Love in Bloom (17 page)

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, pulling the door handle.

Smiling, Lily did the same on her side. He lifted her bicycle out of the bed of the truck and carted it up the stairs for her. While she got dinner going, he looked around the apartment, taking note of the unusual red furniture and dark yellow trimmings. She’d come up with curtains from somewhere, dark yellow with a red design printed on them.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he called to her. She stuck her head out of the kitchen and smiled at him.

“Thank you. Miss Mars has been collecting bits and pieces for me.”

“I’ve never seen anything like your living room furniture.”

Lily chuckled. “You mean, you’ve never seen anyone paint outdoor furniture and use it inside before?”

He took a second look. “So that’s it. Wow. I didn’t even recognize it.”

“Same with this,” she said, carrying two plates, napkins and flatware to the round glass-topped dining table. She had no chairs for the table, just wood stools that she had painted and topped with cushions that matched her curtains. “Hope you like mac-and-cheese casserole and salad.”

“Sure. Who doesn’t?”

She went back to the kitchen. He stepped over to examine a framed photo on the wall. The girl in the strapless wedding gown looked a lot like Lily but with less natural beauty and more artificial polish. Her long hair had been professionally streaked and straightened and her makeup carefully done, but she lacked the lithe ballerina’s build and the wholesome, unconscious loveliness that was Lily. This young woman looked worldly and…like every other attractive blonde. She simply wasn’t as sweet and special as the maid of honor beside her. Lily looked slightly uncomfortable in a long strapless dove-gray dress, her hair swept up atop her head, fancy earrings dangling from her earlobes. He wished he’d been there to give her a hug and tell her to relax.

Hearing her emerge from the kitchen again, he said, “You’re not wearing your glasses in this photo.”

“I do have contact lenses, but I have problems with the solutions you have to store them in, so I don’t wear them very often.”

“I see. Just as well, if you ask me. I like the glasses. I like the way they look on you.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She blushed very prettily. Gesturing at the photo, she said, “They didn’t go with the outfit, though, especially not with those earrings.” She turned back to the kitchen.

He chuckled and moved to the table, where she had placed a steaming casserole and cool salad bowl. “You can choose the earrings for your own wedding,” he said, raising his voice. “That’s what Eve told her bridesmaids when we got married.”

A long silence followed, during which even he froze. Had he really just said that so easily?

Lily came out of the kitchen carrying two tall glasses of iced water. He bent and pulled out one of the stools for her before taking the glasses from her grasp and placing one at each of the place settings.

“Looks good,” he told her, dropping down onto his own stool.

“Thank you,” she said, bowing her head and folding her hands.

A moment ticked by before he understood that she was praying. Suddenly he realized that she’d been giving thanks before her meals all along. He hadn’t caught on before because she was so quiet about it and because she so often bowed her head. Now he realized that before every meal, she bowed her head and went quiet for a few seconds. He felt small and foolish and yet somehow
right
about it. She looked up, smiled and reached for the salad tongs.

For lack of anything else to talk about, he asked about her sister’s wedding and received a blow-by-blow account that would have bored him to tears under other circumstances. His tears were tears of laughter, however, given Lily’s witty telling of the “great engagement announcement,” during which two people choked—Lily and the senior partner at the law firm—and the “invitation list wars,” wherein the bride’s mother and the groom’s settled their guest list via professional arbitration.

Tate also learned that Lily had worked for a florist after earning a bachelor’s degree in design and then while she attended law school at her family’s behest. Later, because of her recommendation, the family had chosen her former employer to provide the flowers for her sister’s wedding. Lily had volunteered to oversee the project, and the same florist who had once employed Lily had shown her the article about Bygones’ Heart of Main Street grant project, which had given Lily the idea of applying for the grant.

“And here we are,” Tate said, pushing back his now empty plate to rest his folded forearms against the edge of the table.

“And here we are,” Lily said.

