Chapter 4
Max
Erica O’Connell was my right-hand woman.
Once MaineStems was funded and could start hiring some support staff, Erica had been one of the first to join the company.
She’d gone from customer sales and service to order and fulfillment manager and finally, after I bought Todd out, to my operations manager.
We were still a start-up, small by many standards, but one day, when we were big enough, she’d become my COO.
“All right,” she answered. “I’ll send you the delivery list.”
“Great. I’m just picking up the van now.”
“You sure you remember how to do this?” she joked.
“Driving? Or unpacking flowers?” I grunted, my eyes darting to the passenger seat. Or spending an extended period of time alone with Daisy and not giving away how much I wanted her?
“All of the above.”
I gritted my teeth. “I think I’ve got it covered.”
“All right, boss. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”
“Thanks,” I said low, feeling like the word wasn’t enough.
If I’d asked her to, Erica would’ve gone out and done the deliveries herself, and that was my plan. My only option. Until the woman next to me, littering croissant crumbs all over her wedding dress, begged me to get her away from her wedding.
I turned onto the drive to the warehouse.
The large packing and shipping buildings sat at the very front of the property I’d purchased from Lou’s mom, my Aunt Ailene, just over a year ago.
This part of her farm abutted my dad’s land, and both had been supplying her jam business for many years until they outgrew the parcel and bought more acreage inland.
She’d sold a chunk of it to me at a substantial discount, though she’d never admit to it.
“Wow,” Daisy murmured when the buildings came into view.
Behind the distribution warehouses were three large greenhouses, and behind those, but not visible from the drive, were acres of flower fields. It wasn’t quite the tulip fields of Holland, but damn if it wasn’t close.
“I didn’t realize you had…that MaineStems had all this.
” Her wide eyes roamed over the buildings again, and a shot of pride went through me.
She hadn’t seen this expansion. Todd was long out of the business by then, so there was no reason.
No reason other than a purely selfish one.
“I remember the days when you’d haggle with local growers to buy all the different blooms.”
“Yeah.”
I’d haggle for a bulk price, and when it came time to pick up the product, only half of what I’d purchased looked good enough to be considered deliverable to customers.
One time, Daisy was riding with me, and she jumped in and had it out with one of the worst offenders.
Almost three-quarters of the flowers I’d picked up were wilted, and all he was going to offer me was a credit for a future purchase.
I wasn’t going to argue—or burn bridges. Daisy had a different idea.
“I still can’t believe you went in and threw that guy under the bus with his mom,” I made a low sound, my head shaking unconsciously at the memory.
That particular seller was second generation in the family flower farm, and his mom just happened to be at their shop that day. Daisy had grabbed handfuls of the crushed flowers and found the older woman inside.
“Are these the kind of flowers you’d want your son to bring you? These sad, wilted wallflowers? Because this is what your son sold us. What he’s telling us is acceptable to give to someone you love.”
By the time we left, he’d replaced all the flowers with fresh, crisp ones and still gave me a credit for a future purchase.
The smallest smile poked at her lips. “He deserved it.”
Those days felt like eons ago, though it had to be only two or three years ago.
I pulled up to the closest warehouse and parked. The mid-morning sun skipped over the aluminum siding as I went around and opened Daisy’s door, offering her my hand. My truck wasn’t lifted, but it was the largest Ford you could get, and just a little too high for someone as short as Daze.
I gritted my teeth as her small fingers slid into mine, a familiar rush of ache flooding my veins, then chased away by the cold course of anger. What the hell were you thinking, Todd?
And how did I not see it coming?
For every ounce of fury I felt toward him, it was a hundredfold toward myself.
I’d been there this morning. I’d seen the state he was in, heard how torn up he sounded, and still, never in a million years had I thought he wouldn’t show up to the wedding.
Never had it crossed my mind that he was so low he’d abandon Daisy and his daughter.
Countless times, I’d saved his ass when his parents’ money and position weren’t enough. Countless times, I’d helped him make up for the stupid shit he’d put Daisy through. Countless times, I’d done it because she loved him, and I wanted him to be better for her.
And then he went and did this. Disappeared on their wedding day.
