Love in Bloom (3 page)

No, it was bad enough that her sister had married the man whom Lily had wanted for herself. Lily didn’t have to stick around and watch them have babies, not when she so wanted babies, too. If she couldn’t have a family of her own, Lily would do whatever it took to build a successful business in Bygones. That included, she reminded herself as Tate Bronson and his adorable daughter moved toward her once more, those things that went against her nature, such as speaking up. So, as he bent to take up another of her boxes, she found her voice.

“Uh, if you…if you could be careful.”

He gave her such a look, as if she were an inanimate object suddenly come to life, but he took great care stacking the boxes and hoisting them onto his shoulders. He then turned and walked away without a word. Isabella took up her backpack, chattering.

“I’ll have to sit in the corner, but it’s okay. I don’t mind. Daddy shoulda left the bags of feed at home. He didn’t figure you’d have so much stuff.”

“I see,” Lily muttered. She quickly took the backpack from Isabella and shouldered it once more, then pulled up the handle on one of the medium bags. “Think you can handle that?”

“Uh-huh.”

Using both hands, Isabella began pulling the bag toward the door. Lily stacked the remaining two boxes atop the remaining suitcase and, also using both hands, began backing toward the door. They made the sidewalk before Tate returned to scoop up boxes and bags.

“Come on.”

Lily tried to explain herself as they crossed the street and trailed across the parking lot. “I, um, looked into standard shipping, but it was cheaper to check some things as luggage and send the rest as air freight, and this way I have it all on hand when I arrive. I—I’m sorry I didn’t think to warn anyone that I would have extra luggage.”

He shrugged. “Part of my responsibilities.”

“Do you mind if I ask what your responsibilities are, I mean, so far as I’m concerned?”

“Get you there. Make sure you get set up in time for the Grand Opening.”

“Very good. I appreciate that.”

He seemed to thaw a bit then. “I’m your official contact with the committee and your host, at least through the Grand Opening reception.”

“Oh. All right. That’s nice. Thank you.”

“No problem. When you’re ready to hire help, I’ll have a list of names for you, too.”

“Ah. That will be useful.”

“When do you think you’ll be ready to hire someone, by the way?”

“Um, soon after the Grand Opening, I should think.”

“I see.”

“That is, if it’s successful.”

“The town’s done its part,” he told her.

“That’s good to know. What can you tell me about the town? I mean, beyond the statistics.”

He seemed to consider for a moment before saying, “Nothing much to tell.” Lily’s spirits sagged. She was tired and uncertain and hoping for a warm welcome, not this terse, tepid greeting. “You’ll see soon enough,” he added, stopping next to a dirty white double-cab pickup truck. He placed one of the boxes in the bed of the truck. Lily took a deep breath.

“Um, do you…do you think we could put those boxes inside?”

He turned a surprised look on her. “You want those particular boxes inside, not the suitcases?”

“What’s in the boxes is more valuable,” she said, pushing up her glasses.

He lifted his eyebrows. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.”

“Yes, thank you,” she replied softly.

He reached into his pocket and an electronic beep sounded. He opened the back door of the cab and wrestled the big suitcase to the ground then transferred boxes to the inside. It took some shifting around, but they finally got everything loaded. As soon as they were all belted into their seats, Tate behind the wheel, Lily on the front passenger side and Isabella in a booster seat behind Lily in the back, Isabella spoke up.

“Daddy got on the SOS ‘cause we’re Bronsons.”

“SOS?”

“It’s short for Save Our Streets,” he explained, starting the engine. “That’s the name of the committee that chose the businesses that got the grants.”

“Yes, I remember reading that in the paperwork, but what does being Bronsons have to do with it?”

“Bronsons founded the town,” he answered brusquely.

“They were brothers,” Isabella volunteered, “and one of ‘em runned off with the other one’s sweetheart, so they hated each other.”

“Oh, dear,” Lily murmured.

“They got over it,” Tate stated matter-of-factly, and that was that.

Lily sighed mentally. She’d imagined a sweet little town, pulling together to do something grand, not feuding founders and “nothing much to tell.”

Suddenly Isabella piped up from the backseat again. “Are you married?”

