Grand Openings
Nathaniel was halfway through his second cup of tea before he even noticed the increase in foot traffic outside his front window. He strode across the floor of his empty store, teacup in hand, to see what the fuss was about.
Behind him, Daisy barked and padded over to stand beside him.
Nathaniel used his free hand to scoop the puppy into his arms, as had become their custom over the past week.
She left pale fur all over his clothes and had a habit of gnawing on the baseboards when he left her unattended, but Nathaniel already couldn’t imagine his life without Daisy.
Pru had immediately taken to her as well, as he’d known she would.
“What’s going on, sweet girl?” he mused quietly, scratching her behind the ears and gently prying her razor-sharp puppy teeth away from his lapels. He peered out the window and found a tiered display of flowers outside his neighbor’s shop, partially blocking his view.
Ah.
So Violet had opened her doors.
Daisy whined, nosing his teacup until some of the hot liquid dribbled onto the saucer.
Nathaniel set aside the cup, holding the puppy with both arms as he stepped outside.
The front windows of Violet’s shop were framed inside and out with flowers.
Wisteria hung from the roof, big bright blossoms wafting sweet smells up and down the street, so garishly out of season—particularly in their mountain climate—that it felt like some kind of ruse.
Inside the window, shelves were loaded with greenery and flowering plants in pots and vases of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and in front of the door was her A-frame sign, much like his own, with a message written in chalk that he hadn’t been able to resist a response to.
Nathaniel scowled at the people who streamed in and out of Violet’s shop, completely bypassing his own front door.
Daisy wriggled in his arms. Violet would do well for the first week or two, he predicted, but as soon as the people of Dragon’s Rest whetted their curiosity, they’d realize she offered nothing of real use to them. His apothecary, on the other hand…
Hadn’t seen a customer all morning.
Mum and Da would have known what to do.
Nathaniel’s grief for his parents was like the tides beneath the three moons—it came and went in dramatic cycles.
He felt it threaten to flood him now, the deep melancholy, the guilt—and shoved it back down, clutching Daisy to his chest like a lifeline.
He could do this, he thought, nuzzling his nose into her soft fur. He could keep their legacy alive.
He narrowed his eyes at his neighbor through the window.
He could only catch a glimpse of her through the glass, shaking with laughter at something one of her customers had just said.
Unbidden, that blasted dream rose to the forefront of his mind once more, and his face heated with embarrassment.
He couldn’t get the image of her out of his head.
Couldn’t unremember what she had felt like beneath him, for even if it had been just a dream, it had been the most vivid one he’d ever had.
Still, it felt rude to think of her that way.
Invasive not just to Violet but to his sensibilities.
It wasn’t as if he’d done it on purpose, after all!
Of course, he supposed she did cut an appealing figure—objectively, he meant—in the gray trousers he’d come to think of as something of a uniform for her, and her green half apron embroidered with flowers did—again, entirely objectively—draw a rather interesting amount of attention to the tapering of her waist beneath her oversized shirt.
If he were to ever buy a bouquet of (Pretty!
Cheerful! Useless!) flowers, she would be the type of person he would want to buy them from.
Not that he would ever become a patron of her silly little store.
And besides, there was still the matter of her display blocking his window.
He marched inside, noting the sky-blue accent wall behind her with something like surprised approval and the rows of shelves that appeared to have been grown directly into shelf-shape from live trees.
He hadn’t quite understood what she meant when she was cutting those boughs, but looking at the shelves now, it was clear she’d done exactly that, encouraging the wood to grow and twist and create surfaces where she could display her products, with extruding branches for hanging plants.
Garden tools hung from hooks, their wooden handles with that same natural style gleaming and softly curved in a way he suspected would fit into his hand like a well-loved walking stick.
And everywhere—everywhere—were flowers. Live houseplants and potted blooms in soil filled every available gap on the shelves, with little handwritten signs stuck into their edges to show the buyer how much sun and water each one needed.
And permeating the entire shop, amidst the smell of fresh flowers and damp, earthy soil, was the blackberry-and-almond scent of her magic.
