She refilled the dog’s water bowl and with her heart feeling jittery inside her chest, she went out to her car.
The engine started just fine.
And the little jitters jittered no more.
She had no reason to call Jay at all.
Feeling decidedly disgruntled, she drove to the flower shop.
Petunia was on the phone when Arabella walked inside. She was obviously taking an order and Arabella walked around her at the counter to go in back where two large worktables were covered with the makings of several bouquets.
She checked the delivery schedule; her first one of the day wasn’t for another few hours. Petunia was still busy on the phone, so Arabella began sweeping up the bits of stems and leaves that surrounded the work area. She’d moved on to polishing the glass of the refrigerated cases when Petunia finally entered the workroom.
“Ever wrapped a hand-tied bridal bouquet?”
Arabella glanced over her shoulder. Petunia was holding up one of the lush bouquets, an inquiring look on her face.
Arabella shook her head. “Have only carried more than my fair share of bridesmaid bouquets.”
“Close enough.” Petunia gestured with the flowers in her hand. “Gerrie called in sick this morning.”
Arabella gave a final swipe over the glass. “What do you need me to do?”
Petunia pulled a box of ribbons from beneath the worktable and set it near Arabella. “Need to have all of these bouquets wrapped. Bride wants the ivory ribbon.” She withdrew the tail of one of the spools of ribbon inside the box. With enviable ease, she spun the bouquet, deftly encasing the fat bundle of stems in lovely ribbon that she fastened with a pearl-topped pin at the top. “Easy peasy.” She handed the finished bouquet to Arabella. “Have twelve of them to do.”
“Twelve! For one wedding?” Not even Tammy Jo was having twelve bridesmaids for her fairy-tale wedding.
Petunia shrugged. “Even here in Rambling Rose, some brides are prone to overdoing it.” Her lips twitched. “What should I tell them? No, I don’t want the business?” She gestured at the ribbons. “Let’s see how you do. It’s not rocket science.”
“Which is also fortunate,” Arabella murmured as she gingerly plucked the end of the ribbon and tried to emulate Petunia’s work, albeit much more slowly. When she reached the top of the stems, Petunia cut the ribbon and showed her once more how to fold it back on itself so none of the raw edge showed, and pin it in place.
Then Petunia peered through her glasses at Arabella’s work and nodded in satisfaction. “I’ll have you making corsages and boutonnieres in no time.”
She obviously recognized Arabella’s horror, because she laughed. “I’m kidding, girl. I know you’re looking for a permanent job. But today I am very glad to have you. My father usually fills in for Todd and even though the man is a regular MacGyver, he’d be all thumbs when it comes to this sort of thing.” She moved down the table to continue working on the rest of the order. “Heard there’s an opening for a cashier over at the grocery on Main.”
“No offense to all of the grocery cashiers of the world, but if I’m going to stand on my feet all day, I’d rather be surrounded by the beautiful flowers here than scanning canned beans and heads of lettuce.”
Petunia chuckled. “Pay’s probably better at the grocery.” She plucked a spray of greenery from the stems lying on the table in front of her and after a brief study, snipped off a trio of leaves. “Don’t know why you haven’t applied over at Hotel Fortune. Goodness knows you’ve got the connections there.”
Arabella chewed the inside of her lip, not wanting to admit that working at the hotel—where Jay worked—had of course figured prominently in her dream world.
Reality, though, was that she had no experience in hospitality whatsoever.
“You know that one of the goals of the hotel was to fill as many positions with locals as possible.” She studied her bouquet, trying to decide if the ribbon looked straight or not.
“You’re a local now, too.”
She unwound the ribbon and started again. “I appreciate the sentiment, but we both know that’s not really true.”
“Haven’t you moved permanently to Rambling Rose?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Makes you qualify in my mind, girl.” Petunia’s hands were fairly flying as she plucked a flower here, a bit of leaf there, and fastened them all together into something small and lovely. “Besides which, my nephew Jason works over there and he says they’ve been having trouble filling all the positions.”
Arabella chewed her lip again, stifling the automatic urge to confirm that point. But the things that Brady spoke about over the dinner table at home probably weren’t things that he wanted her broadcasting. So she stayed silent and reached for the scissors.
“No wonder, really,” Petunia mused.
Arabella couldn’t help herself. “Why is that?”
Petunia placed her finished corsage onto a bed of crimped tissue slices filling the bottom of a clear plastic container. “Well, the place seems cursed, doesn’t it?”
Arabella’s shoulders stiffened. “No.”
Her boss must have recognized Arabella’s offense because she looked up from her work again. “I’m not saying it is,” she said quickly. “Or even that I agree. But there’s no denying the accidents that have occurred there. That balcony collapsing?” Tsking softly, she snapped the plastic lid in place and set the corsage in a shallow box alongside several others, then immediately began selecting another flower. “My husband insisted Jason find a job somewhere else. At the time, I thought he was overreacting, but he can’t very well control what Jason does.”
A lot of people had overreacted to the balcony collapse, Arabella thought, her own father included. But it had been a fluke. A terrible
