Love in Bloom

“Pink!”

“Really?” Lily brushed off her hands, smiling. “I’ll remember that.”

Tate, whom Lily had tried hard not to notice too keenly, made an impatient sound. “Where have you been? We’ve been waiting here for twenty minutes.”

Lily’s delight at seeing them diminished. “I’m sorry. Miss Mars came up with a plan for me to make floral arrangements for each of the new shops to use as decorations for the Grand Opening, but I had to find the right containers. And look! Just look at what we found.”

She started describing how she would use each of her treasures. “What could be better for the Fluff & Stuff than a bird cage? Right? I’m thinking blues and greens and yellows. We’ll hang it right next to that cheeky parrot of his. And the percolator will work great for the coffee shop. Not sure about those flowers, maybe some ‘chocolaty’ reds. With a little paint, the bread box will make a beautiful display for the bakery next door. All pastels there. Oh, my favorite is an antique typewriter. That’s still across the street. It’s sooo heavy, but how perfect is that for a bookstore? Plus, I’m finally going to have furni—”

“So you’re going to do all this and still be ready for the opening?” Tate interrupted sharply.

Stung, Lily bowed her head. “Yes, I—I think so. If I have some help.”

Tate stepped back, and Lily cringed inwardly. “I’m sorry. I—I didn’t mean to imply... That is...I suppose I am a bit overwhelmed, but when Miss Mars suggested that flower arrangements for all the shops would be a good way to showcase my design abilities and dress up the shops for the Grand Opening, too...” Lily sighed and shook her head. “Perhaps I’m not as forceful as I should be. I’ve always been a bit shy, and...” She let the words dwindle away, uncertain where she was even going with this.

Tate cleared his throat and mumbled something about being worried when he’d found the shop empty and not wanting to overburden her when she was trying to get the place together.

In the midst of the awkward silence that followed, Isabella piped up with “You were wrong, Dad, and Mrs. Connolly was right.”

Tate speared her with a pointed glance. “Duh.”

“Just saying,” Isabella went on, shrugging.

Lily looked from one to the other of them in confusion.

Tate rolled his eyes and admitted, “Coraline came to see me, okay? She thought you needed help and wanted to organize a work brigade, but I assumed you were doing okay and we just needed to stay out of your way.” He looked aside, adding, “You appeared to be getting things together. Others seemed to need more help.”

Lily had to admit that, from what she’d seen just today, a bakery, coffee shop, bookstore, pet shop and hardware store all required significantly more preparation than a floral shop. “You have a point there. I’m the problem. I—I haven’t been as focused as I need to be. Frankly, being from Boston, I’m used to having more people around.” Most of whom would actually speak to her without waiting for her to speak first.

Tate rubbed a hand over his head. “Well, about that, the committee sort of asked the townspeople to leave all you newcomers alone until you get set up and settled.”

Lily straightened. “What?” They had actually asked people to leave her alone?

“We had to,” he argued. “Otherwise, they’d have been all over you on day one with covered dishes and dinner invitations.”

Lily smiled. “Really?”

“We had to turn down every civic group in town to keep them from plastering you all with invitations to join everything from the Quilting Club to the Birthday Lunch Bunch.”

“Seriously?”

“You name it, you’re going to get hit up to join it. Soon.”

“Oh. That’s...that’s nice.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “You can tell me later if you still think that’s nice.”

“No, really, I was looking forward to the sense of community that you always hear about in a small town. In fact, I was hoping for a community-wide Independence Day celebration.”

“Not this year,” Tate said grimly. “The city had to decide between that and the Grand Opening reception.”

“And they decided on the reception?”

“It seemed more important.”

Lily took that in. “Wow.” This thing was even more vital than she’d realized.

“We got some fireworks at home for later tonight,” Isabella told her, cutting her eyes at her father.

Tate cleared his throat. “Right now, though, we have work to do.” He clapped his hands together. “So what’s first?”

Lily shook her head. “Oh, you don’t have to—”

“What’s first?” he interrupted firmly.

Biting her lips against a smile, she shrugged. “I bought a lot of stuff from Miss Mars, and it’s got to get over here somehow. Some of it’s pretty big.”

“I’ll pull my truck around the back of her store.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” he said. “Isabella, let’s go.”

She shook her curly red head. “I’ll stay here and help Lily.”

“Sure,” Lily agreed quickly. “I’ve got bins to fill in the workroom. Spools and spools of ribbon to line up.”

“I like ribbon,” Isabella declared.

Lily grinned down at her. “I thought you might.”

Tate paused, but then he nodded. “Okay. We’ll finish those display shelves next.”

“Wonderful.”

He went off to fetch the rest of her purchases, leaving Lily and Isabella to unpack and arrange spools of ribbon according to color and width. When he returned, Lily helped him carry the furniture up to the apartment. She had something to sit on now, as well as a bedside table and a lamp. Later she would paint the rattan the same shade, hopefully, as the cushions and accessorize with a contrasting color, perhaps a rich yellow gold. She couldn’t think of that now, though. Instead she hurried back downstairs with Tate to get to work in the shop. The time flew by; she barely seemed to have time to think, and as the shop took shape, her excitement and her hope grew.

Only as Isabella began to flag, her little tummy rumbling, did Lily stop to take stock. That’s when she realized how much this one man and his sweet little daughter had accomplished for her. How could she not like them, him, just a little then? How could she not count them among her friends? Even if the relationship was predicated on business, they could still be friends, couldn’t they? So long as she didn’t let herself think of him as anything more than that, everything would be fine.

* * *

“I’m hungry.”

Tate tightened the last screw, stepped back and glanced at his wrist. “Is that the time? No wonder you’re hungry, honey. Wow. Where’d the day go?”

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Lily quipped, getting up off the floor. Tate chuckled. She seemed to spend half her time on the floor—and the other half shoving her glasses back up her nose. He couldn’t help smiling and shaking his head.

“I think we’ve made good progress,” Tate said, putting away the screwdriver.