All the excuses I wanted to make for him—for what he was going through—were nothing compared to the way I wanted to strangle him for the pain he’d caused. For the future he’d decimated with this incredible woman and their child.
“Thanks,” Daisy looked up at me and smiled.
It wasn’t that full-bloom smile. I didn’t expect that. But it was an honest one. A grateful one. And one that had a tiny dab of chocolate attached to the corner of her mouth from the croissant she’d been nibbling on.
“Hold on,” I murmured when she turned her head away.
I cupped her cheek, watching her lips part on a swift inhale. “Max—”
“You have some chocolate,” I explained as I wiped my thumb over the spot. It got some but not all of it, and without thinking, I brought my thumb, along with the Daisy-infused chocolate, to my tongue.
Later, I’d tell myself she had time to stop it—to stop me. Time to pull away and clean it herself. But she didn’t. She froze, pink blushing in her cheeks as I dabbed the rest of the chocolate away.
This was all I’d ever had with Daisy. These moments that I stole for myself from my best friend’s fiancée.
I dropped my hand to my side like that would change the consequence of touching her. For the rest of the day, my fingers would burn from the touch of her skin.
“They packed the van up last night, so it should be ready to go,” I said tightly and led the way into the building.
“It’s still crazy to me that you used to do this in your truck,” Daisy said as I navigated the MaineStems delivery van onto the road.
She didn’t have to say it. I could tell she didn’t want to talk about Todd or the wedding or anything about today. She wanted to escape, and I didn’t blame her.
Hell, if I were her, I’d have gone to the nearest liquor store and purchased the largest bottle of alcohol I could find and escaped right into it.
Obviously, pregnancy took that option off the table for her, though I doubted she would’ve chosen it even if there was no baby.
Daisy had never been a big drinker. Sometimes, I wondered if she was always like that or if Todd’s relationship with alcohol made her that way. God knew it certainly had shaped me.
The last time—the only time—I had the urge to drink was the night Todd told me Daisy was pregnant.
He’d already drunk half the bottle of Tito’s by the time he made it to my apartment in Stonebar.
He’d been spiraling. Pacing and panicking that he wasn’t ready to be a father.
That his parents hadn’t approved of Daisy.
That they were going to kill him for knocking her up.
As I stood there and listened, all I wanted to do was knock him out for being such a damn idiot. For not seeing how fucking lucky he was to have Daisy by his side. To know that she wanted to have a baby, a family with him. For not seeing that his nightmare was my dream.
Before I did something stupid, I forced two bottles of water into him and told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to grow up.
He needed to stop taking Daisy for granted because she was the very best person in his life and would do far more for him than his parents ever would.
And then I drove him back to Portland, told him to make this right, and kicked him out of my car.
It was a good thing I’d dumped out the rest of the vodka before we left. Otherwise, I would’ve finished my friend’s bottle.
“You and me both,” I admitted. “I think when I saw those first two vans right after we had them wrapped, that was when it finally hit me that this was real. That my business—my dream—was real.”
I felt Daisy look at me, but my eyes kept to the road.
“It was real before that.”
My mouth kicked up on one side. “I guess it didn’t feel that way when I was delivering flowers out of one of my dad’s old farm trucks.”
“I think when you want something for so long, it’s easier to pretend it’s not real than it is to accept you have something to lose.”
My foot hit the brake just a little too hard for the approaching stop sign, and I mumbled an apology, sliding my gaze to her. She stared out the window, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth, the pink skin blanched white.
My hand locked on the wheel. “Daze—”
“Where’s our first stop?” she asked with a hitch in her voice.
I hesitated for a second, but now wasn’t the time to probe. Not with what she was going through. Fucking hell, Todd. I roughly grabbed my phone from the cupholder and scanned the directions on the screen. “Beach house just north of Stonebar.” I hit my blinker, phone still in hand.
“Here. Let me.” Daisy made a gimme motion with her fingers. “I can give you directions.”
The phone could speak them to me too, I thought, but quickly realized she wanted the task—a distraction from the day that had thrown her life into chaos.
“All right. Where to?”
“Turn left here, and then in four miles, make another left onto Pine Road.”