When he opened the box, Ivy and I leaned in.
“Blanche’s!” Ivy gasped, full-on clasping her hands to her chest. “Oh, tell me you got the lavender and lemon ones.”
“Is there any other kind?”
“No,” I said, smiling.
His eyes shifted to mine, catching them, holding them. His smile softened into something more sheepish, the effect making him look like the boy who’d once kissed me in the greenhouse.
Brutus leaped onto the table, striding over with his tail flicking. But before he got close, Luke scooped him up, petting his short, dark fur.
“Those aren’t for you, buddy.” He scratched the cat’s head, which didn’t seem to distract Brutus. His golden eyes were locked on that box. “I got raspberry creme, lemon-blueberry, and strawberry icing with sprinkles. But Tess gets dibs,” he said, giving Ivy a chastising look.
Ivy in turn gave me a look, one that said, See? Donuts!
The realization that she was right—thus making me wrong—sent a twisting cramp of aversion through me. I hated being wrong. I hated that Luke made me feel this way, and I hated that he’d done something nice when all I wanted was to keep on hating him.
But you know what I didn’t hate?
Donuts.
I licked my lips, peering into the box and deciding on a lavender-lemon donut. When I looked up, his eyes were on my mouth, hungry as I was for the pastry in my hand. And then they met mine with a nearly audible click.
I took a breath, filling my lungs to power my will. “Thank you, Luke,” was all I could manage.
And the words set his smile tilting again.
“You’re welcome, Tess. I really am sorry about yesterday.”
“I know,” I admitted. “Me too,” was the closest I could get to an apology, considering he was the one to grope me. “For being so…”
“Bitchy,” Ivy finished.
We laughed, and I flushed. She wasn’t wrong. But Luke did that to me.
“So, truce?” he asked, eyeing me with mock doubt.
“Truce,” I echoed.
At that, he grinned, flashing brilliant teeth. “I knew donuts would work. Donuts always work.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t talk. You ruin it for everyone when you talk.” I took a bite, and the second it hit my tongue, the donut melted like spun sugar.
“Not the first time I’ve heard that today.”
Just like that, the donut turned to ash on my tongue. I’d forgotten he’d just come from Judy’s. Had he slept with her? And why the hell did I care? And why the hell was I scanning him for signs—mussed hair, hickey, anything.
And why, oh why, did I find myself so satisfied to find none?
Ivy shot me another look as she took a rude bite of her own donut.
Be nice, that look said.
I forced a smile. “Your mouth might be the only predictable thing about you.”
Ivy choked on her donut.
But Luke smiled. “Oh, my mouth can definitely be counted on.”
For lies and kisses you don’t remember.
“Ivy, weren’t you going to show Luke the registers?” I offered in my best effort to put some space between me and the devil.
“Mmhmm,” she hummed around her food.
“Oh,” Luke said with a snap of his fingers. “We’re meeting here tonight to talk about plans for the shop if you two want to come. Around eight-thirty, here in the back. You in?”
“Of course,” Ivy answered with a smile.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said, meaning it. This shop was all I’d known, and its future was too tied up in mine to miss a single decision they’d have me be a part of.
“Good.” His smile was too pretty to be real. “Then it’s a date.”
He turned before I educated him on the meaning of the word date, and Ivy stayed me with a glare, just in case I had a mind to speak. But I kept it to myself, choosing instead to fill my mouth with his peace offering as I watched his stupid, fine ass walk away.
I’d agreed to a truce, dazzled by pastries and struck by Ivy’s insistence. I’d give Luke Bennet a chance.
And I sure did hope he didn’t waste it.
6
Big Ideas
LUKE
“All right, all right—settle down,” I said over the din of my siblings.
No one settled down.
We sat around one of the big tables in the back, all hitched on stools. The only lights were the hanging tin farm lamps over the table, making it feel more like a clandestine mob meeting than a chat among siblings about the future of a flower shop.
“I need a gavel or something,” I said half to myself.
“Here,” Tess said, thrusting a hand spade into my palm.
“Thank you,” I said before banging the handle on the wooden tabletop.
Slowly, the noise dimmed, their faces all turning to me.
“All right, Bennets, Tess, Ivy. Tonight marks our first meeting, hopefully of many. We all know the shop is in trouble, and it’s up to us to save it. I was thinking about it this morning and have some ideas.”
“Before or after you boffed Judy?” Kash called from the back.
“Before. A little during. Mostly after.”
Laney groaned, Marcus rolled his eyes, and I didn’t miss Tess stilling next to me.
Marcus folded his arms across his chest. “This is going to be like the lemonade stand all over again, isn’t it?”
My siblings burst into laughter, but Ivy and Tess looked confused.
Kash leaned on the table, smirking at them. “Luke’s notorious for rallying us for some big cause—lemonade, cookie sales, dog-washing for tips. Ask me how many he actually worked at.”
Another round of laughter and a superior, though amused, look from Tess.
“Listen—the lemons would have stung my cuts from Mom making me work on the roses, I wouldn’t have stopped playing with the dogs long enough to wash them, and I’d have eaten all the cookies before we got our first customer. You guys didn’t want me there.”
Marcus shrugged. “Guess we’ll never know, will we?”
“Oh, give him a break, warden,” Kash said. “You lorded over us with a cash lockbox, a calculator, and a legal pad. It’s not like we blamed him. And anyway, you have to admit—he always had good ideas.”
“And I’ve got another one,” I started, glancing around the table to meet everyone’s eyes.
They sobered, waiting silently.
“We all know why we’re here, why we’ve come back. Longbourne needs us. Mom and Dad need us. Their future depends on this shop. And I know we can save it all, but not if things stay the same. We have a legacy, but there’s nothing fresh about our presence. We have no social media to speak of. Our website hasn’t been current since 1999. The storefront hasn’t changed in fifty years. We have no window display, no aesthetic, no vibe. Longbourne’s been left untended for so long, it’s overgrown and being choked to death by proverbial weeds. How’s the money, Marcus?”
His brows drew together, his lips flattening. “Not good. The finances have been mismanaged for a decade. The debts are so substantial, Marty shouldn’t have been depositing anything into our trusts. If we doubled the shop’s income tomorrow, it would take us somewhere around five years to really get back on track.”