No Flowers Required (8 page)

Besides, maybe he could figure out how to help Alexa all on his own without involving his brother. And without her being any the wiser.

Yeah, probably not, though that didn’t mean he didn’t intend to try. Giving up—especially now that he knew what she was up against—wasn’t in his vocabulary.

“Good luck with Meta—”

“Get out of here,” Cory interrupted with a grin just before Dillon shut the door behind him.

…

“Have a nice day!” Alexa called to the customer on her way out the door, barely smothering a sigh. Yet another non-buyer.

August was often a slow time unless a shop booked a lot of wedding-related events. Not that she had the staff for that. She’d set up a booking for a “farewell to summer” party two weeks from now, but she knew that was mainly due to her father being friends with the client. Besides, it was a small event, twelve tables with small arrangements on each. She and Nellie could do those in a day.

One day she hoped she’d be able to do bigger, grander events. Her new splashy website was part one of that plan.

“Hey, Trav, come out here for a minute, please,” she called. “Bring the computer.”

He trotted out obediently, the Mac under his arm. “Yeah, Lex?”

“Can I see how far you’ve gotten on the site? I’m hoping to roll it out sooner rather than later.”

“Sure.” Travis set the computer up on the counter then brought up the site, pointing out a few of the features. She liked the colors they’d decided on, cream and maroon, which tied in tastefully to the colors of the shop. Roz had always fought Alexa when she’d mentioned developing a web presence, but Alexa hoped she would be proud of how Alexa was doing in her stead anyway.

The numbers weren’t there yet, true. All that meant was that she’d have to work harder—and smarter.

“I just set up Divine’s PayPal account this morning, and I’m hoping to have the other pages finished by the end of the week. You know, for upcoming holidays.” He frowned and clicked on the Fall Inspirations page. “You have a ton more pictures of Halloween displays than anything else. The fall page is super crowded.”

She shrugged and smiled at the photo of a huge wall wreath made out of real autumn leaves and interwoven with thin strips of orange and black silk ribbons. Fat sunflowers curved along the bottom. The special-order piece had taken hours and was still one of her favorites. “So I love Halloween. Sue me.”

He glanced over his shoulder, his lips pursed. “Do you still get dressed up?”

“If I have a reason to.” Laughing, she poked him lightly in the shoulder. “If you’re asking me if I don a witch costume just to sit home and watch monster movies, no. I don’t.”

“Too bad.” A grin lit up his face. He started to respond, but yet again, the bell jingled.

This time when she glanced at the doorway, a broad frame filled it, almost blocking the sunlight with his shoulders.

Dillon
.

Joy came first, followed by her usual pragmatism. He’d probably just come to tell her he needed to get into her apartment to work on her sink.

“Hello,” she said, suddenly very aware of how she’d been draped over Travis’s shoulder while she peered at the computer. “How may I help you?”

Dillon’s gaze landed on Travis first, though the kid had already grabbed the computer and started backing away. “Hey,” he said to the younger man.

“Hi. Call me if you need me, Lex.” Travis spun on his Nikes and disappeared into the back office.

Alexa almost called him back, then decided maybe it was better to deal with her handyman one-on-one.

Dillon’s eyes narrowed, as if he was trying to decide what he’d seen. “Friend of yours?” he asked, sauntering farther into her store.

He seemed so huge among the glass and chrome tables of flowers. Capable of destroying delicate blooms with a gust of breath. But when he gingerly cupped a lilac tulip bulb in one of his large palms and directed a raised eyebrow her way, she realized his tender touch made up for his size. And how.

“Employee.” She kept her tone cool. “Travis is my web designer.”

“Redoing your site?”

“Doing it for the first time, period.” She resisted fiddling with her cup of maroon pens, emblazoned with the store’s signature script logo. “Divine’s previous owner wasn’t eager to embrace the digital age.”

“Me neither. Always did prefer a pen and paper to e-mail. It’s so impersonal.”

He strode around the perimeter of the shop, looking at everything. Occasionally he stopped to touch an arrangement or to consider a display of Chilean jasmine or frangipani, but he remained silent.

