How Forever Feels (23 page)

Jack rode down in the elevator with them, making sure the old girl got back in the car safely.

“See?” Mrs. G let him help her in and get her buckled as Maya settled herself behind the wheel. “I told you you can't go wrong with a man named Jack. They're good people.”

“Yeah.” Maya grinned. “He's not bad.”

“Just remember what my Jack used to say.” Mrs. G reached for Jack's hand as he bent over at the waist to bid them goodbye. “A hard man is good to find.”

“Uh…” Maya blushed. “Okay, I think it was Mae West who said that.”

“Maybe you're right.” Mrs. G shot Jack a quick wink. “But she wasn't wrong.”

It was late in the afternoon when Maya hung up the phone and turned her ear toward the radio.

“Highway crews are waiting for the arrival of structural engineers who will need to assess the site and determine when it'll be safe to start the cleanup, but a source at the scene tells 89.3 NewsRadio”—the door whooshed open and in came Ellie, hood up, two take-out teas in hand and dripping all over, but before she could say anything, Maya pointed to the radio—“it'll be at least tomorrow. Stay tuned for updates as they come in.”

“What happened?” Maya asked. “That's the first I've heard.”

“Big rockslide on the highway; sounds pretty bad,” Ellie said, handing her one of the cups. “Right where the highway narrows this side of Porteau, where the rock face goes straight up. Looks like half the cliff came down.”

“You've seen pictures already?”

“Twitter, baby. Look.” She pulled out her phone and started flipping through the pictures the local paper and radio station were posting.

“Holy crap.” About a dozen boulders, ranging from about the size of a MINI Cooper right up to dump-truck size, covered the highway, carried along not only by their own momentum but by all the mud and water still cascading down on the side of the cliff. “Was anyone hurt?”

“Doesn't sound like it, but it took out the tracks, too.”

Sure enough, there must have been a good hundred meters of railway track buried and probably destroyed.

“God, when was the last time we had a slide like this on the highway?”

“I don't know,” Ellie said, heading back toward the door. “When was the last time we had this much rain? You wanna come over tonight?”

Maya considered it for a second; her ex-husband and his skank were getting married tomorrow…shouldn't she be more upset about it?

Nope, nothing. She wasn't about to send them a gift or anything, and if she never saw either one of them again, that'd be okay, too, but other than that…nothing.

“Nah, I'm good, thanks.”

“You sure? We could burn things in effigy.”

“Tempting.” Maya laughed. “But I've got some work I need to do. Thanks for the chai!”

For the next while she stopped every time an update came on, but the truth was she learned more from the people posting on Facebook and Twitter. By all accounts, it seemed awfully optimistic to hope that any of it would be cleared any time soon.

At home, Maya changed into her nightshirt and curled up on the couch with the small stack of catalogs she needed to look through for the store. She should have gone through them before now, but she'd spent almost all of her non-working time with Jack, and they had other things to do. More enjoyable things. Naked things.

It was too bad he was stuck over at Dickhead's tonight, because there were a few more naked things they could have been doing right then, too.

Page after page she flipped through, dog-earing the ones with interesting ideas on them—either for arrangements or products to sell in the store, like those miniature glass bubble gardens. She was almost through her last catalog when her doorbell rang.

“What the—” It wasn't that late, not quite nine, but she wasn't expecting anyone, and this time she'd darn well use the peephole.

“Jack!” Seeing him there, grinning at her like that, sent her heart into backflips that would have impressed even Mary Lou Retton.

“Hey, Snip.”

“Hey.” She went up on tiptoe for a kiss then pulled him in for a second one before letting him go. “What are you doing here? I thought you'd be at Will's all night.”

He didn't answer until they were back upstairs and by that time, his grin had taken on a decidedly worried shade. “Don't kill me.”

“What?” She stood just inside the kitchen with her hands on the counter, expecting him to say something like he'd just crashed his Jeep into her car or he'd eaten the last of the Cherry Vanilla Häagen-Dazs.

