Love in Bloom Read online

  “Yeah, they’re here for the trivia contest,” Duke cracked.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t offered to team up with them,” said Jason.

  Duke smirked. “I might give ’em a thrill. After I get this chick’s phone number.” He nodded at the approaching waitress, all decked out in a short, black skirt and a plunging black halter top. “Now there’s some hot cheese. Don’t be getting any ideas about this one. She’s got Duke written all over her.”

  Jason stared at the waitress and felt his lower jaw dropping. “What the hell?”

  THIRTEEN

  BOBBI HAD BEEN approaching the table at a good clip. Jason watched as she put on the brakes and stared at him like he was a cross between the grim reaper and the taxman.

  She made a fast recovery though, smiling at him and closing the distance. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Her recovery was quicker than his. All he could do was gawk at her, his brain frozen. What was Bobbi Walker the florist doing working as a cocktail waitress? He turned to Duke as if his friend somehow had an explanation for why his perfect woman was slinging drinks in the local pickup place instead of . . . what? What should she be doing? Sitting home reading poetry? At least he now knew there wasn’t somebody else.

  “You guys know each other?” Duke asked, looking from one to the other.

  “Yeah,” Jason said slowly. “Why didn’t you just tell me you worked on Saturday nights?” he asked Bobbi. “I was beginning to think I had competition.”

  “This is the Sunday-night chick?” Duke asked, dismayed.

  “I thought you wouldn’t be real impressed if you knew I was a cocktail waitress.” She lifted one shoulder in an embarrassed shrug. “But . . . I’ve got bills.”

  Jason remembered the book on cancer he’d seen at her apartment. Of course, that explained what she was doing here dressed up like a fifties pin-up girl. The poor kid was moonlighting to pay off medical bills. “How do you manage to do this and work at the shop every day?” She was going to jeopardize her health with all that nonstop work. This woman needed someone to step in and take care of her.

  She smiled her dimpled smile. “Working at the shop’s not working. That’s fun.” And then she turned the thousand-watt charm on Duke, too. “So is working here. What can I get you?”

  “Heineken,” said Duke. He sounded like a man who wanted a Harley and had to settle for a Honda.

  “I’ll have a Hale’s Pale Amber,” said Jason.

  “Coming right up,” she said and hurried off.

  Jason frowned as Duke watched her retreating posterior. “Hey.”

  Now Duke was frowning, too. “I can’t believe that’s the woman you’ve been seeing. I thought she owned a flower shop. What’s she doing working here?”

  “You heard her. She’s got bills.”

  “What, she’s got a shopping addiction?”

  “She’s got medical bills.”

  Duke’s eyebrows shot up. “Medical bills?”

  “I was helping her set up her bookcase today. She had a book on cancer.”

  Duke let out a soft whistle and shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Me, either,” said Jason. “She’s got so much energy.”

  They both watched as Bobbi stopped at other tables, collecting empty glasses and fresh orders. Neither one said anything, not until after she’d returned with their beers and started their tab.

  “I don’t know,” Duke said as she walked away. “It can’t have been breast cancer. I’d stake my life on it. Those are real.”

  “Hey, keep your eyes off the boobs,” Jason snapped.

  “Sorry,” Duke muttered, and took a swig of his beer. “I just can’t believe my cocktail babe is your flower chick. Man, that sucks.”

  SHE’D KNOWN THIS was coming. Sooner or later, Jason had to come here. But why, oh why, couldn’t he have come after she’d moved on to something else, something better, brainier, more impressive? This was so embarrassing. Of course, he’d been too polite to say anything rude, but he hadn’t had to. She’d known what he thought of her when she saw that shocked expression on his face. Everyone thought cocktail waitresses were dumb. It wasn’t fair. A girl could do this to put herself through school, but if it was her real job, well then, all people saw when they looked at her was a bod with no brain. But she had a brain and she’d prove it to him. She was going to read that Jane Austen book first thing when she got home to night.

