Love in Bloom Read online

  Kenneth Wilbur would serve her well. Nearing forty with a teenage son and a mother suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s, Kenneth had managed to keep body and soul together by eating out of his impressive garden and doing odd jobs around town. He was scruffy and a bit rough around the edges, but Kenneth had a true affinity for anything that grew out of the ground. Lily would surely see that and hire him. With Kenneth Wilbur around to take care of things, Tate could essentially wash his hands of Lily.

  And anytime now, he was going to be relieved about that.

  Chapter Seven

  It was a tough decision. Lily had not expected hiring someone to be so tough. In Boston an employer advertised, collected resumes, interviewed prospects and chose the person who seemed to be the best fit for the position. Here in Bygones, however, everyone desperately needed the income and no one was a great fit for the job. Lily was so terrified of making a mistake that she thought about calling Tate to ask his advice. In the end she called Coraline, who came and prayed with her.

  “Now, don’t worry,” Coraline told her. “You’ll do fine. Trust God to show you the right person for the job.”

  “I just feel so bad for those I can’t hire.”

  “Of course you do, but God will provide. Tate can help you notify those whom you can’t hire.” Knowing that helped a little.

  Lily went to bed confident that she would soon have answers. Sure enough, she woke the next day with a specific person in mind. She realized at once that she’d been leaning that way all along, and when she really thought about why, her reasons crystallized. She dressed, ate breakfast and went downstairs to open the shop. Then she called Sherie Taylor and let her know that she could start work right away. Sherie was thrilled. The others, naturally, would not be, but Lily depended on Tate to help her notify them that they had not been chosen.

  When she called his cell phone, it went to voice mail, so she left a message, letting him know that she had hired Sherie. She’d hardly ended the call before Sherie showed up, eager to begin work. Lily liked her enthusiasm.

  Of average height and a bit pudgy, with short, curly, light brown hair and lively green eyes, Sherie was the divorced mom of twin boys, ten years of age. She had moved in with her parents and made do with child support and unemployment since the plant had closed, but her good nature and sunny smile had not suffered. She had studied design in college but never finished the degree and expressed a true interest in learning all the elements of flower arranging and corsage making. Of everyone Lily had interviewed, Sherie had expressed the most interest in both the technique and the art of floral design. Plus, she just seemed like a good fit personality-wise.

  Lily imagined how pleased Tate would be.

  She imagined, too, that he had been just a tiny bit jealous when Dale Eversleigh had held her hand and asked her if she liked to play golf. That was all it was, of course, imagination, nothing more than a dream. That was what Lily had done most of her life, after all, dream of one guy or another, without ever speaking up or taking a single step to draw or fix the interest of anyone who attracted her. She was good at imagining and dreaming. Well, she was done with that. All it had ever done was lead her into dissatisfaction and heartbreak.

  For the first time she decided that she ought to ask God how to get good at doing. She hadn’t come to Bygones to repeat the mistakes of her past; she had come to start a business, to make a new home and a new life. It was time to dig down deep inside herself and make things happen. She wasn’t afraid of hard work. She could be who she was, just as God had made her, and still make new friends and learn a new way of living.

  Bygones wasn’t Boston. Things weren’t as easy or convenient here, but this was where God had planted her, and she was determined to grow and blossom. She didn’t need some man for that. All this new life needed was a lot of work, some hope and a little faith on her part. She could manage that. She would manage that, and her reward would be a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

  Resolute, she put Tate Bronson out of mind and concentrated on business. Bookkeeping had to be set up now that she had a couple of regular accounts. Assigning Sherie to watch the shop, she went into the office and did her best to figure out the accounting software. Two hours later she decided that she’d better take a break before she took a hammer to the computer.

  “How’s it coming?” Sherie asked.

  “It isn’t. I think I have everything entered, but it won’t save. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

  “You haven’t set up the file,” Sherie said matter-of-factly. “Why don’t you let me set it up for you?”

  “Truly? You can set up accounts receivable?” Lily grasped Sherie by both arms and shook her slightly. “Please tell me you can set up accounts receivable.”

