you running the show now.”
Sandy gave her hair a pat, tittering momentarily with embarrassment. “I am too. I wish Henry had called me in sooner. Charles is... well, I suppose I don't have to explain to you what he's like. Henry gave explicit instructions for you, Ivy. Anything in the store that you'd like to take, please do so.
“I'll ring it up simply to keep inventory, but your money is no good here. Oh, and before I forget, there was a gentleman that came in a few days ago asking after you. He said you'd helped him on a project and needed further advice. He wanted your contact information, and good golly, he was a charmer!”
Ivy's smile froze in place; Uriah's arm tightened around her while they watched Sandra fan herself and give a girlish giggle. “He asked for me by name?”
“Oh, yes!” Sandy practically purred.
“Did you give him my info?”
Sandy shook her head quickly, her hands flashing through the air in denial before she patted at her jewelry, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “No, no. Of course not. That would be an extreme violation of privacy, and I reasoned if the two of you were as uh, close as he intimated, he would have your information. He told me his name, but can you imagine, I've completely forgotten what it is!”
Ivy’s stomach churned with uneasiness, to the point where her knees felt a little rubbery. Struggling not to let her gaze bounce wildly around the shop, Uriah took over with a smoothness that would later surprise her.
“Ivy sure is popular with the clientele here, that's for sure. What'd this guy look like?”
Sandy made a hungry sound, her gaze turning inward as she thought back. “Very tall, beautiful red hair, and the most remarkably green eyes. So green, striking. If I were a few decades younger...” Sandy gave a visible shudder, lost in a haze of desire it seemed. “Well! You two take your time; let me know when you've gotten everything you need. Mm... redheads...”
Sandy wandered off with a wistful sigh, not realizing how disturbed Ivy was.
Uriah brushed a kiss across her clammy forehead. “Guy sound familiar?”
“Not at all. The only redheaded guys who come in here are a pair of brothers: the O'Shay's. They're both short and ugly as sin. Maybe we should get out of here—”
As good a grip as he had, it was impossible to escape when Uriah started walking toward the rows of plants. “You're not in danger right now, honey. Let's get what we came for, and if someone is watching, we don't want to tip them off by acting squirrelly.”
Ivy struggled with the idea that someone had come here, to her workplace, and asked for her by name. Someone, in the middle of a huge tangled web of lies and threats of death, had come looking for her. Someone so handsome he left Sandy breathless days after their meeting.
Was this one of the people coming for her?
One of the people responsible for her mother's murder?
Tension gripped her in an iron fist, her head throbbed with a looming headache; her heart raced with paranoia, expecting a bevy of murderers to pop out from behind the fertilizer and bird feeders to attack her. Not even the smell of the newly blooming hyacinths and wet earth could distract her from the fear that had her mouth running dry.
Ivy felt the weight of her mother's journal in the satchel she carried, like a boulder weighing her down. She shouldn't have been such a coward last night; she should have sucked it up and—
“Ivy.” Uriah stopped right in the middle of the perennial flower spread, tipping her chin up so she had no choice but to meet his steady, unconcerned gaze. “There's no one here to threaten you. I'm right here.”
Ivy nodded, struggling to regulate her pounding heartbeat. Anxiety coupled with the unknown equation of someone coming here to seek her out had her palms sweating.
It took Uriah's big hands rubbing up and down her arms, his indomitable presence, and absolute certainty that they were safe to ease some of the adrenaline.
“Henry's giving you a huge leg up to get your Blossom Shrine started, what do you need?”
She sucked in another unsteady breath, then another, and looked around with an eye for what she might need to amp up her business. Not surprisingly, her gaze was drawn to the immense rack of seed packets.
The memory of standing next to her mother as a little girl, picking out seed