  For now, she needed to pay attention to what she was doing. She went to turn in her orders to Don, the owner, who was tending bar. “I need a Scotch rocks, two Red Hooks, a Sex on the Beach, a Heineken, and a Hale’s Pale Amber.”

  Anna Lane, another one of the waitresses, was frowning as she loaded up her cocktail tray. Like Bobbi, she spent a lot of time dodging gropers. Unlike Bobbi, she wasn’t very good at it.

  “If that creep puts his hands on my butt one more time . . .” She left the sentence unfinished.

  “Is he drunk?” asked Bobbi.

  “If he’s had too much we can refuse to serve him,” said Don.

  “No, he’s had just enough to make him a jerk,” Anna said.

  “After this, I’m cutting him off,” Don said. “We don’t need a problem.”

  Bobbi turned to look at Anna’s section. It wasn’t difficult to locate the creep. He was sitting with a couple of other guys and a woman who looked like she needed the table to hold her up. He had chin-length hair tucked behind his ears and was wearing jeans and a white shirt unbuttoned low enough to show off his spray-tanned and freshly waxed chest, and he was tipped back in his chair, ogling the women a couple of tables over.

  “God’s gift to the cocktail waitress,” Bobbi said in disgust.

  “Sometimes I hate this job,” Anna said, her voice wobbly. “Everyone thinks we’re sluts.”

  “Well, we’re not,” Bobbi said firmly, but she couldn’t help sneaking a look in Jason’s direction. Now that he saw what she did for a living, would he think in ste reo types and decide she was a slut? “Why don’t you let me take that table?” she offered.

  “He’d grope you, too,” Anna predicted. “No, I can handle him.”

  Bobbi wasn’t so sure about that, so she kept an eye out as she served her tables. If that slimeball made one false move . . .

  And there it was. Anna leaned over to lay a drink in front of his friend and got her butt patted in the process.

  Anna straightened and looked down at Slimeball and said something. He held up both hands and shook his head, feigning innocence.

  Somebody needed to clue this guy in. Bobbi sailed off across the lounge, riding to the rescue as Jerry, who ran the trivia contest, took his place up at the mike and said, “Okay, people, how smart do you all think you are to night?”

  She arrived at the table just in time to hear Anna say to the slimeball, “You did, too, touch me.”

  “If I did it must have been an accident,” Slimeball said, and winked at his buddy.

  “You apologize to her right now,” Bobbi demanded.

  “Whoa, it’s Wonder Babe.” Chuckling, he picked up his drink and raised it to his lips.

  “Yeah. Wonder Babe meets Slimeball,” Bobbi growled. She still had a drink on her cocktail tray. Perfect. She dumped it into his lap. “Oh, my bad.”

  Her surprise attack made him jump up. In the process, he bumped the table and sent his drink flying into the woman sitting with him and his friends. “Hey,” she cried, and jumped up, too, like a human domino.

  “Sorry,” Bobbi said. “I guess that’s what you get for hanging out with slime.”

  “That’s not slime. That’s my brother,” the woman snarled.

  “I want an apology,” yelled Slimeball.

  “Maybe you should learn how to give one before you ask for one,” Bobbi retorted.

  “Hey,” said his friend. He made a grab for Bobbi, but she danced out of reach.

  “Oh, dear,” fretted Anna.

  Suddenly, there was another pla
yer. Jason had Bobbi firmly by the arm and was trying to lead her away, saying, “My friend and I are ready for another drink.”

  But the tipsy woman caught her other arm. “Where do you think you’re going? I want an apology.”

  Two more guys from a neighboring table joined the fray. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” one growled at Slimeball.

  “What would you know about size?” he shot back.

  Now they had a major testosterone spill at the Last Resort, with male fists starting to fly in all directions.

  “I think it would be a good idea if you went home sick,” Jason said, urging Bobbi along.