  Sherie chuckled. “I worked in accounting at Randall’s. I think I can set up the computer books without much trouble.”

  Lily turned her face upward and closed her eyes. “Thank You, God.”

  “Amen to that,” Sherie said. “Now, I’ll be in the office if you need me.”

  “I need you in the office is where I need you,” Lily quipped as the other woman headed down the hall. The bell over the door tinkled merrily, and Lily turned, beaming, to find Tate, frowning, on the other side of her counter, his cap in his hand, the bill folded almost double. She wished her heart would not leap every time she saw him.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  He made a point of watching Sherie until she disappeared into the small office that opened off the short narrow hallway behind Lily. Then his gaze switched to Lily’s face.

  “Really?” he hissed quietly. “Sherie Taylor was your choice?”

  Stung, Lily drew back. “What’s wrong with Sherie?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with Sherie, but she has her parents to help her, while Kenneth Wilbur is taking care of a parent, not to mention a teenage son, with no help whatsoever.”

  Blinking, Lily matched his frown with one of her own. “What are you getting at?”

  “I thought you’d hire Kenneth.”

  “You mean, you thought I should hire Kenneth.”

  “All right. I thought, I think, you should hire Kenneth.”

  “How was I to know that?” Lily whispered. “You didn’t say so.”

  “I thought you’d figure it out when you interviewed him,” Tate said, tight-lipped.

  Lily walked around the counter, caught Tate by the arm and drew him into the front corner of the shop.

  “All I learned from Kenneth Wilbur’s interview,” she said softly, “was that he has no interest in learning design, prefers not to wait on customers and thinks I should be selling more potted plants than cut flowers. Sherie, on the other hand, understands the elements of design, wants to work with the flowers, likes to interact with customers and is back there setting up my accounts receivable right now.” She folded her arms. “Given that, which one would you choose if you were me?”

  Tate slapped his hat against his thigh. “All I know is that Kenneth needs a break.”

  “I’m going to be buying herbs and other potted plants from him,” Lily revealed in a normal tone.

  “That’s not enough to keep the wolf from the door,” Tate muttered.

  Just then the bell jingled again. Lily craned her neck to look around Tate.

  “Pastor Garman. Mrs. Garman. How nice to see you. Come in.”

  Tate stepped aside, nodding, so Lily could move back behind the counter. Wendy Garman, a little wren of a woman well into her sixties, with gray-brown helmet-hair and enormous eyeglasses, greeted Tate by name then laid a sheet of paper on the counter.

  “Hugh and I thought it would be a good idea to make a sign-up chart for altar flowers,” she told Lily.

  The pastor, a tall slender man, bald except for a fringe of fading reddish-brown hair, bushy eyebrows and a prodigious mustache, spoke up then. “We hope that our church members will volunteer to provide flower arrangements to decorate the alta
r and commemorate dates and occasions special to them, such as birthdays and anniversaries. To get the ball rolling, Wendy and I are going to sign up to provide flowers on the Sunday nearest to our own birthdays.”

  “What a lovely idea,” Lily said. “We should probably set a dollar limit so no one will feel obligated to spend too much.”

  Mrs. Garman seemed relieved by that. Coraline had told Lily that Hugh had been ready to retire when the Randall plant closed, but the church had lost so many members so quickly that they soon could not afford to pay a minister’s salary. Hugh had volunteered to stay on at a quarter of his original pay, take his Social Security and consider himself semiretired. Wendy took over the position of church secretary in return for continued residence in the church parsonage, where the Garmans kept “office hours.” Their teenage grandson, whose widowed father was a missionary in Turkey, lived there with them.

  “A dollar limit seems like a good plan,” Wendy agreed. “Perhaps we can take a special collection for flower arrangements at Christmas and Easter.”

  “I’m sure we can come up with something special but not too expensive for those occasions,” Lily told her, checking over their calendar.

