Chapter Five
On Wednesday morning, the greenhouse buzzed with activity, and Rob stood at the center like an army commander with his troops.
“I brought the truck around back as ordered, Herr General,” Lily called to him.
“Don’t just stand there. Come help us with the sleeving,” Rob called back, as he lowered a Chamaedorea palm into the open-ended paper cone held by a nursery worker.
“Sure thing,” Lily said and grabbed a stack of the thick brown-paper cones to start in on the dozen giant Spathiphyllum lined up along the greenhouse wall. “This is a big order.”
“Yep!” He grinned boyishly. “And Tammy’s been taking more orders every day. This interiors line could get out of hand.”
Lily loved seeing her friend so excited, and the interiors line was Rob’s baby. “You know if we can just make it through the fall, when things wind down for the winter, we’ll have time to build the new two-acre greenhouse on the back corner of the property west of the cottage.”
Rob stilled, his gaze intent on her face.
“Say something.”
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“Of course I am. Tammy and I ran the numbers this morning, and we can find the funds.”
“Two acres?”
She nodded.
“Specialty inside stuff?”
“All the Aralias and Alternifolius your heart can stand,” she said.
“Hoowee!” he hollered, then grabbed her and swung her in a circle. “My profit-sharing account will go through the roof.”
“It better!”
He set her down, and they hustled to wrap the remaining greenery for the delivery.
“Who do you have to help with the delivery?” Lily asked, sleeving the last Spathiphyllum. “Enough hands?”
“Just Jason. He and I can get it done alone. We’ll be fine.”
Jason Graber was Lily’s shipping supervisor and one of her favorites. A hard-working young man in his early twenties and eager to do anything to help Lily.
“No, you won’t be fine,” Tammy called, stepping into the greenhouse. “Your father just called and told me to send you over to Jupiter Savings & Loan immediately. Something about your trust fund and some account papers that have to be signed. Your father is going to meet you there.”
“Aw hell.” Rob ran a hand through his hair. “I gave Bob the afternoon off to get the estimates on his car accident for the insurance claim, and I don’t have anyone else to send with Jason.” He turned and stared. “Lily?”
She opened her mouth and wanted to cry, “No!” She had a date with Rhett at six-thirty, and it was after two now.
She had wanted to take her time getting ready for Rhett, but poor Rob looked a hair short of full panic.
This was his first big interiors delivery for a private customer, and the delivery had to go perfectly.
Jupiter Island word-of-mouth could make or break his new interiors line.
“All right,” she said resignedly, “but I have a date at Jetty’s at six-thirty.”
Rob beamed. “Don’t worry. You’ll get there, and you can borrow my Porsche. Tammy, go get Jason and then help them sleeve the rest. I’ll line up the plants for the truck before I leave.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Lily climbed into the passenger side of the truck cab. “Do you have the purchase order?”
“Yep.” Jason threw the truck in reverse and steered toward the nursery drive.
“You have the address?”
“Yep.”
“Is the owner home?” Lily didn’t want to drive all the way out to Jupiter Island for nothing.
“I called her. She’ll meet us at the residence. The house isn’t hers, but she has a key. The plants are a housewarming gift,” he said.
Lily gave him an incredulous look and hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “All those plants?”
He nodded.
“Good grief! The lady must be rich.”
“It is a Jupiter Island address, Lily.” He grinned and stomped on the accelerator. “All the better for us. And don’t worry about your date tonight. I’ll get you home in plenty of time.”
“Rob told you.”
Jason grinned. “Jetty’s at six-thirty, right?”
She nodded. “And make that with plenty of time for me to get ready and not the amount of time you would need to get ready.”
He laughed and hung a right at Bridge Road. Lily’s cell phone chimed, and she snatched it off the console. She checked the readout and gasped.
Jason laughed. “Is it Lover Boy?
“Hush!” She waved at him to be silent.
“Hello, this is Lily,” she said, trying her best to sound calm.
“I’m back,” Rhett’s deep voice sounded from her cell.
A wave of relief swept over Lily, so strong she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized just how worried she had been about Rhett flying overseas.
“Safe and sound,” she said and glanced at the clock on the dash that read 3:30 p.m. “Early too.”
“We made good time. Were you worried about me?”
“A little,” she admitted.
“I’m glad, Lily, because I sure as hell missed you.”