  She tried to keep going with him, but the tipsy woman still had a hold of her other arm and was trying to drag her across the table. “I feel like a wishbone,” she groaned. This was like playing tug-of-war. Only she was the rope. She had a sudden vision of herself with droopy arms stretched out to twice their normal length. By the time she got loose, she’d not only be putting pumice cream on her heels, she’d be putting it on her knuckles, too.

  She made one final, superhuman effort to break free. The woman lost her grip and fell over the table, bringing it down. Someone threw a chair. Outside she could hear a police siren.

  Jason’s friend was with him now, running interference. Brawlers bounced off him as Jason hustled Bobbi toward the door.

  They were about to go out when the police came in.

  “Just as well,” Jason’s friend told her. “You can tell the cops what happened. We saw everything. We’ll back you up.”

  And they did, which was good enough for the cops. But not good enough for Bobbi’s boss.

  “Bobbi, we need to talk,” Don told her after things had finally settled down.

  She knew what that meant. With tears in her eyes and her chin held high, she followed Don to the liquor room in back of the club. The small storage room with its boxes and bottles of booze closed in on her as Don turned on the light and shut the door. Bobbi wedged herself in between a couple of boxes of beer and tried to will the axe not to fall.

  “You know I like you,” he began.

  How many hard breakups had she tried to soften with those very same words? “Then don’t fire me,” she pleaded.

  “That was strike two to night. The cops come one more time and I’m out of business.” Don scratched his shaved head. “I wish I didn’t have to let you go, I really do. But I’ve sunk everything into this place and I can’t lose it. And that guy you dumped the drink on . . .”

  “The one who was harassing Anna,” Bobbi reminded him.

  “You know who that was?”

  Uh-oh. “Someone important?” Bobbi’s stomach was feeling queasy now.

  “The mayor’s kid.”

  Bobbi fell back against the shelves, making the beer bottles rattle. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I’m sorry, Don. I’m really sorry.” If only she’d known. Why hadn’t she known? She knew half of Heart Lake, for crying out loud. Obviously, not the important half.

  “Me, too,” Don said. “But I still have to let you go.”

  Bobbi nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I understand.” At least he hadn’t yelled at her, or pointed a finger and said, “You’re fired,” like Donald Trump on that TV show.

  When she finally left the Last Resort, she was no longer an employee.

  “Your boss is a moron,” seethed Jason’s friend as they walked her to her car. “You’re the reason I come in there. They’re not getting my business anymore.”

  Bobbi blew her nose into the tissue he’d offered and tried to smile her thanks. That muscle-filled black T-shirt, those black jeans, and the leather jacket just cried bad boy. And now here he was, being a bad boy with a good heart.

  But his kind words didn’t make her feel any better. “That’s sweet of you to say,” she managed, her voice quavering.

  “At least you still have the flower shop,” Jason said, giving her a hug.

  It was the final straw. Her stream of tears became a river. What, oh, what was she going to do? How was she going to pay her rent?

  “I KNOW EXACTLY what you’re going to do,” Hope said when Bobbi told her the news the next day. “You can move in with me. I’m not using that extra bedroom for anything but junk anyway.” Hope regarded her sister, who sat slumped at her little Formica table. Normally Bobbi was like the crocus, ready to shrug off winter and rush into spring. Right now she looked more like a wilted pansy. It was unnerving. Hope decided the African violets on her kitchen table needed watering. She got up and filled a glass with water. “There’s still the flower shop. Now you can work for me full time.”

  “You can’t afford that,” Bobbi said.

  “Sure, I can. I was paying Clarice to work there four days a week. What’s one more day? And the way the business is growing I really need the help. You’d be doing me a favor.”

  Bobbi gave a snort. “I know I’m not the smart one, but I’m not that dumb.”

  “I’m not snowing you,” Hope insisted. “We can do twice the volume with you there all the time. And, now that you’re not working nights, you could take a course and become a floral designer.”

  “A floral designer,” Bobbi breathed. “That sounds impressive.”

  “You’ve already got the gift. You may as well develop it,” Hope said.

  “You’d really do this for me?”

  “It’s no more than you’d do for me.”

