We didn’t stop running until we reached my bright yellow car, where we paused to catch our breath, making white plumes in the frosty air.
“That was cool,” Tara said. “We escaped just in the nick of time, like in the movies.”
“They wouldn’t have dared to touch us,” I assured her. “It was all for show.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Mom said as we stowed the supplies in my tiny trunk.
“Trust me, Mom, this isn’t the first time Uniworld has tried to unnerve me.”
“You never told me they tried to unnerve you,” Mom said, a frown creasing her brow.
“Because I knew you’d worry.”
“Thank you. Now I’m worried.”
“Nothing bad’s going to happen. PAR is behind me-Protectors of Animal Rights. Remember when I protested Dermacol Laboratory’s use of animals to test their cosmetics last summer? I did that with PAR’s help. We closed down a puppy mill last winter. And other PAR groups prevented two Uniworld farm factories from opening last year by rallying local citizens. No one got hurt either time.”
“Is PAR organizing the protests here in New Chapel?”
“That’s my responsibility.”
“But they’re here in town working with you?”
“No, but a very competent PAR representative is advising me. Naturally, Uniworld wants to stop the protests, but I refuse to let a few threatening letters scare me off.”
Mom gasped. “They’ve actually threatened you?”
Why didn’t I learn to keep my mouth shut? “In a polite way, like, ‘please cease and desist.’ I’m not dealing with gangsters, you know.”
“Can we go now?” Tara asked. “It’s, like, zero degrees out here.”
“In a minute, Tara,” Mom said. “Abigail, I’ve changed my mind. Let someone else try to stop that farm from opening. You have your whole life ahead of you. I don’t want to read in the newspaper one morning that your car was pushed into a ditch.”
No matter what the threat was, in her imagination, I always ended up in a ditch.
“That’s the problem with our society, Mom. ‘Let someone else do it. I’m too busy. I don’t want to be bothered.’ If everyone said that, we’d have huge, horrible problems, like drugs in our water supply, poisons in our plastic bottles, pesticides in our vegetables-”
“But we do have those problems,” she said.
“Exactly. Look, if it helps you worry less, all I’m planning to do for the moment is collect more signatures so I can take my petition to court and ask for an injunction. And what is Uniworld going to do about that? Shoot me?”
“I’m freezing here,” Tara called, rubbing her arms.
“What does Marco say about your protesting?” Mom asked.
“He’s behind me one hundred percent.” Although that figure might be subject to change when I finally got around to telling him about the threats. I gave Mom a hug. “Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Can’t. Move,” Tara said through tightly squeezed lips. “Frozen. Solid.”
“You should have said something earlier,” Mom said, and pushed the button on her remote. Across the lot, her headlights flashed. “Go sit in the van. I’ll be right there.”
Tara still pretended to be frozen into a Popsicle. Mom turned to give me a hug, then held me at arm’s distance. “Be careful.”
I held up my hand. “Promise.”
“You promised to get engaged, but that hasn’t happened yet, has it?”
“It won’t happen any sooner because you keep asking, either.”
We locked gazes, glaring stubbornly. Then her gaze moved upward, landing on my beret. “Is that what Tara was talking about earlier?”
“Mm-hmm,” Tara managed.
“How pretty,” Mom said, our dispute put aside. “Is it an antique?”
“I don’t know,” I said, fingering the brooch. “I found it in a shipment of flowers from Hawaii. I called the supplier, but he had no idea how it got in the box, so he said to keep it unless someone contacts him about it.”
“May I see it?” As I removed my hat, Mom took her reading glasses out of her purse for a closer look at the brooch. “Is it a lily?”
“Anthurium,” I said. “You can tell by the heart-shaped leaf and the long yellow spadix.”
“Spadix?” Tara repeated with a snicker, her lips apparently thawed. “Is that another name for a guy’s-?”
“Tara!” my mom said.
“Well, that’s what it looks like!” she cried.
Mom tapped the back with her fingernail. “It could be made out of wood, or some type of pottery. I’ll bet it wouldn’t be hard to copy.”
As I put my beret back on, I caught a familiar gleam in her eye. I had a feeling she’d found her inspiration.
“Hey, Buttercup, you’re back early. How was the show?” Marco asked, getting up from his desk to come around and greet me. He was in his office catching up on paperwork, and as usual, looking so yummy it was all I could do to not devour him then and there. Fortunately, I can suppress my appetite.
Marco had on a black T-shirt with a Down the Hatch logo on the front, close-fitting blue jeans, and scuffed black boots. There wasn’t anything extraordinary about the outfit, but the male inside it was a different story. How lucky was I to have found a guy who was not only brave, educated, and street-smart, but also honest, and with a dry wit that never failed to amuse me? Throw in a hard-bellied body, sexy voice, thick, wavy dark hair, and dark eyebrows over soulful, deep brown eyes, and he was one heck of a man.
He also had a firm, expressive mouth that was a genuine pleasure to kiss. Such as now. “You taste like peanut butter,” I told him, nibbling his lips. “Mmm. Makes me hungry.” ›
“You’re making me hungry, too,” he growled. We kissed again; then my stomach decided to join in the chorus, growling loud and long and not at all provocatively, definitely spoiling the romantic flavor of the moment.
