Love to Hate You (Hope Valley #9) - Jessica Prince Page 0,43
good meal and a release that nearly made my head explode, it didn’t take me long to find sleep. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, when I crashed that night, I did it hard and uninterrupted.
Chapter Fourteen
Hayden
“That’s right, dearie. You’re a natural, just like your mommy and me.”
I blinked my dry eyes and turned from the computer screen to where Sylvia was helping Ivy make her very own fairy garden in a big glass bowl to keep in her room. Some days I liked to take her with me to the shop instead of sending her to daycare because I wanted my little girl to have as many memories with Sylvia as possible. I wanted her to cherish them just like I cherished the ones I’d made with that spectacular woman.
As much as I wanted to believe my aunt was going to live forever, I realized our time with her was limited and getting shorter every year.
Watching them together, seeing the joy on my baby girl’s face and knowing it was my aunt who’d put it there, made warmth bloom in my chest. All I could do was hope and pray for many more days and months and years just like this.
That’s why I was doing the mind-numbing administrative work at the computer in the front of the shop instead of the one at the cozy desk in the back office. I preferred to be up here, especially on the days I could watch my two favorite people interact.
“Hey, so what do you think?” At Sonya’s voice, I turned from my family to the floral arrangement our assistant set on the wide counter in front of me.
Two other employees worked at Divine Flora. Raul, a young twenty-something who didn’t care much for flowers and plants, but needed a job. He dug my aunt, so she’d hired him to do the heavy lifting—literally—and deliveries. And Sonya, a fresh-out-of-school eighteen-year-old who was trying to discover what she wanted to do with her life, so she was taking a year to do her own thing before college. She mainly helped keep the shop clean and handled the transactions, but she was also learning from Sylvia—and now, me.
“Does it look okay?” Sonya chewed nervously on her thumbnail as I grabbed the fat, squat vase and slowly turned it so I could see all sides. “I remembered to snip the stems and pull the wilted petals off. And I added just a bit of Sprite to the water like you suggested.”
“It looks beautiful, honey. You did a fantastic job.”
Her face lit up. “You really think so?”
“Absolutely. In fact, if you’re willing, I think we could sell it.”
“Totally! That’d be so cool!”
I smiled at the girl’s enthusiasm. “Mark it up and add it to the display case. I bet we’ll have it sold in no time.”
She skipped off excitedly, and I turned back to the computer, catching Sylvia’s wink before focusing once more on the dull spreadsheets. I lasted all of thirty seconds before my vision grew fuzzy and mind drifted to Micah . . . again. It had been doing that since last night, making it harder than usual to fall asleep. To make matters worse, when I woke up this morning, I was all kinds of tense and antsy. I hadn’t been this sexually frustrated during what I’d thought was a dry spell with Alex. Which had to be telling.
I was pulled from my daydreaming when the bell over the door jingled. I sat up straight and smiled big when Sage and Dani came waltzing through. “Hey, guys. This is a nice surprise. How’s it going?”
“It’s good,” Dani said brightly. “We’re on our lunch hour and thought we’d stop in to say hi.”
“Well, I’m glad you did.”
Ivy came skipping over, stopping beside Sage and tugging on the hem of her shirt. “I like your boots.”
Sage was wearing kickass biker boots with a pair of black leggings and a long, loose-weave gray sweater that fell to her hips and had a wide, droopy neckline, showing a metallic camisole underneath. Her whole look screamed biker babe in the fall, so it wasn’t the least bit surprising my girl had taken a liking to it.
As it was, my girl looked like a mini-biker chick in flashy colors. Her leggings were covered in pink and silver sugar skulls that matched her shimmery silver sweater and glittery silver Dr. Martins.
“Oh my God,” Sage said on a squeal. “Aren’t you just the most adorable thing