Chapter Fourteen
Tammy answered the phone Wednesday morning, and her gaze shot across the desk to Lily. “Um, hi, Rhett. Lily? Let me check.” She pressed the hold button. “Well?”
Lily glowered and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not here.”
“You know, if you just talk to him for a few minutes, he might stop sending all those.” She waved at the dozens of floral displays in the nursery office. “I sent an arrangement home with every employee last night, and a dozen more arrived this morning.”
Lily just glared. “No.”
Tammy sighed. “All the notes say exactly the same thing. I just need to talk to you for a few minutes. Love, Rhett.”
“Love, my ass.”
“Ouch! Well, then take all these vases to your cottage. There’s no room to move around in here, and this is a place of business.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t? Why not?”
Lily fought back a smile. “My house is full of roses.”
Tammy gaped at her and then started laughing. “How full?”
“Worse than this.” She waved her hand at the vases covering every open space on the floor and counters.
“When? How?”
“They arrive every evening after the nursery closes.”
“What do those notes say?”
Lily looked sheepish. “‘I’m willing to beg.’”
Tammy laughed harder. “No Love, Rhett?”
Lily shook her head, and her smiled faded.
“Aw, come on, Lil. Don’t go sour on me again.”
The arms crossed in defensive posture again. “Why are you standing up for him?”
Tammy came around the desk and sat beside her. “I’m not, honey. I’m on your side. And I admit I wanted to shoot him last weekend when you came back from the barbecue and told me what he did.”
“So, why are you forgiving him? He hurt me. He accused me of horrible things—of plotting to go after his money. He didn’t know me at all to accuse me like that, and I don’t want a man who would accuse me like that.”
“But would you want someone who loved you so much that seeing you on a date with someone else made him act a little crazy? Made him do and say outrageous things?
“That’s not what—”
“I think it is, and that’s the only reason I think you should hear him out.”
Lily turned away. “No, I don’t trust him.”
“Ah, you’re probably right.”
Lily jerked her head back around to stare. “I am?”
Tammy nodded. “Yep. If you got back together, and he saw you at another charity gala with a different man, he would probably do and say more ridiculous things. Especially if he thought or even suspected you cared about the other guy.”
Lily frowned. “So you think this is all because Rhett was jealous?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You forget he also called me deceitful and a liar and threw me out of his house.”
“You did deceive him, and you swallowed your pride and went to the barbecue for a chance to talk to him and explain. You did it because you thought he was worth it. Now he’s swallowed his pride and wants a chance to explain. He thinks you’re worth it.”
Lily considered that for several moments, then shook her head. “I still don’t want to talk to him. He’ll just say more things to hurt me.”
Tammy stood and retrieved the phone. “Sorry, Rhett. I can’t find her right now.” She frowned at Lily. “Uh, sure thing. I’ll tell her.”
“What’d he say?”
“What do you care? You didn’t want to talk to him, remember?”
“Stop kidding around, Tammy. What did he say?”
“He said to go outside and look up.”
The two girls stared at each other for a second and then scrambled for the door. Out on the gravel driveway, they turned their gaze skyward. Puffs of skywriter smoke stood out against an azure blue sky as a small two-engine prop plane puffed out an exclamation point.
PLEASE LILY!
“Ohhh,” Tammy gushed, “that is so romantic.” She turned to Lily, but only saw her back as she strode for the cottage.
~ ~ ~ ~
“All right! You made this mess, now help me clean it up,” Tammy called across the greenhouse.
Rob’s head jerked up from the cuttings he transplanted. “My mess!”
“At least, you didn’t ask, What mess?” she crabbed, striding over to the potting bench. Her hands went to her hips.
“How do you figure I made the mess?” he said sullenly.
“You and Lily don’t speak to each other unless it’s about work.
She won’t talk to Rhett at all. Garrett told me to leave him out of it, and we need to buy another nursery property to hold all the cut flowers Buchanan keeps sending over.
This can’t go on!” She threw her hands in the air.
“And now, he’s got skywriters sending messages. ”
Rob’s eyes widened. “For real?”
She nodded. “Don’t bother getting up. There’s too much wind today, and she never gave the PLEASE LILY! in the sky a second glance.”
He sighed and stared at the cutting in his hand.
“She’s simmering like a volcano ready to erupt.