“I'm the best man, remember, so it's my job to help out.”

Ooooh, whatever this was, she hated it already. “Jack.”

“The road's out.”

“Yeah, I heard. Looks like you might have to hang around another day or so. Darn.” She grinned up at him, but his grin was all nerves now. “What does that have to do with you being the best man?”

Before answering, he looked around the kitchen and over at the coffee table in the living area.

“What are you looking for?”

“Weapons.”

“Ja—”

“Their flowers were coming up from West Van.”

It took a second for his words to sink into Maya's brain and then another second for her to stop sputtering.

“Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. No way.”

“You got your delivery in yesterday morning, right? Mondays and Thursdays, that's what you told me.”

“Not gonna happen.” Maya crossed her arms over her chest and stared him square in the eye. “No. She can go to the grocery store and get whatever wilted pieces of crap they have left.”

“Snip,” he said, his voice soft and way too damn soothing. “It's her wedding.”

“I don't give a shit if it's her funeral, Jack. No.”

“Her whole family's here.”

“Do. Not. Care.”

“Come on, Snip.” He took a tentative step closer, his voice soft, coaxing. “Here's your chance to be the bigger person.”

“I'm never the big person, remember? Snippet, that's me. No.”

Another step. “Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

The next step brought him right up in front of her so she had to tip her face up to see him. God, why did he have to look at her like that? Like he'd make it well worth her while if she'd do him this one solid, like he'd make it worth her while right there in her kitchen, and for a second she felt herself waver, then shook it off.

“No.”

With her back against the counter, and his arms boxing her in on either side, there was nowhere for her to go, and to be honest, she didn't try very hard to get away when he leaned down and kissed her.

He could kiss her all he liked, she wasn't doing it. And she wasn't going to kiss him back.

Okay, she'd kiss him back, but she wasn't going to slide her hand over his jaw like she always did. Okay, maybe she'd press her palm against his cheek a little, but she wasn't going to go up on her toes or wrap her hands around his neck or…

Damn it!

“Is that a yes?” he asked, sliding his hands down her back and cupping her butt. “ 'Cause I'm happy to stand here and keep persuading you if you like.”

“Jaaaack.” How did her unwavering “no” suddenly switch to such a whiny moan? “Why can't they go somewhere else?”

“You're the only florist in town.”

“There's a florist in Whistler—and that part of the highway is wide open.”

“Stella tried them, but they couldn't do it. Apparently Will and Stella aren't the only ones getting married this weekend, so the Whistler place is a little tapped out.”

“Shit.” Shaking her head, she stared up into his soft melty eyes and wished she didn't love him so much. “Really? You're going to make me do this? For
them
?”

“No, of course I'm not going to make you.” He kissed her again, so soft it was more like a whisper against her lips. “I'm just going to ask nicely and offer my services to help.”

“
Help?
It's Friday night, Jack, and the wedding's tomorrow! I'm not even stocked to do a wedding! Do you have any idea how much work goes into bridal bouquets? Do you know what her colors are? What type of bouquet she wanted? How many bridesmaids she's going to have? What about boutonnieres? Centerpieces? What about a corsage for Genie? Or Skank's mom? What time's the ceremony?”

“Okay, whoa. Whoa.” He hadn't let go of her, but his eyes grew wider with every question she fired at him. “My tie's pink, does that help?”

“Jack!”

“Okay.” He laughed. “Relax. At this point, they'll take whatever they can get, but I was serious when I said my tie was pink. I think her girlfriends are wearing pink, too.”

“Like carnation-pink? Fuchsia? Blush? Rose? How many?”

“Two. There's another guy besides me, too.”

“And?!”

“Oh, right, uh, what else was there?”

“Corsages for the moms? Number of centerpieces?”

She might as well have asked him to speak Swahili.

“Hang on.” He pulled his phone out and dialed. “I'll find out.”

