Love Blooms on Main Street Read Online Free PDF Page A

day?”
    â€œNo, but I wouldn’t mind receiving the flowers for a change,” Ivy joked.
    â€œThat makes two of us. Tell me, is chivalry all but dead?”
    â€œGiven the amount of orders I fill each day, I can firmly say it is not. I guess I’m still waiting for the right guy to come along. At least I love my job. That’s something.”
    Ivy shucked the leaves from the few remaining assorted stems she’d chosen and finished her arrangement for the dance studio lobby. She knew Rosemary Hastings tended to like her flowers “pink, pink, and pink!” but she was fresh out of pink roses and peonies today. If she ever received an arrangement of her own, though, she hoped it would be peonies. She’d waited long enough—and a small part of her thought that the flowers, like the guy giving them to her, should be worth the wait.
    â€œBut to answer your question, I don’t get very lonely, no. I’m so busy most of the time, and I have my customers to chat with.” She tipped her head. “Why do you ask?”
    Kara’s cheeks pinked. “Just wondering,” she said with a little shrug, shifting her eyes to the window.
    Ivy transferred the vase to a sturdy open box and hoisted it into her arms. “I have to drop this off at the studio after I close. Want to join me?”
    â€œI’ll walk with you, but I’ll wait outside. My mother’s been on my case again. Wondering when I’m going to finally settle down, what I’m doing with my life. If I hear one more word about Sam Logan or Jackson Jones…”
    Ivy pulled a sympathetic face. The town sheriff and mayor were the most eligible bachelors in town, and it didn’t surprise her that Rosemary had targeted one of them for her oldest daughter. No doubt the other would default to Kara’s younger sister, Molly, if she ever moved back to town.
    â€œI’ve tried telling her, I’ve known these guys since they had missing teeth and skinned knees. There’s no excitement in that.” Kara picked up her bag and followed Ivy to the door. “Unless safe and boring is what you’re looking for.”
    It had been exactly what Ivy had been looking for. Well, minus the boring part. There was nothing boring about Brett, with those steady dark eyes and that rich, warm laugh and the electric tease of those fingers. He’d made her feel…
special
, as Kara would say.
    Well, he certainly hadn’t made her feel special on Monday afternoon, had he?
    â€œAre you okay?” Kara’s voice was laced with amusement, and only then did Ivy realize she had been jamming the key in the lock with a little more vigor than usual. Embarrassed, she quickly turned it and put the keys in her pocket.
    â€œIt’s old and tricky.” She smiled. “I keep meaning to get it fixed.” It was just another item on her ever-growing to-do list. There were many things she wanted to buy for the shop. She was forever thinking up new ways to improve it, new items she wanted to offer in addition to the artisan candles and soaps she sold alongside the flowers. For a while now she’d been planning to offer a flower-arranging class, but when she’d casually mentioned it to her brother, his complexion went all ruddy.
    She’d stopped talking then and there, remembering her promise to him to slow down, to take on Jane’s help, to cut back her own hours. But now that her diabetes was under control again, maybe she could start thinking about that class. If enrollment was high, the income would go toward that new sign she’d had on her wish list for over a year—after she’d paid back every dime she’d borrowed from her brother, of course.
    Her eyes swept Main Street as they walked toward the town square and then waited at the light. She watched the cars pass by, trying to make out the faces in the windows, and then slid her focus over to the tall windows of Rosemary