Roses Have Thorns, page 2
I returned to the sales room and settled on the stool behind the counter again. Foot traffic began to pick up, and I people-watched the tourists as they strolled along the sidewalks, peering into shop windows, carrying croissants and cups of coffee from Tout Sweet or paper-wrapped sandwiches from Last Magnolia. The dogs watched with some interest, too, Cornbread’s little tailless rump wriggling when faces peered through the window. None of the lookie-loos came into the shop, but that was okay. It gave me time to peruse my books on floriography—the Victorian language of flowers, used to secret send messages between friends and lovers. I was curious what, if any, meanings were hidden in the odd orders.
According to my book, the first bouquets sent out to the guys meant sincerity, bonds connecting people, anticipation, and waiting. The most recent ones meant disappointment, ingratitude, and regrets following someone to their grave. I shivered a little. What a strange, mixed bunch of messages and flowers. I checked the orders again, looking to see if I could figure out who the sender was, but aside from a generic web mail address and banking information from somewhere in Anguilla—wherever that was—there was no other information. There also hadn’t been a card included, so the bouquets were essentially anonymous.
“Stranger and stranger,” I murmured. Ultimately, though, I decided it wasn’t a big deal. Not many people knew about floriography nowadays, so the flowers probably weren’t chosen for their hidden, secret meanings. No doubt they had been chosen because they were present in a garden when something important happened. I soon forgot about the question of the odd arrangements and slid off my stool to help a group of three tourists who’d come in wanting to buy a potted plant. I talked them into buying three plants and an arrangement of cut fall flowers, too.
CHAPTER THREE
Sarah returned from her deliveries just about the same time as my best friend, Josslyn Hillard, arrived for our daily lunch date. While I stripped off my apron and gathered my jacket and purse from the back room, I could hear Joss and Sarah chatting. Sarah was telling her about the cocktail ring, and Joss made noises of surprised shock, no doubt at both the final price and the ring’s design.
After wrestling the dogs back into their harnesses, Joss took Cornbread’s lead and we headed across the street to Tout Sweet to pick up our standing order: two Doggie Dreams—little paper cups filled with peanut butter-flavored whipped cream—a green power smoothie with cucumbers, spinach, bananas, and apple juice for Joss, and a Fruit & Veg smoothie with carrot and apple juices, blueberries, spinach, acai berries, and strawberries for me. We sipped as we strolled through the village, pausing periodically to allow people to pet Cornbread or admire Dundee or to chat with a neighbor. As we walked along the pier, we stopped to watch my brother-in-law, Mike Jimenez, navigate his harbor master’s boat to a spot at the docks and tie up. He waved from the deck of the boat and we waved back, lingering long enough for him to finish up and join us on land.
“Buenas tardes, señoras,” he said, the dimple in his left cheek flashing as he smiled at us. “Daily constitutional?” He knelt next to Dundee and gave him a thorough petting. Mike was Dundee’s second favorite person, only a tiny distance behind me. Sometimes I thought Dundee actually preferred the short, stocky Mexican man. It was a strange behavior from a dog who was usually quite standoffish and aloof to anyone who wasn’t me.
“Yeah,” Joss said, finishing her smoothie and dropping the empty cup into a near-by trash can. “It’s the only time I get away from Noah.”
“I’ll take him if you and Brad don’t want him,” I said with a tiny smirk. Noah Oliver Hillard had been born nine months ago and had been stuck to his mother's side like a limpet ever since. Joss complained about never having a moment away from him, but I knew she wouldn’t change a thing. She took to mothering the way ducks took to water.
“Hazel and I would be glad to work out a time share,” Mike said, climbing to his feet and adjusting the fit of the ballcap that covered his greying dark hair. “You and Brad could have him for two weeks a month, June can have him for a week, and then Hazel and I will take him for the other week. It’ll be perfect.”
Joss glanced askance at me and shook her head. “If Junie got her hands on him, I’m afraid I’d never see him again.”
