Lilacs? Who ordered lilacs in Savannah? Only one man Cara knew of. Her husband, Leo.
As soon as she saw the lilacs, Mrs. Pratt opened the door to the back office. “Cyndi! Flowers from your mystery man again.”
Cara heard a chorus of giggles from the girls in the office—the receptionists and billing clerks and hygienists. “Our Cyndi has a mysterious beau who sends her gorgeous flowers every month,” Mrs. Pratt confided.
A petite redhead in a tight-fitting white lab coat unbuttoned just enough to reveal her double-D décolletage burst through the door.
“Oh my God, is he is the sweetest thing ever?” She reached for the card stuck among the lilacs. Then she saw Cara, standing there beside Mrs. Pratt and her American Beauty roses, and Cyndi froze. She snatched the vase and disappeared into the back office.
Cara had seen enough. When she got home she picked up the huge vase of lilacs that had been left on her doorstep, and set them on the kitchen counter. She listened to the message Leo left on her voicemail. “Late meeting tonight. Sorry babe. I know you’ll be dead on your feet by the time you get this, so we’ll celebrate your birthday tomorrow night. ’Kay? Love you.”
Leo’s message had a strangely energizing effect on Cara. She went into his home office, and using a nail file, pried open the desk drawer where he kept their financial records. It was easy to find the statements for the new Visa card he’d procured for himself, easier still to find the monthly flower deliveries to Cyndi Snodgrass and the biweekly check-ins at the Airport Courtyard Marriott, visits that neatly coincided with Leo’s supposed sales meetings in Atlanta.
Cara left the Visa statements on top of the desk. She dumped the lilacs onto the middle of their bed. She packed her clothes and her books and called Bert on the way over to his apartment to ask if she could stay in his guest room for a few nights.
She’d hired a lawyer and started divorce proceedings the next day, and within two weeks she’d rented the apartment over Bloom. And she’d worked every day since then, with the exception of the day after this Valentine’s Day, when she’d gone to visit the breeder in Atlanta to pick out her own birthday present, her new roommate, Poppy.
“You’re going to burn yourself out,” Bert chided her now. “Do you realize we’ve got weddings every Saturday for the next six weeks, not to mention the Mandelbaums’ golden anniversary party and those two huge banquets at the Westin? Plus the deb parties…”
“We can’t afford to turn down Lillian Fanning,” Cara said firmly. “Between Lillian and Vicki Cooper—if this keeps up we’ll have more business than we can handle.”
“Wealreadyhave more business than we can deal with,” Bert grumped.
“We can handle it,” Cara said.
“Yeah, if we don’t want to have a life. Which I do,” he added.
“Are you referring to your new frat friend? Or the fireman?” Cara asked.
Bert winked. “You could say things are heating up with my love life.” He put an arm around her shoulders. “And what about you? It’s been what, a year and a half since you left Leo? You have got to stop burying yourself in work, Cara.”
“Stop and smell the roses, you mean?”
“Something like that. Not all men are like Leo, you know. Some of us are actually faithful and caring and thoughtful. And fun to be around.”
“All the men I know who fit that description in this town are gay,” Cara pointed out.
“You never meet any new men. All you ever do is work. And you’ll never meet anybody nice again if you keep up like this,” Bert said.
“Has it occurred to you that I don’t want to meet anybody new?” Cara tried to keep her voice light. “I’m done with men.” She reached down and scooped the wriggling Poppy into her arms, burying her nose in the dog’s rose-scented curls.
“I’ve got a dog now,” she informed her assistant. “She never steals the covers. Never lies. And she would never, ever sleep with some skanky dental hygienist with short arms and big boobs. Plus, Poppy loves me unconditionally.”
“Except when she runs away,” Bert said.
“That reminds me,” Cara said. “When I was out walking Poppy earlier, the jerk ran right past me—with his real dog in tow.”
“But he did go to all the trouble to track you down here and bring her back yesterday,” Bert said. “So he can’t be that big a jerk.”
“You don’t know him like I do,” Cara said. “Look, Bert. I’ve got to get moving if I’m going to get over to Breitmueller’s for Lillian’s flowers. Will you keep an eye on Poppy?”
“That’s cool,” Bert said. He looked down at Poppy, who was standing by the window, wagging her tail as she watched a woman walk by with a pair of dachshunds on leash. “But maybe you should think about getting Poppy microchipped. Just in case she gets out again. Right?”
“All right, all right, I will,” Cara said. “The very next time I have a day off.”
11
On Tuesday, Cara used one hip to bump open the door at the Savannah Golf Club at 10:45 a.m. Her face was beaded with perspiration and she was well aware that she looked a hot mess.
