Cinderella Busted (The Cinderella Romances #1)

Chapter One

“Want to help me choke a couple zoning commissioners?” Lily Foster asked as she strode into the nursery office.

Her sales manager stared. “Wow! Look at you.”

Lily halted mid-step. “What?”

“Don’t give me those big eyes. You look gorgeous! I told you that sundress was perfect for you when we spotted it in Dillard’s.”

“Evidently not perfect enough,” she grumbled and dropped into the chair near Tammy’s desk.

“I take it the zoning meeting didn’t go well.”

“Much worse.”

“And you couldn’t sway the commissioners in your little yellow sundress?”

She gave Tammy a don’t-go-there look.

“Okay, so what happened downtown? Do you have to move out of your cottage?”

“I don’t know.” Lily shook her head. “Turns out it wasn’t a new zoning proposal like we first thought.

The commissioners claimed the City of Jupiter changed the residence-at-commercial-properties zoning law over a decade ago.

At the time, the city council ruled a residence could exist on the second floor of a business—due to the heat they received from folks living over the shops on Antique Row—but single-structure residences at commercial properties like mine were prohibited, and no one ever stood up and complained. ”

“They can’t force you out now, can they?”

Lily hoped not. Bloom & Grow was the only home she had ever known.

Lily’s father had started the nursery three decades earlier on a hundred-acre parcel bordering the famed Intracoastal Waterway, and when her mother had succumbed to cancer shortly after Lily’s birth, Hank Foster had built a small cottage on the back five acres and raised Lily there.

She shook her head. “I wasn’t sure, so I went over to the Code Enforcement department too, and the manager claimed some attorneys had formally challenged my grandfathered status—that being me already living in my residence prior to the code change.

He even thought it odd that I had been singled out. ”

“I bet it’s that real estate attorney who wants to buy your property.”

Lily nodded. “I think so too. The manager said I needed to appear before a Special Code Compliance Magistrate at the end of the month and bring proof of the date of my residence prior to promulgation of that new zoning law.”

“You think that will do it?” Tammy asked.

“The Code Enforcement manager seemed certain, although he did say the attorneys had filed legal briefs in Tallahassee about my commercial property.”

“This whole business worries me.”

“I know. Me too.”

“Are you going to hire an attorney?”

“We don’t need one. The Code Enforcement manager said we could easily fight this on our own.

I don't want to dip into my nest egg for an attorney we don’t need.

If I can provide proof of my residence prior to the passage of the new law, the Code Enforcement manager promised to appear with us at the Special Magistrate meeting, and he will attest that my cottage is grandfathered.

So you see? We’ll be home free. An open and shut case. ”

“I don’t know, Lily. Things always get complicated when attorneys get involved.”

“Have faith. We’ll be fine.”

“But it’s not like you can’t afford an attorney,” Tammy argued.

“Like I’ve told you before, I’m not touching that nest egg Hank left me unless I have to. I’m determined to do this all on my own.”

“This being?”

“To make the nursery a success.”

“It’s already a success, hon. You don’t want to risk that, do you?”

Lily gave her a pointed look. “I’m not. I can do this without Hank’s help or any outside help. I know I can.”

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m going to do exactly what the Code Enforcement manager told me to do. He promised to be there at the meeting with me. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

Tammy gave her a resigned nod.

“Now, you called and said you had sample brochures for Rob’s new interiors line.”

Tammy handed over three booklet-style color brochures. “A courier brought the three samples after you left for the zoning meeting. If you’ll approve one, I’ll place our order with the printer and have the brochures placed in every hotel and resort office in the tri-county area.”

Lily looked over the brochures. “Rob’s really serious about doing this.”

“Sure he is. We already discussed this, and Rob thinks the new sideline could be as profitable as our specialty trees.”

Tammy ran the nursery like a tight ship, which left Lily and Rob to do what they loved—grow the impossible trees and shrubs. Best of all, the customers loved her gregarious flame-haired sales manager.

Lily nibbled her lower lip. “I suppose.”

She hated to change anything her father, Hank, had created, but the nursery was Lily's now, and she trusted Tammy and Rob more than anyone else on earth.

