tried his patience again by exposing her navel bright and early this morning. “Try a bowl of cereal.”
Tassie huffed her displeasure, jerked the corn flakes box from atop the fridge, jammed it down onto the table and flung open the fridge door to get the milk.
Bram refused to rise to the bait. Tassie didn’t carry an extra ounce of weight that he could see, so her concern over eating too much and gaining weight baffled him. But he’d weathered Tassie’s first full teen year. Only six more to go. The words of an old hymn came to mind. Lord, with this kid—I do need thee every hour.
Tassie dumped herself into the chair opposite him and began to spoon up cereal noisily. With one hand, she pushed her long hair, the same dark brown as his, behind her shoulders. “What’s the deal with eating breakfast? Tasha never made me eat any.”
Bram ignored the reference to the sister who had taken care of Tassie for a few months after his parents’ disappearance until Bram had bought this house and moved into it. If he knew Natasha, she had probably never given a thought to what Tassie was eating. And they might not have eaten at all if he hadn’t sent her regular checks. “We’ve had this discussion too many times before. You will eat breakfast before you leave for school in the morning…period.”
Bram felt waves of Tassie’s smoldering dissatisfaction lapping against him, but he clung to his patience and his newspaper. He turned the page. Again, his face looked back at him. The article was about how he was spending time with his seniors prepping them for their college entrance exams. Why was that big news? The season’s long over. Why don’t they give us a rest?
The timer on the stove buzzed. Tassie leaped up and poured what was left of her cereal into the sink and hurriedly ran the water, probably so he wouldn’t see how little she’d eaten. Bram said nothing. She’d at least gotten a few spoonfuls down her. He’d have to be satisfied with that.
He folded the paper and glanced down once more at the ad of Leta, Don, him and that Jo. He recalled the feel of the florist’s small hand on his arm. She’d been so willowy, so effortlessly feminine. Stop right there. He’d already found out that she was a woman who had her own agenda and who took advantage of her friends and relatives. Bram shook his head as though sweeping his memory of Jo’s infectious giggle out of his mind. He headed grimly out the back door.
As they arrived in the circle drive in front of the middle school Tassie was half out the door of his red pickup truck when he caught her hand. “I’ll pick you up here right after school.”
She tugged free. “I can just walk home.”
“No, I’ll pick you up,” Bram repeated the same sentence he did every day which for some reason his little sister couldn’t seem to remember.
“You act like this is a dangerous place. Isn’t it safe to walk home from school in this dinky little town?”
There’s safe and then there’s safe. I’m not taking any chances with you, Tassie. Every one of your older sisters was pregnant before she graduated high school and I’m not giving in to that statistic. Someone special is going to love you and treasure you the way you deserve. Of course, how could he say that to her? For some reason he couldn’t identify, he and his sister never discussed their family; it was a painful subject for both of them.
“See you later.” He shut the door and drove away. Then for no reason at all, that bridesmaid’s dimpled smile popped into his mind. A thought came to him. He brushed it aside. Crazy idea. Nuts.
On Monday morning, over a week after Leta’s wedding, Jo sat like a lump at her work table in the rear of her cozy shop. Pots of azaleas and cyclamens in all possible shades of pink and lavender bloomed around her. By this time of the morning, she should have been juggling the phone, making up an order and handling walk-ins. Instead she sat alone and idle.
In front of her was a copy of today’s Picayune with the wedding party ad featuring Leta, Don, Bram and herself. To her mind, good-looking Bram Dixon stood out and made the ad eye-catching. So the man had his uses. Unwillingly, her mind took her back to the time they’d shared, his strong hand helping her in and out of the limousine. She cut the string on that line of thought.
She made herself study the ad. It certainly should bring in new business. This fact should have cheered her. But after listening in vain all morning for the phone to ring or the bell on the door to announce a customer, she couldn’t generate any glimmer of hope. A daunting silence reigned absolute.
“Stop fretting,” she muttered to herself. “It’s a weekday in late February. The Valentine rush is over for the month.” Still, she couldn’t quell her uneasiness.
