Love in Bloom (16 page)

“I knew that boy was taken with you a week ago.”

“It was a kiss on the cheek,” Lily pointed out dismissively, but she couldn’t hide her smile, so she stared out the rear passenger seat window of the sedan.

“In public,” Miss Mars added with great portent from the front.

Lily rolled her eyes, but that smile stubbornly stayed put.

“You will continue to invite him to church, won’t you?” Coraline asked, eyeing Lily via the rearview mirror.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Lily told her. “Why don’t you invite him?”

“I
have
invited him,” Coraline said. “I’ve reasoned with him, cajoled him. I’ve pleaded with that boy, if you must know, and he had no trouble telling me to mind my own business.”

Lily leaned forward, frowning. “How long ago was that?”

“Oh…two, three years, at least, if not longer.”

Sitting back, Lily shook her head. “I see. Well, if he won’t go to church for his daughter’s birthday, then I think it’s safe to say that he won’t go to church, period.”

“Hmm,” Coraline said, only that, until they pulled into the parking space in front of the church. “We will continue to pray about it and see what God is doing. Yes?”

“But of course,” Miss Mars agreed.

“Yes.” Lily added her soft voice to those of her friends.

She would definitely pray that Isabella’s birthday wish would be granted. As for her and Tate, she didn’t know what to think. Was he reconsidering his decision not to remarry? Was he open to the possibility? And what of children? If Tate could find his way back to church, then perhaps he could find enough faith to risk having a second child. Or was she once again spinning castles in the air around a man who could never be hers because, as dear as Isabella was, Lily didn’t think she could be content without having a child with Tate?

The absurdity of that made her want to laugh—or weep. For years she’d despaired of ever even being noticed by a man, and now that someone seemed to have noticed her, she knew in her heart of hearts that it wouldn’t be enough just to have a man want her or even marry her. For Lily marriage had to include a family and babies. Plural. A single kiss and a peck on the cheek didn’t seem like much by comparison, at least not to her, but it was enough to cause talk.

Either Tate hadn’t heard the talk by Thursday morning or he wasn’t bothered by it, for he called to say that they could go over to look at Kenneth’s minivan at any time convenient to her. Lily arranged for Tate to pick her up after the shop closed that evening, expecting that he would have Isabella with him. Tate arrived alone, however, having left Isabella with her grandparents.

Lily had taken a few minutes before Sherie left for the day to run upstairs and freshen up, exchanging jeans and a cotton blouse for white knit capris and a bold silky gold-and-white print, knee-length top. Gold flip-flops and a narrow gold headband completed the outfit. She almost changed her mind about it when Sherie whistled after she came back downstairs.

“Get a load of you! Wow. That’s pretty classy for small-town Kansas.”

“Too much?” Lily asked, looking down at herself and wrinkling her nose.

Sherie waved away her concern. “You look great. Tate won’t know what hit him.”

Lily’s face flamed. “Uh, Tate’s not… That is, I’m seeing about buying a van. I—I just want to make a good impression.”

Grabbing up her purse, Sherie just grinned and headed for the door. “Uh-huh. I’d say you’ve got that covered. Hope the van thing goes well, too.”

Lily gulped, nodded and managed a farewell wave as her employee went out, chortling. She passed Tate on his way in.

“Am I late? Got held up by a septic hog. Beats everything I’ve ever seen. One day it’s fine, the next it’s—” He broke off, shoved back the brim of the faded cap that he wore and looked her over before glancing down at his own muddy boots and dusty jeans. “Can you hold on for a minute? Uh, just close up while I…uh…” With that he spun and went right back out the door.

Lily groaned. Why hadn’t she gone with the jeans and T-shirt? Why did she have to try to impress him? She considered going upstairs to change, but how would she explain that? She started turning off lights and shutting down the register. When she looked up a few seconds later, she spied him cutting across the street, sans cap, to the This ‘N’ That with a pair of jeans and a clean shirt on hangers. Was he going to change? For her? She couldn’t help feeling flattered, especially as he jogged across the street four or five minutes later in fresh garments, his boots darkened as if he’d washed them in Miss Mars’s restroom sink.

“Good thing I keep clean clothes in the truck,” he said, coming through the door. “Can’t hold a candle to you, but at least I won’t embarrass you.”

