Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
SUNNY
Today’s boutonnières: a cornflower for love and hope; yellow statice for optimistic remembrance; yellow craspedia (Billy buttons) for good health, and rosemary for honoring (or contacting) the dead.
July in small town Elysian Fields, Louisiana is no joke, and not the slightest breeze disturbs the sun blazing down from a clear blue sky. It radiates off the open metal back doors of my delivery van as I vigorously—and ineffectively—fan myself while sweat drips down my back.
I’ve got the casket cascade, two memorial vases, the three standing sprays…what am I missing? I run my hand down the front of my dress. “My apron!” I close the doors, and the two halves of my cheerful “Sunny Day Flower Shop” logo reunite.
I rush back inside. The coolness of my shop is as refreshing as a bubble gum snowball, but I don’t get to stay here long.
My apron’s on the counter, right where I left it.
I carefully zipper its pocket closed that holds the boutonnières and mini bouquets I made to give away to mourners I encounter today—my way of bringing a light to their dark day.
I double-check that I put out the incense on my altar to áine (a girl’s gotta look for love any way she can), lock up my shop, rush into the driver’s seat of my van, and lay the apron carefully across the passenger seat.
The A/C finally starts making a dent in the heat when I arrive at All Saints Church.
A look in the mirror reassures me that my makeup isn’t dripping down my face, and then I take a deep breath.
I got into this business for the happy events—weddings, birthdays, graduations, just-because surprises.
Making flowers for funerals always makes me sad.
“Business is business,” I murmur to myself as I tie on my apron. Maybe I’ll get myself some ice cream on the way back to the shop to cheer me up. It’s definitely an extra rainbow sprinkles kind of day.
I bring the casket cascade in first as my small way of honoring the deceased, Chantelle LeBlanc, the daughter of the man who hired me.
I arrange the cascade as lovely as I can around the photo of the middle-aged woman—gosh, she had the loveliest brown eyes.
And then I drop onto the kneeler by the casket.
It never seems right to drop flowers off and leave without acknowledging the life of the person who’s passed.
I clasp my hands together and close my eyes.
God—or Goddess, I’m really not sure. Or maybe you’re gender fluid?
Actually, that makes the most sense. Anyway, please look after Chantelle and all her loved ones.
I know today will be hard for everyone who loves her, but please let it bring them closure and peace. All blessings for the highest good.
It’s early yet for the service, and back outside, the parking lot is still empty of mourners as I go back to the van for my next load of flowers.
These standing sprays are almost as curvaceous as me, and while I’m carrying them, they’re nearly my height, too.
I try to look around the froth of lilies to be sure I don’t run into someone, but the toe of my heeled sandal catches in a crack of the walkway.
I crash to the ground on top of the standing spray—my hands in the grass and my right knee biting concrete.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!” My high-pitched squeals are mercifully drowned by church bells as I try to push myself up off my belly, but stems are snapping under me and a breeze ruffles my skirt up over my ass.
I pull my skirt down and sit back without doing more damage to the very expensive flowers.
My hands are shaking from the pain in my wrists and my knee.
Tears blur my vision. I dust my hands off and wipe my eyes on the edge of my apron.
There’s blood all over my skirt and the flowers from a big gash in my knee.
Thank all that’s holy no one was here yet to witness my wipeout.
“All is well…”
My heart kicks into my throat at the deep voice that belongs to the man whose shadow I’m bleeding and crying in.
I look up into the warmest brown eyes I have ever seen in the face of the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.
He’s all darkness and light, if that makes sense.
His eyes and hair and suit, dark. His skin pale, pale, pale, like he’s never dreamed of the sun.
I don’t know why, but I feel overwhelmingly safe now that he’s here.
His hand is stretched toward me, but under his dark beard, his expression looks more puzzled than mine must’ve looked in high school chemistry. His gaze drops to my bloody knee, to the church bell tower, then back to me.
“Oh! Thank you.” I slip my little hand into his big one, and the contact with him is almost electric.
His face softens to the gentlest expression of interest, and he pulls me up stronger than I expect.
I stumble toward him and set my hand on his chest to keep from body-slamming him.
His eyebrows go up, but he doesn’t let go of my hand.
In fact, his thumb rubs across it in the softest caress.
And I’m here for it. I’m almost dizzy in his heavenly roses-and-incense scent and the allure of touching this preternaturally beautiful man.
His thumb stills, and we stare at each other for a couple of heartbeats.
He’s almost too beautiful to be real. His features are chiseled, his eyes are soulful, he’s tall, and his well-muscled body is clad in a posh black suit.
In fact, he’s fine as hell, and my cheeks—already stinging and no doubt red with heat—sting harder.
I want to crawl into the earth with embarrassment that he saw me fall.
“You’re…alive,” he says slowly, still looking utterly perplexed. His accent is strange, but beautiful.
I take my hands back and laugh. Laughing’s what I do when I’m mortified, and honestly his delivery was so dry.
