Bloom of love, p.3
Bloom of Love, page 3
“What…what happened?” he whispered, in awe.
He’d never seen anything like these roses before. Swirls of brilliant pink and orange and purple – all of his sister’s colors, but tie-dyed across the petals. “Do they grow like this?!”
“Oh no,” she said with a small laugh. “I had to pull some fancy florist-ninja moves to make them come out this way.”
“Has Nieves seen these yet?” he asked, hoping the answer would be no. Even spoiled and much-too-cool-for-everything Nieves would think these were amazing.
“Not yet,” she said, reaching back into the van to grab something else, but before she could, Christian spotted his youngest sister heading towards them.
“She’s here,” he said, and Carla straightened up, looking around eagerly. She wanted to know if Nieves would appreciate all of her hard work, and he didn’t blame her one bit for it. If he’d made roses look like this, he’d want a shit ton of appreciation too.
He swore he heard her mutter, “And not a wheelchair in sight,” but when he turned back to her and asked, “What?” she said “Nothing,” but much too innocently.
He was busy trying to figure out if he should push it further or just stare at her ruby-red lips and imagine kissing them, when Nieves started hollering at his elbow.
“Wow! Mamá, look at these!” Their mom showed up and the two of them started chattering away in Spanish, delighted by the gorgeous flowers.
Christian turned back to Carla, half laughing. “I think they’re happy with the roses,” he said dryly.
“Is that what they’re saying? My Spanish isn’t great,” she said, gnawing on her lower lip with worry.
“Oh yeah, they’re in love. Mamá,” he interrupted them, “where should this go?”
She pointed him over to a table and Christian was happy to see that Carla was trailing along behind him. He wasn’t as happy to see that she had a box in her hands. He really wanted to tell her to leave it all behind and he’d carry it for her, but he knew a lost cause when he saw one. At least this box was smaller than the first one she’d picked up.
After a few more trips, the van was finally empty, and Carla shot Christian a smile that caused his heart to beat erratically in his chest. “Well,” she said, pushing a few of the stray tendrils out of her face Christian had to keep himself from tucking behind her ear, “that’s it. I hope your sister loves it! I haven’t done a party this big in…sheesh, forever. It’s kinda fun to go all out like this.”
With one last happy smile at him that had his knees watery with lust, she turned for the van door, keys already jangling in her hand.
“You should stay.”
Christian didn’t know where the words came from. Certainly not out of his mouth. He didn’t ask women to attend family parties.
Ever.
He was just supposed to ask her on a date. A normal date. Not a huge-family-party date. It must’ve been the perfume from all of the roses going to his head. Or the sight of that bright turquoise shirt, straining against Carla’s generous breasts as she’d reached into the van again and again.
Whatever the cause for his insanity, he found himself holding his breath. He wanted her to say yes so damn badly, it scared him.
Carla turned back to him, a stunned look on her face. “What? Are you…are you sure? I don’t normally attend the parties of my clients. I just deliver the flowers and let them have the fun.” She grinned a little at that, and somehow managed not to look bitter at this state of affairs.
Let them have the fun.
Christian wanted Carla to be the one having the fun, and he wanted to be the one to help her have that fun. He opened up his mouth to argue his case, when Autumn showed up.
“Carla,” Autumn said, slightly out of breath, her curls bouncing around her face in wild abandon, “what do I need to be putting into the water to keep these flowers fresh? I’ve never seen anything like them before! Nieves is over the moon. But we can’t have them wilting before tonight. What’s the secret?”
Carla stared at Autumn blankly for a moment. “Why are you here?” she finally asked. “And why are you asking about the flowers?”
“Oh, shit! They didn’t tell you? Nieves’ mom hired me to plan this party. I went to school with Rosa – do you remember her? I think she was several grades younger than you – and she was telling me about this super elaborate party that her mom wanted to throw for Nieves, and…well, one thing led to another. Here I am.” She shrugged. “Now, what should I be adding to the water?”