It had barely been a month since her arrival, but the whole space was transformed into something bright and pretty.
Pru’s words came to his mind: Dragon’s Rest could use a little brightness.
A little hope. Looking at the space, for just the barest moment, Nathaniel found it a little less hard to believe that his smiling neighbor could bring that hope to a town that was starved for it.
Arrangements of cut flowers were everywhere in vases or wrapped in paper, and buckets filled with individual varieties hung behind the worktable Nathaniel still could not look too closely at.
A sign hung above the buckets that proclaimed Custom Bouquets in what he now recognized as her scratchy, rushed excuse for handwriting, and that murderous plant she called Bartleby had wound himself in loops over the edges of the sign like a snake dripping from a branch, one of his vines reaching for the pruning shears Violet must have left on the table.
“Nathaniel!” Violet looked at him with a smile that sparkled with joy. The effect of that smile aimed directly at him for once, combined with his name on her lips, made Nathaniel forget momentarily why he had come. “And Daisy! Welcome!”
Daisy, the adorable little traitor, wagged her tail so hard that Nathaniel got a mouthful of fluff. She’d met Violet a dozen more times since that day in the woods, and she never failed to pull a glowing smile from the florist.
“Are you being a good girl?” Violet asked, rushing over to hold Daisy’s face between her hands.
Daisy offered her a slobbery lick on the nose, her little furry body practically vibrating with joy.
He could not rationalize the satisfaction that tingled through him whenever he saw how much his dog had taken to Violet, so he chose instead to take no notice of it whatsoever.
“It looks so different in here,” said Nathaniel, uncomfortably aware of how close Violet was standing.
He held Daisy nearer to his chest, watching how the movement pulled Violet’s hands, still scratching behind Daisy’s ears, closer to him too.
His eyes dragged across the soft bow of her lips, the slope of her neck, the skin that he suddenly wanted to— But oh no, that would certainly not do.
Nathaniel prided himself on his self-control.
It didn’t matter how much the imagined memory of her in his arms occupied his thoughts; not even her pretty smile and captivating eyes would tempt him into doing something reckless like acting on this feeling.
So he cleared his throat and ignored the acid drip of disappointment when she straightened, backing away to a more suitable distance.
“Yes, different was the idea.” She hesitated. “Do you like it?”
Nathaniel was halfway through a nod when he remembered the reason he came. “Your display,” he said, his mouth tightening to a frown. “It’s blocking my window.”
He could have shivered in the sudden absence of her sunshine smile. It appeared again a moment later, but without any of the warmth that had struck him the first time. “I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice was friendly but distant. “I’ll move it.”
Nathaniel knew he would jot this moment in excruciating detail onto a little card in his brain and file it in the thick stack of others just like it.
He could—and would, ad nauseum—pull it out later and berate himself for his inability to talk to Violet without going all anxious and curt.
Pru would have had her laughing by now. Quinn would have coaxed her life story out of her. Anyone would have done better than him.
“Thank you,” he said softly, trying to sound like he was truly grateful. There, that was better. He didn’t sound like he hated her at least.
“You’re welcome.” She narrowed her eyes at his abrupt change in tone. “Is there anything else you need?”
“No. I’ll just be—” He cleared his throat and focused his attention on Bartleby, who waved menacingly at him, the shears now proudly wrapped in his vines.
He hadn’t known a plant could be threatening before Violet came to town.
He turned back to her, afraid to attract more attention from the pothos.
“I do like it. What you’ve done with the space.
It looks lovely. Very…it looks like you. ”
An irritated flush warmed his skin when he realized he’d effectively called her lovely.
Well, it was the truth, wasn’t it?
“Thank you.” She looked like she would say something more, but a customer stole her attention away. Just like that, her brightness returned, and Nathaniel amended his earlier thought. Her business would survive three weeks, not two, on the power of that smile alone.
He slipped back over to his store, shaking off the flower witch’s spell, and realized his cup of tea had long gone cold. He set Daisy down behind the counter and put the kettle on the stove for another.