Love in Bloom (8 page)

Dear Lily, I will treat you as you deserve to be treated. Please do not mistake it for anything more than common courtesy. Sincerely, Tate Bronson.

She thought of all those photos on the walls of his home and felt like crying, as much for herself as for him—not that she was foolish enough to think of Tate Bronson as anything other than a nice young man who had been dealt a heavy blow. She just hated for any of her friends to carry around the kind of sadness she now sensed in him.

Chapter Five

L
ily Farnsworth was a quiet one. Well, quieter than the other women of his acquaintance, anyway, Tate mused. She was quieter than his mom, way quieter than Gayla, quieter than Eve had been or certainly Isabella would ever be. Tate had seen her looking at the photos, and he knew that she wanted to ask questions, but she wouldn’t. He could avoid the whole subject just by keeping his own mouth shut. The puzzling thing was that, for once, he didn’t want to avoid the subject.

He waited until the house fell from sight in his rearview mirror, then he just said it.

“She died of a stroke about four minutes after Isabella was born.”

Lily gasped, her face turning to him so that the dash lights reflected off the lenses of her glasses. “What?”

“Eve. My wife. She died about four minutes after Isabella was born.”

“Oh, my.”

“It was a long, difficult labor,” he went on. “Eve’s blood pressure had spiked repeatedly, but the doctor wasn’t worried. Then we went into delivery. Evie was so tired. I said, ‘Let’s get this over with, sweetheart. Let’s bring our little girl into the world.’ I don’t know how she did it. She pushed so hard, and then there was Isabella, beautiful and perfect. We were laughing and holding her together while the doctor and nurses took care of things, and then they asked Eve for one more push. Suddenly she convulsed. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she died in the space of a heartbeat.”

“Tate.” Lily reached across the cab and latched onto his forearm with her finely knuckled hand. “I’m so sorry.”

He nodded, feeling oddly comforted. “They tried to bring her back. They knew she’d stroked, that her brain was gone, but they’d hoped to keep her heart beating so she wouldn’t die on our daughter’s birthday, but it didn’t work.”

Lily took her hand back. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Nothing to say. Eve and I were high school sweethearts. We married young. Everyone thought too young, but we were sensible and got our house built and in order before we started our family. And then Eve was gone.”

“Your greatest joy and deepest sorrow within minutes,” Lily whispered.

He nodded. “That about sums it up. A father and a widower on the same day. I don’t think I’d have made it through the loss without my daughter.”

“I’m glad you have her.”

“So am I, but you can see now why Isabella latches on to every single woman of a motherly age who crosses her path.”

“Because she never knew her own mother.”

“Just so. Make no mistake about it, though.” He shifted in his seat and said it straight out. “I never intend to remarry.”

“But marrying again doesn’t mean that you’d be widowed again.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I don’t
know,
but the odds against it are—”

“The odds against it the first time were high.”

“Still—”

“I won’t marry again because I won’t have more children,” Tate stated flatly. “I can’t go through that again. I just won’t risk it,” he told her, “and no one has a right to ask me to. No one. Not after what I’ve been through.”

“O-of course,” Lily whispered, ducking her head.

Tate nodded, telling himself that it had to be said. It was better this way. Now, no one would be hurt. No one would start imagining futures where none could exist. They could be friends without worrying about romantic foolishness.

He changed the subject, chatting about fireworks and dewberry tea, the calf he’d treated and the progress they’d made in the shop that day. She nodded, hummed and tried to act interested, but he felt like Isabella, running off at the mouth. When they got to the shop, he started to get out and go around to open her door for her, but she hopped out before he could get a boot on the ground.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” she called from the curb. “And for all your help this afternoon.”

“Sure,” he replied, waving. “No problem.”

She closed the door. As he pulled away, he heard her say something. It sounded like “Just part of your official responsibilities.”

Why that made him squirm, he didn’t know. It was only the truth. He was her SOS Committee contact and host. Nothing more. He had done what he was supposed to do where she was concerned, and now that he’d laid out the facts, he could fulfill his official responsibilities without fear of any misunderstandings between them. Finally he could relax around her. He was sure that he’d start to feel good about that anytime now.

