Love in Bloom (20 page)

“Look, I saw a book when we were helping her load her bookcase, the one about cancer.”

Hope felt her cheeks warming. If she'd seen that book first, she'd have ditched it.

“When I saw her Saturday, she talked about having bills to pay. I assumed . . .”

Hope wasn't about to step forward and say, “I'm the one who had the big
C
.” But she couldn't let him think Bobbi had had it. “It wasn't her. It was . . . someone else in our family. Bobbi was helping her.”

Jason looked at Bobbi like he was watching a saint in action. “Is this person okay now?”

“She's doing fine,” Hope said.

“A fighter, huh?”

“She is.” At least on some levels.

Bobbi hung up and announced, “We just got an order for a fiftieth birthday. They want an over-the-hill theme, but not a mean one. How do we do that?”

“We'll . . . you'll think of something,” Hope corrected herself, conscious of Jason standing there, listening.

Bobbi's cheeks turned pink. “Oh, yeah.”

Jason gave the counter a thump. “Well, I'd better get back to work. Just thought I'd see how you were doing, if you needed anything.”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Bobbi. “I need your body.”

Who didn't? Hope kept her features neutral.

That got his interest.

“And any other help you can find. Bring your friend. This Saturday is moving day, and I need to take a bunch of stuff to storage. I'll feed you,” she added.

A corner of his lip lifted. “Food is good.”

“Okay then. Ten
A.M
?”

“Ten
A.M
.,” he repeated, and left the store, giving them a quick salute as he went.

Bobbi turned and beamed at her sister. “There. That takes care of the muscle. Jason's got a really cute friend. Maybe he'll bring him.”

“Getting greedy?” Hope teased.

“Not for me, for you.”

“I'm not interested,” Hope said, and slipped behind the velvet curtain to the work area.

Bobbi followed her. “You will be when you see him. He's gorgeous,
Phantom of the Opera
gorgeous.”

Hope made a face. “I wasn't the one who had the hots for the Phantom. Remember?”

“Well, you'll have the hots for this guy, trust me.”

“Speaking of trust,” Hope began.

“What?”

“Jason saw one of my books.”

Bobbi gave a snort. “He saw a lot of your books.”

“The one on cancer.”

“Oh.” Bobbi gave her lower lip a good gnawing.

“I told him someone in our family had it, so I don't think he'll bring up the subject again. But if he does, don't tell him it was me.” She wasn't exactly on Jason's radar, but she didn't want to suddenly pop up there as Miss Cancer of Heart Lake. Too humiliating.

Bobbi nodded, her face serious. “Don't worry. I won't. If the subject comes up, I'll tell him it was a cousin or something. And you know what else I'll tell him? That woman is my hero.”

Hope just shook her head. “Oh, Bobs, you need to get out more.”

Bobbi grinned. “That is definitely not my problem.”

The day drifted pleasantly by, like so many dandelion seeds on the wind. The sisters got their orders filled and, that afternoon, while Hope was doing paperwork, Bobbi delivered them.

Bobbi wasn't the world's best driver, so Hope spent much of the afternoon imagining her sister in a ditch somewhere, all the arrangements spilled and ruined. But Bobbi made it back, mission
accomplished, and Hope decided she didn't need to worry so much. This was all working out beautifully.

The rest of the week followed the same pleasant pattern until Friday, when Jason came in at noon with sub sandwiches from the Safeway deli. Hope was ready to slip into the back room to give them some privacy, but both Bobbi and Jason insisted she stay and eat.

“There's plenty,” he said easily.

And so she stayed and played third wheel, listening while he and Bobbi compared growing up stories. He regaled them with tales of the many fights he and his brother had growing up, and the creative ways they managed to torture each other. “One Christmas my buddies and I tied him up with a string of Christmas lights and stuck him in the closet.”

“That's terrible,” said Bobbi.

“It could have been worse,” Jason said with a shrug. “I wanted to plug the lights in.”

“What happened?” asked Hope.

“One of my other friends felt sorry and set him free while we were playing a video game. He told my mom. I was grounded for two weeks.”

