Bloom of love, p.7
Bloom of Love, page 7
How could he tell her that he couldn’t breathe around them? To break her heart like that…He hadn’t meant to keep it a secret from her; he just hadn’t found a good time to slip it into the conversation.
Yet. He would soon, though. It was only fair.
As he was pulling back the covers on his bed, ready to sink into his mattress for the night, he heard a muted knock on the front door, and let out a string of Spanish swear words that’d have his grandmother rolling over in her grave if she’d heard him. He was so close to sleep.
Could he ignore the knock and pretend he hadn’t heard it? He would’ve given his right nut to do just that, but he couldn’t. Whoever it was, it was someone he cared about. Door-to-door salesmen didn’t bother with his single-wide trailer. One look at it, and they kept going.
Not to mention that Marshmallow hadn’t started barking his fool head off, which meant he recognized the vehicle pulling up.
With a groan, Christian shuffled to the front door and found his younger sister – well, that was all of them – Yesenia, on the doorstep, her features cast in shadows by the dim porch light.
“Hey, hermanita,” he said, forcing a note of cheerfulness into his voice as he opened the door wider to let her in. Once she was inside and he could see her better, he realized she wasn’t there to pay him a social visit. “What’s going on?” he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral even as his hands curled into fists at his sides.
Some guy had attacked her, he was sure of it. Christian was well aware how gorgeous his sister was, and what assholes there were in the world. Even now, with her hair disheveled and her eyes red from crying, she was beautiful. He was going to track the guy down and leave him for the buzzards to find.
“Tuition is going up this fall,” Yesenia said, dropping to his dilapidated couch and burying her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs as Christian stood there, frozen, only his fingers moving as he slowly uncurled his fists.
No guy. No attack. No rape. He was grateful, but…
“By how much?” he asked, trying to keep calm. It was already a Herculean effort to help her get the tuition bill paid each semester. How could he pay more? He didn’t want his sister leaving college saddled with debt – it went against everything the Palacios family believed in.
“Two thousand dollars.” Her voice broke as she said the words, just as his heart broke to hear them. Two thousand? He didn’t have an extra two thousand dollars sitting around. If he had, he would spend it on Carla, anyway.
Carla.
He wanted to do some weeping of his own. He wanted to spoil her – give her chocolates and take her out to fancy dinners and show her the world on his arm, or at least the inside of a nice restaurant.
Why now?
“It’s an extra two thousand in tuition,” Yesenia said, her voice dull and broken, and he was sure – absolutely sure – that he didn’t want to hear the rest of the sentence, “and I also have lab fees this semester. It’s another $1500 on top of it all.”
Christian dropped to the couch next to his sister, his legs no longer able to hold him up. An additional $3500? He couldn’t. He didn’t have—
Yesenia turned into him, burying her face in his chest as she sobbed. He held her, stroking her hair back as he tried to wrap his arms around the enormity of the problem.
If he could just convince his parents to help out…but even as the thought crossed his mind, he shoved it away. Yesenia was a girl. Yesenia was supposed to get married and pop out kids and let her husband take care of everything. She was not supposed to go to college and have a career.
It did not matter how smart she was; Yesenia’d had the bad luck of being born a girl.
His parents were willing to splash out stupid amounts of money on things that did not matter –quinceañeras that were fit for a princess – but Yesenia hadn’t wanted a quinceañera fit for a princess.
She’d wanted to go to college.
“I’ll just borrow the money,” she said, straightening up and wiping the tears from her eyes. “Everyone borrows money. It’ll be—”
“You are not going to leave college in debt!” Christian snapped, and immediately regretted his tone. She shrank away from him, and he blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. “I didn’t mean to be so…” He waved his hand in the air, brushing it away. “We’ll figure it out. We always have. You’re already working during the semester and that slows you down, so it isn’t like you can take on another job during the school year.”
They had seven semesters of this left. Not, of course, that he was counting or anything. But in his not-so-humble opinion, May of 2024 couldn’t come fast enough.
He’d never, ever say that to Yesenia, of course.
She sighed, her long, dark hair a tangled mess, her mascara smeared across her face. She was normally so particular about her appearance. If she looked in the mirror, he was sure she’d let out a shriek of horror.
“I wish I could find a second job this summer,” she said miserably. “Danyard’s is always so good about taking me back, but I need to find something for the evenings and weekends.”
Danyard’s, a local office furniture company, was always so good about rehiring Yesenia every summer because she was the hardest worker they had, and they knew it. They paid her minimum wage – a crime in Christian’s book – but Yesenia said she liked the fact that it started so early in the morning and gave her from three o’clock on to work somewhere else.
Not, of course, that this gap in her schedule had done her any good this summer.
“Your shift down there already starts at 6:30 in the morning,” he reminded her. “You can’t work too late into the evenings.”
She shrugged. “I can sleep when I’m dead,” she quipped, trying to smile.
And I’ll eat when I’m dead. But he didn’t say it out loud. Yesenia already worried about how often he ate macaroni and cheese – aka, the Yellow Death – for dinner. He refused to make her worry more.
