Love in Bloom. Arlene James

get the place together.

      In the midst of the awkward silence that followed, Isabella piped up with “You were wrong, Dad, and Mrs. Connolly was right.”

      Tate speared her with a pointed glance. “Duh.”

      “Just saying,” Isabella went on, shrugging.

      Lily looked from one to the other of them in confusion.

      Tate rolled his eyes and admitted, “Coraline came to see me, okay? She thought you needed help and wanted to organize a work brigade, but I assumed you were doing okay and we just needed to stay out of your way.” He looked aside, adding, “You appeared to be getting things together. Others seemed to need more help.”

      Lily had to admit that, from what she’d seen just today, a bakery, coffee shop, bookstore, pet shop and hardware store all required significantly more preparation than a floral shop. “You have a point there. I’m the problem. I—I haven’t been as focused as I need to be. Frankly, being from Boston, I’m used to having more people around.” Most of whom would actually speak to her without waiting for her to speak first.

      Tate rubbed a hand over his head. “Well, about that, the committee sort of asked the townspeople to leave all you newcomers alone until you get set up and settled.”

      Lily straightened. “What?” They had actually asked people to leave her alone?

      “We had to,” he argued. “Otherwise, they’d have been all over you on day one with covered dishes and dinner invitations.”

      Lily smiled. “Really?”

      “We had to turn down every civic group in town to keep them from plastering you all with invitations to join everything from the Quilting Club to the Birthday Lunch Bunch.”

      “Seriously?”

      “You name it, you’re going to get hit up to join it. Soon.”

      “Oh. That’s...that’s nice.”

      He gave her a crooked smile. “You can tell me later if you still think that’s nice.”

      “No, really, I was looking forward to the sense of community that you always hear about in a small town. In fact, I was hoping for a community-wide Independence Day celebration.”

      “Not this year,” Tate said grimly. “The city had to decide between that and the Grand Opening reception.”

      “And they decided on the reception?”

      “It seemed more important.”

      Lily took that in. “Wow.” This thing was even more vital than she’d realized.

      “We got some fireworks at home for later tonight,” Isabella told her, cutting her eyes at her father.

      Tate cleared his throat. “Right now, though, we have work to do.” He clapped his hands together. “So what’s first?”

      Lily shook her head. “Oh, you don’t have to—”

      “What’s first?” he interrupted firmly.

      Biting her lips against a smile, she shrugged. “I bought a lot of stuff from Miss Mars, and it’s got to get over here somehow. Some of it’s pretty big.”

      “I’ll pull my truck around the back of her store.”

      “Thank you.”

      “No problem,” he said. “Isabella, let’s go.”

      She shook her curly red head. “I’ll stay here and help Lily.”

      “Sure,” Lily agreed quickly. “I’ve got bins to fill in the workroom. Spools and spools of ribbon to line up.”

      “I like ribbon,” Isabella declared.

      Lily grinned down at her. “I thought you might.”

      Tate paused, but then he nodded. “Okay. We’ll finish those display shelves next.”

      “Wonderful.”

      He went off to fetch the rest of her purchases, leaving Lily and Isabella to unpack and arrange spools of ribbon according to color and width. When he returned, Lily helped him carry the furniture up to the apartment. She had something to sit on now, as well as a bedside table and a lamp. Later she would paint the rattan the same shade, hopefully, as the cushions and accessorize with a contrasting color, perhaps a rich yellow gold. She couldn’t think of that now, though. Instead she hurried back downstairs with Tate to get to work in the shop. The time flew by; she barely seemed to have time to think, and as the shop took shape, her excitement and her hope grew.

      Only as Isabella began to flag, her little tummy rumbling, did Lily stop to take stock. That’s when she realized how much this one man and his sweet little daughter had accomplished for her. How could she not like them, him, just a little then? How could she not count them among her friends? Even if the relationship was predicated on business, they could still be friends, couldn’t they? So long as she didn’t let herself think of him as anything more than that, everything would be fine.

      * * *

      “I’m hungry.”

      Tate tightened the last screw, stepped back and glanced at his wrist. “Is that the time? No wonder you’re hungry, honey. Wow. Where’d the day go?”

      “Time flies when you’re having fun,” Lily quipped, getting up off the floor. Tate chuckled. She seemed to spend half her time on the floor—and the other half shoving her glasses back up her nose. He couldn’t help smiling and shaking his head.

      “I think we’ve made good progress,” Tate said, putting away the screwdriver.

      “We have, indeed,” she agreed. “Thank you both. Very much.”

      “You’re welcome. Now we really have to get going.”

      “I understand. If I don’t run, I won’t make it to the grocery before it closes.”

      He made a face. “The store closed early for the holiday.”

      She bowed her head. “I should have thought of that.”

      “You can have dinner with us,” Isabella instantly invited. “Right, Dad? We got lots of leftovers from our barbecue at Grandma’s house today.”

      Lifting her head, Lily blinked at Tate, and he blinked back. He couldn’t very well leave her without dinner, and he needed to get home sooner rather than later.

      “Tell you what, we’ll pick up some burgers at The Everything on the way out to our place. I saw they were open today, and I have to get home to feed the livestock. It’s not far, so I can just drive you back in later after the fireworks.”

      Obviously surprised, Lily hesitated. He found himself holding his breath until she smiled and nodded, which made no sense at all, except that Isabella would have been disappointed, of course.

      “Okay. Do I have time to run upstairs first?”

      “Sure. I can lock up here and get Isabella into the truck.”

      “Great.” She handed over the keys and hurried out.

      He turned off lights, locked the doors, ignored his daughter’s none-too-subtle babbling about how much she liked Lily and belted the matchmaking little magpie into her booster seat.

      “She has pretty hair and eyes and hands,” Isabella said, “and she’s very nice, too.”

      “That’s enough now,” he told her firmly. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. Understand?” Isabella nodded, but he’d seen that look in her eye before. “I mean it. I don’t have time for a girlfriend.”

      “If you had a wife—”

      “I had a wife,” Tate reminded Isabella softly. “I don’t want another.” She quieted finally, and he pulled out his