Christian slipped away to find his mom. The sooner he helped her arrange the tables and chairs (and then rearrange – he knew her), the sooner he’d be free to do what he wanted.
If Carla did stay for the party, he didn’t want to spend it moving furniture around when he could be talking to her.
He found himself whistling under his breath. Suddenly, the Party From Hell wasn’t so bad after all.
Chapter 6
Carla
Are you certain he still wants you?
~Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride
As Carla arranged the monthly bouquet for Iris Miller from her husband, Declan, her heart hurt. Based on the bouquets that Declan’d been sending to Iris every month, they were trying for a baby…and they weren’t succeeding.
She was sure neither of them had contemplated the fact that Carla was “in the know” about their personal lives to such a degree, but the truth of the matter was, Carla was “in the know” about a lot of people’s lives in the valley. It came with the territory, and respecting that privacy was part of the sacred duty of being a florist.
Along with other important tasks, such as remembering what each client’s favorite flower was. It wasn’t hard to remember Iris’ – hers were blue irises, of course. With a name like Iris Blue Miller, she would either love ‘em or hate ‘em. Carla liked to add in stargazer lilies to the bouquets too, a bright white flower that added a lovely contrast to the blues and purples of the irises.
Maybe she couldn’t help with the Miller’s fertility problems, but she could give Iris something beautiful to cheer her up. She was careful to always have a high schooler deliver the flowers out to the Miller farm, so Iris could retain the illusion that her good friend didn’t know a damn thing about her struggles with fertility. It was better that way.
As Carla went along, placing a flower here, moving a flower there, she began to feel herself get a little more cheerful. Yes, it was true that she’d gotten grumpy after the whole Palacios party fiasco, but she never stayed in that mindset long. As always, her natural optimism on life had reasserted itself.
So what if Christian had invited her to stay for the party and then didn’t say a single word to her from there forward? Things like that just happened sometimes.
She didn’t have a clue of why he’d asked her to stay anyway. By all rights, he shouldn’t have.
He was handsome.
She was…well, fat.
Chunky. Lumpy. Rolly-polly.
All of those ugly words with an even uglier meaning.
Sure, she had a pretty face – God knew she’d been told that often enough – but there was no denying that she was way too thick in the waist to be desirable by a guy like Christian.
Him asking her to stay for the party had been a weird slip of the tongue, nothing more. Crying herself to sleep that night was just a case of her being overly dramatic. Of course Christian hadn’t asked her to stay because he’d wanted to flirt with her. That was just plain crazy talk, and she knew better.
The doorbell over the front door jangled and Carla’s head shot up, hopeful—
“Hi, Autumn,” she said with a forced cheerfulness, and then sent the gorgeous woman a genuine smile. It wasn’t Autumn’s fault that she wasn’t Christian.
“Hey, Carla!” she called back over cascades of tulle. Her gorgeous curls were bouncing with every step – oh, to have naturally curly hair! – and she had a triumphant smile on her face that belied the dark circles under her eyes. She dropped the fluorescent orange tulle on the counter with a shake of the head. “I never knew they made tulle in this color until Nieves’ party. Thanks again for letting her borrow it. Too bad Sarah’s party next weekend isn’t also going to use the color scheme of a princess palace decorated by a 12 year old.” She laughed. “Otherwise, I could’ve just kept all of the items you lent to the Palacios family. Give me a sec – I’ll be right back with your vases.”
The doorbell tinkled as Autumn swished back out the door, leaving Carla to stare after her, chewing on her bottom lip. Another party? Autumn was in charge of yet another party? How many friends from high school were roping her into helping them out?
When Autumn came back through the door, vases tinkling as they clinked against each other in the cardboard box, Carla asked, “So, another party, eh? Are you wanting to keep doing parties? Like, as a job?”
