Chapter Fourteen #2
She swiped at a lone escaping tear. “I guess you’re right. About everything. We are like brother and sister, and that did give you the right to step in with Buchanan.”
He held up a hand. “I went too far and said way too much. I’m sorry. I just got so mad at his accusations.”
She gave him a wry smile. “I know. Me too. You only told Rhett what I had intended to tell him myself.”
“Except for the part about your trust fund.” He hung his head. “Sorry again.”
“He would have found out anyway. It’s what the guy does and how he operates.
I’m just surprised he didn’t already know.
I probably would have told him myself if he’d ever given me the opportunity to explain.
” She let out a disgusted sigh. “But when he accused me of trying to marry him so I could cheat on him with you or Aidan, I got so mad I didn’t think he deserved to know anything about me. ”
“And then I went and blabbed,” he said with chagrin.
She pulled him into another hug. “Forget it. The important thing is we’re back to being us.”
He gave her a crooked smile, then chuckled. “You and me cheating on the side. How did I come out ahead in that deal?”
“How did Buchanan come up with an idiotic idea like that?” she asked derisively. “He thought I was too stupid to come up with anything better.”
“Nah.” Rob shook his head. “Jealousy put that idiotic idea in his head. Jealousy does that to guys, makes them think with anything but their head.” He sat back down at his bench. “So what are you going to do, Lil?”
“About what?” She wouldn’t look at him. She knew what he was asking.
“About Buchanan?”
“What’s there to do? It’s over. I had my chance to talk to him, and instead, I found out how he felt. He wasn’t really jealous, and he’ll give up. Then there’s no reason for us to talk to each other ever again.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“Why not?”
“When was the last time you were up at the office to pick up your messages?”
She thought for a moment. “I don’t know, several hours. I had a bad headache from working the Vermeer digger this morning, so I laid down at the cottage for a while after lunch.”
“You might want to wander up to the office.”
“Why?”
Rob’s lips twitched as though he fought back a grin. “Well, I’m told a landscape crew showed up right after lunch with a truckload of annuals. They replanted the beds in front of the office and told Tammy their work was on the house.”
“That’s crazy! Who would do that?”
Rob raised his brows. “Want to go look?”
“Yes, I do,” she said indignantly. “No one plants our landscape beds but us.”
They hopped in the golf cart outside the greenhouse and sped for the nursery office. The cart careened around the corner, and Lily gasped. Rob hit the brakes.
The enormous annual bed in front of the nursery office had indeed been replanted. Against a dark-green background of dwarf jasmine were bright yellow marigolds arranged in two-foot-high letters spelling, Give me a chance.
Too stunned to do anything else, Lily stared.
Tammy spotted them and sauntered out onto the front porch. “Heck of thing when a crew shows up and plants your annuals bed for you,” she said. “Of course, I’m going to get a lot of questions from customers about what they spelled. What do you want me to tell them, boss?”
Lily couldn’t take her eyes off the marigolds. Ever the grower, Rob climbed out of the cart to check the planting technique and see if the annuals needed water.
Tammy grinned at her. “I called Garrett, and he’s stopping by. He couldn’t stop laughing and says he has to get a look at what Rhett did all by himself.”
That did get Lily’s attention. “Garrett didn’t take care of this?”
“Nope. He didn’t know anything about it. Rhett must have done it all on his own, just like everything else he did this week. Garrett was in the dark about all of it.”
“What now, Lily?” Rob asked, getting to his feet.
“I’m still not going to speak to him,” Lily said on the verge of tears. “He can’t just send over a bunch of flowers and expect me to run right back to him. He hurt me. I hate him.” She took off for the cottage at a dead run.
~ ~ ~ ~
The nursery workers had already gone home Thursday evening, so Lily was surprised to hear Tammy’s page on the outside nursery speakers and trotted to the closest house phone at the annuals greenhouse. “What’s up?” she asked when she dialed in to the office.
“There’s an attorney on the phone, Lil,” Tammy said without preamble. “A Carstairs Whittenhurst the Third. Not the second mind you, but the third. Are you in the middle of something?”
“Just taking a load of potting soil to the shadehouse. It’s after five and late for an attorney to be calling. Did the guy say what he wanted?”
