Ida handed me a vodka soda.
“You just have to build up your tolerance to small-town alcohol,” Amy said.
She dragged me away to the snack tables while Sean poured out more of the toxic liquid for Ida and her senior citizen friends.
“Here.” She scooped a plate of pasta out for me. “Honestly, you had what? One baby sip?”
“It felt like my insides were on fire.”
“Sweet summer child.”
“I’ve had Harrogate moonshine before,” I said defensively as Amy dished out her own plate. “Art’s is sometimes served at the town hall meetings.”
Amy snorted as we walked out onto the back terrace, away from the crowd.
“Art’s moonshine is basically purified water. That’s why it’s served. If it were the good stuff, people would be completely wasted, with the way everyone drinks at those meetings.”
“Only way to survive them,” I grumbled.
Amy snickered.
“Speaking of community events that we need to find a way to survive,” I said, lowering my voice, “what brings you to this weeknight charity function?”
Amy caught her teeth in her bottom lip.
“After I do a test flower arrangement for clients, I always donate the flowers to the local hospital. In fact…” She pointed at a somewhat familiar flower arrangement.
“That looks kind of like the one from today,” I remarked.
“I rearranged it a bit, split the table runner into several bouquets, and voilà, free flowers for the charity event.”
“It’s beautiful,” I told her honestly.
She blushed slightly. “It’s not much. I just threw some flowers together.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Your greenhouse system alone is impressive.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not,” she teased, “but this is not my best work. I did a wedding last month with five hundred people and three times that many flowers. It was like walking into a jungle. Flowers everywhere—hanging from the ceiling, spilling over the tables. I was up three days straight, creating the arrangements. I had to, you see. There were so many flowers, and once you cut them, they don’t last that long. Theirs is an ephemeral beauty.”
She was magnetic as she spoke.
“I didn’t know flowers could be so interesting,” I murmured.
“I could go on about flowers all night,” she said. “Did you know the Victorians had a whole flower language for communicating?”
I let my hands rest on her waist. “And what flower do I use to tell you I want to kiss you?”
“I don’t think the Victorians did that,” she whispered. “But we can invent our own flower language.”
Her mouth was like a rose, plump and perfect. I leaned in and…
23
Amy
“If it isn’t our two esteemed charity donors here together.”
I jumped away from Sebastian. A thin, late-middle-aged woman sashayed over. I recognized her from the hospital charity board. She was wearing a sparkling blue dress, and her hair was teased into a shellacked beehive.