“What? Uh. No.”

“Daddy’s not married, either.”

So, no fashion model wife then. That explained the falling-down hem on Isabella’s T-shirt. No conscientious mother would let such a pretty little girl go out with the hem coming down on her T-shirt, or so Lily imagined. A single father, now, he probably wouldn’t even notice such a thing. While Lily wondered about Isabella’s mother, Isabella wondered about other things, and she wasn’t the least bit shy in letting Lily know.

“Have you got a boyfriend?”

“Isabella!” Tate barked.

Lily cringed. “No, I don’t have a boyfriend, either.”

“How come?”

“Well, I—I just…” Lily felt her face heat.

“Don’t you want to get married and have children?”

My, what a direct child. “Y-yes. Very much.”

“Do you like babies? I like babies.”

“I love babies.”

“My friend Bonnie has a baby sister. I want a baby sister.”

Lily shot a glance at Tate Bronson, who was not married. Perhaps he and Isabella’s mother were divorced, and his ex-wife had remarried, and Isabella was hoping for a baby sister from that quarter. If so, that might explain the granitelike tightness of Tate’s profile just then.

“Isabella, that’s enough!” Tate ordered. “You pipe down now.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

“I mean it. Not another word.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lily sank down in her seat, feeling the undercurrents swirl around her. She didn’t know Tate Bronson’s story, but she knew her own.

Didn’t she want to get married and have children? Oh, yes. Very much. But that wasn’t likely when she didn’t even have a boyfriend, when she hadn’t
ever
had a boyfriend. And why was that? Wasn’t it obvious? Painfully obvious, she imagined, at least to Tate. Maybe not to his precocious daughter.

She just wasn’t the sort men noticed or in which they developed interest. She’d had ample proof of that already. She didn’t need any more, not from Tate Bronson or anyone else.

Lily turned her unseeing gaze out the quickly darkening window and prayed that she hadn’t made a horrible mistake in coming to Kansas.

Chapter Two

H
er first sight of Bygones was not encouraging. Once they had gotten beyond the confines of the city, the landscape had seemed pleasantly green with rolling hills and lots of trees. About an hour out, however, that had gradually given way to flat golden plains and mere lines of trees following creeks and streams. By the time they reached the outskirts of Bygones, everything seemed dusty and barren in the moonlight. Lily pointed at a tall, ghostly shape rising sharply out of the dark.

“What is that?”

“Grain elevator,” came the terse reply.

They passed a scattering of low buildings next to the tall ones, and a little farther down the road they came to a block of small clapboard houses surrounded by too many vehicles and too little fencing. A few trees spread stunted branches and dark shadows. A dog ran to the edge of the road and barked madly as they passed. Tate paid it no mind, the truck speeding on. It slowed a few moments later as more substantial homes and buildings came into view. They passed the back of a small post office and a drive-through drop-off box. A few seconds later the truck turned right onto Main Street.

Lily caught her breath. This was more like it. Old-fashioned wrought-iron lampposts, topped now with pairs of American flags; illuminated matching benches placed strategically along the wide sidewalk. Ornamental evergreens in enormous terra-cotta pots complemented the brick pavement of the wide street and sprouted tiny flags amongst their needles. The buildings on both sides of the street had been painted a creamy yellow-tan and fronted with colorful awnings, now draped with patriotic bunting. The woodwork around the recessed doors and the large display windows had been painted to complement the awning colors. The buildings were old, perhaps from the 1930s, but looked to be in excellent condition.

On the south side of the street, every shop window bore a banner that read, “Welcome!”

Below that another sign read, “Happy Independence Day!”

Lily’s gaze sought out the spring-green awning with the heart-shaped scarlet lily gracefully arcing across it. The words below it in flowing script read, “Love in Bloom.” A scarlet heart dotted the
i
. Lily laughed in delight. It looked exactly as she had designed it, exactly as she had submitted it.

Tate glanced at her, asking, “So far so good?”

“It’s exactly what I hoped it would look like.”

He nodded. “Everyone says the contractors and consultants have done excellent work.”

