Chapter Five
The Flower Witch Will See You Now
Poppy
The main street is cobblestoned, which is objectively rude to anyone wearing sandals with no arch support.
However, I forgive it because every storefront is a delight.
There are painted shutters, flower boxes, and hand-lettered chalkboard signs proclaiming things like Life’s short, buy the croissant—which I gladly do.
I tackle my to-do list—confirm the final headcount with the caterer, swing by the florist—who happens to be my aunt Gloria—to check on the last-minute boutonnières Ivy added, and bribe the bakery into making two extra gluten-free cupcakes that weren’t in the original order.
(I call it strategic planning; CeCe calls it wedding sorcery.)
Next, I pop into a tiny gift shop that smells like eucalyptus, where I find the prettiest sun-dried linen throw blankets I’ve ever seen. I don’t need them, but I buy two.
By the time I settle onto a bench outside the general store, cappuccino in one hand and local honey sticks in the other, I feel like I’ve finally exhaled.
I call CeCe.
She answers with a dramatic sigh. “Did you survive?”
“Barely. But I’m on the upswing.”
“Has he glared at you again today?”
“He monologued to a dog about my luggage.”
“This man sounds dangerously unwell.”
“That’s not even the weirdest part. His neighbor—Nadine?—showed up looking for the dog, wearing what I’m pretty sure were orthopedic wedges and harboring a personal vendetta against joy.”
“I cannot wait to meet her.”
“You’re going to love this town,” I say, stretching my legs out in front of me. “It’s sunshine, quirky little shops, and people who all know each other’s coffee orders.”
I could honestly live here—if my entire life weren’t back in California.
CeCe sighs dreamily. “I knew I should’ve come early.”
“You’ll be here in a few days, just in time for peak chaos.”
“And then it’s off to Italy for you,” she says.
I grin into my coffee lid. Even if I can’t afford it right now, the plane ticket is booked, and so is my rental. “Portofino,” I remind her.
“Try to sound less smug when you say it.”
It’s going to be my post-wedding decompression trip—sun, pasta, and absolutely no one needing a seating chart from me. It’s my first real break in over three years.
Just me, a journal, a few sundresses, and the Italian coast. No clients. No deadlines.
I can hardly wait.
“Ugh, I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Not today. But if you send me another picture of a cappuccino next to your color-coded planner, that could change.”
I glance down at the photo I just took—a quiet little street, pink hydrangeas, a linen blanket folded just so, and peeking out of my bag like it’s auditioning for a lifestyle shoot.
“I don’t know,” I say softly. “This place is so… easy. I kind of wish I had more time.”
CeCe is quiet for a moment. “Yeah. But you need a reset. Italy will be good for you. And if the Hudson Valley just happens to throw in some brooding lawyer eye candy while you’re there… that’s not a crime.”
“He is not eye candy.”
“Uh-huh.”
***
The next town over is smaller but just as charming.
I park in front of a little white cottage with a lavender mailbox. I haven’t seen my aunt Gloria in more than a year, but we always pick up right where we left off.
Gloria never planned to become a florist.
She was a fashion editor in Manhattan for twenty-five years—glamorous, sharp-tongued, and always three seasons ahead of everyone else.
Then one day, she walked out of a Condé Nast meeting, took a train upstate, bought a little white cottage with peeling shutters, and started filling vases with whatever she could yank out of the soil.
She says it was burnout. I think it was freedom.
Now she’s the Hudson Valley’s unofficial flower witch—part artist, part chaos agent, part therapist with pruning shears. Her arrangements are wild, emotional, and deeply impractical—”Like me,” she once said with a wink. She creates them when she feels like it, for clients she finds interesting.
And, apparently, for me.
Well, for Ivy. But only because I asked.
“I’ll do it,” she’d said when I called. “But I have two conditions. No burlap and no one tells me where to put the peonies.”
Deal.
So now, here I am, pulling into the gravel driveway of her wildly unofficial floral “studio.”
A wind chime made of silver teaspoons dances in the breeze.
I step out of the car and inhale.
The smell hits me instantly—roses, soil, something herbal and expensive—Gloria.
