Fortune Finds Florist Page 2

  For some reason he wanted to get up, go around that desk and hug her, or at least pat her on the shoulder. Instead, he sat forward and said with quiet conviction, “For what it’s worth, ma’am, I disagree with Mr. Ontario on this. I mean, just because a thing hasn’t been done in a certain area before doesn’t mean that it can’t be done or that it’s foolish to try.”

  She smiled again, but this time it was a warm, seemingly personal connection that did strange things inside his chest. “What would you charge me for an undertaking such as this, from scratch, as you say?”

  So there it was, the moment of reckoning. Sam eased forward in his seat and splayed his elbows on the edge of her desk, reaching forward to cup his hands together over the flowered border of her desk blotter. “Well, there’s the thing, ma’am. Sierra. This looks to be a very labor-intensive operation, and I’m guessing, frankly, that we’re pretty evenly matched here. You’ve got the land, the funding and, I’m hoping, the market connections, while I’ve got the equipment, the know-how and the strong back. I’d say that makes for a pretty equal partnership.”

  “Partnership?” she repeated warily, and suddenly it was do or die.

  “That’s right,” he said, forcing calmness into his voice though his insides were jumping like a bucket full of crickets. “A clean fifty-fifty split. I don’t see it working any other way.”

  She blinked and huffed a long breath in and out. “Hmm.” She bit her lip, displaying the smooth, clean edges of her straight, white teeth, reminding him that the dentist had said the girls were going to need braces by middle school. Seconds ticked by. It was all he could do to sit back in his chair and wait without jiggling something. Finally she tossed down the pen and spread her hands.

  “I hadn’t thought of taking on a partner,” she told him. “This isn’t a decision I can make on the spur of the moment, you understand.”

  Defeat stabbed at him, but he fought it off with nonchalance. “Oh, sure, sure. I completely get that. You take a few days to think it over and let me know. Meanwhile, you might want to check out those references.”

  She pulled the paper toward her and glanced at it. “All right. I’ll do that.”

  “You have my number,” he said, sliding to the edge of his seat.

  “Yes.” She got to her feet and stuck out her hand. “Thank you for coming. This was…enlightening.”

  He took her hand in his and gave it a good shake. “Thank you for hearing me out, Sierra. I hope you’ll decide soon because there’s lots to do if we’re going to have a crop this summer.”

  Smiling wanly, she placed both hands on her hips, glanced down at the desk and nodded. “You’ll hear from me next week.”

  He had to be satisfied with that. She walked him out into the sitting room where he collected his coat, then all the way down the stairs to the front door of the shop. They chatted about the weather, bemoaning the gray skies and frigid winds with which they were beginning the new year and wondering if they would soon get precipitation and in what form. It was all very polite and formal. As soon as he stepped out onto that cold sidewalk, a feeling of doom descended on him, and he was suddenly very sure that he’d somehow blown it.

  Well, he’d give it a week, anyway. He could afford to do that and still have plenty of time to make other arrangements if she didn’t go for the deal. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been refused, but something about this meeting rankled deep within him. He couldn’t have said why, but as he walked along the street to the battered double-cab, dually pickup parked in a lot behind the city hall, Sam felt his stomach churn with failure.

  Sierra slid along the shop window, watching Sam Jayce stride down the street with a long-stepping, shoulder-rocking swagger, his hands tucked into the pockets of his coat. She didn’t really know what she’d expected to find in Sam Jayce, but she sure hadn’t expected such a supremely confident and accomplished young man.

  Moments after Sam left the building, Bette came into the showroom in answer to the door chime in case they had a customer. Sierra didn’t turn around as she asked, “So, what do you think?”

  “I think I wish I was at least fifteen years younger and fifty pounds lighter.”

  Sierra glanced around with a wry smile. “He is pretty cute.”

  “Cute!” Bette snorted. “Honey, you’ve been alone too long if those shoulders and that butt don’t strike you a little harder than cute.”

  “He’s just a kid,” Sierra said dismissively. And he just might be the answer to her prayers.