“You do that. And tell them I'm charging them double.”

“Okay.” He laughed quietly.

“No, triple!”

“Fine.” He covered the mouthpiece for a second. “What am I asking again?”

Maya snapped out all her questions a second time, with instructions for the skank to email or text pictures of the original plans and the dress, then rolled her eyes every time Jack relayed an answer. She didn't know why he thought that was so funny, but he was still grinning at her when he hung up.

“Will and Stella asked me to tell you they really appreciate this.”

“Yeah, well, you can tell them I said they should go fu—”

“Maya.”

“Oh, right, they've already done that, haven't they?” She tried to shove his arm away, but she might as well have been trying to lift Thor's hammer, so instead she ducked under and headed for her bedroom to get changed. “And you didn't tell them I was charging them quadruple the price.”

“Quadruple?” He laughed. “I'll tell them later.”

Yeah, she knew what that meant. “You told them you'd pay for the flowers, didn't you?”

“Maybe.”

“Jack!”

“What?” He asked, still laughing. When she went to pull her hair out from the collar of her shirt, he brushed her hands away so he could do it instead. And as ticked off as she was, the touch of his fingers against the back of her neck still made her shiver. “You're not going to go do this now, are you?”

“Uh, yeah. When did you think I was going to do it? A noon wedding means they'll need everything by ten or eleven for the pictures before the ceremony, and they'll need to set up the tables with the centerpieces. Look out.”

She pushed past him, grabbed her jacket and keys, and headed for the door, with him tripping after her.

“How can I help?”

“By staying out of the way and distracting me from the fact that I'm doing this for the two people I dislike most in the world.”

“Okay.”

Back at the store, Maya studied the scribbled list she'd brought with her, then the pictures Skank had sent to Jack.

“Figures,” she muttered. “Her dress is gorgeous. Bitch. Simple, traditional, flowing…so why the hell would she pick tailflowers? God almighty.”

Rolling her eyes, she returned the phone to Jack, who was grinning back at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He chuckled. “You're funny, that's all.”

“Hilarious.” Another eye roll as she pointed toward her computer. “Email those to me here and print them off.”

“Okay, but remember none of this has to be big and fancy, Snip, just whatever you can throw together.”

Maya dragged her gaze up from her list and stared back at him for a long moment.

“Throw together? The Stalk Market doesn't just ‘throw things together,' Jack. We take pride in what we do—regardless of who it's for—and if Skank's going to have her bouquet designed by me, it's going to be the best damn bouquet she's ever seen—and there's no way in hell it's going to have even one of those tailflowers in it.”

His grin widened as she ranted. “Attagirl.”

“Whatever,” she huffed. “Just print off the pictures.”

Apron on, hair clipped back, she pulled out her binder of ideas and flipped through it, holding the picture of Skank's dress next to each bouquet until she hit on the one that would complement it best. Classic teardrop shape in soft pinks and creams with just enough green to break it up. Perfect.

With Jack's help, she gathered the buckets of flowers and fillers and set everything up on and around her work table, then set out small spaces for the other arrangements. As usual when she was building bouquets like these, it took her a little while to get a good feel for it, to move away from the design she started with and turn it into something personal, something original; and the great thing was, the more she relaxed, the easier the bouquet came together.

And the more Jack talked, the more she relaxed; there was just something about his voice that soothed her, lightened her frown and made her laugh, even if he was talking about Dickhead's bachelor party.

“I had no idea you had so many friends in this town,” he said. “I'm pretty sure that waitress down at the pub—”

“Shelley.”

“Yeah, her. I'm pretty sure I saw her spit in one of Will's drinks.”

Maya grinned, making a mental note to up Shelley's tip next week. “She's good people, that Shelley.”

“Oh, and your friend Delilah was there.”

“Of course she was.” Maya grunted. “Did she give you all lap dances?”

“No!” It was cute how indignant he sounded. “But she did offer.”