The screen door is ajar, and Billie Holiday is playing somewhere inside.
I follow the sound through the jungle of blooms and vines, brushing past a hanging fern that tries to block my way.
Gloria stands in the middle of the room, inspecting an arrangement of delphiniums.
She’s wearing billowy chartreuse pants, a black tank top adorned with sequined bees marching across the chest, and what I’m pretty sure is a velvet turban. Her lipstick is coral, and her nails are lavender. Her whole vibe says, I retired from the fashion world, but I’m still judging your hemline.
“Darling!” she cries when she sees me. “You’re early. And glowing! Did you fall in love with the town already? I told you you’d love it.”
“I do love it.” I laugh, hugging her. “Almost all of it. Except for the grumpy, emotionally unavailable lawyer whose guest house I’m staying in.”
“Most lawyers are emotionally constipated,” she says, waving a hand as if this is nothing new.
She smells like sandalwood and fresh-cut stems—always vaguely expensive, always vaguely mystical. She pulls back and scans me, her eyes narrowing.
“You’ve lost weight.”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, you look like someone who’s been surviving on adrenaline and chai lattes, so either way, we’re getting lunch. I made quinoa. Don’t argue.”
“Yes, Chef.”
She leads me through the chaos to a tiny kitchen where plants hang from the ceiling and a disco ball dangles in the corner as if it’s completely normal.
I drop my bag and sigh—the sort of sigh you can only have in the presence of someone who’s known you your whole life and never once asked you to tone it down.
“You okay, poppet?” she asks, spooning quinoa into hand-thrown bowls. “You’ve got that ‘I’m fine but don’t ask me twice’ look.”
“I’m okay,” I say. “It’s just… a lot. The wedding. The clients. The venue.”
“And the lawyer.”
I pause. “He’s… impossible.”
“But handsome?”
I groan. “Annoyingly so.”
“Delicious and difficult. Like a croissant with a god complex.”
She pours me a glass of sparkling water infused with hibiscus. I take a sip. It’s tart, floral, and a little fizzy—annoyingly perfect, like everything Gloria touches.
“He’s Ivy’s fiancé’s brother. Dean Whitaker.”
Gloria blinks. “Wait. Whitaker, Whitaker?” She taps her temple, thinking. “The Manhattan divorce attorney?”
“You know him?”
“I know of him,” she says, already intrigued. “Big-deal firm. High-profile cases. Always looks mildly annoyed in press photos.”
I shouldn’t be surprised. Aunt Gloria knows everyone. She never had kids and has maintained quite the rolodex. Plus, she’s managed to keep up with everything Manhattan, despite moving away years ago.
“That sounds like him.”
Gloria laughs. “And?”
“And he’s hosting the wedding at his estate.”
“Okay…”
“And he hates that we’re there.”
She hums and begins gently arranging a spray of sweet peas. “Ah. One of those types.”
“Totally type-A. Cold. Condescending. Uses phrases like ‘liability risk’ and ‘revisit the terms of use.’”
“He sounds delightful.”
“He monologued to a dog about how chaotic I am.”
“Was he wrong?”
I squint at her. “Whose side are you on?”
“The dog’s,” she says. “Always.”
I shake my head and finish my drink. “He’s impossible. Every time I make progress, he throws up another boundary. And the worst part is… I think he’s doing it to protect himself. Like, genuinely.”
Gloria’s hands still over the arrangement.
“Ah,” she says quietly. “So he’s not just a cold bastard. He’s a wounded cold bastard.”
I groan. “Don’t make this romantic. It’s not romantic.”
“Of course not,” she replies, her tone far too agreeable. “Just a wedding planner living in a guest house across the lawn from a handsome grump with a power complex and haunted eyes. Nothing to see here.”
I throw a sprig of rosemary at her.
She catches it midair and tucks it into the arrangement. “Well, if things escalate, I expect to be the first to know.”
“They won’t.”
“They might.”
“They won’t.”
She winks. “I’ll just keep some extra peonies on hand. In case of emergency.”
I roll my eyes and eat my quinoa.
After lunch, Gloria gestures toward a long, butcher paper–covered table behind her. “You brought the mood board, didn’t you?”