She slipped off her stool and went to the computer in the back of her small but bright showroom. Clicking on her mouse, she brought up the file for last February’s income and then this month’s. Last year’s numbers far exceeded this year’s. Jo tapped the mouse, shutting the file. “Why am I torturing myself?”
Her alter ego replied, “Because you can’t stop worrying that Henderson’s will put you out of business.”
Jo turned cold with fear. “I have to do something.” She moved to the front of the store, sat down on the high stool behind her counter and opened her book of contacts. In it, she always noted the name and phone number of every person who called or stopped in inquiring about a possible order.
She paged back to the beginning of the year and dialed the first number. “Hello, Sarah? This is Jo at the flower shop. I was wondering if you’d decided on using my wedding flower service.”
“Oh…oh,” the young bride-to-be stammered. “We…my mother and I decided to use that new shop for my wedding.”
“Fine. I was just checking to see if I could help.” Jo hung up and her heart beat fast. “That was just a fluke, an unhappy coincidence.”
Unable to stop herself, she moved her finger down to the next name, the younger sister of a family that Jo had already done two weddings for in the past five years. The sisters had raved about her flowers. Confident that this call would go better, Jo dialed the number.
“Hello, this is Jo calling from the flower shop. May I speak to Corinne?”
A heavy silence came in response.
“Hello?” Jo prompted. “Corinne, how are you today?”
“Hi,” came the tentative voice of Corinne, “I was supposed to get back to you about the flowers for my wedding, wasn’t I?”
“Only if you wanted me to do them,” Jo kept her voice cheerful.
“Well, I guess I decided on using Henderson’s. I mean I couldn’t beat their new customer discount.”
“New customer discount?” Jo’s heart now pounded like a tom-tom, a war tom-tom.
“Yeah, with my tight budget, I couldn’t pass up twenty-five percent off.”
“I see your point.” Jo kept all h
urt and frustration from seeping into her voice. “I hope you have a lovely wedding, Corinne.” She hung up, feeling winded.
Jo dialed the phone again.
“Sinclair Realty,” her friend greeted her over the line.
“Elizabeth,” Jo wailed into the phone, “I’m in trouble. I don’t know what to do.”
“Jo, can I call you back?” Elizabeth said in her professional voice. “I’m with clients now.”
“Sure. That’s fine. I’m at the shop.” Jo hung up. She reached to dial again and stopped herself. “I shouldn’t spread my good cheer around. Hannah’s busy, too. And if I want to, I can have a great pity party all by myself.”
Refusing to give into her anxiety, Jo closed her eyes and bowed her head. God, I don’t want to let this helpless feeling win. But I’ve poured everything into this business and I love it so. I’m plum out of ideas. You’re going to have to do something to help me out. Thank you, Father. I know you love me and would never forsake me.
Confident that her prayer would be answered, Jo leaped up, tangled one foot around the base of her stool and fell to the concrete floor—hard. “Oowww,” she moaned. She pushed up to stand and sagged against the counter. She tested her right ankle; it was swelling before her eyes, and she found that it couldn’t support her weight. Tears welled up in her eyes. God, she complained, looking heavenward, this wasn’t what I had in mind.
She reached for the phone and dialed a familiar number. “Aunt Becky, can you come to the shop and drive me to the clinic? I did something to my ankle.”
Jo reclined on the cream-colored sofa in her small apartment above her shop. A pair of aluminum crutches was propped beside the sofa. Her right ankle, which was wrapped in an elastic bandage, rested high on a cushion to keep it from swelling more. A couple of blue ice packs also adorned the painfully throbbing ankle. Jo sighed.
“Now stop that sighing,” Aunt Becky said. “The doctor said you can go back downstairs tomorrow.”
Jo nearly gave in and poured out her problems to her dear aunt. Becky, her mother’s sister, had raised her since she’d been orphaned when she was twelve by her mother’s death from cancer. Her sweet aunt worried about her enough as it was. She didn’t need to hear Jo’s litany of anxieties. Besides, Elizabeth had already called and she and Hannah had promised to bring over supper and sympathy after five.
