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CHAPTER ONE
ACTON
I stood in front of the bow windows of Wild Flowers,the local branch Cygnature Blooms had directed me to for Austin, Texas. I adjusted my white hat with one hand, the mass of color a sensory overload for a poor farm boy-cum-law enforcement officer who recently received the career upgrade of a lifetime.
My heart thrummed in my chest as I grabbed a posy of flowers from a bucket and crossed the threshold my best friend and co-Texas Ranger Andy Matthews had directed me to, citing glowing reviews for the small florist shop around the corner from Ranger HQ in Austin, Texas. Now that we worked shoulder to shoulder, Andy’s comments railed my ears frequently as talked up the service every chance he got.
He should; his wife owned the place.
“Hi, I have a—” A bell jingled merrily as the door swung open and back too fast. I pressed a hand to the pristine glass, leaving a full hand print on it to avoid face planting on the thing. “A pick up for—” The door slammed shut, the bell dinging my arrival in a grand gesture as I talked to an empty shop. “—Cunningham. Hello?”
I edged into the shop, my posy dropping by my side, staring at the array of color that filled the small shop to overflowing, giving what could have been a clean, open space a cluttered look, like a flower jungle. The flowers stared back at me with their single, unblinking eye.
“Welcome to Wild Blooms,” one said in a distinctly feminine voice.
“Ah, hi?” I walked deeper into the shop and stopped at a bunch of daisies that appeared to want to hold a conversation.
Clearly, my initiation into the local Texas Ranger unit had gone to my head.
Or maybe it was the plethora of floral scents that permeated the air in a cloying cloud.
“Can I help you?” asked a crimson dahlia.
I stared in bemusement as the flower wiggled, leaning forward in its display. A pair of bright blue eyes edged in sunshine gold rose over the top. Messy, beach babe blonde hair attached to a heart shaped face waved above the flower, and I adjusted my focal point to the ruby red lips that smiled as I swallowed hard. The color of her lipstick matched the dahlia the woman crouched behind.
“I have an order for Cunningham to pick up. And these, please.” I waved my posy in the air a little too vigorously, relieved my voice didn’t break.
A petal floated between me and Miss Dahlia, who rose to her full height of not at all tall, reaching about mid-chest on me.
Because that’s how we measure height. By where a woman comes up to on your body.
I shushed the snarky little voice in my brain that sounded a little too much like the best friend who could have been an older brother to me. Andy stood beside me at the small ceremony a week prior that included me into his unit’s ranks with his usualeasy grin and a few practical jokes on the side. Nothing out of the usual.
But the nerves on standing on that dias while Rhys Archer pinned a shiny star to my chest and offered me a white hat had nothing on encountering dahlia-girl.
Initiation is most definitely not the hardest part of my week, not the pinnacle.
“Sure.” She thrust the dahlia into my hands, extricating herself from a tangle of strangling orchids determined to mummify her in a swath of green, reaching vines. “Hold Dolly.”
“Hell.” I plopped the potted plant that seemed out of place in a florist shop onto a stand and placed my posy on top. “Let’s get you out of that mess. Wait, who’s Dolly?” I scanned our surrounds for a small dog or maybe a cat, but came up blank.
“Careful, don’t break anything,” she warned, wiggling two free fingers as greenery encased her.
Untangling the vines took up most of my brain capacity for the next few minutes. “I swear this thing is actively growing,” I muttered, tugging the last knotted leaves apart with pizzazz. And a snap. I looked at the tiny piece of orchid that looked like it began to wilt sadly before my eyes. “Ah—” I tugged at it and realized it was attached to a much longer stem. “Damn.”
“And here I thought Texas Rangers did not swear.” Dahlia girl put one hand on her hip, concealing her smile badly. “Where’s Dolly?”
“Um...” I looked around for a pet again but couldn’t see anything. “Dolly is a...butterfly?”
She laughed at me, the sound tinkling in a choir of bells that broadened the space around us and zoned me out to everything but her all at once. “No, silly. Dolly the Dahlia. She’s my house plant. You’re the new Ranger Andy mentioned, aren’t you?”
She plucked the plant from my inert fingers that I offered, changing tack at something akin to lightspeed.
“Yeah.”
Yeah? That’s the best we’ve got?
I blinked and said nothing else.