“Sorry. I haven’t had lunch. I guess I should eat something.”
He turned and stretched across his desk for an open bag of nuts, affording me a great view of his backside. Hmm. Hot Pockets wasn’t such a bad nickname after all.
He held out the bag. “I’ll share these with you. So, what happened? I thought the Home and Garden Show ran until five o’clock.”
I grabbed a handful of peanuts and took a seat in one of the sleek black leather chairs in front of his desk as he relaxed in the matching chair beside me. “There was a slight hitch.”
Marco’s eyebrows rose. Such an endearing expression. So I gave him the whole story, from my petition failure through the candy disaster, omitting only my promise to Tara. When I stopped talking and reached for more nuts, I noticed Marco’s mouth quirking up at the corners, as it usually does when he’s amused.
“So, other than causing a minor panic with bleeding hearts, ticking off Nils Raand and two security guards with your petition, and getting your mom, Tara, and yourself booted out of the exposition center, how was the show?”
With a sigh, I leaned my head against the back of the chair. “Forty-three signatures. It’s disheartening, Marco. People simply don’t want to take a stand against injustice. I mean, everyone is busy, but how can they close their eyes to what’s happening?”
He drew my hand to his lips and pressed a sensual kiss in my palm. Tingles ran up my arm and landed in my pleasure zone, bringing a blissful sigh to my lips that made me forget my frustrations.
He kissed the inside of my wrist. “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day. Did anything good happen?”
“I promised Tara I’d take her to a Barrow Boys concert on February fourteenth for her birthday gift. Have you heard of the Barrow Boys?”
“Sure. I spend long hours on stakeouts, don’t forget, so I listen to lots of radio. The Barrow Boys are a good group. I like their music.”
Good thing, since that was how he’d be spending part of Valentine’s Day.
“That reminds me”-he pulled me onto his lap-“I finished my investigation this morning and got a nice fat check from it. So what do you say I take you to dinner somewhere pricey?”
“You are so on.”
“How about Adagio’s? I’ll pick you up at six.”
A. Mazing. I was thinking the same thing! Putting my arms around his neck, I said, “How about I wear my green silk dress?”
His pupils darkened as though he was already imagining me in that dress; then he kissed me, a deep, slow, intimate kiss that made me thirst for more. He was such a sucker for green.
“I’ve got to call for those concert tickets before they’re all gone,” I told him, reluctantly ending our kiss. “Tara would be crushed if she didn’t get to go.”
I reached for my coat and he stood to help me put it on. How many guys did that? “Oh. One more thing. Tara wants us both to take her. She needs two chaperones, and we were selected as the cool ones. Is that okay with you? It is on Valentine’s Day.” I held my breath.
“Sure.”
Was Marco not the best? I didn’t call him my hero for nothing. “Great! Thanks. She’ll be delighted.” I put on my beret, then paused. “I have to warn you, Tara has joined the campaign to get us to set a wedding date. I told her we were still discussing it.”
“Are we?”
“Discussing it?”
“We haven’t been.”
“We haven’t?”
“Maybe we should.”
“Wait. Are we talking about discussing setting a date or actually setting a date?”
“Discussing.”
“At dinner?”
“Yep.”
I gave him a light kiss and headed for the door. “See you at six.”
That was another great quality about Marco. He was always open for discussion.
I left Down the Hatch through the back exit and headed up the alley to my flower shop two stores away. Wow. Hard to believe we were seriously going to discuss setting a date for our wedding. After we’d promised our families we’d think about it, Marco hadn’t said anything further on the subject. I thought he’d been avoiding it. Maybe he thought I’d been avoiding it, too.
Okay, I had been avoiding it. The last time I’d made that big decision, my fiancé, Pryce Osborne II, dumped me two months before we were scheduled to walk down the aisle. So, sure, I was a little shy about taking that step again.
Still, I knew I shouldn’t compare Pryce to Marco. Pryce was a spoiled, self-centered mama’s boy who was used to getting his way, whereas Marco was considerate, helpful, family oriented, and had a strong work ethic-everything a husband should be. He had so many pluses, I doubted I could list them all, although, come to think of it, I probably should. Just for, you know, peace of mind. In fact, as soon as I had a few free minutes, I’d write them down.
So tonight we’d lay it all out on the table. I was actually getting excited.
I reached the back entrance to Bloomers and tugged on the heavy, fireproof door, cringing at the loud noise made by ancient, rusty hinges as I inched it open. But at the one-foot mark it stopped, refusing to budge until I wedged myself halfway inside and leaned my shoulder into it. Once in the building, I had to grab on to the handle and pull back as hard as I could until it slammed shut. Darned old door! It seemed to get worse by the season.
I’d gone before the city building commission in September to ask permission to put in a wider door, along with a small loading ramp, because as it was now, deliveries were a hassle. But so far, my request had been ignored. To see if there was a problem with my request, I had sent a letter to Peter Chinn, the assistant city attorney, who oversaw the building commission. When that didn’t garner any reply, I sent more letters, then called and e-mailed his office repeatedly, but he was ignoring me, too, and I really hated to be ignored. I wanted a new door!
