6. Sweet Bonding Connection
SWEET BONDING CONNECTION
“ I ’m so glad the rain stopped,” Daphne said when she was walking into Aster’s backyard on Sunday. “Two days of rain was more than enough for me and Holly was wound for sound in the house.”
“Raine says that all the time when she’s teaching. That the kids need that time outside to run around or they are all but an army of kids in chairs with fire ants biting their butts.”
She laughed over the description. “I’m not sure I could be a teacher. Too much structure for me. I like the whole wing-it thing on a day-to-day basis.”
“So it’s going well?” Aster asked. “You don’t regret coming here?”
“I love it,” she said.
How could she regret waking up so happy each morning and eager to start her day with little to no stress?
She set the plate of cookies she baked on the back deck. She loved the little cottage that Aster rented from Zane. It was right on the water with a beautiful view and a couple of chairs around a fire pit.
They were on the deck for now and she could smell something cooking in the charcoal grill.
“Hope you’re hungry,” he said. “I’ve had ribs going for a few hours. Raine will be out in a minute. She’s finishing up potato salad and then popping cornbread in the oven.”
“This is an awesome meal. Thanks for asking me over.”
Aster smiled. “Any time. I know you don’t know many people here and are probably twiddling your thumbs and going nuts.”
Her head went back and forth while she debated on how to answer.
Aster was right. She did feel that way when she wasn’t with the kids and she wasn’t with them full time right now either.
“I have my moments,” she said. “I’ve been reading and catching up on TV shows. There is nothing new on right now so it’s giving me time to binge things I’ve never had time to before.”
Aster laughed. “I can see how it pains you to say that.”
She let out a breath and shook her arms as if the lie was keeping her bound tight. “Thank God I don’t have to pretend. I’ve spent so much of my life working I don’t know what to do now.”
Aster pulled her closer and put his arm around her in a side hug. “Hey, I know. I felt the same way. You’ll get used to it. Be happy you’re not busting your ass anymore and getting crap from parents and customers on a daily basis. No one wanted that for you. Least of all me.”
“I know. Have you heard from Mom and Dad lately?”
“Speaking of getting crapped on. No,” he said. “But I rarely do. Are they bugging you? You haven’t even been here two months yet. Or just about two months.”
“I’ve gotten a few text messages. One call a few weeks ago. Guess they got an offer on the house, but I haven’t heard anything else. I don’t care. It’s for the best.”
“But you’re lonely,” he said. “I get it. I might have something to help you pass the time. Or Raine will.”
“Really?” she asked. “What’s that?”
“I’ll let Raine tell you,” he said, smirking.
She wasn’t sure what that was about. Right now she was spending her time looking up hobbies.
Quilting was at the top of her list, but she’d have to get a sewing machine for that and didn’t know if she wanted to invest in one if she wasn’t going to like it.
She did like to bake cookies and there were all these cookie design things on the web. Maybe she could find a class or two for that.
But then she’d have to eat the cookies and there were only so many she could.
So yeah, everything she thought of, she had a reason not to do it.
“Hi, Daphne,” Raine said, coming out. “I’ve got a glass of wine for you.”
She reached for the glass and the sunlight hit a diamond ring on Raine’s finger. A teardrop.
Her jaw dropped and she slapped her brother’s arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you were proposing? When did this happen? Oh my God!” she squealed and reached for Raine to give her a hug, not caring that the wine was between them.
Raine was laughing and set the two glasses down and embraced her again.
“It happened yesterday,” Raine said. “We had a little picnic out here and your brother asked me to marry him.”
“I love the teardrop,” she said. “What’s around the band?”
Raine slid the ring off her finger and handed it to Daphne to look at. “It’s a raindrop,” Aster said. “Flowers need rain. I told her I needed her. There are daisies on the band.”
Aster was a flower in the daisy family. Her name was a flower too.
She found it funny since her mother had never been a whimsical person to have named them that way.
When her father joked that her parents were high one night and those names popped into their heads and they decided to stick with it if they had kids, it’d made more sense to her.
“It’s stunning,” she said. “I’m sure Rose made it.”
Rose Bloom-Klein was a jeweler and oversaw that part of Blossoms. It seemed like everyone got some kind of a flower-inspired ring when they got engaged.