  As she ran her eyes over the chart, she saw that the Garmans had filled in members’ birthdays and anniversaries. When she saw Isabella’s birthday on the next to the last Sunday of the month, she instantly looked to Tate, making what seemed a natural assumption.

  “I guess you’ll be wanting to sign up to provide altar flowers for the twenty-first.”

  Tate’s face turned to stone. Too late, Lily recalled that Isabella’s birthday was also the anniversary of the death of Tate’s wife.

  The pastor and his wife exchanged a glance then went on talking as if Lily had not just committed a terrible faux pas, saying that they would display their copy of the sign-up calendar in the vestibule of the church and check it weekly, then keep Lily apprised of who might be calling her to order. They stiltedly discussed a few more details before the Garmans prepared to take their leave.

  “We hope to see you again this coming Sunday.”

  “Thank you,” she managed softly. “I’ll be there.”

  Smiling and nodding, they moved to leave. Pastor Garman held the door for his wife then started through himself, pausing at the last moment to speak to Tate.

  “It was good to see you, Tate. You’ve been missed.”

  For a moment Lily thought Tate would not respond, but then he turned and nodded.

  “Take care of yourselves.”

  The bell jingled above the door as it closed on the Garmans. Lily stepped out from behind the counter to move swiftly to stand before Tate.

  “I’m so sorry. What I said earlier was thoughtless and presumptuous.”

  He squeezed his eyes closed as if pained. For an instant she felt torn between the impulse to run and hide and the need to somehow comfort him. The latter won out; it wasn’t even really much of a contest. Without giving herself time to think too much, she stepped up and wrapped her arms around him. This was her acting, just as she’d asked God to help her do. She would not be too reticent to comfort a friend just because he was a man whom she found attractive, especially not when she had hurt him.

  Seconds ticked by as his hands drifted up to settle at her waist and his head bowed.

  “It’s not your fault,” he whispered.

  She shook her head, feeling her hair ripple across her back and shoulders. “I didn’t think before I spoke. I just assumed—”

  “Shhh.” He inched closer, saying, “It’s understandable, and of course I celebrate my daughter’s birthday, but you’re sweet to worry about my feelings.”

  Smiling, she looked up—straight into his warm brown eyes. And, oh, my, those dimples. She didn’t know who moved, if she did or he did, but somehow their lips met.

  Lightly, gently. It might have been a kiss between friends, a simple, almost meaningless gesture, but it wasn’t. The earth did not move. Worlds did not collide. Reality did not shatter. Yet, in that soft, sweet, ephemeral instant, everything changed.

  What had not been before suddenly was, and Lily thought with shuddering wonder, I did this. I set this in motion when I put my arms around him.

  After a moment Tate stepped back. Lily hadn’t decided where to look or what to say when the bell tinkled over the door. She whirled around to find Coraline there.

  “Hello, you two,” she said, tilting her head to one side.

  Lily smiled brightly, perhaps too brightly, and moved back behind the counter. “H-hi. How are you today?”

  “Well. Thank you.” Coraline carefully moved forward and placed her pocketbook on the counter as if negotiating a tricky maneuver. “I’d like to pick up something to cheer a friend who’s feeling poorly.”

  “Aw, th-that’s sweet,” Lily stammered.

  Tate jerked forward as if she’d poked him. Lily felt like biting her tongue. She would have to remind him that he’d described her as “sweet”—just before they’d kissed.

  “I’ll be going now,” he said quickly, “since you’ve already hired someone.”

  “I’m sorry about Mr. Wilbur,” she told Tate, fighting the impulse to follow him to the door.

  “What about Kenneth?” Coraline wanted to know, sounding concerned.

  Tate waved a hand. “Uh, Lily’s going to buy some potted plants from him.”

  “I’ve hired Sherie Taylor to work here in the shop,” Lily explained softly.

  “Ah. I see,” Coraline said, nodding. “I suppose she is a better match, but the potted plants are something for Kenneth, and everyone can’t be hired.”

  “The Wilburs still have it mighty tough,” Tate pointed out, “but I understand.” He said the last to Lily, who smiled gratefully.