Despite its flaws, I dearly loved the narrow, three-story redbrick building that housed Bloomers. Built around 1900, it had original wood floors, tin ceilings, and brick walls, giving the shop a cozy feeling modern structures simply couldn’t duplicate.
I took off my coat and hat and hung them on hooks along the wall behind the door. To my right was a small kitchen. Straight ahead, down the steep stairs, was a basement where we stored big pots, bags of potting medium, tall floral stands, and anything too large to fit in the workroom. Beyond the kitchen and tiny bathroom was the workroom, my favorite place in the whole world. And beyond that was the sales floor, also known as the shop, with a Victorian-inspired coffee-and-tea parlor in an adjacent room.
For a moment, I stood just inside the workroom doorway, breathing in the sweet floral aromas and basking in the coziness of the space. It was jam-packed with dried flowers, silk flowers, baskets, vases, and two huge, walk-in coolers filled with fresh flowers. It also held a desk with my computer equipment on it, a large worktable in the center, and rows of shelving on two walls. As my assistant, Lottie Dombowski, always said, “A place for everything and everything in its place.”
Before I forgot, I called the Hot Tix hotline and ordered three tickets for the Barrow Boys concert. I ended the call just as Lottie came through the purple curtain. She had on her usual pink sweatshirt, white jeans, and pink sneakers, and today her short, brassy curls sported silver barrettes.
Lottie owned Bloomers before I did. In fact, I worked for her during summers home from college, making deliveries and assisting in the workroom. She was a big woman with a big heart and a bigger family-four boys, quadruplets, who were about to turn eighteen.
Her husband, Herman, the love of her life, had developed a critical heart problem that racked up tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills. As a result, Lottie was forced to sell Bloomers to pay down the debt, so I decided to buy it, with the bank’s help, of course. Having just flunked out of law school and been jettisoned by Pryce, I needed a reason to get up in the morning, other than to stick pins in a rag doll with Pryce’s name on it. Now I had that reason-a mortgage the size of Texas.
“What are you doing back so early?” Lottie asked. “Did something happen?”
“You could say that.”
“Is that why you’re grinning from ear to ear?”
“No,” I said, and giggled. Giggled? Was I actually giddy at the thought of getting engaged? Was I twelve?
“You want to tell me about it? I’ll bet you didn’t have lunch yet, did you? Come on back to the kitchen and I’ll heat up some of the stew I brought in this morning. Grace can handle the front. The shop’s been quiet all morning.”
“Would you like coffee with your stew?” Grace asked, breezing into the workroom. I could always count on Grace to know exactly what was going on, mostly because she loved to eavesdrop. “I’ve got a fresh pot on. It’s got a touch of vanilla and a pinch of cinnamon in it today. And I made a batch of blueberry scones that will knock your socks off.”
Coffee and scones were two of Grace’s many specialties, along with her incredible instincts and her ability to keep our coffee-and-tea parlor humming along.
“I’d love both. Thanks.”
Grace Bingham was a sixtysomething Brit whom destiny kept throwing in my path. I’d first encountered her when she was the nurse at my elementary school. Later, she’d worked with one of my brothers as a surgical nurse at the hospital, and then as Dave Hammond’s secretary when I clerked for him. She finally retired last year, for about ten minutes, then grew bored and jumped at the chance to work at Bloomers.
I’d added the coffee-and-tea parlor as a way to draw in more customers, locating it in an unused storage room off the main shop, but Grace was the one who had created the Victorian theme that had become a hit on the town square. She brewed the best tea in town, had a secret recipe for coffee, and made fresh scones daily, the flavor depending on her mood.
We removed ourselves to the parlor so both women could hear about the Home and Garden Show mishap while I tucked into the steaming stew. I decided to save my news about our engagement discussion. They could process only so much information at a time.
“What a shame your mum’s red candy spoiled your stand against tyranny,” Grace said. She assumed her lecturer stance, holding the edges of her cardigan as though they were lapels. “As Thomas Jefferson said, ‘Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.’ ”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” I said with a sigh, “enlighten the people.”
“Sweetie, are you sure you want to go up against a giant food corporation?” Lottie asked. “You’re just one little gal.”
“PAR is behind me, Lottie. They’ve stopped Uniworld before.”
“But just how aggressive did Uniworld get those other times?”
“Why?”
Lottie left the room and returned with a letter-sized white envelope. “This was pushed under the door this morning.”
“Not another one!” As with the previous letters, my name was typed on the front in bold caps, with no stamp or return address. Inside would probably be the same demand for me to stop harassing the “poor farmer” so he could get on with the opening of his new dairy farm, which was how Uniworld was portraying their new operation. Except that this so-called poor farmer was actually a skilled manager who would be overseeing a large operation that in no way resembled a small dairy farm.
I tore open the envelope and unfolded a piece of plain white paper. Unlike the others, this missive had only one line on it: PLAY WITH FIRE, EXPECT TO BE BURNED.
Well, that was different.