The Little Flower Shop by the Sea (21 page)

BOOK: The Little Flower Shop by the Sea
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‘Thanks, Jake, but I don’t have my crinolines on today. I’m sure I’ll be fine.’


OK
…’ Jake says, and I see him and Amber exchange a look as I slide myself under the sink. ‘Whatever you say, Mrs Pankhurst.’

‘All right, I’m sorry,’ I say, squinting up at him from under the sink. ‘But a woman can do plumbing, you know.’

‘She was like this when I wanted to buy her a drink,’ I hear Jake tell Amber while I try to unscrew the pipe that leads up to the sink. I’m quite confident I know what I’m doing, even though these pipes are slightly different and somewhat older than the ones I’d seen my father loosening. ‘Quite antsy.’

I know Jake is only trying to wind me up, so I choose to remain silent and deal with my pipe.

‘That’s our Poppy,’ Amber says. ‘Soft and sweet on the inside, hard and crisp on her outer layer. Like a lovely M&M candy.’

‘Or a really nasty zit,’ Jake adds. ‘The kind that just explodes everywhere when you squeeze it!’

‘Oi!’ I snap, trying to sit up but forgetting I’m under the sink. ‘Ow!’ I cry as my head hits the white porcelain, and rebounds back against the pipe I’ve just loosened. ‘Blah!’ I cry, as the pipe falls away from the waste outlet, and filthy, smelly water flows down on to my head.

Jake’s face appears under the sink as I’m pushing my dirty, stinky hair away from my face.

‘You were right,’ he says, obviously trying not to laugh, ‘about women plumbers. You’ve cleared that blockage a treat, the sink is completely empty now!’

I dry myself as best I can with the few small towels we have at the shop, then Jake insists on walking me back to the cottage, leaving Miley happily tying ribbons into Amber’s long hair.

‘I’ll be back in a bit,’ he tells Amber, ‘once we’ve got Mario here – or is it Luigi who’s the plumber? – into some dry clothes.’

Amber laughs. ‘I believe it’s both!’ she says. ‘My brother and I used to play those video games all the time back in the States.’

‘When you two have quite finished mocking me!’ I protest. ‘I’ll be perfectly fine walking back to the cottage myself.’ I don’t want Jake to see, or smell me like this for a moment longer than necessary.

But Jake insists. ‘I feel partly responsible,’ he says as we walk back to the cottage together. ‘Something similar happened to me once when I was unblocking a sink. I probably should have warned you.’

‘What happened to you?’ I ask, surprised to hear this. Jake has always seemed so capable.

‘Bronte helpfully emptied a bucket of floor cleaner down the sink while I was underneath it!’

I grimace. ‘I bet you smelled better than I do now though,’ I say as we reach the cottage and I open the front door.

‘A bit – I had quite the tang of lemon about me, and very clean with all the disinfectant.’

I have to laugh. ‘Well, thanks…’ I say, dithering about on the doorstep, assuming he will leave.

‘I’ll make you a nice hot cup of tea, shall I?’ Jake offers. ‘That wind is mighty cold today – you must be freezing, walking around with wet hair and clothes. You’re normally pale, Poppy, but you look almost blue right now!’

‘I am a bit chilly – yes,’ I have to admit. ‘But don’t you have to get back to work?’

Jake looks at his watch. ‘Call it my lunch hour. Perk of being your own boss. The guys up at the nursery can look after the place for a while.’

‘In that case, tea would be great, thank you. Proper tea, mind – none of Amber’s herbal nonsense!’

‘As if!’ Jake grins. ‘Tea only comes one way in my book: builder’s strength!’

I leave Jake in the kitchen filling the kettle, while I enjoy a lovely hot shower. My grandmother’s cottage may be old, but the hot-water system is as good as gold when it comes to running hot baths and showers.

I emerge a few minutes later wearing grey jogging bottoms and Amber’s purple NYU hoody; my towel-dried hair is combed but hangs damply down my back.

‘One tea!’ Jake announces, setting a steaming hot mug of tea down on the kitchen table. ‘Two sugars, isn’t it?’

I nod. ‘Yes, that’s right. Thank you.’

Jake glances at me, then looks away.