Finally, she slipped out the front door when she realized how late it was. “I know Stetson has you cutting hay right now, which means you’ll need to get up in just a couple of hours. I’ll let you sleep.” And then she was gone into the night.
Christian forced his weary body to bed, staring up at the ceiling as he tried to figure out what to do. What’d he been thinking, dating Carla? Here she was, this successful businesswoman. She had employees. She’d been running Happy Petals for years. She even had her own house, unlike him, who lived in a single-wide trailer for free as part of his pay package from Stetson.
Huh. Actually, come to think of it, he’d only ever seen Carla come down the stairs of the florist shop and greet him there. Where was her house? He needed to ask her on their next date.
He beat his fist dully against his forehead.
If they should have a next date. Maybe he should just break things off with her now, before she figured out she was too good for him.
God, life sucked so hard sometimes…
Chapter 12
Carla
Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has.
~Westley in The Princess Bride
July, 2020
Carla took a sip of her coffee and settled back against the bench seat of the bakery with a happy sigh. When Hannah’d had the temerity to get married, it’d thrown a real wrench in the works for the meetings of the Early Spinster’s Club, and she and Michelle had floundered around a bit, unsure of what to do. They couldn’t have meetings for a club with two people in it.
And then Michelle had struck up a conversation with Autumn one day while at the shop, waiting for Carla to finish helping a customer, and began probing for deets when it came to Autumn’s love life. Carla had missed the whole thing, what with being busy and all with her customer, but Michelle told her all about it with relish afterwards.
“I told Autumn her boyfriend, Johnny, is so worthless, she might as well be single—”
“You didn’t!” Carla had broken in, and then had started laughing. “Oh, Michelle.”
Her friend had just shrugged. “I told her she could be an honorary member of the club, and that since we needed a secretary, she could do that.”
“What did she say?!” Carla had asked, torn between horror and laughter. Only Michelle would tell someone that their long-term boyfriend was a pile of worthless shit.
“She asked when the next meeting was. I figured we could go back to our schedule from before, so next Wednesday afternoon. She said she’d be there.”
And, she’d shown up. Bouncing brown natural curls and brilliant dark green eyes, Autumn was now officially the newest member of the Early Spinster’s Club. She was so damn gorgeous, there was no way she’d last long – she was sure to get married way before lifers like her and Michelle – but still, Carla liked having Autumn there. She loved Michelle with all her heart, but sometimes, her snarkiness was a bit much to take without anyone else there to help buffer the storm.
“I was pissed as hell with him,” Michelle said darkly to Autumn, deep into a story about her latest run-in with a negligent animal owner. “Treating animals like that? I told him he had a week to get the property back into shape and good-quality hay for his horses, or I’d be back with Sheriff Connelly in tow. I also told him to take a damn shower. He smelled like the south end of a north-bound mule.”
Autumn let out a whoop of laughter at that and Carla shook her head even as she chuckled. There was an eight-year difference between Michelle and Autumn, so they hadn’t had much of a chance to hang out before now, and Carla was happy to see them hit it off. Such age differences that’d seemed so huge in high school now seemed trivial.
Thank God we’ve left high school behind. Life was better as an adult, no question about it.
Michelle, spurred on by the reaction of her new audience, launched into one of her favorite diatribes. “Did you know that male animals that’ve been castrated are much healthier than their full-strength brethren?”
“Really?” Autumn said, her mouth hanging open at the thought. “I didn’t know it made a difference.”
“Oh yeah. Guys are much better off with their nuts removed,” Michelle said baldly, eliciting another round of belly laughs from Autumn.
Carla chuckled even as she made the mental note to never let Christian hear Michelle pontificate upon this particular theory. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t appreciate it.
And then, the air changed. She’d never been able to explain it properly to Michelle or Hannah – Michelle had said that Carla was “weirdly sensitive to things that didn’t matter” the last time she’d tried to explain the sensation – but it was a sensation Carla couldn’t ignore. There was something going on. Sitting up, she looked around the bakery and immediately realized where it was coming from. The harried woman at the front counter, talking to Sugar, was practically spewing anxiety.
“Are there…teenagers,” the woman stumbled slightly over the word, “around here who want a job for a couple of weeks?” She had a slight nasal quality to her voice, a flat accent that told Carla that she wasn’t from around here.
Northeast? Maybe? Why was a lady from the northeast wanting to hire teenagers?
Scratch that. What was a lady from back east doing in Sawyer, Idaho?
Sugar’s brows knitted, and Carla could tell the full-time barista was trying to figure out the same thing. “What’re you wanting the teenagers to do?” she asked. She was tugging on her braid of straight brown hair, just like she always did when she was confused.
“Clean-up work,” the woman said vaguely, waving her coffee cup in the air.
Dimly, Carla could hear Michelle going into the finer details about how castrated males were healthier than full-strength males, but Carla ignored her. That was just Michelle being Michelle.
This lady at the check-out counter, though, stuck out like a whale floundering around in the Amazon rainforest. There was a story here, and interested in human beings like she was, Carla wanted to figure it out.