She has a right to be mad because I shared her personal information about the trust fund, but I’d do it all over again.
The guy made idiotic accusations, and I had to shut him down.
I couldn’t have him saying or even thinking those things about Lily. ”
Tammy patted his shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up. I’d have said that and more. You know I would. She’s just frustrated Rhett has the upper edge now.”
“Upper edge?” He stared blankly. “You lost me.”
“He knows she liked him. He knows she wanted to keep seeing him, and he knows she wanted to explain everything to him. And lastly, he now knows she’s got her own money and was never after his.”
He frowned. “That’s all true.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Lily’s got no secrets now. Rhett didn’t want her, when he thought she was poor, so she doesn’t want him to suddenly want her because she’s rich.”
“You lost me again.”
“She thinks he should have taken a chance and loved her without knowing whether she was poor or rich. He should have loved her for herself. Which is ironic since that is exactly what he wanted.”
“Oh.”
“Love should have made him want Lily, no matter what. At least, that’s what I think she is thinking.”
Rob sighed heavily. “She has never been this upset before. I hate it.”
“She’s mad at the situation, not at you. She thinks Buchanan is finally after her under false pretenses. He didn’t love her enough on her own.”
“So what do we do?”
“Nothing. Buchanan’s on his own. He’s going to have to fix this himself, and only he can do it now.”
“But I thought you said I had to fix this mess.”
She gave him a devilish grin. “You do. Or rather, we do. You and I have to come up with a way to force those two together, so Rhett has a chance to plead his case.”
“How will we do that?”
“I’m working on it. Are you in?”
He nodded. “Sure, anything to get things back to normal around here. And speaking of normal, when’s the special code enforcement hearing?”
“She got the notice of hearing today, which didn’t help her frame of mind any.
It’s scheduled for next Tuesday morning at nine.
We called the Jupiter Town Council office and were told that Lily and the attorneys filing the injunction against her grandfathered status for a “residence occupying a commercial property” would each get an opportunity to plead their case before the Code Compliance Special Magistrate at that time.
Tallahassee is leaving the issue up to local government, on the question of Lily’s grandfathered status, since she is the only business owner affected. ”
“Has Lily changed her mind about getting an attorney?” Rob wanted to know.
Tammy shook her head. “She said she’d be wasting her money and doesn’t need one with the Code Enforcement Department manager coming to the meeting to stand up for her grandfathered status. Lily said the man promised to be there.”
Rob looked grim. “So it’s a pack of attorneys against Lily.”
Tammy nodded. “Looks that way, but she’s not worried. And it’s not like she’ll be losing the nursery.”
“It will feel like that to her if she’s forced to move. This is her childhood home, the only home she’s ever known.”
Now, it was Tammy’s turn to frown. “You don’t think she’d sell out because she lost the cottage, do you?”
“I honestly don’t know what she’ll do. I’ve never seen her this upset before.”
“Well then, we’ll just have to work fast.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Lily quietly closed the greenhouse door behind her and stood for a moment to acclimate her eyes after the bright sunlight outside.
Rob sat hunched over his potting table as he so often did now, sticking new cuttings he intended to offer through their interior lines.
He didn’t look up as she approached, and she could hardly blame him.
Their parting after the barbecue had been acrimonious at best with each saying things neither one had meant.
He accused her of being stupid for falling for Rhett Buchanan, which now in hindsight seemed quite true, and of being selfish and narrow-minded for getting mad at Rob for standing up for her.
She had called him a controlling buttinsky.
Neither had spoken to the other since, and after four days of avoiding each other and walking on eggshells, she realized how badly she missed his company and the ability to share her thoughts with him.
“Are you just going to stand behind me and stare, or step up to the table and say what you came to say,” he said softly without turning around.
Startled, she stepped forward. “Sorry, I was just planning what I wanted to say.”
He put down the cutting he trimmed with his scalpel and turned to face her, his expression solemn. “I’m just glad you’re going to say anything to me after four days of the silent treatment. I hope you’re going to say I’m like a brother to you, and you hate fighting with me.”
She felt her bottom lip quiver with relief, and she hugged him. “Oh Rob, I’m sorry.”
He squeezed her tight. “Me too, Lil.”
She pulled back and smiled, her eyes welling with relieved tears. “That’s exactly what I was going to say. I hate fighting with you.”
He grinned. “How would you know? We’ve never fought before.”