Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
She chews the inside of her lip, her gaze passing from the books to me and back. “I think so.”
The woman reaches for a novella about small-business ownership and flips through it too quickly to read any of the words.
“Were you wanting something more specific?” I ask.
“Maybe something on marketing?” She exhales, hugging the book against her chest. “I recently opened a floral shop—thought it’d be good to specialize in wedding arrangements since Arcadia Grove is sort of a mecca for weddings.”
It’s true. Donovan told me that when he first brought me here. People come from miles around, other states even, to get married under the two-hundred-year-old oak on Briar Hill or in the seventeenth-century church on Sweetwater Drive or the fully restored Victorian mansion on Fleur de Lis Boulevard.
“Running the shop has been . . . a little overwhelming,” she says. “Turns out all my talent is in flower arranging and none of it is in marketing, accounting, or advertising.”
“What’s the name of your shop?”
“Stem,” she says with a wince. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”
“Just . . . stem?” I ask. “Singular?”
She nods.
“I mean . . . you could probably do better,” I say with a gentle blunting to my words.
“I was trying to go for one of those hip, one-word-type names with a cutesy modern font on the door,” she says. “But I think I missed the mark.”
“You can always change it.”
She shrugs. “To what?”
Between running Flo’s shop, working on projects around the house, and staying on top of my name bookings, I probably shouldn’t be committing to anything else, but I know what it feels like to be on the verge of losing everything you’ve ever worked for.
I can’t let this woman’s livelihood go down over a poor choice of name—something that can easily be fixed with a little bit of time and effort.
“Would you mind if I played around a bit with some ideas?” I ask. “Maybe I can come up with something more marketable?”
Her dark eyes spark with light as her mouth inches into a hopeful smile. “Really? You’d do that for me?”
“Of course,” I say. “Just give me a few days. I’m kind of buried at the moment.”
“Whenever you have time would be amazing,” she says, gushing. Her entire face is lit as she toys with a ruby pendant hanging from her delicate neck.
The bells on the front door jangle, followed by heavy footsteps.
“I’m going to let you browse the business books here, and I’ll meet you up front when you’re ready to check out,” I tell her before heading up.
I’m halfway to the register when I spot the man standing by the greeting card rack. Those broad shoulders, the dark-copper hair, the hooded gaze that could cut glass. I don’t have to take a step closer to know exactly who it is.
“Lachlan.” I stop in my tracks.
He glances up, shifting his posture as if he’s equally surprised to see me.
“What about this one?” The floral-shop woman appears from behind me with a marketing textbook with a slightly outdated font. The tag reads five dollars.
“I can’t personally vouch for it since I’ve never read it, but it looks promising,” I say.
“I found a few more.” She shows them to me one by one before placing them on the counter by the checkout. I grab the first book from the top, and her eye drifts to my left hand, as if she’s curious to see if I’m both childless and single. I brace myself for her to ask another personal question, but instead she offers a simple “I figured I’d get them all. What the heck.”
I ring her up—easy as pie—and rattle off her total before placing her books in a plastic sack.
“Berlin,” I say when I hand her card back. “That’s a beautiful name.”
“Thanks for pronouncing it like the German city and not like Merlin the wizard,” she says with a chuckle. While her demeanor is soft, there’s an intensity in her eyes as she drinks me in again. Her gaze settles on my naked ring finger once more before her attention flicks down for a moment.
I brush it off.
Some people are just socially awkward or unabashedly curious.
Or maybe she’s heard of me before—everyone loves a heart-wrenching tragedy to gossip about.
“Here you go.” I hand her bag of books across the counter. “Stop back in a few days, and I’ll have those shop names for you.”
“Will do. Thank you . . .” She doesn’t ask my name but offers a smile and a wave on her way out.
“Well, that was . . . interesting,” Lachlan says from the card stand as soon as she’s gone.
“What are you talking about?” I lean over the counter and rest my chin on top of my hand.
“You and Berlin.”
“What was weird about it?”
“Oh . . .” His lips press flat as he frowns. “You don’t know?”