  A partnership, though. Pride rebelled at the notion. She was determined to make a success of herself, no matter what her father or anyone else thought, but Frank McAfree already believed that his daughter was completely incapable of handling her own finances, let alone her life. She could just imagine what he would say if she took on a partner, especially such a young, attractive partner, because no one could deny that Sam Jayce, whatever his age, was a very attractive man.

  He’d put her in mind of a robust young Julius Caesar, even with that spiked, sandy brown hair. It was the shape of his head, from the perfect oval of his skull to his high forehead and prominent nose down to the square, blunt strength of his chin, which gave him that calmly powerful air. He had dimples that gouged into the lean planes of his cheeks, sleepy, pale green eyes thickly fringed with gold-tipped lashes and a perfectly sculpted mouth that added an almost feminine counterweight to the harshly masculine proportions of his face. But the rest of that package contained nothing even remotely feminine.

  He wasn’t a huge man, maybe six feet tall and long and lean with broad shoulders and compact muscles that bunched and elongated with fluid power as he moved. She couldn’t help noticing the size and strength of his hands, the way his well-rounded thighs filled out his jeans, and yes, the rear view was enough to make a woman look twice. She just wished he was about ten or twenty years older.

  On the other hand, perhaps his youth was in his favor. All the older men to whom she had proposed farming flowers had treated her like a foolish child. Maybe Sam Jayce was just young enough to still believe in dreams and brash enough to try to make them come true. But how could she know?

  She would check his references, of course, but any name listed there would have been chosen because it guaranteed a glowing report. Better to speak with someone with no vested interest, someone in a position to know the scuttlebutt. It was time to pay a visit to an old friend.

  The January wind cut like a knife when she got out of the sleek foreign luxury car that had been her first real indulgence after receiving her unexpected inheritance from dear old Edwin Searle. To say that finding herself among Edwin’s heirs had been a shock was a serious understatement, but the kind of money that he had left her, Avis and Valerie was the stuff of which dreams were made. It was also an awesome responsibility, and one with which Sierra was having a difficult time coping, though she wouldn’t have admitted it even to her own shadow.

  The wind tugged at her jacket as she sprinted across the parking lot toward the coffee shop in the strip mall where she had originally opened her floral business. If anyone could tell her about Sam Jayce, it would be the coffee-shop proprietor Gwyn Dunstan. Sierra shoved through the heavy glass door and came to a halt just inside as the welcome fragrance of hot coffee and fresh-baked goods warmed her.

  “Hey!” Gwyn greeted her cheerily, moving across the floor with steaming mugs and plates of oozing cinnamon rolls balanced in her hands.

  The place was fairly busy, the cold Texas wind having driven folks indoors for a hot, fragrant cup and warm roll. Nevertheless, Gwyn quickly deposited the cups and saucers at a table of four men and called her teenage daughter from the back. “Molly!” Gwyn came toward Sierra with her arms open wide. “Looking good there, girlfriend. How’s life treating you?”

  “Good. How about you?” Sierra returned the hug. Though known for her cynicism and caustic tongue, Gwyn was a warmer creature than many suspected, and lately she seemed softer, cheerier. She still
retained that core of inner toughness that made her Gwyn, however.

  “Same old, same old,” Gwyn said lightly as Molly appeared from the kitchen.

  “Hi, Sierra.” Blond, pretty Molly had her mom’s same thin, taut, muscular build but with a nubile softness that drew boys like flies to honey. She occasionally baby-sat Sierra’s daughter. “How’s Tyree?”

  “Looking forward to her birthday, which isn’t until the very last day of March. And we just passed New Year’s, for pity’s sake.”

  “Kids,” Gwyn said. “They live from holiday to holiday.”

  “Well, let us know when you put her party together,” Molly said.

  “Absolutely,” Sierra promised, then she turned to Gwyn. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure thing. Let’s snag a cup and head back into the office.”

  Two minutes later, they were seated around the small metal table that Gwyn used as a desk in the cubbyhole behind the kitchen. “So what’s up? Dennis still giving you a hard time?”

