Flowers on Main (26 page)

“And Jake? How did he handle it?”

Fresh misery stirred inside her. “Not so well,” she admitted. “And I just walked away and left him here to cope with the loss all on his own. The baby was real to him from the moment I told him I was pregnant. For me it was a problem, but for him the baby was a joy. And I acted as if I didn’t care a bit that we’d lost it. Sometimes I’m amazed he can even bear to look at me at all.”

Jess regarded her with sympathy. “Okay, so Jake was all
alone to deal with the loss, but so were you. Who helped you cope?”

Bree flinched inwardly. “I didn’t cope, actually. I moved on. I put everything that had happened into some little box inside, closed the lid, locked it and threw away the key. It would have stayed locked away forever, I think, if I hadn’t come back here and seen Jake again. That’s dredged it all up. Now there are days when I can’t stop thinking about the baby we lost, the way our life could have been.”

“I’ll repeat what I said earlier,” Jess said. “Maybe it’s time to get it out in the open.” At Bree’s horrified expression, she added quickly, “I’m not suggesting you tell the universe or even the family, just whoever you need to talk to in order to put this behind you in a healthy way.”

“A shrink?”

“Or Jake,” Jess suggested softly. “Think about it, sis. He probably knows more about what you’re feeling than anyone else.”

“I doubt Jake’s interested in being my sounding board,” Bree replied. “He’s certainly balked every time I suggested we clear the air. And I’m not even sure you’re right that I need to dredge up my feelings about the baby. I just need to find a way to make things right with him.”

Jess looked her directly in the eye. “The only way to get Jake back in your life is to face this together. I may not have much of a history with long-term relationships, but I do know that you’re doomed if you try to ignore an elephant this size that’s sitting squarely in front of you.”

Bree sighed. Her sister was right. Who would have thought that often flighty, unattached Jess would nail what had to be done? But accepting that Jess knew what she was talking about didn’t make Bree one bit happier or more eager to act on the advice.

J
ake had spent the entire morning at Mrs. Finch’s, mulching all of her lilacs under her supervision. That task would have been tedious enough under the best of conditions, but she had very specific ideas about what she wanted. There’d been a couple of times toward the end when he’d thought she was going to insist on measuring the depth of the mulch with a ruler before pronouncing the job complete.

By the time he got back to his office, he was hot, filthy, exasperated and hungry. Unfortunately, Connie was waiting for him with a harried expression.

“Don’t sit down,” she ordered. “You need to go right back out again to make an emergency delivery.”

He studied her with suspicion. “Isn’t that why Jimbo works for us, to handle deliveries?”

“He’s already gone out to make half a dozen deliveries, including all those rhododendrons for the Hendersons. He promised to help Aggie get them in the ground. I told him he could. He won’t be back for hours.”

Jake studied his sister’s face. “Doesn’t matter. He has a cell phone in case we need him. If this is an emergency, call him back in. Agatha Henderson can wait an extra hour, since he’s doing her a favor.”

“It’s not a favor,” she said. “It’s called good customer service, something you’re known for, thanks to me. Besides, it’s a waste of gas for him to drive all the way back here when you’re already here and can make this delivery.”

Since their fuel costs for deliveries had skyrocketed over the past year, Jake could hardly argue. “Okay, where’s the emergency and what am I delivering?”

“I’ve pulled the order together,” she said, leading the way into the greenhouse where a dozen buckets of fresh-cut flowers were lined up by the door.

Jake got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Let me guess,” he said. “They’re going to Flowers on Main.”

She nodded happily. “I’ll let Bree know you’re on your way.”

He shook his head. “I’ll put them in the truck. You can drive them over.”

“Not me. I’m going to lunch.”

“So am I,” he argued. “Just as soon as I’ve cleaned up.”

“But you’re going to Sally’s, which is practically next door to Bree’s shop.” She beamed at him. “How convenient is that?”

Jake knew he’d be wasting his breath to continue arguing. Obviously Connie had thought this through. She’d have an answer for any excuse he could come up with. Whether she had an ulterior motive was less clear.