* * *

Staring down at the dark, empty street the next evening, Lily set aside her prepackaged dinner, her meal largely untouched. Earlier that morning after her flowers had arrived, she had worked on the arrangements that she had promised the other business owners, pouring everything she had into the work, aware that much depended on the success of this “scheme,” as Gayla had put it. Throughout the afternoon the Independence Day decorations had come down, and the Grand Opening banner had gone up. Spanning the street, it declared Monday as the “Heart of Main Street GRAND OPENING” and named the new businesses in town: Cozy Cup Cafe, Sweet Dreams Bakery, Love in Bloom, Happy Endings Bookstore, The Fixer-Upper and Fluff & Stuff. Spurred by that reminder of the looming opening and the hopes of the town, Lily had stayed so busy that she’d barely had time to think about Tate or Isabella or the previous evening’s events. Yet everything he’d told her had hovered in the back of her mind.

She had held it off by hurrying to the grocery to fully stock her freezer, refrigerator and pantry, paying to have what she couldn’t carry, including numerous cans of tiny shrimp, delivered by a teenage boy in a beat-up Jeep. Now, however, with the day done and downtown all but deserted, she could no longer hold the shadows at bay. Instead she let the dark clouds roll over the horizon of her thoughts and faced facts.

She was a fool when it came to men. She continually built emotional castles in the air around men who cared nothing for her. Most had never known she even existed. Tate, at least, had recognized her interest. He’d seen that she was intrigued by him and his daughter, despite her best intentions and better judgment, and he’d let her know that she shouldn’t pin any hopes on him. She should be grateful to him, not moping around and disappointed.

Lily stared across the street at the yellow light behind the window shade of Miss Mars’s apartment and wondered if she would still be here in another fifty or sixty years, sitting alone, eating frozen dinners and staring down at an empty street. If so, she hoped she would be as good-natured and sweet about it as Miss Mars. Lily couldn’t help wondering if that old dear had ever had her silly heart broken. Did she have a sister, for instance, who had married the man with whom she’d fancied herself in love? Lily could not even call home to Boston for fear of hearing about the newlyweds, who were no doubt back from the honeymoon by now and at the law firm, taking the world by storm. No, it was better to sit alone and concentrate on what was important.

This town was important. Making her business a success was important. Living the life that God had ordained for her was important. That mattered most of all.

After a while Lily went to her room, got out her Bible and read until her eyes grew heavy and she finally slept, comforted. For the moment at least.

She woke the next morning uneasy, however, and no matter how industriously she worked, for some reason Lily couldn’t seem to pull the shop together. Oh, all the elements were there. The fixtures were all in place. The fresh flowers had been delivered. The painting had been finished and the shelves were stocked, but the place seemed a jumble. Lily couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong, so she simply asked God to show her what was missing.

After saying that prayer, she decided to spend the majority of Saturday afternoon finishing the arrangements and delivering them to the various stores. Everyone seemed quite pleased, and she tried to take heart from that. Feeling that she had done all that she could, Lily spent the evening painting her furniture and puttering around the apartment. She went to bed that evening pleasantly exhausted—and woke the following morning deeply depressed.

She missed her friends. She missed her church. She missed her old apartment, dinky and expensive as it had been. She missed her
car,
as pathetic as that seemed. Everything just felt all wrong, and this being Sunday, she didn’t even have the distraction of work to occupy her mind. Worry moved in and took up residence.

What if she couldn’t make the shop a success? Bygones was banking on her and the others to make their businesses work. Suddenly it felt as if the town expected too much, needed too much. Lily knew, of course, that such defeatist thoughts were not of God and that she should get her mind off them.

An image of the church by which Tate had driven her on Thursday came to her, and Lily briefly considered walking there. It couldn’t be more than six or seven blocks, but she hadn’t noted the service times so didn’t know when to arrive. Besides, she’d never been bold enough to walk into any place uninvited and unannounced all alone.