“Maybe he only intended to leave a voicemail,” Tammy said, “but I couldn’t get a peep out of him. Could be anything, but with your hearing before the Special Code Compliance Magistrate next week, I have a hunch that may be what he’s calling about. You never get calls from attorneys.”
Lily was in the front office minutes later, and she took the call in Tammy’s office, thankful Tammy had stayed behind for moral support.
Lily put Whittenhurst on speaker. “This is Lily Foster.”
“Ms. Foster, this is Carstairs Whittenhurst the Third.”
Lily rolled her eyes at Tammy. “What can I do for you, Mr. Whittenhurst?”
“On behalf of my client, I have filed an injunction. Your residence located at a commercial site violates Jupiter City Code, Chapter 4.208.”
“So it’s you who’s causing me all this trouble. Who is your client, Mr. Whittenhurst? I’d like to speak to him or her and ask why they should care whether I live at my nursery or not.”
“I represent my client, Ms. Foster, in any and all land negotiations, and as a good citizen and ethical barrister, I felt compelled to bring your code violation to the city’s attention.”
“Approval to have my residence at this commercial site is grandfathered, since the code prohibiting my residence here wasn’t written until years after we moved in, and—”
“And the state of Florida does not support a grandfathered status following a change in ownership or a renovation exceeding fifty percent of the total value of the property venue renovated,” he retorted.
“Your initial building expansion after the original purchase was enough to lose your so-called grandfathered status, as you call it, and requires you to conform to existing code.”
Lily cast a stricken look at Tammy as she felt her panic rising. Tammy gave her a helpless shrug.
“Would you like me to cite the appropriate section of the code?” Whittenhurst asked.
The condescension in his tone infuriated Lily. “No, I would not. What I would like is to know why you are doing this, and I want the name of your client.”
“You will deal with me and only me in this matter, so don’t bother asking about my client again.
The why is simple. We would like to purchase your property, all one hundred acres of it, and we are willing to purchase it outright or offer a comparably valued property inland, should you wish to relocate your nursery. ”
“My nursery isn’t for sale, Mr. Whittenhurst!” she exclaimed.
Undaunted, he continued as though she hadn’t said a word.
“And you must consider whether you can run your nursery as effectively without being in residence. The parcel we’re prepared to offer you has no such code restriction as the land parcel lies outside the city limits, and you would be well within your legal rights to maintain your home on-site. ”
“I’m within my legal rights to live right here until the Jupiter Town Council, and not you, tells me different,” she snapped, her patience at an end.
He had the audacity to chuckle. “It’s merely a formality at this point, Ms. Foster.
My offer is most generous now, however if you continue to fight our purchase, I’m sure the city will find other code violations as well, each decreasing the overall value of the commercial property and subsequently detracting from any future offers. ”
“How dare you!” she said indignantly. “That’s blackmail and extortion, and I won’t stand for it. I’ll report you!”
The chuckle erupted again, sounding uglier this time. “Be my guest. You’ll only hasten the eventual result and a faster visit from a code enforcement officer. So, what will it be?”
Tammy stared wide-eyed and mouthed, What do we do?
Lily narrowed her eyes. “What will it be? Since you won’t name your client, Mr. Whittenhurst, you can be the one to kiss my ass!” She pounded the little red good-bye button with her fist.
“Lily, we’re in big trouble.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Lily and Tammy found Rob in one of the greenhouses after the Whittenhurst call, and the three talked for almost two hours.
Tammy and Rob finally headed for home, and Lily sat alone in the darkened nursery office, feeling positively morose.
The news was worse than she had expected.
The nursery was littered with dozens of code violations, nothing drastic enough to cause structural damage or endanger the safety of Bloom & Grow employees, but violations nonetheless.
All had been discovered during a recent and very thorough hurricane inspection by an insurance company consultant.
Rob had ordered the inspection in an effort to lower their hurricane deductible, and in the course of the inspection, the consultant—being totally up-to-date on state and local building codes—had happily pointed out their myriad deficiencies.
The consultant had informed Rob the violations were small enough in nature that only an inspector or someone in that line of work would even notice, so they shouldn’t feel badly about the discovery.
Rob had planned to have all the issues repaired as time and money allowed, but no way could the repairs all happen before the meeting at Jupiter Town Hall. He hadn’t thought to mention them to Lily and worry her since he had planned to take care of them as soon as possible.