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“Hello,” she said, suddenly very aware of how she’d been draped over Travis’s shoulder while she peered at the computer. “How may I help you?”
Dillon’s gaze landed on Travis first, though the kid had already grabbed the computer and started backing away. “Hey,” he said to the younger man.
“Hi. Call me if you need me, Lex.” Travis spun on his Nikes and disappeared into the back office.
Alexa almost called him back, then decided maybe it was better to deal with her handyman one-on-one.
Dillon’s eyes narrowed, as if he was trying to decide what he’d seen. “Friend of yours?” he asked, sauntering farther into her store.
He seemed so huge among the glass and chrome tables of flowers. Capable of destroying delicate blooms with a gust of breath. But when he gingerly cupped a lilac tulip bulb in one of his large palms and directed a raised eyebrow her way, she realized his tender touch made up for his size. And how.
“Employee.” She kept her tone cool. “Travis is my web designer.”
“Redoing your site?”
“Doing it for the first time, period.” She resisted fiddling with her cup of maroon pens, emblazoned with the store’s signature script logo. “Divine’s previous owner wasn’t eager to embrace the digital age.”
“Me neither. Always did prefer a pen and paper to e-mail. It’s so impersonal.”
He strode around the perimeter of the shop, looking at everything. Occasionally he stopped to touch an arrangement or to consider a display of Chilean jasmine or frangipani, but he remained silent.
She watched him survey her store and bit off a slew of impatient questions. It didn’t seem natural for Dillon to remain so quiet. Okay, so she didn’t know him well enough to gauge that, but she considered herself a good judge of character. He was acting weird. Where were his flirtatious comments, his hot looks? Even when she caught him examining a spot of chipped paint in one corner that probably no one else had ever even noticed—except her—his face remained impassive.
His spooky silence felt disapproving, though that was probably just her nerves. Still, would it kill him to say something? “Nice plant” would suffice.
She slipped off one of her pumps and scratched the back of her right calf with her left foot. Then she did the same with the other. Still nothing from Dillon.
Finally he completed his loop of the premises. “I like your place,” he said simply.
She let out a relieved breath. He was probably just being pleasant. A workman-type guy like him most likely didn’t care about flowers, though he did seem to take an active role in caring for the roof garden. But he smiled while he praised her store, and that was enough for her.
“Thank you.”
“You seem to stock a lot of high-end product.” He touched the yellow petals of a Hypericum, then moved on to study a pineapple lily crowned with its usual tuft of leaves. “Not many carnations or gerbera daisies in here,” he said thoughtfully. “You know, like the painted ones?”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t carry painted flowers. Divine has always sought to stock a wide variety of blooms, from all over the world. Carnations can be bought at any gas station.” No need to mention the ones she’d ordered just that morning for her fall designs.
He moved on to study something she called a Zen garden, with river canes of bamboo, purple mokara orchids, and sword fern. Drawing a fingertip over the highly polished bamboo box, he cocked his head. “How much is this?”
“Seventy-three fifty,” she said, fighting not to say more. When she was nervous, anything was liable to come out of her mouth. Most of it wasn’t pleasant.
Dillon whistled. “Steep. The bamboo’s nice, though. You carry ornamentals here?”
She couldn’t figure out if she was pissed he thought her prices were high, amazed he recognized bamboo, or dazed that he seemed interested in the first place. “A few. They’re grouped together in front of the window.”
“Everything’s in its place. All very organized.”
“Shouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes mixing it up can be more fun. Add to the sense that a person could find anything here, if they searched enough.” He crouched to study the ornamentals, making the occasional “tsk” and “hmm.” “I’ll take this one,” he said, picking up a small lemon tree in a heavy, ornate pot she’d shoved into the corner by the door. He didn’t struggle under its weight at all, and even managed to pick up a rabbit’s tail ornamental grass in a long, narrow box. “This too. Do you take special orders?”
His ease with the heavy plants robbed her of her breath, and made her blink at him as if he’d just crash-landed in her shop from Mars. “Yes. What do you need?”
“Sedum, in particular.” He set the plants on the counter. “Do you have a catalog?”
His brisk tone snapped her back into business mode. “I have this,” she said, reaching for a brochure. “I’ll also have an online catalog as part of the site. There will be a section devoted to a wide range of plants, and their uses in home decorating in particular.” Was he decorating his home? How did he know about sedum?
Then she remembered the roof garden and her skin prickled with heat, the brochure she’d grabbed fluttering to the counter.