“I’m glad. I’m really glad.” Glancing around, he saw that night had fallen. “Here,” he said, rising to his feet. “Let me help you clean up so I can go. I’ve got an injured hog I need to check on before I can call it a day.”

“No, no,” she refused, staying his hands as he reached for the plates. “I’ll take care of it. You go on. I’m just glad you stayed. Eating alone all the time gets old.”

“I can see how it would, but I thank you all the same. I’ll be seeing you at the garden in the morning.”

She followed him to the entry. “That’s right. On my new bike.”

He opened the door and let himself out onto the landing. “Don’t forget about the party on Saturday.”

“Don’t worry,” she told him, following him out. He started down the stairs. “I won’t leave you alone with all those little fingernails to paint,” she teased.

He paused, turned, walked back up the stairs and wagged a finger in her face. He’d intended to say something clever, something witty and smart, but when he saw her standing there with that relaxed, happy smile on her face and those deep blue eyes shining behind the lenses of those cute round glasses, every word, every thought went right out of his head except one. He swept his arm around her, folding her close with the crook of his arm. Sliding his free hand over her shoulder blade, he tilted his head and kissed her. This was no my-sweet-friend kiss, no thoughtlessly affectionate kiss, no accidental or grateful kiss. This was about the woman who made him smile and want and forget. This was about not being able to help himself, about not even wanting to.

Lily relaxed against him, leaned against his chest and yielded her sweet lips to him. Her slender, finely boned hands stole up and over his shoulders to slip around his neck and into his hair. He smiled into that kiss, and she smiled, and he kissed her again.

He heard Isabella saying
Mama must like it in Heaven,
and he felt a new gladness. It was too much, too shocking. He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to Lily’s. The apples of her cheeks were as pink as roses, her smile so wide that he couldn’t help smiling in return.

She had closed her fingers in the collar of his shirt and seemed to be having some trouble letting go, but her grip gradually loosened.

“I just thought you should know,” he said, “that I had noticed.”

Stepping back, he landed hard with one foot on the stair below the small platform where they stood. They both laughed. He turned, went quickly down the stairs and out into the night, thankfully without falling on his face or breaking his neck. Spinning away from the door, he caught a clean breath.

He must be losing his mind. He should be keeping his distance and instead what did he do? He kissed her! Worse, he wanted…
God help me, I want Lily
.

Tate’s thoughts stuttered to an abrupt halt.

Had he just reached out to God?

Yes, of course he had. And why not? He hadn’t stopped believing any more than he’d stopped breathing. He’d just stopped reaching out, stopped daring to reach out.

He clapped a hand to the back of his neck and looked around him. He hadn’t reached out to God in years, but Coraline and the mayor, Joe Sheridan, the Garmans and so many others had unashamedly hit their knees and asked for God’s help in this time of trouble. And just look what had come of it.

An anonymous benefactor had stepped forward; as a result, downtown Bygones had transformed into a thing of beauty. The place hadn’t looked this alive even when Randall’s had been in operation. Main Street literally bustled these days. Oh, it didn’t make up for Randall’s closing, but it helped. It did. The community garden had helped, too, and what Lily had done this evening had helped. And they were just getting started!

Tate nodded and put his back to the painted brick beside the door. “Okay, God,” he said. “Okay.”

He still didn’t get why Eve had to die, especially like that. Maybe he never would understand why that had to be. But he had to admit that, as Lily had said, sometimes things just worked out the way they should. That couldn’t always be an accident, not when good people like her took the time to pray about them, not when folks pulled together and kept the faith, did kind things for one another and refused to quit. Maybe it was time he got over his loss, focused on his blessings, worked for—and expected—the best and took a few chances. Just look at what shy, retiring Lily had done, after all, bucking her whole family and moving halfway across the country to take a chance on a new home and an old dream. All in the hope of being noticed.

Well, he had noticed. Despite himself, despite his past, despite everything. And now he wanted her. He shouldn’t, but he did.

Maybe, if things worked out between them, she would be as glad as he to forego a pregnancy. Not every woman felt the need to give birth to a child. She might be one of those women who liked kids and not babies or was willing to adopt or… He didn’t dare hope for it. He didn’t dare. But how did he not?