“Shocking, I’m sure, after the spill I took.
” My hands go to my hair, my dress, anything to put myself back together under the weight of that intense gaze.
I’m not rattled easily, but my witchy senses, such as they are, are tingling.
Something is off about this guy…but for once, with a strange man, it’s in a good way.
He points to my knee. “But you’re bleeding.”
I look down. My blood’s plastering my skirt to my knee and smudging everywhere.
What a way to make a first impression. “It’s a lot,” I allow, “but I’m pretty sure I still have more inside my body than out, so I’ll live.
” I smile up at him, hoping my lame joke is the coin to buy me a glimpse of what he looks like smiling.
It’s slow like a sunrise, tilting up his full lips then moving north to crinkle his eyes.
His gaze takes in my hair, my face, down my breasts and hips—holy Hekate, goosebumps everywhere—and back to my bloody knee.
He drops to a crouch, and one hand clamps cooly against my calf.
In the other is somehow a gleaming white handkerchief he’s pulled out like a magician.
“It’s a lot of blood,” he says, and he starts to wipe it.
“Bro!” I wrest the handkerchief from him. I know my blood is clear of pathogens, but he doesn’t. Gorgeous dummy. “I’ll get it.” I sink down on a nearby bench and take up the task.
He crouches in front of me, so close. His dark eyes snap to mine, and his lips part. The wildest image of climbing into his lap and pushing him to the ground sends thrills through my core.
His pale face blushes, and I blush back harder.
He licks his full lips. “Are you certain you’re okay?”
“I’m totally fine.” I dig in my apron for bandages. “The flowers, though. Ugh. They’re probably ruined. Mr. LeBlanc paid so much for them, and I used my last stock of stargazers.”
He turns his head slowly toward the standing spray splayed face down on the concrete.
“Stargazers?” His gaze briefly tilts to the sky, then back to the flowers.
“Chantelle’s father bought these?” He rises and sets the standing spray upright, its back to me, as I locate two woebegone My Little Pony bandages in my apron.
While I strategize and place them to cover as much of my gash as possible, he starts fiddling with the front of my flower display.
“Oh…please don’t—”
“They don’t appear to be ruined,” he says, taking no note of me and continuing to poke at them.
I rush to my feet and stuff the bloody handkerchief in my dress pocket. “Hey, I said please don’t mess—” I peer at the standing spray, and not a flower appears broken despite the array of petals on the ground. “How…?”
It doesn’t make any sense. I look from the flowers to him. His Adam’s apple bobs, and his wide eyes slide to me. His guilty, angelic face gives me the ridiculous idea that he’s somehow repaired the damages. That he’s some sexy fae lord with mysterious flower powers.
Sign me up.
“Oh, um. Wow.” I laugh nervously. “How did I get so lucky that the flowers I felt break under me aren’t broken?”
He swallows hard again, and his head turns as he looks at the church.
Mortification sears through me, leaves me pathetic and small. I’m a dumbass.
This beautiful man is a mourner. Here I am thinking goofy paranormal romance thoughts and babbling about flowers when someone he loves is lying dead in a casket not fifty feet away.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I rush out. “Were you close to Chantelle?”
He cocks his head and scratches his beard as those eyes come back to me. “We, eh, took a short trip together.”
I nod and unzip my apron. Somehow, my little gratis flowers are perfectly fine. I pluck a particularly nice boutonnière from the pocket and hold it up. “Would you like a flower for your lapel?”
He looks down at the flower and up to me even faster. “What’s that?”
“Just a small gift, but I hope it brightens what must be a difficult day.” I pull the pin loose from the boutonnière and hold the flowers against his lapel, the blue cornflower and yellow Billy balls bright against the black. “May I?”
He freezes. Nods. I pin the boutonnière on and smooth the fabric. The pungent rosemary scents the air between us.
“Thank you…” He cocks his head.
I smile bigger and stick my hand out for him to shake. “I’m Sunny Day, same name as my shop.” His eyes follow my gesture toward the van. “My parents thought they were funny, I guess.”
He looks down at my hand and shakes it. But he doesn’t offer his name back. My heart sinks. I know a funeral is the worst place to flirt, but wow there was definitely some sparking happening here. Past him, I see mourners walking inside.
“I’d better finish setting the flowers out.
” I pull his ruined handkerchief from my pocket and hold it briefly between us.
“I’m sorry about your nice handkerchief, but I’m sure you don’t want it back with all my blood on it.
I’ll clean it up, and maybe I’ll see you again.
” I shove it back into my pocket and smile, lifting up the standing spray.
“Maybe,” he says. He stays where he is as I walk past him and into the church.
The air conditioning is such a relief after wilting in the heat all that time.
I set the standing spray near the casket, give my regards and a boutonnière to Mr. LeBlanc and a few other mourners, and head back out for more flowers.
Tall, Dark, and Slightly Spooky is nowhere in sight on my last trip into the church.
The disappointment settles in my chest like a weight, and it feels a bit like longing.