I dig into my bag and pull out a crisp portfolio, sliding it across the table like it’s a sacred artifact. “Printed and laminated. You’re welcome.”
We move to the stools at the larger table, and she fans through the pages, nodding slowly, her many bracelets jangling with each turn. “Okay. This I like. Very soft. Very romantic. Like a Jane Austen heroine on her third mimosa.”
“Ivy’s big on whimsy. She described it as ‘cottagecore meets cool-girl editorial,’ which I think roughly translates to wildflowers, but make them expensive.”
Gloria snorts. “Translation: she wants it to look effortless but not actually be effortless.”
“Exactly.”
“Don’t we all,” she says wistfully. “Basically, that’s the story of my life.”
We move to the greenhouse side by side, pulling bundles of Gerbera daisies, ranunculus, and feverfew from buckets. Gloria works intuitively, her fingers flying. I work with a ruler, a clipboard, and a very specific plan.
And somehow, it always balances out.
“What’s the plan for the ceremony install?” she asks, jotting some notes to herself.
“Ivy wants a full floral arch—heavy on texture but still airy. Sage, dusty rose, pale peach. I was thinking of adding local wild clematis if we can get it—”
“Already ordered.”
I pause, smiling. “You’re the best.”
“I know.”
We continue working in silence for a minute, comfortable and happy. The sun shifts through the trees outside the window, scattering light across the flowers.
Gloria ties off a bouquet with a ribbon and holds it up. “You know,” she says, studying it, “for all the stress and last-minute nonsense, this wedding’s going to be beautiful.”
I nod, suddenly and unexpectedly a little emotional. “Yeah. It is.”
***
By the time I pull back into the driveway, the sun has dipped just low enough to tint the sky pink and gold. It’s that fleeting hour when everything looks romantic, soft, and slightly filtered.
Which is probably why it takes me a full five seconds to realize there’s a goat on the porch.
A real one.
Just… standing there. Like he lives here. Okay, the dog was one thing… but Dean has a goat? I’m having a hard time picturing that.
I climb out of the car and eye the goat.
He’s scruffy, charcoal gray with darker markings around his eyes, giving him a vaguely villainous look. Like a goat that once got cast as the bad guy in a children’s cartoon and never quite let go of the role.
He’s chewing something.
I squint.
No. Not something.
My linen table runner!
“Excuse me!” I shout, darting closer as if I’m about to perform a citizen’s arrest.
The goat—unbothered, unimpressed, and possibly entertained—does not stop chewing.
“Oh no no no,” I mutter, walking faster. “Hi. Hello. That’s… not yours.”
He flicks an ear and continues chewing.
I freeze at the foot of the porch, doing the kind of frantic mental math that only panic can induce.
Goat. Porch. Chewing. No one else around.
And then it hits me.
“Oh no.”
Is this my goat?
I pull out my phone and scroll through my email until I find it—the message I sent to a small local farm down the road—Shelby’s Heritage Hooves. I’d attached a carefully curated mood board. Subject line: “A Rustic-Chic Reception Idea.”
I read it now like it’s a confession note.
I think it could be magical to have a couple of small goats wandering the cocktail lawn—very curated natural energy. The photo ops would be incredible. Plus, the bride is a chef and very farm-to-table. Let me know if this is something you’d consider!
She never replied. Never confirmed.
And yet.
I look at the goat, who is now trying to wedge his face into one of the porch planters.
“Did she just… drop you off?”
He sneezes dramatically and resumes eating a flower.
“This is not happening.” I run a hand down my face. “You’re my goat. I manifested a goat.”
He knocks over the planter with his hoof.
They were supposed to be a couple of them, and they were supposed to be cute, mini goats.
I crouch, careful not to spook him. “Okay. I can fix this. Maybe you’re temporary. Maybe you’re just visiting. A loaner goat.”
He headbutts the side of my tote bag.
“No? Not a loaner? Just… casually committing to chaos, are we?”
He makes a low, satisfied noise and sits in the middle of the porch like a guest waiting for dinner.
I stare at him.
“I cannot believe I accidentally ordered a goat.”