Love in Bloom. Arlene James

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      “Um, do you...do you think we could put those boxes inside?”

      He turned a surprised look on her. “You want those particular boxes inside, not the suitcases?”

      “What’s in the boxes is more valuable,” she said, pushing up her glasses.

      He lifted his eyebrows. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.”

      “Yes, thank you,” she replied softly.

      He reached into his pocket and an electronic beep sounded. He opened the back door of the cab and wrestled the big suitcase to the ground then transferred boxes to the inside. It took some shifting around, but they finally got everything loaded. As soon as they were all belted into their seats, Tate behind the wheel, Lily on the front passenger side and Isabella in a booster seat behind Lily in the back, Isabella spoke up.

      “Daddy got on the SOS ’cause we’re Bronsons.”

      “SOS?”

      “It’s short for Save Our Streets,” he explained, starting the engine. “That’s the name of the committee that chose the businesses that got the grants.”

      “Yes, I remember reading that in the paperwork, but what does being Bronsons have to do with it?”

      “Bronsons founded the town,” he answered brusquely.

      “They were brothers,” Isabella volunteered, “and one of ’em runned off with the other one’s sweetheart, so they hated each other.”

      “Oh, dear,” Lily murmured.

      “They got over it,” Tate stated matter-of-factly, and that was that.

      Lily sighed mentally. She’d imagined a sweet little town, pulling together to do something grand, not feuding founders and “nothing much to tell.”

      Suddenly Isabella piped up from the backseat again. “Are you married?”

      “What? Uh. No.”

      “Daddy’s not married, either.”

      So, no fashion model wife then. That explained the falling-down hem on Isabella’s T-shirt. No conscientious mother would let such a pretty little girl go out with the hem coming down on her T-shirt, or so Lily imagined. A single father, now, he probably wouldn’t even notice such a thing. While Lily wondered about Isabella’s mother, Isabella wondered about other things, and she wasn’t the least bit shy in letting Lily know.

      “Have you got a boyfriend?”

      “Isabella!” Tate barked.

      Lily cringed. “No, I don’t have a boyfriend, either.”

      “How come?”

      “Well, I—I just...” Lily felt her face heat.

      “Don’t you want to get married and have children?”

      My, what a direct child. “Y-yes. Very much.”

      “Do you like babies? I like babies.”

      “I love babies.”

      “My friend Bonnie has a baby sister. I want a baby sister.”

      Lily shot a glance at Tate Bronson, who was not married. Perhaps he and Isabella’s mother were divorced, and his ex-wife had remarried, and Isabella was hoping for a baby sister from that quarter. If so, that might explain the granitelike tightness of Tate’s profile just then.

      “Isabella, that’s enough!” Tate ordered. “You pipe down now.”

      “Okay, Daddy.”

      “I mean it. Not another word.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Lily sank down in her seat, feeling the undercurrents swirl around her. She didn’t know Tate Bronson’s story, but she knew her own.

      Didn’t she want to get married and have children? Oh, yes. Very much. But that wasn’t likely when she didn’t even have a boyfriend, when she hadn’t ever had a boyfriend. And why was that? Wasn’t it obvious? Painfully obvious, she imagined, at least to Tate. Maybe not to his precocious daughter.

      She just wasn’t the sort men noticed or in which they developed interest. She’d had ample proof of that already. She didn’t need any more, not from Tate Bronson or anyone else.

      Lily turned her unseeing gaze out the quickly darkening window and prayed that she hadn’t made a horrible mistake in coming to Kansas.

      Chapter Two

      Her first sight of Bygones was not encouraging. Once they had gotten beyond the confines of the city, the landscape had seemed pleasantly green with rolling hills and lots of trees. About an hour out, however, that had gradually given way to flat golden plains and mere lines of trees following creeks and streams. By the time they reached the outskirts of Bygones, everything seemed dusty and barren in the moonlight. Lily pointed at a tall, ghostly shape rising sharply out of the dark.

      “What is that?”

      “Grain elevator,” came the terse reply.

      They passed a scattering of low buildings next to the tall ones, and a little farther down the road they came to a block of small clapboard houses surrounded by too many vehicles and too little fencing. A few trees spread stunted branches and dark shadows. A dog ran to the edge of the road and barked madly as they passed. Tate paid it no mind, the truck speeding on. It slowed a few moments later as more substantial homes and buildings came into view. They passed the back of a small post office and a drive-through drop-off box. A few seconds later the truck turned right onto Main Street.

      Lily caught her breath. This was more like it. Old-fashioned wrought-iron lampposts, topped now with pairs of American flags; illuminated matching benches placed strategically along the wide sidewalk. Ornamental evergreens in enormous terra-cotta pots complemented the brick pavement of the wide street and sprouted tiny flags amongst their needles. The buildings on both sides of the street had been painted a creamy yellow-tan and fronted with colorful awnings, now draped with patriotic bunting. The woodwork around the recessed doors and the large display windows had been painted to complement the awning colors. The buildings were old, perhaps from the 1930s, but looked to be in excellent condition.

      On the south side of the street, every shop window bore a banner that read, “Welcome!”

      Below that another sign read, “Happy Independence Day!”

      Lily’s gaze sought out the spring-green awning with the heart-shaped scarlet lily gracefully arcing across it. The words below it in flowing script read, “Love in Bloom.” A scarlet heart dotted the i. Lily laughed in delight. It looked exactly as she had designed it, exactly as she had submitted it.

      Tate glanced at her, asking, “So far so good?”

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