  “Perpetually, but I’m not here to talk about the magic reappearing ex.”

  Dennis had turned up after a three-year absence—just as soon as the news of her inheritance had reached him—and he’d made her life miserable ever since. His influence had turned her formerly sweet, loving eight-year-old into a greedy demanding brat that Sierra sometimes didn’t even recognize.

  “What do you know about a young man named Sam Jayce?”

  Gwyn’s eyebrows went straight up. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m thinking about going into business with him.”

  Gwyn sat back and folded her arms. “You remember that woman who was murdered a few years back?”

  Sarah Jayce. No wonder Sam’s name had sounded familiar. “She was that woman beaten to death by her husband.”

  Gwyn nodded. “She was also Sam’s mother.”

  “Ohmigod.”

  “Jonah Jayce was a brutal drunk. He beat her to death because she hid their baby girls from him.”

  “Twins,” Sierra remembered.

  “That’s right. Sarah was afraid, apparently with good reason, that Jonah would hurt them. Sam himself was long gone by the time they were born. He left home at fourteen, went to foster care at his mother’s insistence. A neighbor boy to the west of me was best friends with Sam. I remember that Sam’s foster mother used to drop him off so the boys could spend time together. He was always very polite, Sam was.”

  “He still is,” Sierra murmured.

  “Not surprised.” Gwyn shifted forward in her chair. “I heard that Jonah used to get drunk and show up at his foster home spoiling for a fight, and that’s why Sam dropped out of high school at sixteen and disappeared. He was twenty when his mom died. They must’ve been in contact because he showed up, assumed guardianship of his baby sisters and disappeared again. A year later the three of them moved back into the Jayce house about six miles west of town, and somehow that boy convinced old Zeke Ontario down at the bank to take a chance on him and started buying up equipment. Calls himself a ‘custom farmer.’ I hear he’s got a college education and a keen business sense. You could do worse.”

  Sierra sat back with an expelled breath. “Wow. Gwyn, if your customers ever knew you retained this much about them… Sounds like life gave Sam lemons and he got busy making lemonade.”

  Gwyn nodded. “I’ll tell you something else. He’s utterly devoted to those two little girls. I don’t think he has any sort of social life apart from them, and they’re happy, well-adjusted children, which is surprising, given everything they’ve been through. I know that for a fact because Molly baby-sat them for a couple weeks last summer. She had a killer crush on Sam for a while after.”

  “I can imagine,” Sierra muttered, and Gwyn laughed.

  “Yeah, he’s the sort to make the girls’ hearts go flitter-flutter, all right, not that he seems to notice.”

  Sierra smiled, deliberately ignoring that, and picked up her coffee cup. “Thanks, Gwyn. I knew I could get the straight dope from you. Now tell me how you’ve been doing.”

  Gwyn chatted about the recent improvement in her business and her concerns about Avis, who had been keeping mostly to herself. Genuinely interested, Sierra listened and nodded, sipping her excellent coffee. But in the back of her mind, she felt a little “flitter-flutter” of her own. Not because of Sam’s masculine, clean-cut good looks, of course—she wasn’t a teenager—but rather with the possibility that she might have found the means to making her dreams come true.

  At least that’s what she told herself.

  Chapter Two

  Sierra glanced at the clock on the wall for the tenth time in as many minutes. She felt ridiculously nervous, and telling herself that she had nothing to be nervous about didn’t help. Her doubts about Sam Jayce as a business partner had been completely put to rest by her attorney, Corbett Johnson, who had confirmed everything that Gwyn had told Sierra about Sam Jayce and then some.

  Not only had Sam put himself through college, taken on the responsibility of rearing his little sisters and convinced the notoriously conservative local banker to back him in business, he’d paid off the mortgage on the small house and forty acres that he and his sisters had inherited from their mother. In Corbett’s opinion, it was only a matter of time before Sam turned up a blinding success, fulfilling the expectations of apparently everyone who’d dealt with him. At the attorney’s urging, Sierra had let him draw up the partnership papers, which she intended to present to Sam today as a fait accompli subtly designed to assure her the upper hand. She doubted he’d go for it, but the papers left room for compromise, while still guaranteeing her the majority of control.