  “Wow,” breathed Bobbi. “You’ve saved me.”

  “It’s not much compared to how you saved me when I was sick,” said Hope.

  “It’s a lot to me,” Bobbi assured her. She jumped out of her chair and hugged Hope. “You’re the best sister in the universe.” Hope had barely hugged her back before Bobbi was racing for the door, saying, “I’ve got to go.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to start packing, sign up for my first class . . .” Her words echoed behind her. A moment later, the door shut, leaving Hope smiling. She’d done a good thing. This was awesome. She and Bobbi would get to be in the shop together all the time. And they’d be roommates.

  And every time she turned around she’d see Jason Wells.

  Early afternoon sun was streaming in through the kitchen window, spotlighting the pot of flowers. She could almost hear them whispering, “Let’s go to the garden.”

  Good idea.

  FOURTEEN

  MILLIE HAD TRIED to convince her daughter to go to church with her in the morning, but Debra had insisted she wasn’t up to it.

  “I don’t want to go sit all by myself in a church full of strangers,” she’d said.

  “You won’t be by yourself. You’ll be with me.”

  “I mean without a husband.” Debra poured herself a cup of coffee and retreated to the living room, her bedroom slippers scuff-scuffing over the kitchen vinyl as she went.

  Millie followed her. “A lot of women don’t have husbands. Surely you don’t want to wait until you have a new man to have a life.”

  Debra fell onto the couch, put her mug on the coffee table, and stared into it as if she could see her future in there.

  Millie understood about loss. A woman had to swim through deep, dark waters before she got safely to shore. But swimming was the operative word. Debra was barely treading water. Working long hours, drinking afterward with her coworkers, and spending money on things she didn’t need wasn’t going to get her safely to dry land.

  Millie sat down opposite her. “Debra,” she said firmly. “You have got to start looking ahead. You’re still a young woman. Your life is not over.”

  Debra took a deep drink, then frowned as if her coffee was bitter. “We haven’t even been divorced a year and he’s already got a girlfriend.”

  “You’re not married anymore. Was he supposed to carry a torch forever?” Millie asked reasonably.

  That made Debra glower. “He’s just skipping off into the sunset and I’m here making the hou
se payments and raising the kids.”

  “With child support he’s giving you. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t turn a man loose and then expect him to hang around. You didn’t want to be married to him anymore.”

  “I didn’t want to be married to him the way he was acting. If he’d gone to counseling, we’d still be together. Whose side are you on, anyway?” Debra shot off the couch and went to the kitchen to pour herself a fresh mug of bitterness.

  Millie remained in her chair and sighed. She loved her daughter dearly, but sometimes Debra exhausted her. Had she exhausted Ben, too? Millie looked out the window at the stark front yard. How could she help Debra plant something right now that would give her the future she wanted? It was a question worth asking, but not today. In her present mood, Debra wasn’t open to advice from her mother. Come to think of it, Debra had rarely been open to advice from her mother.

  Millie felt suddenly tired, but she planted both hands on her thighs and leveraged herself out of the chair. She was going to church. And then she was going to spend some time in her garden, where things wanted to grow.

  By the time she got to the community garden, Amber and her son were already there. Amber sat in the spring sunshine pulling weeds, while Seth squatted in front of some nearby thimbleberry bushes looking for the rabbit.

  Amber raised a hand in greeting. “We’ve got things coming up,” she announced. “How cool is that?”

  “Very,” Millie said with a smile. She looked around at the other patches. Green things were flourishing everywhere. She could hear birds singing. She stepped through her garden gate and set down the containers of pansies she’d picked up on sale at Safeway’s garden department.

  “And look,” Amber added, pointing to the little coffee grounds fence she was building around her plants. “No slugs. You’re a genius, Millie.”

  Tell that to my daughter, Millie thought.

  Seth came running back. “Mommy, I saw the bunny.”

  “Did you leave him the carrot?”

  Seth nodded eagerly and pointed to where the carrot lay on the ground in front of the tangle of bushes.