‘What?’ I ask, self-consciously running my hand over my damp hair. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. You’re wearing colour, that’s all.’ Jake grins. ‘It’s like suddenly going from a black-and-white TV to a colour one.’

I look at him, puzzled.

‘Oh, sorry, you’re probably too young to remember black-and-white TV, eh?’

‘No, I do vaguely remember my grandmother having one here, before my parents bought her a colour one to watch gardening programmes on. Anyway, this is Amber’s sweatshirt. I borrowed it to get warm.’

‘Ah, that figures,’ Jake says, nodding. ‘Shame, that colour really suits you.’

I feel myself blushing, but luckily my cheeks are already flushed from my super-hot shower. ‘Don’t start that again,’ I bluff, ‘about the colour of my clothes – who are you, Cornwall’s answer to Gok Wan?’

Jake laughs.

‘Anyway,’ I continue, always happier when Jake and I are being flippant with each other, ‘you’re almost as bad as me with your uniform of checked shirts, blue jeans and your staple Timberland boots!’

‘Ah, you got me!’ Jake says, looking down at his attire. ‘Touché, Miss Carmichael.’

My full name is actually Poppy Carmichael-Edwards. My mother and father’s names combined. But when Jake calls me Miss Carmichael I get a funny fluttery feeling in my stomach. Like someone has let a kaleidoscope of butterflies loose. So I’ve never wanted to correct him.

‘Shall we take this up to the sitting room?’ I ask, lifting my mug of tea. ‘It’s much nicer on a sunny day than down here in the kitchen.’

‘Sure,’ Jake agrees.

We head upstairs and settle ourselves comfortably on the sofa, while the sun pours in through the French windows, immediately warming my chilled body.

‘Amazing, isn’t it,’ Jake says looking out of the window, ‘how it can look so glorious out there, when in reality it’s freezing cold.’

‘Joys of living by the sea, I guess. The wind is our constant companion.’

‘Isn’t it just. I do love it here, though. I always wanted to live by the sea, and now I do, I’m not going to complain.’

‘Where did you live before?’ I ask as I sip on a very strong, but good cup of tea.

‘We lived in East Anglia when the children were very young – Bedfordshire, to be precise, not far from Milton Keynes.’

‘What did you do there – grow flowers?’

‘No, nothing like that. I worked at the safari park at Woburn.’

I open my eyes wide. This I was not expecting. ‘Really? How fabulous. What did you do there – look after the tigers?’ I say jokingly, thinking he’ll say he worked in admin or something equally boring.

‘Not quite – apes, primates and monkeys.’

Of course he did. Now Miley makes more sense.

‘Wow, that’s a bit different than growing flowers in a Cornish nursery, isn’t it – why did you change?’

‘My father fell ill,’ Jake says sadly. ‘He desperately needed someone to take over the family business – only child, see. There was no one else.’

‘I know that feeling well,’ I tell him. ‘The only child and the family business part.’

Jake nods. ‘I resisted at first. I liked my job, and I knew it would mean uprooting the family, but the children were still small, and Felicity’s family had originally come from St Felix – one of those strange coincidences life often throws at you – so she was very keen to move here.’

Jake falls silent as he’s lost in his memories for a few moments.

‘Do you ever regret it?’ I ask gently. ‘The move?’

Jake thinks. ‘No. The kids have had a much better life growing up here by the sea, I’m sure of it, and Felicity was always happy here as part of the community.’

‘But what about you?’ I press. ‘Are you happier here growing flowers than you were working with the animals?’

Jake looks at me. ‘Poppy, if you’re asking me this to try and justify what you’ve done by moving here, then I can’t answer that question for you.’

‘Sure, I understand.’ I look down into my mug.

‘But if you really want to know,’ Jake says gently, ‘I’ve always been happy here in St Felix, and that can’t be wrong, can it? Being happy.’

I shake my head. ‘You’re right. The place does seem to have that effect on people.’

‘It surely does.’ Jake leans forward and picks up a book from the table. ‘You seem a lot happier than when you first arrived. Calmer.’

I think about this while Jake flicks through the book.

‘Yes, I suppose I am. Do you think we’ve discovered a sort of Cornish Lourdes?’ I ask, thinking about the French town renowned for the healing powers of its waters.