Autumn shrugged, pulling the drooping shoulder of her sweater back up her arm. “I mean, yeah, of course,” she said with a laugh. “This is one of those things that I’d do for free because I love it so much, but electricity companies don’t keep the lights on out of the generosity of their hearts. They keep wanting to get paid every month. Bastards.” She snorted. “With Johnny not working much right now, it’s all up to me to make rent, you know? Doing a few parties is a great way to make a little extra income on the weekends, but the books at ED&J aren’t going to do themselves. And the start-up costs! Have you ever looked at what it takes to become a party planner? Rentals and shop overhead and—”
“You should set up shop here,” Carla interrupted. It was rude to interrupt, of course, but she couldn’t hold the words back any longer.
Autumn stared at her.
“Set up shop here?” she echoed.
“Yeah, of course,” Carla said, the words feeling more right by the moment. “We could be business partners, or whatever. Ask Jennifer and Bonnie from Miller & Nash to help us set it up. I’ve been getting dragged into party planning kicking and screaming for a couple of years now. I just don’t have the time for it on top of everything else, but there wasn’t anyone else to foist it off onto. I have this closet that I just don’t use – you could make it your office!”
“Business partners? You want me to work in a closet?” Autumn asked skeptically, but she followed Carla around the counter and into the back. Carla ignored the griping – it was a lot to take in, but she was sure Autumn would want to do this, just as soon as she realized what the plan was.
Just as soon as Carla figured that out.
She flung the door open to the closet triumphantly, and then pulled on the cord dangling from the ceiling so the single naked light bulb could light up the corners.
“I know it’s not much,” she said apologetically, “but we can pretty it up, and anyway, this would just be where you’d put your paperwork and make phone calls. Party planners spend most of their time out in the field.”
Autumn’s dark green eyes went wide as she looked around the bare, dusty closet, only a few stray rolls of florist tape to be found on the neglected shelves.
“Business partners?” she repeated, but this time she didn’t sound disgruntled or overwhelmed. She sounded excited.
“It works on, like, every level!” Carla said, clapping with excitement. “I’m here all the time, so you don’t have to hire someone to man the shop while you’re at ED&J or with a client. Instead of a flat fee for rent and power and phone, you can just pay me a percentage of your profits. That way, you don’t get in over your head!”
Autumn turned to her, a grin spreading from ear to ear. “And to think that I just came in here to return some vases,” she said, and started laughing.
“I myself am often surprised by life’s little quirks,” Carla intoned and then flashed Autumn a quick grin. “Westley. Princess Bride. Okay, so, you want to talk shop, literally?”
“Yes, please!” Autumn exclaimed. “I need to be upfront with you: I can’t quit my job at ED&J. Johnny isn’t leaving the house much—well anyway, I really would need you to talk to clients when I couldn’t be here. Which would be a lot. Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
They settled down at the worktop counter. “We might need to see how things go,” Carla allowed, trying not to let her natural starry-eyed optimism win by her saying what her gut wanted her to – that there was absolutely no way this could ever become a problem. “But honestly, being a secretary and taking messages so you can return the phone calls isn’t going to be a big deal. If you’re doing the actual hard work – meeting with clients, planning the parties, putting the parties together, making it all happen – then answering the phone or talking to people when they come into the shop is easy. I’m here anyway.” She shrugged. “Plus, foot traffic into the shop might increase, and that might mean more flower sales. I’ve always thought that planning parties would be a blast, but I just don’t have the time to do it. Music, food, chair and table rentals, decorations, drinks, invitations, photography…I mean, I can provide the flowers, of course, but people have been asking for so much more lately, and I’m simply not equipped for it.”
Autumn chewed on her full bottom lip. “But what about Belly Bliss Catering? They’re out of Franklin, not Sawyer of course, but they’ve been hired for parties here quite a bit. Remember that huge party the McLains threw a couple of years ago for their wedding anniversary? Belly was in charge of that, and then they’ve also done some big parties for Zane and Louisa.”