“You’re probably right. I am addicted to that baby. In fact, I’m headed to your house after lunch to get my fix.” I finished my smoothie with a big grin and put the cup in the trash. I turned to Mike. “Has Hazel said anything about dinner tonight? Mom and Dad were making noises about it earlier this week, but I haven’t heard anything lately.”
Mike shrugged and turned with us as we began the short walk back towards Main Street. “She hasn’t said anything, but that doesn’t mean it’s not on. I know your dad has a village council meeting tonight, but maybe after that? If I find out before you, I’ll call. You do the same?”
“Sí, por supuesto,” I answered, drawing a smile from Mike. Hazel and I were the only ones in the village who were fluent in Spanish, though a handful of others were at least conversational, thanks to Mike’s tutelage.
“Bien. ¡Hasta luego!” He flashed us a smile and headed into his office, a small metal building that sat at the head of the harbor and overlooked most of Penobscot Bay and out into the Atlantic beyond. His office was freezing in the winter and broiling in the summer, which meant that he spent most of his time out on the water.
Joss and I returned to the Flower of Scotland. Sarah was helping a customer order a funeral arrangement to be sent to Colorado, so I merely waved as the dogs and I headed into the back to replenish the stock of ready-to-go bouquets in the front coolers.
After restocking, I picked up the mayor’s and Brad’s arrangements and told Sarah I’d be back in about an hour. I’d drop the dogs off at home, so I harnessed them up before heading out to the delivery van. Once I was home, I gave the dogs some fresh water and kissed their furry heads goodbye before going back out to the van. I turned up my autumnal playlist and sang along with Sarah Vaughan’s “September In The Rain” as I drove.
I went first to Dawn Cove’s Municipal Building, located directly across from the village commons on Court Avenue, near the corner of Charming Street. The building was a huge Romanesque Revival and faced with Maine’s famous granite mined less than twenty miles away. There was a large central tower, flanked on either side by smaller towers, dormer windows, and symmetrical chimneys. It reminded me of a marriage between Dracula’s castle and Cinderella’s castle at Disneyland. It had been built in the mid-1800s and had been added to the National Register of Historic Places a hundred years later.
After pausing to chat with the security guard who sat at the front desk off to the left of the huge main entrance doors and making it through the metal detectors without incident, I went up the stairs to the mayor’s office. The building was hushed, the only sounds filling the huge atrium and smaller back hallways were the quiet whispers of footsteps on thick carpet and the hum of forced-air heating. The three courtrooms located on the first floor would soon be filled with lawyers, witnesses, defendants, bailiffs, and judges, while the municipal offices were just opening after being closed for the lunch hour.
Mayor Julian Paquet had his suite on the second floor, tucked away at the back of the building. There was a large central reception area, surrounded by a conference room, a tiny kitchenette, two smaller offices for the deputy mayor and the chief of staff, and Julian’s big office. There was no one at the receptionist’s desk, so I went to Julian’s office door and knocked.
“Come in,” Julian called out. He was sitting behind the massive northern red oak acreage of his desk, suit jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled up, and tie loosened. Julian was about my dad’s age—mid-60s—tall, thin, and bald. He was handsome in an ascetic way and had warm, soft brown eyes. “Oh, Juniper,” he said, standing and coming around his desk. “How lovely to see you. Are those for me?” He nodded to the flowers I was holding and took them when I held them out to him.
“Yep,” I replied, stuffing my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. I always felt slightly uncomfortable in the mayor’s presence. It wasn’t because of him, per se; it was more feeling like a tatterdemalion in his presence. He was always so well-dressed and well-groomed with perfect manners that wouldn’t have been out of place in Buckingham Palace. I felt like the quintessential country bumpkin next to him. “Another anonymous bouquet. Do you have any idea who might be sending them?”
He studied the flowers and gave them an experiment sniff before turning to place them on a credenza that matched his desk. After moving the vase this way and that to find the best face of the bouquet, he turned back to me and shrugged faintly. “I have no idea, really, though I do have a suspect in mind. Tell me, did your father also receive bouquets?”
“He did. And so did Rob Baker, Brad Hillard, and Dr. Jones.”