She watched him survey her store and bit off a slew of impatient questions. It didn’t seem natural for Dillon to remain so quiet. Okay, so she didn’t know him well enough to gauge that, but she considered herself a good judge of character. He was acting weird. Where were his flirtatious comments, his hot looks? Even when she caught him examining a spot of chipped paint in one corner that probably no one else had ever even noticed—except her—his face remained impassive.

His spooky silence felt disapproving, though that was probably just her nerves. Still, would it kill him to say something? “Nice plant” would suffice.

She slipped off one of her pumps and scratched the back of her right calf with her left foot. Then she did the same with the other. Still nothing from Dillon.

Finally he completed his loop of the premises. “I like your place,” he said simply.

She let out a relieved breath. He was probably just being pleasant. A workman-type guy like him most likely didn’t care about flowers, though he did seem to take an active role in caring for the roof garden. But he smiled while he praised her store, and that was enough for her.

“Thank you.”

“You seem to stock a lot of high-end product.” He touched the yellow petals of a Hypericum, then moved on to study a pineapple lily crowned with its usual tuft of leaves. “Not many carnations or gerbera daisies in here,” he said thoughtfully. “You know, like the painted ones?”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t carry painted flowers. Divine has always sought to stock a wide variety of blooms, from all over the world. Carnations can be bought at any gas station.” No need to mention the ones she’d ordered just that morning for her fall designs.

He moved on to study something she called a Zen garden, with river canes of bamboo, purple mokara orchids, and sword fern. Drawing a fingertip over the highly polished bamboo box, he cocked his head. “How much is this?”

“Seventy-three fifty,” she said, fighting not to say more. When she was nervous, anything was liable to come out of her mouth. Most of it wasn’t pleasant.

Dillon whistled. “Steep. The bamboo’s nice, though. You carry ornamentals here?”

She couldn’t figure out if she was pissed he thought her prices were high, amazed he recognized bamboo, or dazed that he seemed interested in the first place. “A few. They’re grouped together in front of the window.”

“Everything’s in its place. All very organized.”

“Shouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes mixing it up can be more fun. Add to the sense that a person could find anything here, if they searched enough.” He crouched to study the ornamentals, making the occasional “tsk” and “hmm.” “I’ll take this one,” he said, picking up a small lemon tree in a heavy, ornate pot she’d shoved into the corner by the door. He didn’t struggle under its weight at all, and even managed to pick up a rabbit’s tail ornamental grass in a long, narrow box. “This too. Do you take special orders?”

His ease with the heavy plants robbed her of her breath, and made her blink at him as if he’d just crash-landed in her shop from Mars. “Yes. What do you need?”

“Sedum, in particular.” He set the plants on the counter. “Do you have a catalog?”

His brisk tone snapped her back into business mode. “I have this,” she said, reaching for a brochure. “I’ll also have an online catalog as part of the site. There will be a section devoted to a wide range of plants, and their uses in home decorating in particular.” Was he decorating his home? How did he know about sedum?

Then she remembered the roof garden and her skin prickled with heat, the brochure she’d grabbed fluttering to the counter.

And not because she was thinking about his lovely collection of stonecrops.

Apparently oblivious to her sexcapade hot flash, he leaned forward and picked up the brochure she’d dropped. “Nice,” he said distantly, his expression hard to read. As usual. “Lots of Japanese flowers and pricey arrangements though. Not very accessible,” he said, glancing around as if deep in thought.

“To whom?” Deliberately, she edged her voice in ice. “This is a specialty floral shop.”

“Yeah, but it’s empty.”

She winced before she could school her response. “Right now, yes, but—“

“And where are your doodads?” he asked, studying her counter and its neat stack of business cards and cup of pens. “And a sign-up sheet for your mailing list?”

“What mailing list? What doodads?” She knew which way she was heading now. Straight into
back the heck off, buddy
.

“You know how stores place trinket-type crap near the checkouts to get people to impulse buy? You need that here.” He dragged his fingertips over her previously pristine glass counter, ensuring her another session with the Windex before the end of the day. “Something cute and cheap. Like, I don’t know, small arrangements. Or even flower-themed stuff.” He snapped his fingers. “What about those little climbing creatures that go on flower pots? Squirrels and stuff.”