“Well, at least you didn't have a school newsletter where you published his private information,” Bobbi said, looking accusingly at Hope. “She got mad at me one time for using all her new makeup to give my friend make overs and published some stuff about me that got her on restriction for a whole month.”

“Let's not go into that,” Hope said quickly, her face hot. Jason didn't need to learn that she'd published an ode to her thirteen-year-old sister's bra size.

He flashed a puckish grin at her as he said to Bobbi, “I had a sister. I can imagine what yours published.”

“She got her revenge,” Hope said. “She stole my journal and read the most embarrassing parts to all her friends at lunch.”

“Not that you ever did much to be embarrassed about,” put in Bobbi, “since you were the perfect one.”

“I
thought
enough to be embarrassed about,” Hope retorted.

“Of course, she told Mom, and then I was on restriction, too,” Bobbi said.

And they'd spent the rest of the month with a social life that consisted of only each other. They'd watched movies and played board games and forgotten that they hated each other.

Jason said to Hope, “Journals, newsletters—looks like you've got a way with words, like your sister.”

“I guess,” Hope said, feeling suddenly squirmy.

“So, how come you didn't end up as a writer?” he asked.

Hope toyed with a flower-tipped pen. “I guess I like speaking with flowers more. And I can still dabble in writing when I help people with their gift cards.” Wait. That was probably TMI.

He pointed a finger at her. “I remember how you helped me when I first came in here.”

Hope felt her face warming. Definitely TMI. She felt like a criminal boxed into a verbal corner by a clever detective. She sneaked a look at Bobbi. Her cheeks were tea rose pink.

“You did most of the work on that,” she told him, sending the awkward moment slinking away.

She'd been having so much fun turning Jason's visit into a threesome that it took a while for Hope to remember to make herself scarce. As she ducked behind the velvet curtain to start the birthday arrangement, she told herself in no uncertain terms that she was not going to make a habit of hanging around every time he visited her sister. This could prove hard when he came to the apartment, but she'd manage it.

And then she realized that it was only a matter of time before Jason wouldn't be coming over to the apartment at all. He and Bobbi would want privacy, and Bobbi would be at his place all
the time. And then she'd be moving out, just as quickly as she moved in.

And you'll be glad, she told herself firmly.
Bobbi will finally get settled with a good man. You'll have the flower shop. Everyone will be happy
.

 

HOPE WAS AT
Bobbi's apartment on Saturday, helping Bobbi finish packing her dishes, when the moving team showed up. Jason was his usual delicious self, wearing his favorite outfit of jeans and T-shirt. Those brown eyes, that smile—every time he entered a room, she had to fight the tremors. The other guy was even more muscled than him, with swarthy skin and dark hair and Johnny Depp eyes. The newcomer was wearing black jeans and a ripped gray T-shirt, partially covered by a black leather jacket. And black boots, the kind guys wore to drive Harleys. Next to her, Hope was aware of Bobbi smoothing her hands on her jeans. She'd never done that when Jason came into the shop.

The men had brought an intriguing scent into the apartment, that mix of musk and sawdust that Hope always smelled on Jason, and something else. Motor oil? This new addition had to come from Duke, Hope thought as Jason introduced them.

Duke gave her a genial smile, but when he looked at Bobbi, lightning flashed. He quickly looked away, but not before Hope spied a dangerous answering flicker from her sister. Oh, no. What was brewing here? What happened to picking Mr. Right, to no more bad boys?

This man couldn't be all bad if he was friends with Jason. Then again, men weren't always that discerning when it came to friends. Hope sneaked a look in her sister's direction. Bobbi was looking at Duke like he was the last piece of chocolate left in the world. This was not good. Her sister needed to stay on track, especially now that she had Mr. Right's heart in the palm of her hand, not only for
her sake but for Jason's, too. He would be so hurt if Bobbi dumped him for his friend.

“We've got my truck outside,” Jason said. “What goes to storage?”

As he was talking, Duke slipped off his jacket and tossed it over a chair, revealing a tattoo: a skull with a
scorpion
twisted around it and the word Scorpio written below it in blood red. Hope had to forcibly pull her eyes back from bug-out mode.