“The same flowers?”
“Yes, that’s right. Who sent them?”
He turned back to the bouquet, studying it for a moment before returning to his desk to sit down. “I don’t want to say without knowing for sure. You understand.”
“I do.” And I honestly did, but I was disappointed nonetheless. I had hoped to find out who the anonymous sender was, but I could wait until I could grill either Brad or my father about it. I paused for a moment and then said, “Well, I should get going. I’m sure you’re busy. It was nice seeing you, Julian. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
“You, too, Juniper. Take care.”
I headed out to the parking lot and turned the van south down Charming Street, going to Brad and Joss’s house. It was a sprawling Colonial with sunshine yellow siding, white trim, and black shutters and front door. Though it was new-construction—it had been built in 1999—it fit in perfectly with the surrounding houses, most of which had been built two hundred years before it. There was an attached, three-car garage at the back, along with a small wooden play structure for Noah when he was a bit older.
Brad opened the door a moment or two after I knocked, dressed in pressed khaki slacks, a checkered broadcloth Oxford shirt, and a mint green cable-knit sweater vest. He’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, raised in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, and had an MBA from Harvard. He’d met and fallen in love with Joss while they were both at Boston College, where she was earning a degree in business management. They gotten married the same summer I’d returned from Scotland, and I’d almost been unable to attend their wedding. The grief of losing Joe was still too fresh, and despite my deep love and affection for both Joss and Brad, seeing them happy was like rubbing salt into an open wound. My mother had finally put her foot down and dragged me to the wedding.
“Whoa,” Brad said, seeing the bouquet in my hands. “Who’s sending Joss flowers?”
“They’re for you,” I said, stepping inside when Brad moved back. “Who’s sending you flowers?”
He took the arrangement from me and I followed him towards the rear of the house, where an addition had been built on shortly after they’d bought the house. It was a sun-filled work room, split roughly in half between Joss’s hobbies—spinning, dyeing, and knitting wool sourced from a local flock of Cormo sheep—and Brad’s business as a financial advisor for Deloitte in Boston. Noah was snoozing in a pack-and-play located off to the side of Brad’s desk. I grinned when I spotted him. I longed to pick him up, snuggle him, and get a hit of that delicious baby smell, but I knew well enough to let sleeping babes lie.
“I wonder if these are from Doug Abbot,” Brad said as he set the flowers down on a long worktable set against the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the backyard. “The other bouquet was. I think. I mean, there wasn’t a card and he never said anything, but I’m pretty sure they were from him.”
“My dad and Steve and Rob Baker got flowers, too. Julian as well.”
Brad made a thoughtful noise. “Well, if they got them, too, then I’m pretty sure Doug Abbot is responsible for them.”
“Why would he send all of you flowers?”
“Business deal,” he said cryptically, his brows drawn down in thought. He looked up at me then and forced a smile. “Gonna be at dinner tonight? Your dad said something about osso buco after the council meeting.”
“Osso buco? Yeah. I’ll be there.” I could practically taste my mother’s tender, braised veal shanks.
Brad chuckled and I followed him to the front door. “I’ll see you tonight then. Thanks for the flowers.”
“Have a good day,” I said, leaving the house without baby cuddles.
As I climbed into the delivery van, I wondered why my father and Brad and the rest were getting involved with business deals headed up by Doug Abbot. The man was supposedly loaded—his ancestors had made millions as lumber barons in the mid-nineteenth century—but he had a reputation for shady deals and bad investments. He reminded me a bit of a certain tangerine-colored U.S. politician, even down to the bad hair piece and bombastic, hyperbolic way of speaking.
Once I was back at the shop, the rest of the day passed slowly. There was a dearth of customers in the afternoon and no other orders came through the FTD computer, so I sent Sarah home and began taking a deep inventory, counting up the number of vases and florist’s tape and teddy bears in the shop. Mike called at three o’clock to tell me that I was expected at my parents’ house with dessert that night at seven. Hazel called ten minutes later to tell me not to worry about dessert and instead bring a vegetable dish. Fifteen minutes after that, my mother called to tell me to forget the vegetables and instead bring some sort of bread or dinner rolls. Dad called five minutes after that and told me not to show up without liquor, the harder the better, and to forget anything anyone else had told me. It was typical MacKenzie family meal planning.