“You could never embarrass me!” she told him, blushing with the compliment.

“Why, thank you, ma’am,” he drawled, bowing slightly. “But a fella likes to think he at least has a chance to keep up with a beautiful woman.”

Lily caught her breath, embarrassingly close to tears. A beautiful woman. Her? No one had ever before called her beautiful, and she wasn’t silly enough to believe it. She wasn’t beautiful. Just a hopelessly smitten idiot.

* * *

They drove over to the Wilbur house on the northwest edge of town. The small clapboard structure stood almost hidden in the center of a large, double lot filled with a sizable garden, various sheds and detached garages. Tate explained that Kenneth did his own mechanic work and built planters for sale from salvaged materials, as well as bicycles, which he cobbled together from used parts. Lily took an instant liking to a rusty silver bike with a blue front fender.

Kenneth handed over the keys to the minivan and suggested that Danny go along to answer any questions they might have on the test drive. The boy made a valiant effort to sell the thing. Lily had driven several miles out of town and was on the way back again before Tate discovered what Lily had already realized.

“This is your vehicle, isn’t it, Danny?”

“Um, it’s the one I drive most,” the boy evaded. “Dad’s got to have the truck for hauling stuff. Besides, it’s been rebuilt so much it’s hardly worth anything at all. This here is a quality van. All the parts are original, and we have all the maintenance records, so the extended warranty is still in effect. Oh, and the seats come in and out real easy. I can show you when we get back to the house.”

“That’s fine,” Lily said with a nod.

Tate wished the boy didn’t have to part with his vehicle. Danny was a good son, though. He’d do what was needed without complaint, the same way he worked the garden and looked after his grandmother.

Back at the Wilbur place, they all got out and walked around the van, metaphorically kicking the tires. Kenneth stood back while Danny tried to close the sale, showing Lily how to remove the backseats inside the van to increase the cargo space.

“All right,” Lily said. “I’ll take it.”

Neither Kenneth nor Danny immediately reacted, which caused her to look to Tate in confusion. He leaned close and said, “You should make a counteroffer to their asking price. That’s how these things are done.”

“Oh.” She cleared her throat and offered fifty bucks less than the asking price. Tate literally gasped, but it was too late to suggest she try for five hundred less.

Kenneth and Danny traded incredulous looks and both yelled, “Yes!”

Lily nodded as if completely satisfied, and in a stern voice started laying out conditions. “Now, then, I’ll want that silver bicycle thrown in. Oh, and, Danny, I’ll be needing you to make deliveries. The hours are uncertain. I’ll simply need you when I need you. Meanwhile, of course, I don’t have a garage, so the van will have to stay with you. I’ll pay for the insurance, but I’ll expect you to keep the van gassed and ready. The pay is low, I’m afraid, but you’ll be free to keep any tips that you receive.”

Danny stood with his mouth hanging open for a full ten seconds before he shifted and asked, “I can keep it here?”

“And drive it. If you’re careful.”

The kid put his hands to his head and twisted away, but not before Tate caught the shimmer of tears in his eyes.

Lily cleared her throat. “I, uh, need you and the van together if you’re going to make the deliveries for me,” she pointed out. “You do have a cell phone, don’t you?”

He dropped his hands and turned, head and shoulders slowly bowing. “No.”

Lily made a face. “Well, I have a business plan and an extra phone. Nothing fancy. We can add you to it. But you’ll have to be responsible about your phone use.”

Danny’s head jerked up. He looked like he’d just received an electric shock.

“Danny’s very responsible,” Kenneth said quickly, his voice full of gravel.

“Well, then,” Lily concluded briskly, “I can leave a deposit and take the bicycle today. Then we can complete the transaction early next week.”

Kenneth insisted that a deposit was not necessary, and he agreed to drive with Lily to his bank in Manhattan on Tuesday to have the title changed and funds paid.

“Wait’ll I tell Matt!” Danny suddenly exclaimed. His face colored, and he shifted his feet, adding, “It’s just, well, we sort of been praying about selling the van.”

Lily smiled and nodded. Tate loaded the bicycle into the truck bed, handed Lily up into the front seat, said goodbye to his friends and calmly drove away from the Wilbur place. He saw son and father embrace as he did so, clapping each other on the back. Long minutes passed before he trusted himself to speak around the lump in his throat.

