Not long after that, the officers left. There wasn’t anything left to be done, not at Ivy’s place, not when she needed to grieve. Ivy felt as though there were stones in her stomach. She sat at the kitchen table with James Harper and watched the rain pelt the window. It felt strange that her father had gone through something similar, that he’d lost his wife so many years ago. They were united in this as a widow and a widower. She didn’t know how to say this aloud.
What she wanted to tell her father was that Daniel didn’t think life was magic. That just last night, he’d been sitting where James Harper sat now, telling her that life was all pain.
Ivy decided to focus on logistics because it was a way to contain her own emotions. She talked about funeral home arrangements, about doing the flowers herself.
“Honey, you don’t have to do them yourself,” her father said, frowning. “Everyone in Bluebell will understand if you need to take some time off. And there are other flower shops. Other people to tend to this thing.”
But Ivy gave him a look that meant back off.
“My flower shop is all I have right now,” she said. “And my children.”
“Your kids will need you now more than ever,” her father said.
Her ears rang with shock. She couldn’t believe he’d just said that aloud. She wanted to remind him of how mean he’d been during the years after her mother’s death. She wanted to remind him how “not there for us, not in the least” he’d been. It occurred to her now that maybe her father thought he really had been there for them, that he’d worked tirelessly to offer them the very best of himself. That was a terribly dark thought.
“You should go get some rest,” she told her father. He kept a room for himself over at the inn, a room attached to the office that the guests couldn’t reach.
“I’ll come by tomorrow morning to make sure you’re all right,” he said, getting up, letting the chair screech across the floorboards.
Before he left, he hugged her clumsily, as though she were a child and she’d fallen off her bicycle and needed help. She couldn’t get out of his embrace quickly enough.
As soon as the door closed behind him, Tyler started screaming for her upstairs. She hurried to bring her baby into her arms, to cradle him until he fell back asleep. She cried gently, dampening his hair, and reckoned with how alone in the world she was, now.
But a moment later, she realized she felt just as alone as she had when her husband was still alive. She didn’t know what to do with that fact. She resolved never to admit it.
She resolved to let her children continue to love their father for as long as she could.
Chapter Fourteen
Present Day
The morning of Ivy’s meeting with Elliot at the flower shop, silver clouds overhead dumped six inches of snow. Ivy walked the sparkling route in her snow boots, her face frozen where it peeked out between her hat and her scarf. She half assumed that Elliot wouldn’t be there, that he’d text and tell her he couldn’t make it. But when she arrived, he was leaning on his truck out front, waiting for her in that cool Carhartt jacket. Her heart did a backflip. She jangled her keys and let him in.
“Coffee?” she offered, unsure if she could trust herself to act normally.
“I’d kill for some,” he said. He then opened his bag to show that he’d brought a box of donuts from the shop up the road. “I hope you like sweets for breakfast.”
“I like sweets every day of the week,” she confessed. “My weakness!”
“Mine, too.” He smiled and set the box of donuts on the counter.
Ivy watched his eyes drift across the flower shop at the naked racks, the crumbling walls, and the dilapidated ceiling. There wasn’t a flower in sight, although there was a soft scent of something floral molding. She marveled that she’d let things get so bad. But before she had a chance to apologize or make some excuse, Elliot drew a notebook from his coat pocket and opened it to show her the plans he’d drawn up for the exterior and interior of the flower shop. Just as he’d said, he’d thought about it a lot. Ivy couldn’t believe it.
“This place is pretty old, so it’s no surprise things need an update,” he said simply, flattening the notebook with the heel of his hand.
“I never got around to refurbishing after I took over from the last owner,” Ivy said, remembering Adeline and her sweet smile and her sweet hopes for Ivy.
Ivy poured two mugs of coffee for them both and set them on the counter, trying to work through her anxiety, her fear that once Elliot saw the extent of this mess, he wouldn’t want to talk to her any longer. It was ridiculous, especially since he needed her for his sister’s flowers, but it felt like an active worry.
Elliot let his plan book fall closed and gestured at the donuts, as though he wanted to make sure they got to them before they did any work. “Have you had the caramel kind before?”
She laughed. “Never.”
“You have to eat it now,” Elliot said. “Seriously. I can’t live in a world where you haven’t tried it.”
With a tentative hand, Ivy took the donut. Nervous to bite down in front of him, she closed her eyes and ate as delicately as she could. Caramel oozed from the center and across her chin. Oh, but the flavor. It was the most sensational thing she’d ever tasted: slightly salty and gooey and so sweet. It was miles better than that autumn dessert he’d shared with her a couple of months back. Her eyes popped open.
Elliot smiled knowingly at her and took the other caramel from the box. “I knew I had to get two of them,” he said. “They’re just that good.”
