She turned toward the door.
“Where are you going?”I asked, clutching the envelope.
“Home.I’m done.”Rylyn shrugged.“I’ve put in enough OT for a lifetime.So, like, I quit.”
Panic clawed up my throat.“You can’t quit.I need you.”
“Alice said you’d know what to do,” Rylyn said.“So, I’m out.”
“I don’t care what Alice said.”I followed her to the door, heels clicking.“Rylyn, please.I don’t have the first clue how to run a flower shop.My last job was at a fashion magazine.I know hemlines and color stories, not… watering schedules.”
Rylyn hesitated, hand on the door.Her dark eyes narrowed, assessing.
“Stay through the end of summer,” I rushed on.“Six weeks.Teach me how not to kill everything.Then you can leave, and I’ll sign whatever glowing recommendation you want.”
Rylyn sighed like the weight of the world rested on her narrow shoulders.“Fine.But come Labor Day, I’m gone.Vanished.Poof.”
“Deal.”Relief flooded me so hard I swayed.“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Rylyn said.“We still have to get you through your first funeral order without making the lilies look like a threat.”
I looked around the shop—at the flowers, the coolers, the secret envelope in my hand, the safe key burning a hole in my palm—and realized this was real.
I was no longer the girl who’d run away to the city.
I was the woman who’d come back to an enchanted flower shop, a dead aunt with secrets, a flirty almost-stranger who wasn’t a stranger at all…
… and a mystery that might be bigger than Hickory Hollow—or my world—could contain.
Chapter Four
Thatafternoon,Imovedmy things from my parents’ house to the one on Snapdragon Drive that now—apparently—belonged to me.The envelope was tucked safely into my bag, the key already on my keyring, cold and solid against my fingers whenever I reached for my car keys.
My mother had gone from icy to permafrost in record time.Every look saidhow dare you be the one Alice choseeven though I hadn’t asked for any of this.Gladys had all but stopped speaking to me, which made lugging my luggage past her a special kind of awkward.
Willow padded after me from room to room, tail high, as if personally overseeing the relocation.I hadn’t set foot back in the greenhouse since meeting Tani.I wasn’t sure if I was avoiding the fairy, the truth, or both.
The next two days blurred into a crash course in Florist 101 with Rylyn as my reluctant professor.Once you got past the eyeliner, the sarcasm, and the nose ring, Rylyn was sharp as a tack and stupidly talented.She did most of the arrangements herself, turning stems and greenery into miniature works of art.
It was… not what I’d expected from the girl who looked like she fronted a goth band.
Running the shop was easier than I thought it would be—phone orders, walk-ins, sympathy arrangements, birthday bouquets.I learned how to work the temperamental cooler, how to place rush orders, how not to murder delicate blooms with too much water.The work was steady, my hands were always busy, and for the first time since Manhattan imploded, my brain had something to focus on besides failure.
Not that I had a choice.This was my life now, at least for the foreseeable future.Florist.Small-town business owner.
Every customer seemed to remember me.Hickory Hollow never forgot anyone.There were the inevitable questions.
What are you doing back in town, Piper?
Why didn’t your mama get the shop?
Why didn’t Iris?
You gonna stay?
I smiled, deflected, lied by omission.Just helping out… Still figuring things out… We’ll see.No way was I unpacking the “your aunt might have been murdered” part of my life over credit card receipts.
By the third day, Rylyn declared me “mostly competent” and took a hard-won day off.I opened alone, answered the phone without panicking, filled two orders for anniversary arrangements, and even managed not to maim any roses.
