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I stumbled a step as I was hit with a wave of dizziness.
“Are you okay?” Mom asked from over the top of Maci’s head, a frown tugging deep in her brow.
I barely gave her a nod. “Yeah. I’m just tired.”
Just tired and anguished and disgusted at the mistake I’d made.
“Here it is,” I said with feigned excitement when we came to the cute little restaurant called Cup Café that was open for breakfast and lunch. It was fronted by large windows, and both the exterior and interior were done in rustic, whitewashed woods.
I started to pull open the door when I was distracted by a woman who stepped out from the flower shop next door with a giant bouquet in her arms.
Maci jumped between me and Mom the second she saw her. “Hey, hey! You sure got a lot of flowers! I bet you got a billion!”
The woman shifted the bouquet around, angling it to the side so she could peer around it.
She had black hair that she had twisted up in a knot with flowersin it, and her eyes were nearly as dark as her hair. Her makeup thick and done to precision. So strikingly beautiful it was hard not to stare.
But she had this huge smile that instantly wrapped around you and made you feel welcome, a reaction I didn’t typically have to strangers of any kind, but she managed it, anyway.
I would guess she was about the same age as me, maybe a little younger. Twenty-six, give or take a year or two.
She wore a white and red floral dress that hugged her curves and these super high heels that made my feet hurt just looking at them.
“Well, hello!” Her voice was warm as she turned her attention to Maci. She didn’t hesitate to move forward and kneel in front of her. “Do you like flowers?”
“Everyone likes flowers.” Maci said it like anyone would be ludicrous to think otherwise.
A trilling laugh rolled through the woman. “You and I must be of the same heart because I think the exact same thing. Who doesn’t love flowers?” She glanced up at me and my mom with a smile. “I mean, unless you have a nasty case of allergies, which I think would be really awful, pitiful luck.”
“The pitifulest,” Maci agreed, wide-eyed and completely somber.
A tiny jolt of laughter ripped from me.
The woman held the bouquet out in front of her. “Do you want to pick out your favorite?”
“Really?” Maci asked in her cute lisp as she swayed between me and Mom.
The woman lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Guess what? You were totally right, and I do have almost a billion in my store, so you can have any of them you want.”
“I knew it,” Maci whispered back, just as low.
Then my niece tipped her head back so she could look up at me, those mesmerizing green eyes swirling as she silently asked for permission.
“It’s okay. Just remember to say thank you.”
“Well, I always sayfankyou, so you don’t even got to worry about it. My mommy taught me I got to have really good manners, Auntie.”
I didn’t know whether to weep or laugh as Maci pulled her hands from us, and she bent forward so she could carefully inspect each bud.
Finally, she settled on a peach-colored tulip. “Ifinkthis one is the prettiest.”
“It is beautiful, just like you.” The woman pulled it from the bouquet and handed it to Maci. My niece beamed and grinned and swayed from side to side. “Guess I gotta give you twofankyous.”
“And that is two ‘you’re welcomes’.” The woman tapped Maci on the nose twice before she stood.
Softness filled her pretty face. A genuineness rarely seen. “Hi, I’m Raven, and I own this flower shop, which is pretty much the best flower shop in all of Moonlit Ridge, if I do say so myself, but of course, there are only two of them, so…”
She did a little curtsy, and I would have giggled if it weren’t for the rocks still lodged in my throat.