Resting both elbows on her knees, Kasey leaned forward, puckered her lips and blew across the surface of her tea. “This stuff is hot enough to fog your glasses…if you were wearing any.”
He wondered when—if—she intended to tell him about her work; how she’d try to keep him distracted if she decided not to. Wondered why she’d want to keep something so everyday-ordinary from him. The only reason he wanted to know, really, was to prove to himself that what he’d done fifteen years ago hadn’t destroyed her.
She sat back suddenly and crossed her legs. “My shop is called Fleur Élégance, and—”
“Your shop?”
Wearing a proud little smile, Kasey nodded. “Couple of years ago, I paid off my mother’s mortgage. We’d always had this big shed out back, but I was never allowed in it. Dad always said, ‘You could poke an eye out in there.”’ She imitated a deep, growly voice. “Which was probably true. The thing was filled to overflowing with…stuff.”
Kasey laughed softly. “He used to call Mom a clutter-bug. That was true, too.” Resting her head against the sofa’s back cushion, she continued. “Mom saved everything. Rusted tools, extension cords with bared wires, broken-down lawn mowers, bald tires, bent lawn chairs…a lifetime of junk.”
Adam thought he could listen to her talk, hours on end. She loved life, and it showed in every movement of her curvy little body, in every syllable that passed those well-shaped pink lips.
“Dad had been gone nearly ten years when I struck a bargain with Mom—I’d clean out the shed and set up a yard sale, and Mom could spend the proceeds in the bookstore.” Smiling, Kasey rolled her eyes. “The woman has more books than a public library! Anyway, she agreed to the deal, so I cleared everything out, installed new windows—”
He knew the answer to his next question even before he asked it. “Installed windows. Yourself?”
Her expression said, Well, sure. Doesn’t everybody?
If he hadn’t made that promise to himself to keep a safe distance from her, Adam would have given her a hug—maybe more than just a hug—while trying to convince her that not everybody installs their own windows. Especially not pretty, petite girls.
“Once I’d put down a new floor and painted the walls, I had myself a right nice little place to do business.” She gave a nod. “Now getting the business, that was the hard part. At least, at first.”
She sat forward to take another sip of tea, a length of cinnamon hair falling over one shoulder when she did. She flipped it back, exposing the delicate creamy-white skin of her inner wrist, and dangly silver earrings.
He had a new word to describe her now: Stunning.
Adam shook his head. Snap out of it, man. He couldn’t deny how much he liked Kasey. Couldn’t deny how much he disliked what he was beginning to feel for her, either.
Which is what? he wondered.
He was attracted to her, to be sure. And what man wouldn’t be captivated by a gorgeous, green-eyed redhead with a knockout figure and the voice of an angel?
But there was more to it than that. So much more.
Somehow, being with Kasey these few hours had forced him to admit he didn’t like his solitary lifestyle. She hadn’t done it with smoke and mirrors. Hadn’t done it with feminine wiles. Rather, she’d made him see how much he yearned for love and companionship, simply by being, well, by being Kasey.
During the past fifteen years, he’d probably looked at her picture a thousand times. Each time he’d seen that sweet, innocent face looking back at him, Adam had prayed she’d stay that way, forever. He’d likely said a thousand prayers for her, too; he may never know if all the heavenly requests made on her behalf had been met, but he could see, looking at her now, that that prayer, thankfully, had been answered.
Better get a grip, Thorne, he reminded himself. He’d had no way of knowing it at the time, but when he made the choice to go along with Buddy’s prank all those years ago, he chose his destiny. His cowardice had been one of the reasons she’d lost her dad, and his throwing a little money at her family once a month hadn’t changed that.
He chalked up what he’d begun to feel for Kasey to guilt. Had to be some kind of cockeyed contrition, right, because what else could it be? They’d only known each other for a few hours.
Several times over the years, he’d considered digging deeper, finding out more about Kasey and her mom. But nothing he might have learned could replace Al Delaney, so why try? Protectiveness had spawned that idea—was it also responsible for what he’d been feeling since he opened the door, saw her standing there, drenched and dripping and shaking like the last autumn leaf? Had he confused protectiveness for something deeper?
“How’s your tea?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts.
Mechanically, he picked up the cup, took a sip. By now, it was cooler than he liked it. Fact was, he preferred coffee to tea, but he didn’t say so. “It’s good.”
“Sweet enough?”
On the rare occasions when he did drink tea, he used no sugar at all. But he’d have eaten the stuff raw, right off the spoon, if she’d asked him to. “It’s perfect. Thanks.”
Then, more to get his mind off his roller-coaster emotions than for any other reason, he asked, “So how’d you get your first job?”
“Well…” She tucked stockinged feet under her. “A friend was getting married, and she had no money for a bouquet—for floral arrangements of any kind, for that matter. My dad always said I had a green thumb, that I was pretty good at arranging flowers from Mom’s garden….”
Her smile went from friendly to whimsical, telling Adam that one memory had conjured another. I miss him still, said the mellow look in her eyes.
She sat up straighter, cleared her throat. “Anyway, Claire ended up getting ten wedding gifts from me—” One finger at a time popped from her closed fists as she counted: “The bride’s bouquet, one for her maid of honor, the groom and best man’s boutonnieres, mother of the bride and groom corsages, and vases for the front of the church.”
Adam nodded. “Let me guess…and all the nice ladies who attended the wedding saw your pretty flowers, and when their daughters got married…”
Kasey clapped her hands together. “Exactly! Word of mouth was all it took. Before I knew it, I had more orders than I could handle.”
“Good news travels fast.”
“Then I got smart.”
He blinked. “Smart, how?”
“My dad used to say ‘why work hard when you can work smart?’ I didn’t figure out what he meant until I’d been in business a year or so.” Staring straight ahead, she lowered her voice, as if what she was about to say was a state secret: “He died when I was just twelve, and he had a lot of ‘sayings,’ so there was a lot to figure out.” Facing him again, she continued in her normal tone of voice. “Anyway, I finally realized I could make more money, a lot more money, if my arrangements were b-i-g.”
Scratching his head, Adam said, “I’m following you…I think.”
“Well, at first, all my clients were individuals. They wanted flowers for weddings, to decorate their homes and vacation properties. Small arrangements, you know? I was barely covering my overhead costs.”
Eyes wide, she clasped her hands under her chin and whispered, “And then I saw a huge urn of flowers at one of those offbeat art galleries downtown. It hit me like that!” She snapped her fingers. “What I needed was a whole new kind of customer. Businesspeople instead of…regular people.”
“So that’s where the shopping malls and department stores came in,” Adam said.
“And financial