“Fine,” he muttered, picking up the first batch of buckets and loading them into the back of his truck. Connie followed with several more. It took less than five minutes to transfer all of them.

“When Bree orders next week, tell her she needs to get it right the first time,” he told Connie.

Her brow rose. “If you really want to act like a jerk rather than a grateful businessman who’s suddenly gotten a huge, unexpected order, you’ll have to tell her that yourself.”

Jake sighed. “Point taken.” It was annoying that Connie was almost always right when it came to customer-service issues. She was a big part of the reason the nursery had increased sales since he’d taken over. She had the tact and diplomacy he lacked.

A half hour later he pulled up in front of Flowers on Main and noted that most of the buckets on the sidewalk had been emptied of the fresh flowers they usually held. No wonder Bree had called in an emergency order. Business must be good, even this late into the fall season. The Indian-summer days were drawing tourists to town well into October.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about her success. If she’d failed, maybe she would have gone back to the career he knew she loved. Maybe she’d have left town, which would have made his life a heck of a lot less complicated.

When he walked in the front door with the first of the flowers, her head snapped up and surprise lit her eyes, immediately followed by obvious relief.

“Thank goodness,” she said fervently. “I ran out of almost everything by ten o’clock this morning. Apparently a lot of weekenders are taking advantage of this weather to come to town for a few extra days at their cottages.”

“Hopefully this will be enough to hold you for the weekend. I won’t have anything new in stock until next week.”

“Whatever you have is great,” she said. “I know I should have ordered more to begin with, but I’m still getting the hang of this. Last Friday rain was predicted and almost no one came down for the weekend. I had a bunch of leftover flowers that I turned into arrangements and donated to the hospital.”

“Why didn’t you just toss them?”

“Why, when they could just as easily brighten someone’s day?”

The unhesitant response reminded him of one of the
reasons he’d fallen in love with her in the first place. She might be shy and withdrawn, but she had a generosity of spirit that warmed everyone around her. More impressive, she seemed unaware of how rare such little acts of kindness were.

Because it threw him to spend even a minute remembering her good points, he went back outside to gather another batch of flowers. After he’d set them inside the cooler for her, he paused by the counter.

“So, are the part-timers your best customers?” he asked, wondering how she’d make out when they stopped coming down as frequently during the cold, winter months.

“For the bouquets, they are. Locals order more for funerals and special events. I have a couple of orders from local restaurants for fresh flowers for their tables, but all they want are a few stems of daisies or something that they can stick in small vases just to add a little color to the decor. Next weekend I’m doing the flowers for a wedding at the inn, so I’ll have a big order for you on Monday for that.”

Jake was startled by the excitement he heard in her voice. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” he said.

“I love it,” she admitted. “It’s challenging, but it’s rewarding, too.” She leaned toward him as if confiding a secret. “And you know something else?”

“What?”

“I love counting the receipts at the end of the day.”

He chuckled at that. “Do you love any of it as much as writing? For as long as you and I were together, that’s all you really wanted. Have you forgotten how much writing plays meant to you?”

She shook her head. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. I just needed to get away from it for a while. Amazingly, though, now that I am, it’s as if I freed something in myself. I’ve
written more in the past week than I had in months before I left Chicago.”

“That’s great,” he said, trying to muster the appropriate degree of enthusiasm. “What happens when you finish the play? Will you take off, head back to Chicago?”

“It’s not a play,” she confided, ignoring his reference to Chicago completely. “I’m trying to write a novel. It’s very different from what I was doing before. I’m not entirely sure whether it will be any good, but it’s been an interesting change of pace for me.”

Jake couldn’t decide if that piece of news was good or bad. She could write novels and stay right here, couldn’t she? Was that what he wanted?

“I’d like to read it,” he said impulsively. “When you’re ready, that is. I know you never like to show anyone what you’re working on until you’re satisfied with it.”

She regarded him thoughtfully. “You know, I could use an outside opinion,” she said slowly. “You read a lot. You can tell me if you think I have any idea what I’m doing.”