“Oh yes, Zane,” Carla sighed, staring dreamily off into space for a moment. The day she’d decorated the steakhouse up in Franklin had been the best day of her career. Having a multi-millionaire call her up – or, rather, his secretary but close enough – and ask for her help in creating a night to remember…
It had been magical. She’d helped those two fall in love.
Sure, Louisa and Zane’s relationship had had its ups and downs since then, and even worse, those issues had been broadcast to the whole world – just one of the downsides to dating a super star – but still. Who wouldn’t want to be Cinderella? Swept off their feet and carried away by the prince on a white horse?
Or better yet, be Princess Buttercup, and be carried away by Westley?
“Anyway,” she said with another sigh, waving away the daydream, “Belly Bliss Catering does amazing food and they do have some equipment rentals, but their choices are sparse, and they tend to run more towards the stodgy. If Nieves had asked them to decorate with those eye-popping colors she liked, they wouldn’t have had a clue of what to do. You made it look good. I don’t think you’d be in competition with Belly Bliss. It isn’t like you’d want to start catering the food, right? Or am I wrong about that?”
“No,” Autumn said slowly, thinking it through. “I’m definitely not a cook. I’d much rather eat something that someone else has prepared, then go through all of that work myself.”
“Food is only part of what people need,” Carla said, pressing on, “just like flowers are only part of it. The whole package? No one out there does it. This is something that Long Valley needs.”
Autumn sucked in a breath, and Carla could almost smell the rubber burning as she watched her friend think through all of the different angles.
“All right, let’s talk turkey, then,” she finally said. “You got a piece of paper? I think we oughta write all of this down, and then have a meeting with Jennifer and Bonnie. They’ll tell us if we need to hire a lawyer for the paperwork or not.”
Carla grabbed a sheet of copy paper off the seldom-used fax machine and together, they began scribbling down all of the details – who was in charge of what, how much was owed, what hours Autumn would work, and so much more.
“Oh Lordy,” Autumn finally said, pushing at the curls falling down into her face. “I feel like we’ve figured out soooo much, and I bet we haven’t even scratched the surface.”
“Jenn and Bon will be a lot of help,” Carla said confidently, pulling her reading glasses and settling them on top of her head. “They’ll help us avoid any major screw-ups. I’ll call them and set up an appointment for us to go over together. Does that work for you?”
“That would be terrific. Work is busy right now at ED&J with summer in full swing, so having you take that off my plate would be helpful.”
“Of course,” Carla said, and patted Autumn on the hand. “Is work why you look a little…tired?” Her friend looked like she was nearing the end of her rope, honestly, but Carla would never say that out loud.
“Johnny’s going through…a rough patch.” Autumn’s gaze slid past Carla’s searching eyes and landed somewhere in the distance. “You know how he is. Johnny is…Johnny. So,” and her voice brightened and she sent Carla a sly smile, “what happened between you and Christian at the party? Tell me everything!”
Carla just stared at her.
Sure, she’d gotten all excited because he’d asked her to stay, but then he’d promptly ignored her for a good hour before she finally gave up and left.
In no universe would that be considered something exciting to report.
“You can’t fool me,” Autumn said with a glower, crossing her arms across her chest. “I know better. Christian practically demanded that he be the one to come in here and order the flowers from you. Didn’t you wonder why a guy who is definitely not into decorating was the one who came in here?”
Carla shrugged. She was not about to cop to her Sherlock Holmes moment where she was sure she’d figured out that Nieves was in a wheelchair and her parents were dead. There was no reason to share that…tidbit of information.
“C’mon,” Autumn said with a laugh, poking Carla in the side, “you can tell me. How many times has a guy come in to order flowers for his sister’s quinceañera?”
“Never,” Carla admitted begrudgingly. “But that doesn’t mean he likes me. Maybe he was just bored that day. Or something.”