  By the time Sam arrived—precisely on time and looking even more breathtaking than before in dark, heavily starched jeans, a simple white T-shirt and a fitted black corduroy jacket—Sierra’s heart was flittering and fluttering again. Maintaining a cool facade, she neatened the lay of her sophisticated surplice blouse, greeted him through the door she’d left standing open and waved him on into her office. His gaze flickered over her, and she felt her pulse quicken.

  “Thank you for coming, Sam. Please be seated.” Sierra noticed a large gold college ring on his right hand.

  He tugged at the sides of his coat and sat. “I guess you’ve thought it over.”

  “Yes, I have, and I’ve decided to accept your offer.”

  The smile that elicited crinkled his eyes at the corners, cut deep grooves into his dimpled cheeks and flashed an impressive expanse of strong, white teeth. Suddenly her heart wasn’t just flitter-fluttering; it was beating madly inside her chest like a wild thing trying to break free. Alarmed by her own reaction, Sierra forced herself to get down to business, sounding brusquer than she’d intended.

  “I took the liberty of having papers drawn up, so if you’ll just sign, we can get on with planning our new venture.” As she spoke, she pushed two sets of stapled papers toward him, placed an ink pen on the desk between them and sat back, aware of his deepening frown.

  He began thumbing through one set of papers. “You had papers drawn up? No discussion? No negotiation?”

  Her confident smile faltered. “What’s to discuss? You spelled out the particulars yourself, fifty-fifty on the profits. You provide expertise, equipment and labor. I provide land and financing.”

  He looked up, nailing her with a direct look launched from beneath the jut of his brows. “Says here that you get final approval on all expenditures.”

  “I am providing the funds.”

  “What about unexpected expenses—fuel, tools, research material, mechanical failures? They happen, you know, even with new machinery.”

  She shrugged. “We’ll work out some sort of system.”

  “Over which you get final approval.”

  “Someone has to.”

  He got to his feet. “Right, and since you’re the older one, that’s naturally you.” He shook his head bitterly. “No matter how hard I work, how much I know, how many times I’m
proven right, I can’t change the date of my birth.” He pointed a finger at her, adding, “And don’t you dare tell me time will take care of it.”

  He was right, of course, but this was business, and she would be foolish in the extreme not to try to take the upper hand. Wouldn’t she? “Sam, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just trying to protect my investment.”

  “Well, that goes for both of us,” he said, swiping one set of papers off the desk and rolling them into a tube in his hands. “I’ll just let my attorney look these over and get back to you.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said softly, feeling slightly ashamed and uncertain.

  He turned and walked out without another word, the rigid lines of his back making his anger obvious.

  Evidently she had miscalculated. She’d assumed that his youth would naturally compel him to follow her lead. Instead, she’d let him know that she considered his age a tool to use against him. Brilliant.

  Sierra dropped her head into her hands. She had just insulted her best hope of proving herself as a businesswoman. So much for her future as a flower producer. Biting her lip, she considered running after him, but in the end she didn’t bother. If she let him walk out, chances were he’d just phone in his refusal and that would be that. On the other hand, if she ran after him, he’d demand more than she could give. Either way, the partnership seemed doomed. And, as usual, she had no one to thank but herself.

  Sam yanked open the shop door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, executing a sharp right turn. As he stalked down the street he slapped the rolled papers against his thigh. So she was gorgeous, stylish, self-assured, wealthy and older than him—did that give her any right to treat him like a stupid, wet-behind-the-ears kid? He’d been beating himself up for days because he was sure he’d blown the best opportunity ever to come his way, and all along she’d just been waiting to cut him down to size.

  Well, it was probably for the best. Hooking up in any way with Sierra Carlton would undoubtedly be a very bad mistake; an uneven partnership always was. Besides, she was too good-looking for comfort. The last thing he needed was a business partner who could distract him just with the blouse she chose to wear.