Her heart performed a breath-taking little pirouette. “Good,” she teased. “Serves you right for going off and leaving me.”
“I had to,” he said soberly. “There were problems at my London office.”
“I’m kidding,” she said, trying her hand at flirting.
“Hell, I’m acting like that insecure high-school boy again. You make me crazy, and I mean that in a good way. The best possible way.”
“Are we still on for tonight?” she asked and promptly rolled her eyes. Talk about insecure. She sucked at flirting, always had. No practice.
“Hell, yes!” he responded. “Six-thirty, right?”
“Six-thirty at Jetty’s.”
She smiled at Jason who rolled his eyes and kept very quiet. Thank goodness. No telling how long that would last, so she had better cut the conversation short.
“I’d tell you to wear something sexy, but you’d look sexy in rags, Cinderella.”
Her heart lurched. Cinderella? He couldn’t know, could he? Of course, he could. Powerful men ran background checks. Would Rhett have done that?
All coherent thought left her head, and she could only stare at the pavement rolling beneath the truck tires. For one brief instant, she got a taste of what it would feel like to lose Rhett.
“Are you there?”
“I’m here,” she said, hating that her voice sounded so weak. “Wh-Why did you call me Cinderella?”
“Because you ran away on our first date like you had a pumpkin coach to catch,” he said, as though that made all the sense in the world.
“Oh,” was all she could manage.
“Are you all right?”
She distinctly heard concern in his voice. He didn’t know her secret. Her imagination had run wild again.
“I’m fine,” she answered, with more assurance than she felt, “and I can’t wait to see you.”
Too much too soon? Too bad!
She made up her mind in that instant that tonight she would tell Rhett the truth—over drinks at Jetty’s, before they even ordered dinner. Her one short taste of what loss could be like was enough to convince her the pain could only get worse from here on out.
“Lily, I—”
“What? What is it?” A little frisson of panic quickened her nerves.
“Don’t be late,” he said, his voice sounding rough.
He clicked off, and she stared straight ahead for several long moments, keeping the phone at her ear as though she could still feel the connection, inexplicably needing to maintain that connection. Omen or insecurity?
Slowly, her senses reeled back in from the scattershot blast his phone call created. Her gaze shifted to the passing landscapes, and she recognized the road and the nearby estates. Rhett had brought her down this road on Saturday night. A sign for Sea Turtle Park pointed straight ahead.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” she asked Jason.
He nodded. “2110 Beach Road.”
Lily frowned. “You’re sure it’s Beach Road on Jupiter Island?”
He rolled his eyes in response.
Minutes later, he pulled into the driveway of the last residence before the entrance to Sea Turtle Park. She and Rhett had skated down that very property line, just inside the hedge border, on their first date. Her heart beat a mad rhythm in her chest. What a weird coincidence!
Immediately, her imagination swept her back to the romantic moonlit beach, and she could see Rhett with his dress slacks and shirtsleeves turned up, giving her glimpses of his well-muscled arms and legs.
Her mouth turned cotton dry, and she felt her resolve weakening.
How long would she be able to resist Rhett’s sensuous overtures?
Damn Hank for his meddling so long ago and convincing her to wait for love.
“Are you all right, Lily?”
She glanced over at a worried Jason. “I’m fine. Just trying to remember everything I have to do today,” she fibbed.
“Stay here where it’s cool. I’ll go see if anyone’s home.”
“They better be,” she muttered and watched her shipping supervisor stride to the front door.
In the light of day, the mansion looked nothing like the shadowy fortress she remembered from that moonlit Friday night.
But then, she’d only had eyes for Rhett.
The mansion’s cream-colored exterior looked radiant in the late afternoon sun and resembled an Italianate Palladian villa, its windows bearing the familiar semicircular arch.
Jason knocked, and the front door swung open, but Lily couldn’t see the occupant. Jason remained in place, nodded a few times, reached through the open door to retrieve a paper, and returned to the truck as the front door swung shut.
“Well?” she asked when he opened the driver’s door.
“We’re good.” He grinned. “She’s busy in the library and won’t bug us. We’re to do the interior first and finish up on the back terrace. And best of all?” His grin widened, and he held up the paper he’d been handed at the door. “We have a floor plan where everything goes.”
Lily’s jaw dropped. “Amazing. That’s something I would do.”
“Come on. We’ve got to hurry, so you can make your date.”
~ ~ ~ ~