Well, she would just have to have church by herself. So determined, she made herself presentable, fetched her Bible from her bedroom, perched on the chaise, which was quickly becoming her preferred piece of furniture and began to read aloud from the eighth Psalm.

“‘O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.’”

A tapping came at her door, and she looked up from the Bible as if expecting a guest to materialize in the center of the room. But of course she had locked her door the night before. It was easier to take the girl out of Boston than to take Boston out of the girl, after all. Keeping her finger inside the Bible to hold her place, she quickly rose and moved into the tiny entry to let in her guest.

Miss Ann Mars hopped into the room like a bent, white-haired sparrow, wearing hat and gloves. “Hurry now,” she admonished gently, smiling at the Bible in Lily’s hands. “We’ll be late for church.”

“Oh! How did you know? Th-that I’d want to go, I mean.”

Miss Mars smiled and took the Bible from her hands. “An old lady learns to notice things, like how a certain someone always prays over her meals. Quickly now.”

Laughing, Lily ran to pull on her best dress, a soft navy blue floral print with a hem that frothed inches above her ankles. She tossed a long slender lavender scarf about her neck. As she stepped into flat shoes, Miss Mars called out that she’d meet Lily downstairs. Grabbing her keys and handbag from the bedside table, Lily softly sang the words that she had read earlier.

“‘O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth…’”

Even in Kansas.

* * *

The back driver’s-side door of the familiar blue sedan stood open. Lily reached inside and laid her Bible, with its soft dark red-leather binding, on the seat. Coraline Connolly twisted to look over her shoulder from the driver’s seat. Miss Mars had taken the front passenger side.

“Thank you so much for the ride,” Lily said, slipping into the car. “I’ve seen you stopping for Miss Mars before.”

Coraline chuckled. “I’ve been picking up Ann for services at the Bygones Community Church for the better part of a decade. It’s no trouble to pick up you, too.”

“Still, I appreciate it,” Lily told her. “I wouldn’t have gone on my own.”

“I assumed as much,” Coraline said. “The committee members agreed not to press the newcomers to join any group in town until you’d had a chance to settle in and establish yourselves, but I thought you might appreciate getting out.”

“Very much,” Lily told her.

The three women chatted about that and the flower arrangements that Lily had put together for the new businesses as they drove to the church. Coraline raised her eyebrows at the idea of using such things as old bread boxes, percolators and rusty pipes as vases, but Ann bragged about Lily’s artistic eye. Privately Lily basked in the praise.

They parked next to the front walk. Lily got out while Coraline gathered her Bible and handbag. The old white clapboard church looked like something from another era, with its diamond-shaped window above a tiny vestibule and a stately steeple towering over the sanctuary. A newer section of the building branched off at the back, giving the building a T shape. Lily could imagine those original Bronsons climbing the steps to the vestibule as the bell rang from the steeple, the ladies in long draped skirts, the gentlemen in their frock coats. Miss Ann got out on her side and started forward, but Lily felt rooted to the graveled parking lot until Coraline reached back and linked arms with her.

“Come along. And smile. No one’s going to bite you.”

Lily laughed, her shell of uncertainty cracking. Her feet barely touched the sidewalk before the townsfolk descended. Coraline stayed close, making brief introductions and forging ahead toward the steps. Lily nodded and replied softly to every greeting, smiling all the while and letting Coraline tow her toward the building. Just as they reached the steps up to the narrow double vestibule doors, Ginny Bronson rounded the corner of the building with her granddaughter. Isabella broke into a run, a sheaf of papers fluttering in her hands.

“Lily! Grandma, Lily’s here. Look what I got for you, Lily.”

Lily pulled free of Coraline and stooped to catch the child, going almost to one knee. “Hi! I didn’t know I’d see you here.”

“You’ve saved me a side trip,” Ginny said, shielding her eyes from the morning sun with an upraised hand.

The girl thrust the papers at Lily, exclaiming, “I did all the flowers for you. See!”