Alexa linked her fingers together on the edge of the counter and took a cleansing breath. He was a potential customer and her building’s handyman to boot, so she couldn’t kill him, no matter the provocation. “I’d ask you to list all these fine ideas and stuff them in the suggestion box, but oops, don’t have one. So let’s move on, okay?”

He didn’t appear to hear her. Now he was studying her ceiling, of all things. “This place is too sterile. How do you feel about chimes? Or those wind spinner things? With the baubles on the end that blow in the breeze?” Then he glanced at her sharply. “And you need an e-mail list at the very least. Get a clipboard out on the counter, start gathering names. I’ll be your first.”

Rarely-acknowledged violent impulses reared up inside her, and only sheer force of will kept her standing still. She plastered a thin smile on her face. “Let me get the website up and running before I tackle newsletter lists, mmkay?”

To her endless annoyance, he didn’t seem to notice her response to his bullheaded suggestions. With a tilt of his head, he regarded the pen-and-ink drawing of a daisy on the wall. “Pretty. Local artist?”

“Yes. My mother.”

“She’s very talented.”

“Thanks.” Idly, she rubbed a vague ache in the pit of her stomach. Nerves. Something about Dillon set her off-kilter. Well, lots of things did, but now that he’d stopped peppering her with ideas about her business, she was referring to his sharp-as-a-tack eyes. Or his killer smile. Or his sizzle-hot body, which she knew way too much about, and wished she could learn more.

He slanted her a glance. “Do you draw? Or paint?”

“God, no. I can barely write legibly, never mind doodle a picture.” She laughed, then fell silent when she noticed how closely he was looking at her. At once, her traitorous body reacted at the memory of what they’d shared.

So much for being mad at his high-handedness.

Her nipples tightened, and her panties flashed damp. Any time now he’d leave and she could go back to fantasizing about how he’d felt inside her while she stewed over his obnoxious know-it-all attitude. “What are you doing here, Dillon?” she asked, more softly than she’d intended.

He waved a hand at the items he’d placed on the counter. “Along with these plants, I need some flowers.”

Disappointment came first, swift and humbling. Clearly he hadn’t been magnetized to her store by his need to ravish her beside the ornamentals. “Oh.”

A smile tipped up his mouth. “I bet you thought I was going to bug you about getting in to fix your sink.”

She toyed with her necklace, well aware that his gaze dropped to her breasts every time she did so. “Maybe. You seem like a dutiful type.”

He chuckled, low and deep in his throat. “Still think that after last night?”

Don’t blush.
She wasn’t one to get red and stammer by nature, but this guy had a way of making her feel like a girl in the throes of her first crush. Or perhaps first sex thrall. “A woman never kisses and tells. But yes,” she worked her chain between her fingers and pulled lightly, “I still think you’re conscious of your responsibilities. Look at all the stuff you’re buying for the roof garden. Your employer will be pleased.”

Something dark flashed through his eyes, moving as quickly as a summer squall. Then it was gone.

He crossed his arms over her counter, bringing her attention to the flex of his forearm muscles. Damn, he was hot. And he made
her
hot, inspiring an anticipation inside her she hadn’t felt in way too long. She couldn’t wait to see what he’d do next.

“Speaking of pleasure…” She swallowed hard as he trailed off. “I know you’ll get an immense amount of it knowing your sink is fully operational, so I’m going to fix your pipes this afternoon, Alexa.” His sexy voice caressed her name as if she were naked in his arms. “Beyond that, just say the word.”

He was talking pipes for pity’s sake, and she was burning up like a locomotive chugging oil. Her chest hurt from her rapid, suppressed breaths. God, if she didn’t watch herself, she’d toss off her clothes, mount the counter, and beg him to fuck her. And that just wasn’t part of the plan. A quickie sex romp on the roof was bad enough. A repeat would make meetings in her apartment building even more awkward. Not to mention she didn’t have the time or mental space for any sort of relationship right now, even of the screw-and-rue variety. She needed to focus on making Divine a success, and she didn’t need his advice on that score either.

Everything was under control.
Her
control.

“Fine.” She didn’t elaborate.

He nodded, his disappointment evident in his open blue gaze. “About the flowers. I normally buy from—”