Her willingness to let him sneak a peek at a work in progress startled him. “Really?”

“Unless you didn’t really mean it,” she said. “I mean, don’t feel obligated or anything.”

“No, I’d like to read it,” he said quickly, surprised by his own eagerness. “I always loved your work. Your plays were amazing. I felt as if I’d met every one of your characters personally. I wish I’d had the chance to see one onstage.”

“I invited you,” she reminded him.

He leveled a look into her eyes. “You know why I couldn’t be there, Bree.”

She sighed. “Yes, I know. I just wish it had been different between us then.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not possible to change the past.” He made a quick trip to the truck, then hurriedly set the last of the flowers inside the shop. “I’ve got to run. See you, Bree.”

Again, he heard her sigh as he bolted. Unfortunately, the simple act of putting distance between them was doing less and less to protect his emotions. No matter how thick the wall he’d erected around his heart, no matter how great his determination to keep her out, their lives seemed destined to become entangled all over again.

Not really realizing what she was doing, Bree plucked a daisy out of one of the buckets of fresh flowers and began tearing off petals in an old he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not way as she stared after Jake. She didn’t know quite what to make of their conversation.

His desire to read what she was writing surprised her. It reminded her of the old days, when they would sit side by side in bed on a Sunday morning, she with whatever book she was reading or the newspaper, and Jake with the pages of her latest play. He’d already been living in his own tiny apartment then. Just out of college, he could have stayed on with his folks, but he’d wanted his independence and a place where the two of them could be alone. They sometimes lingered like that until noon before going to have a midday dinner with his folks or with Gram.

Gram had never asked about the fact that Bree sometimes didn’t come home on Saturday nights. She’d been over twenty-one, after all. There’d been no disguising the worry in her eyes, though. And that’s what it had been, too—worry, not disapproval. For all of Gram’s old-fashioned ways, she’d cared most about them being happy and she’d clearly seen heartache ahead for Bree and Jake. She’d even broached the subject once.

“I know you’ve applied for several theater internships,” she’d said to Bree. “You’re going to leave here one of these days. What happens to Jake when you go?”

“He understands my plans for the future,” Bree assured her blithely, convinced they would find some way to make it work.

“It’s a far cry from understanding a theoretical plan to living with it,” Gram had cautioned. “If you love Jake, and I think you do, treat his heart with care.”

Bree had thought at the time she was doing just that, but the reality had turned out to be otherwise. She’d blamed a lot of it on the pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage, but realistically she could see now how difficult it would have been to maintain a long-distance relationship even if the conditions had been ideal.

Pushing aside the memory, she spent the afternoon making arrangements for Saturday and selling several more bouquets of the newly delivered fresh-cut flowers. Just as she was about to close for the day, the bell over the door rang and she looked up to see Connie crossing the threshold. They’d been friends once, but it had been awkward between them since Bree’s return.

She gave Jake’s sister a tentative smile. “Hi, what brings you by?”

“I was hoping we could have a drink together,” Connie admitted. “I haven’t seen nearly enough of you since you got back to town.”

“That’s my fault,” Bree said at once, delighted by Connie’s overture. “I wasn’t sure if us getting together would make it hard for you after what happened with Jake and me.”

Connie grinned. “If I’m forced to choose sides, I’d have to be on his, always,” she admitted. “But I’m thinking there’s really only one side here and he’s just too stubborn to admit
it.” She tilted her head to study Bree. “I am right about that, aren’t I? You do still have feelings for my brother?”

“I’m beginning to think so. I’ve missed him, no question about it.”

Connie gave a satisfied nod. “So, how about it, then? Do you have time for a drink? Jenny’s planning a so-called Friday-night study date, so I only have an hour or so before I have to get home to make sure there’s actually any studying going on.”

Bree was flabbergasted. The last time she’d seen Connie’s daughter, Jenny had been finishing up elementary school. Bree’d helped Connie with birthday celebrations, pizza parties and sleepovers for her daughter and her friends. “Jenny’s old enough to date? How’d that happen?”