The Accidental Florist

'Bright red, then?'

'Floozy.'

'Carmine red?'

Jane paused. 'Maybe.' She laughed. 'Mel's mother will probably fall into a faint as I come down the aisle.'

Chapter

EIGHT

O

n Monday Jane got back to work, tweaking her manuscript, and double checking her historical research and punctuation. She hadn't yet figured out the exact dates and what days they fell on but she had a bookmark on her computer for any month of any year you wanted to look up. She might have to adjust a few things considering that her heroine was a churchgoer.

Since Todd had grown up, he'd decided that Sunday school was too childish and church services were too boring. And Jane herself had more or less given up as well. She'd only gone to church to set a good example for the children and the church that they'd always gone to was turning quite a bit to the fundamentalist viewpoint anyway. And anytime lately that she had showed

up, somebody tried to buttonhole her to run some sort of fund-raising project.

She pulled up a bookmark for the year she needed and made a printout of the four months the story involved. Later she'd cut them out and enlarge each one on her copier and thumbtack them to her bulletin board.

The phone rang as she was printing out the year she was working on. 'Hello, Jack, what's up?'

'You need to hire a contractor. Your uncle Jim liked the one he chose. You should talk to him. Or get another bid on the advice of someone else you trust. But whoever you choose should be ready to start on the foundation next week on Tuesday or Wednesday. It involves digging a huge hole, filling it with gravel, and building wooden barriers for foundation pouring. For a while it will be noisy, especially when the concrete truck pulls into your side yard. Your contractor should do that because there are no gardens on that end of the yard. You might want to keep your cats inside when the concrete is poured so they don't bring it in the house if they explore it.'

'I'll call Uncle Jim right now.'

When he answered, she heard the faint whirring sound of some sort of machine turning off. 'Uncle Jim, Jack Edgeworth told me to talk to you about the contractor you used.'

'He's John Beckman. He was good. Knows all the good subcontractors, all the county and township codes, and goes and gets the right permits for every stage of the work.'

'Mr. Edgeworth suggested I get a second bid fromsomeone I trust. But you're the only one I can think of trusting.'

'That's nice of you to say. Here is his telephone number.' 'Thanks. I'll call him immediately.'

She did so, and found the man pleasant and agreeable to starting the work the next week, which surprised her.

I must finish this book before this starts, Jane thought. A

good incentive to get it in earlier than she needed to send it to her agent to read before it was sent on to the publisher. No more messing around trying to find a wedding dress or considering colors to wear for a fake wedding for the time being.

By Monday afternoon, Jane had been to the FedEx box to deposit the manuscript into the maw of it. She stood for a minute, enjoying the sound of it thumping on the bottom of the metal box on its way to New York.

She'd need to start a third book soon. At least start making notes about possible characters, especially the main character. She'd need a new setting. The one she'd just completed had taken place considerably later than the first. What other area of American history did she want to pursue? Revolutionary times? Colonial?

She'd already accumulated quite a library of costumes through time, styles of housing, important dates, words and phrases, dictionaries, and even a book of inventions and when the new technologies had originated. She had a seven-language dictionary, a bird and butterfly guide,

as well as one about wild animals so she wouldn't make errors about where they lived in various seasons.

But the historical time lines were the best. She might drop by a bookstore while the noise was going on and see if there was some new book that would be useful. After all, she'd learned at a mystery writers and readers conference that books were deductible if you were a writer. She wondered if her cable bills would count. She'd taken notes from lots of programs on the History Channel. She'd check with her accountant. After all, deductions, as Martha Stewart was always saying, were a Good Thing.

Jane invited Todd to go along.

'I like books and bookstores, but you take so much time that I go crazy. I'll pass this time.'

Jane was relieved. She knew she spent too much time when she went to a big bookstore. She was greedy for books. She'd take a list of the subjects, but didn't include mysteries. Those were the shelves she browsed through first before she could even consider the research books.

She found some of her favorites. Charlaine Harris had a new hardback and a paperback on the shelves. She hadn't read either of them yet. Rhys Bowen had a new paperback historical mystery so she picked that up as well. Jill Churchill had another of her books set in the thirties she couldn't resist.

She'd read these in the evenings when she'd finished her own work for the day. Then she consulted her list.

She'd looked up the latest USA Today booklist of the 150 bestsellers that week and taken notes. She'd also justbrowsed all of the nonfiction and history sections. She kept piling up books at a desk in the middle of the store, putting a sticky note on the top saying 'Save for Jane Jeffry'

She had to have two bags because one would have spilled its guts out the bottom before she could haul it to the car. The real treasure she found was a government study of the most popular names for boys and girls through the whole last century. It listed the thirty most popular for each year. A plethora of names. Unfortunately, most of them for decades were Mary and John. But there were some really good ones that cropped up occasionally. Carmina, Drew, Mick, Serena, and for a spell after the last version of the movie about the Titanic came out, there were lots and lots of first place Jacks and Roses.

Early Tuesday morning Jane was awoken by the sound of her fence coming down. She'd forgotten to buy kitty litter and bins to see if they still remembered what they were for. She made a quick run to a pet store and discovered there was now a wonderful thing called 'self-clumping kitty litter.' Everything, including liquid, turned into a ball. You bought scoops with grooves through them, and lots of plastic bags. She was also told to get a box of baking soda and a fine sieve. Stir a tiny bit in every time you cleaned out the clumps and they wouldn't smell bad — to the cats or the person cleaning up. The pet store manager suggested that she should buy two low-sided bins. Most cats didn't want to use each other's bins.

When she returned home, she found a good-sized

plastic container in an upper cabinet that would do for a generous water bowl. There was lots of noise outside and the cats had taken refuge in the basement, just as they always did during lightning storms.

Todd and Shelley's boy John were already outside loving the noise and lots of strong men with power tools.