Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Ripped from The Seattle Spectator
Fighting Florist Wins Again…?
It has been seven days since the Fighting Florist accepted—nay, devoured—Miss Cecelia Townsend’s latest botanical challenge at the Yukon Gold Athletic Club smoker.
Our Fighter can be seen working daily at the Exposition grounds, plumping and pruning his flowery kingdom.
But where is Miss Townsend? No one has laid eyes on the elusive challenger since she hurled the gauntlet.
Is she cultivating a top-secret specimen? Or has she run for the hills?
July 25, 1909
34 days until Cactus Dahlia Day
Drew Sutton’s patience had worn as thin as pressed petals.
One week of suspense was more than enough to determine whether his favorite opponent was backing down.
The only problem was, said opponent was nowhere to be found.
A few weeks ago, that wouldn’t have been cause for concern—Cecelia had been bedridden since that unfortunate incident with the goat.
But as he’d seen at the smoker, she was back to good health and back to her usual antics.
So where was her relentless campaign of torment?
His mailbox remained suspiciously free of neatly penned condolences on his upcoming defeat.
His front door had yet to be decorated with a clipped article from House he’d give him that. Such nerve deserved a response in kind.
“Is that right? Sounds like your Pa needs a—” Drew paused to rub his knuckles thoughtfully. A sharp indrawn breath from the flock nearly made him break. “—a ticket to the next smoker.”
The air expended around him in hoots and hollers.
But Missing Shoe, bold as brass, held his gaze. “He’d like that. But I wouldn’t put it past him to root for the other fellow.”
Drew tossed back his head and laughed. “Fair enough,” he said, reaching in his pocket to pull out a scrap of seed packet bearing the name of his landscaping business.
“Tell him to bring this and tell the doorman his kid—” He paused meaningfully, waiting for the kid to blurt out his name, then nodded. “His kid Walt told him to come.”
The boy beamed. “Thank you, sir!”
The children went running down the street, exclaiming and shrieking and pushing each other all over the place.
Drew shook his head in amusement. He’d once been such a kid, the only son of a working-class family.
He’d spent plenty of days tramping about the neighborhood with his own pack of friends until Granddad threatened to hide his tail if he wasn’t home by the time Ma’s shift at the hotel restaurant ended.
A sliver of doubt wormed its way in with the memories.
His life couldn’t be more different than Cecelia’s.
Why did she humor their rivalry at all? Hell, no one else understood it.
Not even his biggest champion, Granddad.
He shoved the thought aside with practiced ease.
Always best to square his shoulders and get on with it—doubt was for after the fight.
The white picket fence outside Townsend House was ajar. He stepped inside, then shut it firmly behind him. Wouldn’t want any of the youngsters getting ideas and causing trouble in Cecelia’s garden. He paused, one finger still hooked around the warm latch.
He’d never seen her garden. Heard about it, certainly—she sure did love to brag—but she’d never seen fit to invite him in.
A quick peek couldn’t hurt. Might even give him something to fall back on when his thoughts inevitably tripped over themselves in her company.
Before good sense could object, he strode down the drive lined with pretty rows of yellow shrub roses, rounded the corner of the house, and swept the garden with one discerning glance.
At least, he tried to.
His inspection had barely skimmed the elegant circular glasshouse in the center of the garden before his attention was yanked sideways like a salmon hooked on a brass spoon. Cecelia stood in the path, bent over at the waist, examining a bed of who-the-hell-cared.
Wearing pants.
Thick cotton pants that clung to her perfect pear of an ass.
Pants that stretched tight as she shuffled forward, outlining a behind he’d already spent too many nights lusting over.
Pants that proved, due to the lurch in his pulse and the fresh sweat beading on his brow, that he had no control over his body when it came to the boldest spinster in town.
Those pants were fucking dangerous. What he’d give to—no.
No. He would not subject a lady like Cecelia to his base, animalistic urges.
He must have made a sound—probably a strangled wheeze, by the way he was having trouble breathing—because Cecelia’s gaze nipped toward him.
“Some spy you’d make,” she drawled, hinging upward in a smooth action that made Drew’s abdomen clench. “The dahlias are on the west side of the house.”
He gave his body one last, ruthless order, then offered her an impudent grin. “Must have gotten lost. Good thing I’m only a humble boxer.”
“Only a boxer?” She huffed out an incredulous laugh. “We both know that isn’t true.”
See, that was the problem with Cecelia. She’d always insisted on treating him like an equal.
He remembered the day they met with aching clarity.
It was three years ago, when he’d at last found the heart to fulfill his mother’s last wishes and enter a local flower show.
He’d felt utterly out of place—a day laborer tolerated by the genteel hobbyists—and had been halfway to bolting when a statuesque woman with a riot of brown curls strolled up to his display of lavender and soft blue delphiniums. She’d studied the arching plumes with pursed lips, let out an exaggerated sigh, and declared: Looks like you’re the one to beat.
Then she’d flashed that gap-toothed grin and added, which I will.
Drew’s heart had flopped right out of his chest and landed in a mess at her feet.
It flopped there still.
It most likely always would.
“Brought you a ribbon,” he finally said, digging into his coat pocket.
“Let me guess. Second place?”
Always a step ahead of him, she was. He grunted and produced the robin's-egg blue ribbon with a flourish, letting it unfurl between them. “Behold.”
Her boots crunched across the gravel as she walked, bringing with her that scent of fresh earth and crushed petals that was so uniquely hers. Drew pursed his lips, drawing tiny sips of air, until the ribbon was in her hand and he could take a step backward.
“It has my signature color!” Her chestnut brown eyes sparkled. “So kind of you to notice.”
Of course he noticed. He noticed every damn thing about her. Which flowers she greeted like old friends and which earned only a dismissive sniff. Which people she steered clear of, and which disappointments she pretended rolled right off her back.
But what good did all that knowing do?
They belonged to different worlds. She’d been born into wealth and was university educated.
He was neither. Flowers just happened to be the one place where those worlds overlapped.
Every month or two, a competition cracked the door open just wide enough for him to step through.
To trade barbs, do his best to make her pulse race, and pretend, for an afternoon, that they weren't separated by more than a few flower beds.
Then the judges handed out the ribbons, folks tipped their hats and went home, and the door shut again.
Competition was all he’d ever have from Cecelia Townsend. He’d made his peace with the harsh reality long ago. Still...he'd take a few borrowed hours over none at all. Every time. Even if it cost him a week's sleep and caused an ache to take up permanent residence beneath his breastbone.
“Hard not to recognize your color,” he said with practiced levity, “seeing as you attach ribbons to all your infamous deliveries.”