The office phone rang, and Tammy snatched up the receiver. “Bloom & Grow. Tammy.” She cut a glance at Lily. “Oh hey, Garrett. The order is staged in the laydown yard and ready for the final inspection. Okay, great.”

She clicked off and rose to her feet. “I have to go do a last-minute check on the BDC order. It’s a big one, and I want everything to be perfect.

BDC is the most prestigious company we’ve ever done business with, and that was their landscape architect, Garrett Tucker, on the phone.

He said the BDC owner is on his way over.

” She pointed her index finger at Lily like a pistol.

“You stay right there and review those brochures. If the owner shows up, just tell him I’m at the laydown yard, and I’ll be back in a few minutes. ”

“Will do,” Lily promised, glad she’d passed the inspection responsibilities to Tammy months earlier.

Lily’s father had started the final-inspection tradition to be sure his plants were going to a good home. While Lily liked having the tradition, Tammy was more outgoing and better at eking out promises of proper plant care from their customers.

Tammy paused at the back door. “I want a thumbs-up on one of the three brochures when I get back.”

Lily saluted her with a, “Yes, boss,” then flipped through one of the new color brochures. She wondered whether her dad would approve of starting a line of interior plants, and a familiar lump immediately formed in her throat when she remembered the first time she’d called her father Hank.

The occasion had occurred on her first real day of work at the nursery—Lily had been all of twelve years old.

She and her father were trudging back to their cottage at the end of the day, and she had asked, “How did I do today, Hank?” Her father had stopped dead and asked, “Why’d you call me Hank?

” She shrugged and told him, “All the employees at the nursery call you Hank.” Her father had smiled and said, “Fair enough.”

Hank Foster had been gone three years, and Lily still thought of her dad a dozen times a day. His heart attack had caught them all unawares, and since he treated his personnel like extended family, his death had been traumatic for all of them.

Bloom & Grow lost money in the year after Hank’s death.

Without Rob Shaw and Tammy Waynette, Lily never would have made it through that traumatic time, but the three best friends settled into a rhythm.

Hank had always kept a hand in every aspect of the nursery, but the new leadership team split their duties.

Rob took over all growing responsibilities, Tammy sold everything he grew and paid the bills, and Lily managed nursery production and operations.

The nursery had turned a fair profit in the second year, and this year would be gangbusters.

Everything had looked rosy until last month when a neighbor had called Lily and said a real estate attorney had made a lucrative offer for the neighbor’s adjoining commercial property. The neighbor had urged Lily to consider selling out along with him.

“Never,” she’d told him. “My employees depend on me. This is their home. I won’t take it from them.”

“Think about it,” her neighbor had coaxed. “The attorney wants both our properties. We can negotiate more money if we sell together.”

Two weeks later, the letter from the Code Enforcement Department had arrived, citing a zoning regulation prohibiting residences at commercial properties.

Lily suspected the real estate attorney was behind her letter.

Even if she had to move out of her cottage, she refused to sell Bloom & Grow and turn all her employees—friends—out on the street to find new jobs.

Lost in her daydream, Lily never noticed the customer looming in the doorway.

~ ~ ~ ~

The front door of the quaint, shake-roofed office stood open when Rhett Buchanan drove into the parking area. Like he had time for this foolishness. Whoever heard of the CEO of a billion-dollar development firm approving a truckload of trees, even if they were species no other nursery could grow?

He peered through the windshield at the overhead sign.

Evidently, a small-time nursery called Bloom & Grow had come up with such nonsense.

Tugging his tie loose and rolling up the sleeves on his white dress shirt, he angled out of his black SUV.

At least a nice breeze was whipping off the Intracoastal Waterway.

Rhett had argued with Garrett over lunch about doing this inspection alone.

Apparently, this eccentric nursery insisted on a final inspection conducted only by the actual owner—no substitutes.

Sounded more like an interview. He let out a resigned sigh.

Garrett Tucker made Rhett’s new resort developments stand out like diamonds in the rough and accomplished the feat with specialty landscape materials.

The man had a gift, but only Garrett could find an oddball place like this to buy his trees.

“Best get this over with,” he muttered and started up the porch stairs.

At the threshold, he froze. His gaze locked on a pair of long slender legs, then inched up to a spectacular yellow sundress with a cleavage that made his mouth water.

Damn.