“What are you cleaning up?” Sugar pressed her. Carla mentally clapped in appreciation of Sugar’s persistence.
“I bought the old Roberts’ mansion,” the woman finally said, and with that, the buzz in the bakery disappeared. Even Michelle stopped pontificating upon the benefits of male castration – only in the animal kingdom, of course – and turned, mouth open, to the woman at the counter.
“Did she just say she bought the Roberts’ mansion?!” Michelle gasped under her breath.
Of course! Carla almost slapped her forehead. The county clerk had told me all about her when she came in to pick up those flowers for her daughter’s birthday. What would the chances be that two women from back east were wandering around Sawyer at the same time?
She was even more petite and more beautiful than the clerk had described, though. Carla had conveniently left that part out when talking to Christian – telling the guy she was on a date with that a drop-dead gorgeous woman had just moved to town hadn’t seemed like a stellar plan.
Now that Carla had clapped eyes on the woman, though, she realized words didn’t do her justice. Even Autumn would stay single forever with this woman in the availability pool. At least, the county clerk had said she thought Keila – “Pronounced like ‘tequila’ without the T,” as the clerk had explained – was single. She’d never been seen with a guy; wasn’t wearing a wedding ring; and the paperwork for the mansion’d had just Keila’s name on it.
Carla wasn’t sure if the clerk should really be gossiping about the transactions that took place down at the county courthouse, although it was true that it was all public knowledge, and Carla did love hearing the gossip. She was careful to never spread any herself, of course, but she loved being in the know.
The ringing silence of the bakery finally broke under a tidal wave of questions.
“Does it still stink?” shouted Mr. Maddow.
Not to be outdone by his friend, Mr. Behrend hollered, “Has the back half fallen in on itself? I heard it collapsed last year. Least, that’s what the sheriff said when he came back after he found the dead body.”
Questions were swirling in fast and furious now, and Carla couldn’t keep track of who was asking what. Someone was shouting about gold bars and someone else was asking about the cockroach infestation, but if Carla thought it was overwhelming, she could plainly see it was affecting the newcomer a hell of a lot more.
The deer-in-the-headlights look on her face said it all.
Carla hesitated, not sure if she should stand up and throw herself in front of this woman to defend her from the rest of the town or leave her be, when Mr. Stultz’s voice rose above the rest as he shouted, “How much did you dicker the tax man down to? I heard the county commissioners were downright pissed that you got the place for a song and a dance.”
Like shutting off a tap, the bakery was silent once more, every eye pinned on the woman at the cash register.
Keila fixed a haughty stare on Mr. Stultz and said icily, “I really don’t see how this is any of your business.”
And with that, Carla was quite sure what she needed to do.
“See y’all later,” she said under her breath as she pushed herself up from the booth.
“Where are you going?!” Michelle whisper-yelled after her, but Carla ignored her. Whatever this woman was thinking buying the old Roberts’ mansion, she wasn’t going to win any favors in Sawyer with that attitude.
Maybe it really wasn’t the business of anyone in Sawyer to know how much she paid in back taxes for the falling-down mansion, but that didn’t mean that she could actually state such things out loud. Not as an outsider, anyway.
“I’ll help you find some teenagers,” Carla said loudly, grasping the tiny woman’s delicate elbow and steering her towards the front door. “Morning, Mrs. Gehring. Morning, Mr. Willow. Don’t forget to pick up your flowers for your granddaughter’s birthday, Mrs. Worsop – the bouquet is ready,” and then they were out the door and heading down the sidewalk towards Happy Petals. “I’m Carla Grahame, by the way,” she said conversationally, walking fast and forcing her companion to keep up. “And you are Keila Wilson?”
“How did you know that?!” the woman gasped, her cherry red lips making a perfect O. Carla almost asked her what brand and shade she used – she was sure Christian would love that color on her – but forced herself to stay focused.
“Small towns,” Carla said cheerfully, keeping them moving at a brisk pace. They had to get to shelter before some enterprising Sawyerite decided to run after them. As it was, she’d count her blessings if she didn’t “randomly” have a half-dozen people remember that they needed to stop by for some flowers right now, once word spread where the new owner was hiding. “Everybody knows everything. You’d have better luck trying to hide a secret from the CIA than from the people of Sawyer. Here’s my shop.”
She unlocked the front door and hurried inside, deftly hitting the light switch for the open sign while also hanging up her keys.
Moving in slow motion, Keila walked in behind her but then simply stood there, frozen to the spot. Carla hastened to reassure her.
“I own Happy Petals,” she said, hoping Keila wouldn’t take offense at her stating the obvious. Why else would she have a key to the front door of the business?
But Keila seemed to be a little slow on the uptake. Maybe she was still in shock from the Muffin Man encounter. Her bright blue eyes – the exact color of her shirt – blinked just as slowly as she looked around, as if trying to figure out where she was at and what was happening.
“The good news is,” Carla said, steering the convo back to the disastrous first encounter with the locals, “Sawyer may be filled to the brim with inquisitive, nosy people, but they’re also sweet and kind. For the most part. But if you need something, the people here will take the clothes off their backs to make it happen.”