She found it such a sweet bonding connection between everyone that the Bloom sisters touched in their lives.
“She did,” Aster said. “I wanted it to be perfect. It was hard keeping it from Ivy.”
She was getting all the names and relationships in place now. Ivy Greene-Scarsdale worked for the sisters and was Raine Scarsdale’s sister-in-law.
“But you did,” she said. “I’m sure everyone in your family is thrilled, Raine. They’d be nuts not to love Aster.”
“They do love him,” Raine said. “Almost as much as I do And of course, I’d love you to be in the wedding and help plan it.”
“Seriously?” she asked. She’d never been in a wedding before. Never planned one either.
“Yes,” she said. “We are pretty much keeping it to family and not big. I don’t have a large family and I know you don’t. River’s wife, Emma, is going to be my matron-of-honor, Ivy and you bridesmaids.”
River was Raine’s brother, along with Brooks who was married to Ivy.
“I trust you not to say anything,” Aster said. “But I’m asking Zane to be the best man when I see him next, then Raine’s brothers. Keeping it simple.”
“Simple is best,” she said. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“I will at some point,” he said. “Maybe this week I’ll send them a text.”
She laughed over that. Her parents only called Aster if they wanted something, but he’d never shut them out of his life.
She couldn’t either, but she minimized the exposure as best as she could.
Being so far away made it much easier.
“I don’t want a long engagement,” Raine said. “I want a baby. Ivy is trying too.”
“I want you to have a baby. I want a niece or nephew to spoil.”
“Fingers crossed we can get you one. We met in the fall, and I’d like to have a late fall wedding. I’m going to call Mona tomorrow and find out the dates she has open and we’ll pick one of them. I’m not even fussy about it.”
Daphne knew a lot of people got married at Wright Marina. Mona Wright owned the restaurant. Wesley Wright the marina and was married to Ivy’s sister Jasmine, who ran the greenhouses for Blossoms.
That crazy small world of connections again.
“You tell me what you need from me and I’ll do anything. I don’t care. Put me to work.”
“You got it,” Raine said. “Now let’s sit and talk about you and your new life here. How is everything going? Poppy has to be the best boss. Ivy loves her. Ivy loves all the sisters, but I know she’s got a bit of a closer bond with Poppy.”
“Poppy is wonderful. I can’t say enough good things about their treatment of me. I feel so guilty that they are giving me so much and I don’t want them to think I’m taking advantage of it.”
“I don’t think they feel that way,” Aster said.
“I know. Reese said he’s so thankful that Holly gets all her energy out and is sleeping well now. He just couldn’t do it while he was working and the last nanny had her hands full with two toddlers and kind of kept them inside more.”
Not that she was saying anything bad about that. Everyone had their own style when it came to kids.
She’d always had to watch so many at once, but she learned to have eyes on every part of her body because the more engaged you kept a child the faster the time flew and everyone did better.
“And you get to pick and choose what you do with the kids now too,” Raine said. “How is it with Tatum?”
“He’s such a good baby,” she said. “He’s doing a lot of eating and sleeping, but he likes being outside and is entertained by his sister. It’s working in my favor.”
“You’ve got this handled easily,” Aster said.
“I never worried about that,” she said.
About the only confidence she had in her life was her ability to work hard.
“Just that you’re bored?” Raine asked.
“Kind of. It’s horrible to say that, isn’t it? I need to start going out and doing things. A hobby or something. I’m not a gym person, but I could try that. I like to walk and can walk the grounds, but I don’t want them to think I’m creepy doing that.”
Aster laughed. “I doubt they’d think that.”
“I’m close to the water—they’ve said I can go up and swim off their dock. I was thinking about it sometime.”
“Do it,” Aster said. “Or come here and do it while I’m living here. We are going to start looking for a house. I want one on the water or close to it. Not sure the inventory.”
“I figured you’d only rent for so long.”
Her brother had millions in the bank from his reward money, but very few knew about that.
“I’m just waiting for the right time to look,” he said.
“I’m glad that it’s all falling into place for you both.”
She gave her brother a hug and Raine another.
“It will for you too,” Raine said. “Seems to me like it’s already starting.”
“Sure,” she said. “We’ll go with that.”