This was Bobbi's favorite type of man, the bad boy kind who always broke her heart. Concern now joined the jumble of feelings Hope had been dancing with ever since Bobbi pulled her in as a secret weapon in her campaign to win Jason.

Bobbi set the men to work loading up her couch, and, as soon as they were out of the apartment, Hope gave her a low-voiced third degree. “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean what am I doing?” Bobbi quickly got busy wrapping a glass in newsprint.

“I saw how you looked at Jason's friend.”

Bobbi stared at her, faking affront. “I just looked at him. There was no
how
to it.”

“What happened to picking Mr. Right?” Hope hissed.
What happened to all the work and sacrifice?

Bobbi's eyebrows dipped down in a scowl. “I have picked Mr. Right. I don't want Duke.”

“You just remember that,” Hope warned as the guys came back in for more.

By five o'clock, all Bobbi's possessions were either in storage or at Hope's apartment.

“Okay, time for burgers,” Bobbi said, and went to the kitchen of her new home. “And we've got beer.”

“I could definitely use one of those,” said Duke, following her. “Need help?”

Hope watched as Bobbi smiled up at him. Yes, her sister definitely needed help. Professional help. “I'll make some oatmeal cookies,” she
offered, joining Bobbi and Duke in the kitchen. It was too small for three people, especially when one of them was a six-foot-tall construction worker, but Duke didn't seem in a hurry to leave. So Hope helped him on his way, accidentally on purpose pulling the silverware drawer into his hip. “Oops. Sorry.”

“No problem,” he said, looking at her like she was a lethal weapon. But he moved to the other side of the kitchen counter.

Both he and Jason were back underfoot the minute the cookies came out of the oven.

“Hey, these are good,” Duke said, spitting crumbs as he talked.

“You're a good cook,” Jason told Hope.

“I'm good at a lot things,” she said coyly, and turned to pull salad makings from the fridge. Now, where had that come from? Shades of the good old days when she actually dated.

“All right, we're ready,” Bobbi announced, and set out a platter piled with burgers.

Duke moved to her side, like one of Pavlov's dogs. “These look good,” he said, but Hope couldn't tell if he was talking about the burgers or the view he was enjoying looking down Bobbi's top.

Jason seemed oblivious. He was helping himself to another cookie. Well, he was either confident or clueless. Probably clueless, Hope decided. Lucky for him, she was there.

As they ate, she tried to gently interrogate the newcomer. “So, have you got family around here?” she asked. Obviously, he didn't have a girlfriend.

“Nope,” Duke said, and took a swig from his second beer. “I'm really up here because Jace convinced me the area's growing. Lots of construction work.”

“How do you two know each other?” Mr. Dependable and Mr. Grunge Tattoo.

“We went to high school together,” Jason said.

“Yeah, then I split for California. Did the beach bum thing, played in a band.”

Got tattooed
. Hope pointed to his arm. “Is that where you got this?”

He gave her a John Malkovich kind of grin. “That was the name of my band.”

“I like it,” said Bobbi, and he turned his Malkovich grin on her. If Hope could have reached her sister from under the table, she would have kicked her. Why were they working so hard to snag Jason for Bobbi if she was going to blow it all by drooling over this guy?

After they'd eaten, they found enough energy to play Spoons, a wild card game that involved diving for and fighting over a limited supply of spoons. Bobbi managed to gouge both men with her fingernails before the game was over. Hope was the first one out and it gave her a chance to observe her sister's behavior carefully. She laughed and flirted with both men, but the way she looked at Duke made Hope nervous.

Still, she breathed easier when the guys finally stood by the front door, ready to leave, and Bobbi hung on Jason's arm. “Thanks for being so awesome,” she told him.

“That's what we do best,” Duke answered for him, and sauntered out the door.

At least he'd had the grace to leave. Hope did the same, all the while, sending her sister a psychic message.
Don't be a fool. Mr. Perfect wants you. Take him
.

A moment later, Hope heard Jason's big truck roar to life, and the front door shut and Bobbi came into the living room, wearing the smile of a woman who had just been thoroughly kissed. Okay, good. Her sister was back on track. She could quit worrying.