I locked up the shop at ten after six and walked across the street to Pelletier’s to pick up a bottle of Naked Mermaid white wine from Vermont. I erred on the side of caution and grabbed two 12-packs of hard cider from New Hampshire as well. Both would go well with osso buco or anything else my mother decided to fix.
CHAPTER FOUR
I fed the dogs their dinner and freshened up a little before walking over to my parents’ house with the wine and cider in a canvas shopping bag. The bag was printed with the flags of the four nations Dawn Cove had been under throughout its 400-year history—French, Dutch, British, and American. The house was located two blocks away from my own, on the north side of the village commons, sandwiched between the school and the historical society’s museum. My parents’ house had been built in 1755, about 140 years after the village had been established, and featured a steeply gabled slate roof. Exterior shutters had been painted red to contrast beautifully with the weathered grey cedar shingle siding and to match the red front door. A tidy, tiny garden surrounding the front steps. There were two-and-a-half stories, a full basement, a large back deck overlooking a little wooded area thick with elm trees, and a detached, two-car garage. My father had bought it in 1985 to entice my mother into marrying him. It worked, and they’d raised my sister and me there. As far as I knew, they never entertained thoughts of selling, even after Hazel and I moved out on our own.
The gravel drive was filled with cars when I arrived at 7:15. I recognized vehicles belonging to my parents, Hazel and Mike, and Steve Jones, Joss’s father and my dad’s best friend. There was an unfamiliar black Ford pickup parked on the street in front of the house, and I wondered idly if maybe Joss’s twin brother Jason had a new truck.
I entered through the kitchen door without knocking and was overwhelmed by warmth, light, muffled laughter, and the delightful scents of ginger, lime, curry, and spicy chiles. Mom had apparently made pad Thai instead of osso buco, and my mouth immediately began watering. I preferred the pad Thai anyway.
When I pushed through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room, I found a party of familiar faces gathered there. The table had been set with my parents’ everyday china—white with small red and gold flowers around the rim—and had been decorated with an arrangement of tiny, colorful gourds and lit candles that filled the air with the scents of vanilla and cinnamon. Along with my parents, my sister and Mike were present, as were Steve, Brad, and one other face that surprised me. The last time I had seen that face in this setting had been the night before he’d shipped out to Navy boot camp in Illinois when we were 18.
“Sawyer,” I said, not bothering to hide my surprise. I glanced at my mother and saw an expression of guilt stamped on her pretty features. So this was a set up, was it? Oh, I would have some choice words for her when we were alone. “What are you doing here?”
Sawyer Livingston stood up, his head almost brushing against the exposed-beam ceiling. I’d forgotten how tall he was. And how cute. His sun bleached-blond hair was shoulder-length and shaggy, making him look a bit like a California surfer who’d somehow gotten lost on a Maine beach, and his too-blue eyes sparkled with reflected candle light. One corner of his mouth curled up in a little smirk as he edged forward to enclose me in an awkward, one-armed hug. My nose pressed into his sternum. The past seventeen years melted away, and suddenly I was dancing with him again to Coldplay and Fall Out Boy at our senior prom.
“Juniper,” he said, taking a step back and plunging his hands into the front pockets of his well-fitting blue jeans as his eyes raked me from head to foot. I was glad I’d taken a moment to freshen my hair and makeup. “Your mom and I ran into each other at the college today, and she asked me to come to dinner tonight.” He sounded almost ap0logetic, like he’d caught onto the fact that no one had warned me that my high school boyfriend was showing up to dinner tonight.
“She did, did she?” If Sawyer hadn’t known that his presence tonight had been sprung on me right at that moment, he certainly knew now. I narrowed my eyes at my mother and said in a tight, controlled voice, “Mom? A word in the kitchen?”