Tate traveled on past the shop to the four-way stop at the intersection of Main and Bronson. Since hers was the second shop from the corner, it wasn’t far. He didn’t bother to actually stop, simply slowed and hooked a U-turn in the wide intersection.

“Is that legal?”

He shrugged. “It’s late. No other traffic. I wouldn’t try it in the daytime, though.”

“Since I don’t have a vehicle, I don’t expect it’ll be a problem.”

Shaking his head, he said, “I can’t help wondering how you figure on getting around out here without your own transportation.”

“Oh, I’m going to live in the apartment above the shop.”

“Yeah, I know, but—”

“I’m told there’s a grocery up the street.”

“Sure. It’ll do if you’re not too picky.”

“And there’s a doctor a couple blocks over.”

“Tuesdays and Thursdays only.”

He pulled the truck over to the curb in front of the shop and killed the engine but made no move to get out.

“What about restaurants?” Lily asked.

“Uh, well, there’s the grill at The Everything for lunch and dinner. That’s like half a block behind you, but the menu’s pretty limited.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m not quite sure what you can get at the Cozy Cup Cafe after it opens, not much more than some fancy coffee and snacks, if I remember the prospectus correctly.” He glanced at the shop on the corner next door, adding, “The bakery will open soon, too. That ought to get you breakfast and some yummy desserts. That’s about it, though.”

“Okay. Well, I probably ought to be eating in more often anyway.”

“That’s what we do.”

She thought for a moment of all the lovely dinners out that she’d enjoyed in Boston, of the oyster bars and bistros, the pizzerias and one-of-a-kind “fusion” restaurants, the Back Bay seafood and Beacon Hill steaks. She thought of friends and family left behind, and her spirits wavered, but then she thought of new friends to be made and a business of her own, a new life in a new place. Her chin rose in determination.

A sound came from the backseat of the truck, the kind a sleeping child makes when perfectly at ease and content. Little Isabella Bronson of the flaming red hair and bright blue eyes slept peacefully behind them in her father’s pickup truck, apparently as content as if she were at home in her own bed. Smiling, Lily looked up at that awning and the front of the shop. Her gaze rose to the darkened windows above the awning. Her apartment. Her own shop and home. It was a far cry from Boston, but it was hers, her chance to do something real, something besides practice law and be miserable. This was her chance to break the mold, to prove herself, to be someone she liked and admired, not just a failed Farnsworth clone, yearning for what could not be.

Dorothy,
she thought flippantly,
we
are
in Kansas!

And maybe this wasn’t a mistake. Maybe, for once, she’d done the right thing.

Oh, Lord,
she silently prayed for the thousandth time since she’d read that article and filled out the application,
please help me do the right things. For once in my life, please help me get it right.

* * *

Glancing into the backseat, Tate saw that Isabella still slept soundly. She’d dropped off soon after they’d left the environs of Kansas City, which was no surprise considering that the hour had been well past her normal bedtime. He should have left her with his parents instead of dragging her along on this trip, but that would have meant allowing her to sleep over, and he hated when she did that. Even after all these years he couldn’t get used to sleeping out at his place alone. When he’d first brought her home from the hospital, a new father and a widower, he’d wondered if he’d ever sleep again. But they’d found their way together, and now he couldn’t seem to manage without her even for a single night. His mother said that he sometimes held on to Isabella too tightly, but he didn’t know how else to hold her.

Lily Farnsworth got out of the truck and all but skipped across the sidewalk to the door of her shop and back again, her excitement palpable. Tate took the keys from the pocket of his jeans and tossed them to her. Catching them easily, she graced him with a smile before spinning away again. He watched her fit the key into the lock and turn it. The door swung wide. Lily reached inside and flipped on the lights; then she glided over the threshold into the bare space filled only with two small glass-fronted humidifiers to display the flowers, several large flat boxes, a small unpainted waist-high counter and a steel worktable half-hidden behind a wall at the back of the room.

She poked around for a bit while Tate unloaded suitcases from the bed of the truck and hauled them onto the sidewalk. Emerging from the building a few minutes later, she pronounced the place, “Perfect.”

“Looks like it needs some work to me,” Tate teased, unable to resist her enthusiasm.