  “I’ll pray for the Wilburs,” she offered, and Tate went out, waving a farewell.

  Lily watched until his tall form disappeared from sight, quite forgetting that Coraline was there until she met that older lady’s clear blue gaze.

  “Oh, um, something to cheer an ailing friend, you said?”

  “Daisies, I think. She has a fondness for daisies.”

  Lily got busy looking for an appropriate container, but while she was doing that, Coraline was looking at her. “Want to tell me about it?”

  “About what?” Lily’s fingers trembled over a selection of glass vases. She was no good at nonchalance.

  “About whatever I interrupted when I came in just now.”

  Shrugging as casually as she could, Lily said, “You didn’t interrupt. It was all over when you came in.” She winced inwardly as that last came out.

  “What was over, may I ask?”

  Choosing a tall, sunny yellow vase with a fluted edge, Lily slowly turned to face the kind woman who had so quickly become a friend. “The kiss,” she confessed, her cheeks heating. Coraline’s eyes widened. “It was just a tiny kiss,” Lily hastened to explain. “Barely a kiss at all, really.”

  Coraline straightened and a smile slowly spread across her face. “My dear,” she said, “that’s the best news I’ve had in a long while.”

  “It is?” Surprised but pleased, Lily smiled.

  “Oh, my, yes. It’s about time that boy started to fully live again. Now,” she said, “if only you can get him to go to church.”

  “What do you mean?” Lily asked.

  Coraline blinked at her. “Didn’t you know? Tate Bronson hasn’t set foot in church since the day he buried his wife.”

  * * *

  Her heart in her throat, Lily pushed her rolling stool away from the stainless steel worktable and stood, calling out, “Be right with you!”

  Across the table from her Sherie kept working on the simple corsages that they were making for a sweet sixteen party. It had been this way for the last couple of days. Every time the bell over the door rang, Lily rushed to see who had entered the shop, hoping against hope that it would be Tate. As before, Lily disguised her disappointment with a smile.

&nb
sp; “Hello, Chief Sheridan. How may I help you?”

  Joe Sheridan stowed his mirrored sunshades in the front pocket of his blue uniform shirt and placed his hands on the counter. “I’m thinking I might cheer up my wife with some roses.”

  “I’m sorry to hear she needs cheering,” Lily said, waving him over to the glass-fronted humidifier case. “What type of roses does she like?”

  “Yellow ones are her favorites.”

  “I have some pretty yellow ones with reddish tips.”

  “Ooh, I bet she’d like those. How much?”

  Lily quoted a price just above wholesale, and he knew it.

  “I appreciate that, Ms. Farnsworth. What with the pay cuts and the layoffs, we’re hanging on by our fingernails. That’s the whole problem, you know. My Inez fears we’ll be moving before long, and if the department is decommissioned, we will be. The few men I’ve got left have been applying for jobs all over the state, and I can’t say as I blame them.”

  “I—I had no idea,” Lily told him, choosing a dozen of the long-stemmed roses. She carried them to the counter and began wrapping them in waxy green paper.

  “It’s the same at the school, you know. Things don’t turn around, the county will absorb our students, and this school will close.”

  Lily looked up at that. “Truly? It’s that bad?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He ran a hand over his light brown crew cut. “But we’ve got hope now, don’t we? I’ve seen more activity on Main Street this past week than I’ve seen in months.”

  Nodding, Lily smiled. “Hope and prayer, Chief Sheridan,” she told him.

  “A good combination,” he agreed, handing over several dollar bills as payment.

  Lily made change for him, thanked him for his business and bid him farewell. She didn’t make it back to the worktable before the bell jingled again. Hurrying back the way she’d come, Lily put her smile on.

  An older woman bent over a display of succulents. She wore a faded dress torn at the waist and athletic shoes with mismatched socks. Around one wrist twisted several lengths of dirty ribbon. Someone had attempted to braid her long, graying brown hair, but much of the wiry mess had escaped the plait to stick out at odd angles. She looked up and smiled, displaying empty spaces where teeth should be.