Chapter Eleven

T
he bike that Lily rode to the community garden on Friday morning was lavender in color. Knowing that she wouldn’t sleep for thinking of that kiss, she’d stayed up Thursday evening to sand and paint the frame and fenders in the back of her shop, using cardboard to shield those parts that should remain unpainted. That morning before she’d left, she’d affixed a half-moon wicker hamper between the handlebars. She’d found the hamper at the This ‘N’ That and had thought to use it in a floral arrangement, but it worked perfectly as a basket for a lavender bicycle. She was a happy cyclist when she arrived just after dawn in tennis shoes, shorts and a snug T-shirt, her ponytail set off by the visor Tate had given her nearly a week earlier. Tate and several others were already on-site, including Josh Smith in his Cozy Cup Cafe van.

Kenneth met her with the news that he’d brought several small pots of herbs for her to sell at the flower shop. While she loaded these into her hamper, they discussed the possibility of his building strawberry wagons for her to sell. When that conversation concluded, she turned to find Tate ready with coffee and breakfast pastries for them to share.

“Josh says they’re day-old,” he reported, flicking crumbs from his shirt, “but they taste great to me.”

Lily tried not to blush as she met his gaze, but she couldn’t help it. No one had ever kissed her the way he had kissed her last night, as if she was Eve to his Adam. But then, he’d already had his Eve, and he’d told Lily in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want another, so she would be foolish, indeed, to get her hopes up over a few kind words, a single dinner alone and a few expressions of affection. Tate was not the sort to lead a girl on or take advantage of her; it was much more likely that he’d felt sorry for her after her ill-advised confession on the trip back into town. She’d as good as told him that she’d never been kissed, not really kissed, anyway.

Besides, even if Tate should feel some real fondness for her, that didn’t mean he was thinking about marriage, which brought other issues to mind. For one thing, he’d stated quite firmly that he wanted no more children and wouldn’t go through another pregnancy. That was fine for him. He had Isabella, who was as adorable as could be, but Lily didn’t think she could marry and not have a child of her own. She’d left Boston less because her sister had married a man she’d liked than because of her sister’s stated intention to start a family right away. No, Lily didn’t think she could give up the idea of a baby of her own, not even for Tate.

For another thing, she couldn’t accept the idea of a Tate who didn’t attend church and nursed a grudge against God. That, more than anything else, grieved her.

She took the coffee and pastry, trying not to think of anything else.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank Josh Smith. And Melissa Sweeney.”

They took a few moments to eat. Tate looked over her bike and pronounced it “sweet,” grinning at the color and flipping the lid on the basket, mindful of the potted herbs inside.

“You never fail to amaze, Lily,” he told her. She couldn’t help wondering what that meant. Draining his coffee, he crumpled the cup and tossed it into the litter barrel nearby. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Lawyer,” as he walked toward the garden.

She hurried to toss her half-eaten pastry and near-empty cup, catching up with him inside the fence. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“You’re too creative, kind-hearted and gentle to successfully practice law.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” she returned wryly.

“Just the truth,” Tate said.

The truth was that she’d been a terrible lawyer. Her brother-in-law, before he
was
her brother-in-law, had once told her, after reviewing one of her briefs, that it was one thing to see both viewpoints in a lawsuit and another to
sympathize
too closely with both sides. He’d suggested, with some exasperation, that she might have a future in arbitration, but she hated confrontation too much to consider a career as a mediator.

Lily got busy. Danny and his friend Matt Garman seemed to make a point of working alongside her. Danny proved quite knowledgeable about the plants. Matt proved equally as well informed about the school.

“The teachers are all expecting layoff notices by the end of the first semester,” he told her during the course of their conversation.

“That’s awful,” Lily said.

“We can still turn it around,” Coraline insisted from two rows over. “We’re planning fund-raisers, and if our tax base improves just a bit, we’ll be okay.”