The customer might have looked frail and grandmotherly—maybe evengreat-grandmotherly—but Jo’s back had immediately straightened, and her jaw had set as soon as she’d walked through the door, giving me my first clue that this particular customer was a little less warm and fuzzy than she might have appeared.
Her rapid-fire questions in lieu of a greeting confirmed what I had suspected. This old lady was as prickly as the little shelf of cacti behind the counter.
“No,” the woman was saying to Joanne, the tight, white curls on her head shaking emphatically as she spoke. “I’m tired of tulips. They’re overdone, especially this time of year. Not that I didn’t like the ones you sent for me last time, of course. Keep going.” She pointed imperiously toward the hanging baskets in the corner—the same kind that I was hopelessly trying to mimic—and issued her next edict. “Show me some of those. There’s a spot by my garage that could use a good hanging basket.Ifyou have one that’s decent.”
I snorted, then quickly looked down as both her head and Joanne’s snapped in my direction. I tried to play it off as a cough but didn’t dare glance back up until I heard Jo’s soothing voice again, extolling the virtues of the hanging baskets we had on display.
How could Joanne stay so patient, soserene, when the customer was being so aggressively… particular? It was definitely beyond anything I could have managed. I might have been trained for defense on the football field, but I’d be the first to admit that I was no match for old Mrs.… Lindstrom? Lincoln?
Whatever Joanne had called her, she was way out of my customer-service comfort zone. Joanne, on the other hand, was handling her questions and demands and thinly veiled insults like a pro.
“I think we’ve got a few that you might like, Mrs. Linley.” Joanne shot me a look as the corners of her lips twitched.Was that quick near-grin meant for me?“If not, Brady and I are going to make a couple more later today. We’d be happy to do a custom one for you, if you’d like.”
She sniffed, and her eyes flicked back toward me for a moment, making me feel like a deer in headlights.
“A custom one? Hm. Maybe.” She cocked her head to the side for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I think I’d like a custom arrangement. I might stop by again tomorrow and see what you’ve come up with, or…”
“Or I’m sure Naomi would be more than happy to deliver it to you when it’s done.”
She smiled, the first time I had seen even a hint of happiness. “You’re a mind reader, Joanne. I don’t know how you do it.”
She returned the smile and gave a little wink. “I do my best, Mrs. Linley. Was there anything else we could help you with today?”
“Not a thing,” she said, already walking toward the door. “You’ve been a gem, as always. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”
“Looking forward to it,” Joanne said, giving a little wave as she walked out.
Only after she had been gone for nearly a minute did Jo turn around again to face me, slowly exhaling as she walked back across the shop to the workbench where I still hadn’t made much progress.
“Sometimes she comes right back in,” Joanne explained, nodding back toward the door. “So, I like to stay up there for a bit, just in case.”
“I don’t know how you do it, either,” I said, grinning as I repeated the words Mrs. Linley had said a few moments before, although in a slightly different context. “I think I’d be tempted to lock the door when I saw her coming.”
Joanne laughed. “She keeps us on our toes, that’s for sure. But I like to think of it as a challenge—sort of a game—to figure out what she really wants when she’s here, and she’s almost always thrilled with the end result. It’s definitely been more hits than misses over the years. I’m sure we’ll come up with something good for her this time.”
My gaze flicked from the pathetic-looking arrangement in front of me to Joanne, then back again.
“Um, I hope bywe, you’re referring to you and Naomi, because… yeah, I think what I’m doing here would probably qualify as a miss.”
She grinned and nibbled on her lip for a second as she walked around the worktable, looking at the arrangement from several different angles.
“Well, it’s a start. It’s not like you’ve ever had to do anything like this before.” She hesitated for a moment, then gave a little shrug. “I can maybe give you some pointers, though… if you want.”
That was exactly what I wanted. Not just because I wanted my arrangement to be good—I didn’t like to do things half-assed—but if I was going to be working in the shop for at least the next month, I also wanted to give it everything I had.
Joanne and Naomi had been running things more smoothly than I could ever have done, but they were used to having a third pair of hands, and especially so close to a major event—thewedding, as Joanne had said. And even though my knowledge and capabilities with flowers was no comparison to what they were missing with Dad gone, I felt I owed it to them—and to myself—to follow through on my commitments and at least make a good-faith effort to help.
At the moment, though, it was hard to see how anything I was doing there could be classified ashelp.
And if I was being honest, there was another reason I wanted to be in the shop more.
Joanne.
I was glad to be working with Joanne, together, on the same level. I wanted her to see me as more than a boss, definitely more than the distant bad guy I’d been feeling like lately. And even though I wasn’t sure why, or exactlywhatI hoped to gain from the experience, when Joanne cocked her head to the side and looked at me with that bright smile and those sparkling eyes, it was difficult for me to think about anything else.
Sure, I wanted Joanne’s help, but with every passing day, I was beginning to realize that I wanted more than that. At the very least, I hoped for her friendship. But it was getting more and more difficult to look at her without wanting to reach out and pull her closer, to see if her skin was really as soft as it looked, or to run my fingers along that little spot at the base of her neck where her pulse fluttered. To see if her full, generous mouth tasted as sweet as it looked.
My cock throbbed insistently at the thought, and it was only after Joanne nibbled on her lip again and raised an eyebrow that I belatedly realized I’d never replied to her offer of help.