raced with all that would need to be done between now and next Saturday. On top of the Easter weekend.
She’d be decorating a wedding as she ignored the sad state of her own love life.
“Cynthia doesn’t know what she wants yet, in terms of a theme. I’ve asked my husband if his assistant can get some photos of the venue for me to use to brainstorm before I meet with you.” Kayla wondered why Gloria wasn’t using her own administrative assistant, whom Kayla had spoken to many times about floral deliveries.
“That sounds good, and if you don’t get the photos before tomorrow, I have some of my own.” She was grateful again for her nomadic childhood with parents in the United States Foreign Service. She’d learned early on that organization paid huge dividends during crunch times such as when they’d had to move across the globe to a new country and report to a new school, all within a week. And Cynthia Charbonneau’s wedding was going to be the definition of crunch. “Why don’t we meet sometime tomorrow and nail down the details?”
“I can come by your shop anytime.”
“That’d be wonderful. Is eleven o’clock okay?”
“I’ll see you then.”
Kayla allowed herself a quick fist pump and a wink at Jenny.
“We just landed a wedding for next weekend.”
“Do they want pastel eggs in the arrangements?” Jenny held up one of the thousands of pale lavender, pink, yellow and blue floral picks she’d placed in arrangements over the past few days.
Kayla laughed.
“Probably not.”
“I want this vase.” Mrs. Vance held a large crystal-cut vase that she’d found on the top shelf. Kayla had all but forgotten about her sweet but persnickety customer.
“That’s not one of the vases from my bouquet collection, Mrs. Vance.”
“How much more will it cost me?”
Kayla didn’t hesitate.
“Nothing. You’ve been so patient, I’ll throw it in and have your new flowers out in the morning, sometime before ten o’clock. Does that work for you?”
Mrs. Vance beamed.
“Yes.”
If only all of her customers could be made happy with a simple vase.
* * *
Kayla locked the shop’s door almost an hour after Jenny left, two hours past closing time. The night air felt good on her cheeks. Warmer than inside, where she had to rely on refrigeration and air-conditioning to keep her stock fresh.
She was going to have to run into the Port of Baltimore to pick up flowers for the wedding next week. It might even have to be an extra drive added onto her usual pickup. Jenny couldn’t do it due to her class schedule, and Kayla still hadn’t hired a much-needed additional assistant. Soon, after the madness of the holiday weekend, she’d get on that.
She felt buoyed up as she calculated her revenue. Last year she’d feared the shop wouldn’t last another six months, but the recession seemed to be lessening and people were still falling in love, getting married and dying. Funerals were a big part of her business and she appreciated the chance to be of comfort to grieving families and friends in their times of need.
Her florist van smelled of blooms and mud, a combination she loved. The van’s purchase had been one of her smartest business decisions and she’d spared no expense, from the refrigerated back area to the up-to-date dashboard, which she used now to place a hands-free phone call.
“Hello?” Rob Owings, the owner of the Weddings and More Barn, answered on the first ring.
“Rob, sorry to bother you so late.”
His chuckle made her smile.
“No such thing this time of year. Let me guess, it’s about the Charbonneau wedding?”
“Yes. I still have the key from the Rotary dinner last week—”
“Sure, go on in and plan to your heart’s content. I left the front lights on. Cynthia stopped by last weekend to check it out.”
“Sounds like she was happy with it.”
“I wasn’t there when she checked it out. I had to give the key to Gloria to pass on to her. Gloria signed for the wedding when she returned the key.”
“They’re willing to pour a lot of money into a short-notice affair.” She knew the deposit had to have been hefty for the three hundred guests they planned on.
“Yeah, I thought that was a little weird, but I’m not complaining.” Rob had three kids, one in college, and had lost his wife to a drunk driver two years ago. Kayla had done the flowers for her funeral and also attended.
“I hear you. Thanks, and I’m sure we’ll be talking more over the next week.”
“You bet.”
Instead of driving toward the small subdivision where she lived, she turned right and headed out of town, toward the farm fields that surrounded Silver Valley.
The moon was a crescent against the star-spangled night sky, the edge of sunset still on the western horizon. Kayla could get sucked into work and not step outside for hours on end, but deliveries and special events like this kept her out and about.
You’re aiding the enemy.
A worm of guilt crept into her serenity and she let out an exasperated breath. Ever since last Christmas, when she’d delivered a bouquet of flowers to Zora, not realizing they were from a serial killer, her mind had been on overdrive. It was too easy to think that the rumors about the new mayor were true—that Tony Charbonneau was some kind of criminal who’d found a way to get rid of the previous mayor and get himself elected in short order. Even if the accusations against the previous mayor proved false, it didn’t mean the new mayor was anything but lucky or extremely ambitious. Perhaps a bit of both.
And his wife had high-end tastes, which at times bordered on eccentric, usually in response to the most recent episode of her favorite reality TV series. She’d even send Kayla a video clip of one of the shows, demanding that her bouquets have the same shape. Kayla liked how her unique requests kept her on her artistic toes. It was easy to fall into the routine of everyday arrangements, and Kayla wanted to offer her customers something they couldn’t find anywhere else.
The barn was dark but the LED light at the side entrance flooded the area as if it was daytime. Kayla was familiar with the building since she’d provided flowers for several weddings and graduations here over the past few years, first as a freelancer, taking contracts and storing flowers in her garage and kitchen refrigerator, and then after the shop opened, she’d been able to handle more volume.
The barn looked forlorn and dark in the spring night. Rob usually left a couple of lights on inside, on timers, but with his other job managing a dairy farm, he had his hands full. It was easy to let something small slip his mind. Kayla knew the feeling all too well.
Like how they’d put the most colorful aster blooms, normally more available in the fall, in Mrs. Vance’s bouquet, when Kayla knew darn well that the woman would see them as plain old mums. She hadn’t been expecting Mrs. Vance to label them harbingers of death, however.
Her van bounced up the worn path through the field beside the large white barn and she winced as she hit a deep rut. She pulled off the muddy path and onto a dry patch of dirt. Better to walk a few hundred yards to the barn than risk wrecking her van in the dark. Spring thaw had a way of turning the hard clay soil of South Central Pennsylvania into thick, sucking mud not dissimilar to the mud fields she’d seen in the Netherlands as a child. Back when Dad had worked at the Hague and Mom had taken long hours away from her job as a private contractor to take Kayla and her siblings, Melody and Keith, on long sojourns through Europe.
Her favorite had