‘If we have, it will be great for the town,’ Jake says, smiling, ‘Imagine all the tourists we’d attract if we could heal everyone that visited of all their woes. What’s this?’ he asks, holding up the book. ‘It’s full of names and flowers and problems and stuff.’

I hadn’t realised he’d been looking at one of the flower notebooks Amber and I had discovered.

‘Oh, it’s nothing. We found a bunch of these notebooks in the shop, listing past clients. Amber’s been reading up on them.’

Amber was spending every night engrossed in the flower books. She was still adamant we could use them in some way.

‘It makes interesting reading,’ Jake says, flicking through the pages. ‘Did your grandmother really think she was healing people with her flowers?’

‘It would seem so,’ I say, a tad embarrassed to be admitting this to Jake. I tell him about the other books we’d discovered, and how Amber thought she could turn our fortunes around if we began using them.

Jake nods. ‘I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try,’ he says, much to my surprise.

‘Are you winding me up?’ I look at him with suspicion. ‘You can’t be serious?’

‘What harm could it do? Look at it this way, Poppy: St Felix needs an injection of something or we’re going to lose even more of the businesses on Harbour Street soon. Maybe a magical flower shop could be just the thing we need to bring people in. You said yourself the town is already a healing place – this could fit really well.’

‘I don’t know…’ Much as I adored Amber, her spiritual healing ways didn’t sit well with me.

‘Your grandmother was a very smart woman, Poppy,’ Jake says. ‘If she thought this worked, you can bet your life it did.’

‘You’re right about her being smart. She was definitely that – and loving and kind. I miss her,’ I say, surprising myself by this admission.

‘You remind me of her – a lot,’ Jake says, putting the book back down on the table. ‘Not just on the outside, I mean in here, too.’ Jake taps his fingers lightly on my chest, and I’m sure he must be able to feel my heart pounding away.

‘I hardly think so,’ I say quickly. ‘My grandmother was a great woman. I’m nothing like she was.’

‘Oh, you are, Poppy,’ Jake insists, lifting his hand away. ‘I can tell.’

Suddenly, without consulting my brain, which would definitely have told me a very emphatic no!, I lean forward on the sofa and kiss Jake. Not on the cheek this time, but right on his lips.

I feel him hesitate for a split second, then he responds. But just as I’m happily sinking into this heavenly feeling of being so close to Jake, I feel him pull away from me.

‘I… I really have to go!’ he says, standing up so suddenly he almost spills his coffee. ‘I should be getting back to the shop – Miley… you know how she is.’

‘Oh… right, yes, of course,’ I reply, my cheeks redder than the scarlet cushion Jake’s just vacated on the sofa. As I stare at it, the imprint of his belt still remains in the fabric.

‘I’m sorry, Poppy,’ Jake says softly, sounding apologetic now rather than panicked. ‘I’m not ready for this. It’s too soon.’

I look up at him. ‘After Felicity, you mean?’ I ask, surprising myself again, this time at my bluntness.

He nods.

‘But it’s been five years, hasn’t it?’

‘It could be ten for all it matters,’ he says, his forehead wrinkling with concern. ‘I just can’t. Maybe not ever… Do you understand?’

It’s my turn to nod.

‘Sure, I understand. Perhaps it’s better if you just leave then.’

I turn and look out of the French windows. The sun has disappeared behind a bank of dark clouds. They hover ominously in the sky, predicting unsettled conditions to come.

And as I hear the front door of the cottage open and close, my feelings are a perfect match for the weather.

I sit alone in the cottage for a while, nursing my wounds and trying to get over my embarrassment – what was I thinking of, kissing Jake? He quite obviously isn’t ready for a relationship, and now he’s told me he probably never will be. I decide I’d better head back to the shop to see Amber and check on Basil.

So I change out of Amber’s sweatshirt and into my usual black, trying not to think about the compliments Jake had paid me when I’d been wearing it. Then I gather up the accounts books and mooch back to the shop, wearing the huge mac I’d hidden under the first night I arrived in St Felix. Hiding not only from the rain, which is pelting down on to the cobbles of Harbour Street, but anyone who might want to talk to me too.

BOOK: The Little Flower Shop by the Sea
2.73Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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