Page 29 of Hooked on Emerson (Hooked #2)

D awn painted the shop windows in pale gold, casting long shadows across the worn floorboards.

Ava stood in the center of the floral shop, keys clutched in her palm, the metal edges pressing into her skin.

The shop was quiet at this hour, the refrigerated case humming softly, a clock behind the counter ticking away seconds.

Her flight to Seattle was in four hours.

The cab would arrive in ninety minutes. Everything was arranged.

Mrs. Connelly would check on the shop tomorrow.

Mason would water the plants, and all pending orders were completed.

There was nothing left to do but leave.

Yet she stood, unable to move toward the door, her suitcase waiting by the counter. She had come early, before opening hours, to gather a few things and lock up. A simple errand that should have taken minutes. But now, surrounded by her shop and its memories, she found herself lingering.

Her fingers traced the edge of the counter, feeling the slight imperfections in the wood, places where water had warped it over years of flower arrangements and spilled vases, and the latest storms. The surface was smooth from countless cleanings, from her mother’s hands and now her own.

Her palm rested where her mother’s had so often been—counting cash, writing orders, arranging stems. The wood felt warm beneath her touch, as if it held the memory of all those moments.

She moved to the wall where the lavender mural stretched, her fingertips brushing against the paint—a texture different from the surrounding walls, slightly raised where brushstrokes had overlapped.

Their initials still sat side by side in the corner: A.B.

and E.R., a small declaration made when everything felt simpler.

The memory washed over her with the music playing as they painted, the way Emerson’s hands had moved with surprising delicacy for their size, how she’d gotten a smudge of purple on her cheek and hadn’t noticed until he’d pointed it out.

How they’d danced afterward, swaying together in this very spot, the scent of paint still fresh around them.

His eyes had been so warm then, watching her face as if memorizing it.

I think I’m falling in love with you , he’d said at the festival, and she’d felt the truth of it even then.

The shelves along the back wall bore marks of his craftsmanship.

They were solid, practical, and built to last. She ran her hand along one, feeling the grain of the wood, remembering how he’d explained his choices: oak for strength, a specific joint for stability, a slight angle to the display surface so flowers would be seen at their best advantage.

Always thinking of how things worked, how they could be improved, how they could last.

Above the shelves, the ceiling still showed faint water stains, ghosts of the leaks that had plagued the shop.

But they were just shadows now as the roof was sound, the repairs complete.

The buckets that had once dotted the floor, catching persistent drips, were tucked away in the storage closet.

The shop had been healed, made whole again by careful hands and patient work.

In the back room, the bench they’d restored together sat beneath the window.

Sunlight fell across it now, highlighting the warm honey color he’d coaxed from the old wood with gentle sanding and staining.

She sat on it, feeling its solid support beneath her, remembering how they’d worked side by side, her sorting ribbons while he refinished the surface, their conversation flowing easily.

So many memories in such a short time. How had he become so woven into the fabric of this place in just a few months? It was as if he’d always belonged here, his presence lingering in every repair, every improvement, and every moment shared between tasks.

Her eyes caught on a small, worn hammer resting on the workbench nearby.

Emerson’s. Left behind during the roof repairs.

She picked it up, the handle smooth from years of use.

His hands had held this tool countless times, had used it to build and fix and create.

She ran her thumb over a small dent in the metal head, evidence of work done with it.

Ava moved to the storage closet where she kept personal items; the things that weren’t part of the shop’s inventory but belonged to her and to her family history.

A small cardboard box waited on the shelf, already half-filled with items she’d been gathering over the past week.

Things she might take if she decided not to return.

She added to it now: a framed photo of her mother standing in front of the shop on opening day, her smile radiant despite the rain that had threatened to ruin the celebration; a bundle of dried lavender tied with twine that had hung in the back room for as long as she could remember; a small ceramic vase her mother had loved, its blue glaze cracked with age but still beautiful.

From a high shelf, she pulled down a box of her mother’s dried flower arrangements—preserved roses, lavender, baby’s breath, all carefully wired and sealed to maintain their beauty.

They were fragile now, the petals thin and papery, some beginning to crumble at the edges.

She lifted one to her nose, inhaling the faint ghost of fragrance that still clung to the dried bloom.

Her mother’s hands had arranged these, had bent the wires and chosen the forms, had created beauty meant to last beyond the fleeting life of fresh flowers.

Remember, Ava, her mother had once said, fingers deftly wrapping wire around a rose stem, dried flowers aren’t dead. They’re just transformed. Different kind of beauty, but still beautiful.

The memory brought unexpected tears to her eyes. She placed one of the smaller arrangements in the box, nestling it carefully among the other keepsakes.

Her fingers hesitated over an envelope tucked between old ledgers.

She pulled it out, knowing what it contained.

The photographs from Nattie’s stranger session, the day she’d first met Emerson.

She hadn’t looked at them since that morning after the festival, when everything had really begun to change between them.

She opened the envelope carefully, sliding out the glossy prints.

The first image caught her by surprise, though she’d seen it before.

Her and Emerson standing face to face, his hand on her shoulder, her eyes looking up at him.

There was something in their expressions, a connection that seemed impossible for two strangers who had just met.

Her hair fell across her face, and his fingers were caught in the act of tucking it behind her ear, the gesture intimate in a way that made her breath catch even now just remembering it.

She traced the outline of his face in the photograph, the pad of her finger barely touching the glossy surface.

Even then, there had been something in his eyes, like a recognition or a certainty, as if he’d been waiting for her without knowing it.

Her own expression was more guarded, but there was openness there too, a willingness to be seen that she rarely showed to strangers.

The next photo showed them back-to-back, heads turned toward each other, an invisible thread connecting them despite the posed nature of the shot. In another, they held hands, her smaller fingers enveloped in his larger ones, both of them looking slightly surprised at the contact.

The final image was the one that stopped her heart. Them looking at each other as if falling in love. Nattie’s direction, but there was nothing artificial about them. The camera had captured something real, something neither had been ready to acknowledge at the time, especially as strangers.

Ava sank onto a nearby stool, the photographs spread before her on the worktable.

Evidence of a beginning, of a connection that had grown from staged photographs to something neither of them had anticipated.

She gathered them carefully, returning them to the envelope, and added it to her box of keepsakes.

Whatever happened in Seattle, whatever she decided, these belonged with her.

She returned to the front of the shop, the box in her arms. Her suitcase stood by the door waiting for her, packed carefully the night before—clothes for the interview, toiletries, her portfolio of floral designs.

Practical things for a practical trip. But this box held the impractical, the emotional, the pieces that couldn’t be replaced.

Setting it beside her suitcase, Ava moved to the counter one last time. She pulled out a notepad, the pages slightly curled from humidity, and uncapped a pen. The nib scratched softly against the paper as she drew a line down the middle, creating two columns.

STAY, she wrote at the top of one. GO at the top of the other.

Under STAY: The shop. Mom’s legacy. Familiar community. Comfort. Security. Emerson.

She paused at his name, the pen hovering above the paper. Was it fair to list him as a reason? He’d never asked her to stay for him, had explicitly told her not to make her decision based on his feelings. But he was a reason, perhaps the strongest one, whether she admitted it or not.

Under GO: Career growth. New challenges. Independence. Proving myself. Adventure. Freedom.

The words stared back at her, black against white, a simplification of the complex tangle of emotions that had been her constant companion for months.

The list felt hollow somehow, inadequate to the task of capturing what was really at stake.

It reduced everything to a transaction—give up this to get that, sacrifice security for adventure, trade connection for freedom.