I huffed out a laugh.“Facebook, Dad.”
He waved a hand.“Whatever you call it.”
Silence settled between us, thick but not entirely uncomfortable.The coffee maker burbled to life.
I twirled the keys around one finger.I wanted out.Desperately.A way to honor Alice without chaining myself to a small-town life I’d never wanted.Maybe Clay could take the shop.Maybe there was a legal loophole.Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Something about the wordevergnawed at me.Something about Enchanted Blossoms as more than a quaint small-town florist.About the way Alice used to talk about flowers like they remembered things, like they were listening.
“I guess I’ll be here for a while, at least,” I said finally.“Until I figure everything out.”
“Alice wanted you to have her business and her home because she believed in you,” my father said again, turning to look at me fully.“She loved you like you were her own.She worried about you in ways that were different from the others.”
I thought about that.Thought about the rows of pictures she kept on the mantel.Thought about how she always let me stay with her whenever I wanted.Until my mother shut that down when I was a teenager.
“And I loved her, too,” I said.Because we’d had a special bond.
“Don’t ever feel guilty for accepting what she chose to give you,” he said.“No matter what anyone else thinks.”
I exhaled slowly.The keys were warm in my hand now.
“You’re right,” I said.“In the morning, I’ll go to her house and check it out.”
And maybe I’d figure out what on earth Alice had expected of me… and why the wordenchantedsuddenly didn’t feel like clever branding anymore.
Chapter Two
Ibarelyslept.
Every time I closed my eyes, the scene replayed on a loop—the lawyer’s even tone, the way Iris’s face twisted with hate, my mother’s stiff back as she marched upstairs like I’d personally murdered her sister.
I lasted until dawn before giving up on sleep.A quick shower, a swipe of makeup to fakerested human, and I was zipping my life back into my absurdly expensive luggage which I shoved into a corner.No point dragging everything along until I knew if I was staying at Alice’s house—or if there was some loophole that would let me escape Hickory Hollow without unleashing Iris the Destroyer.
Keys to Alice’s place in hand, I crept down the stairs.My Manolo kitten-heel strappy slides betrayed me, each flip-flip-flip echoing through the quiet house.
I stepped into the kitchen and pulled up short.
My mother sat at the table with a mug of coffee and theHickory Hollow Mirrorspread open in front of her.The paper looked as tired and beige as the kitchen itself.
Gladys glanced up once, eyes cool behind her glasses, then went back to reading.“Nice write-up in today’s paper about Alice.”
She folded the paper, crisp and neat, and shoved it across the table without looking at me.“You might want to read it.”
“Okay.”I shifted my weight, the keys digging crescents into my palm.“Mom, about the will—”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Piper.”
My name hit like a slap.Somehow, Gladys could make two harmless syllables sound like an indictment.
“Alice and I never saw eye to eye,” my mother went on, rising with her mug.“She got the last laugh giving you her estate.”She smoothed a hand down the front of her dress, every line in her posture carved out of ice.“Now that you have a place to live, I assume you’ll be moving your things out.”
My spine went rigid.God forbid we share a roof for more than seventy-two hours.
“I’m heading to the house now to check things out,” I said, keeping my voice level.“I’ll have my stuff out by the end of the day.”
“Good.”
Gladys swept past me in a cloud of cheap floral perfume, leaving the faintest wake of disapproval behind her.