“That was a good thing you did back there.”

Lily shook her head. “I couldn’t take his van away from him, especially as it was just going to sit at the curb in front of my shop ninety percent of the time.” She rubbed her nose and straightened. “Besides, I know what it’s like to have to give up a vehicle you love.” She cleared her throat and added, “I sold mine to raise the matching funds to get the grant to come here.”

Tate had to let that rattle around inside his mind for a minute or two. When he’d extracted all the implications from it, he said, “I somehow don’t think that was a seven-year-old minivan.”

She gave him a wry smile. “More like a BMW Z8 Roadster. Late model. Red.”

Tate whistled. “That’s a top-end vehicle.”

“It was a graduation gift from my grandparents.”

“Graduation gift? From what? Is there a flower design school?”

She took a deep breath and let it out again. “Law school.”

He nearly ran the truck off the road. “You’re a
lawyer?
”

She literally cringed. “I was. But I’m not now, not really. Don’t tell anyone. I hated it, and that’s why I quit, but my family… You have to understand. I’m the lowly
florist
in a family of lawyers. Oh, I’m saying it badly.”

“Your whole family are lawyers?”

She nodded. “My grandfather is a judge.” While he digested that, she went on. “My grandmother and father are law professors. My mother works for the Justice Department. My sister is in general practice in Massachusetts. As a matter of fact we used to practice at the same law firm. Then I saw this newspaper story about a town in Kansas offering grants to get businesses to locate there. I mean, here.”

Tate shook his head. “No wonder your application was so well-prepared.”

Lily sighed. “The truth is, I was a horrible failure as an attorney, and I just couldn’t pretend anymore once my sister became engaged to—” She broke off, gasping back whatever she’d been about to say, but Tate wasn’t about to let her stop there.

“Engaged to,” he prodded, switching his gaze back and forth between the street and her, “engaged to who?”

“Er, her husband. I mean, the man who would become her husband.”

“Lily,” Tate said, “you’re leaving out something. What are you leaving out?”

She covered her face with her hands. “He was our boss.”

Tate tilted his head, trying to hear what she still wasn’t saying. “So your sister married the boss. What’s the big deal? Happens all the time.”

Dropping her hands, Lily nodded miserably and confessed, “I had a terrible crush on him.”

Tate hit the brake, causing the truck to stop several feet short of the four-way stop sign. He corrected the distance, thinking aloud. “So, your sister stole your boyfriend?”

“No! He hardly knew I existed. I told you, I’m not the sort of woman that men notice. Laurel is. He had his eye on her from the minute she first walked through the door. It was inevitable, really, and I’m happy for them. I—I just didn’t want to hang around and watch them being happy together.” Head bowed, she smoothed the hem of her top.

Grimly Tate made the left turn and guided the truck to the curb in front of Lily’s shop. As soon as he put the transmission into Park, Lily erupted.

“I’m a terrible person, aren’t I? My baby sister marries some guy I like a lot, so I run off to Kansas! It’s pathetic.”

“No. It’s perfectly understandable.” Tate felt the words burn in his throat. “If you love the guy and he marries your sister…”

“I don’t
love
him,” Lily scoffed, her head still bowed. “I never loved him. I know that now.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I just wanted him to notice me. Instead he noticed her.”

“There must be something wrong with him,” Tate told her, “because
I’ve
noticed you. I can’t seem to help noticing you. And I don’t understand how you can say you’re a terrible person when you do things like you did this evening.”

She smiled, shook her head and pushed up her glasses. “It’s a good arrangement for everyone.”

“Especially Danny,” Tate pointed out. She shrugged, and he killed the engine. “I’ll unload the bike for you.”

“Would you mind taking it upstairs? I might paint it later.”

“Not at all. Say, what are you doing for dinner?”

“Oh, I have a casserole ready to warm in the microwave,” she said, glancing at him. “Would you, um, c-care to join me? There’s plenty.”

The sensible thing to do, of course, would be to make his excuses and go on his way, but he’d tossed aside sensible some time ago. Besides, Isabella had certainly already eaten with his parents. Why eat alone when he really wanted to spend this time with Lily, who had just done one of the nicest things he’d ever witnessed? What kind of fool wouldn’t notice a woman like her?