“Are you looking for an annual or a perennial?”
That sounded like a question she should know the answer to but didn’t. Looking the sales girl in the eye, Rebecca North replied, “Annual?”
“Sounds like you’re not certain.”
How she hated being clueless. “You’re right. I don’t know. An annual sounds like something I should make an appointment for with my doctor.”
The young girl laughed. “Well, you are sort of on the right track. You go to your doctor once a year, right? That’s annually. So a plant that is an annual only comes up once.”
“Once a year?”
“No. Once.”
“Sounds like it should be once a year.”
“That’s a perennial.”
“Huh?”
“It comes up and keeps coming up year after year.”
“Oh.” Confusing. But sounded like what she needed to get her mother for her birthday. Something that kept coming back. The gift that kept on giving. “That’s what I want then.”
Turning, the girl pointed to the left of the nursery. This was the first time Becca had been to Haven’s Hill. She knew her mother loved the place, so she felt like she could find something here to please her. “The perennials are all back there,” the girl said, “next to the trees and shrubbery.”
“Which would also be perennial?”
She grimaced. “I suppose you could say that.”
Maybe she should just get her mother a tree. You can plant trees in the fall, right? Glancing back to the girl, who had now disappeared, she shrugged. She’d ask questions later. Right now, perhaps the best thing she could do was act like she knew what she was doing.
She had to get a gift today. Her mother’s birthday shindig was tonight.
Thing was, she had no clue where to start. Becca was a bookworm, not a gardener. Her mother had always had such a nicely landscaped lawn, with flowers everywhere, but Becca’s tiny apartment afforded her space only for a houseplant or two, and she was lucky to keep those alive. She wandered the aisles of green, stopped once in a while to finger a feathery frond or bend to read the plant names on plastic tabs, only to realize that she still hadn’t a clue what she was doing.
About the time she was ready to head out, having decided that perhaps yet again she’d get her mother a book she wouldn’t read instead, she turned to find herself crowded up against a strong, male chest. A chest that wasn’t budging.
“Help you find something?” the chest said.
Well, actually, it wasn’t the chest, but the mouth attached to the face above the chest that spoke. Somehow, her hands had ended up flat on that chest and she could feel a quiet thump-thump-thump of what must have been his heartbeat against her palms. At once, her own heart echoed that thump-thump-thump, and she worried that it was beating so loudly, that the chest, er, man in front of her, would hear it.
Her gaze slowly lifted and she met twinkling, hazel eyes.
“Annual,” she said. “Uh. I mean perennial.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“Plant.”
“Excuse me?”
“Need a plant. For my mother. Birthday.”
What the hell had happened to her speech?
“I’m sure we can find something.”
He backed away and Becca finally breathed. Her arms dropped lazily to her sides. He took a few steps to his left and she watched his black T-shirted, tight-jeaned body twist and bend over—did she really cock her head to the side watching as he did so?—and come up with a nice looking flat of colorful flowers.
“Pretty.” She wasn’t talking about the blooms.
“Thanks.”
“What are they?”
“Pansies. They’re hardy.”
Hardy. Sounded like another term she didn’t know the definition of. “Oh.”
“Yes. They’ll come back again in the spring.”
Are you hardy? Will you come back again in the spring?
Becca shook herself. He was a man. A pretty man, nonetheless, and she had had her fill of pretty men of late. All men, actually. But this specimen was, ah, intriguing. Even though he looked to be at least a dozen years her senior. Why would he be interested in a barely out of college bookworm?
She didn’t know. Perhaps he flirts with all his customers.
He sat the flat down on a wooden counter, lifted one plant from the tray, and thrust it toward her. “Here. Take a look.”
Her hands went out. She took the plant. And his big hands covered hers. Warmth raced from her knuckles to her face. Was she blushing?
Swallowing hard, she looked again into his eyes, noted a shock of dark brown hair hanging over the right one, and registered the roguish grin on his face. “You know a lot about flowers,” she told him.
“I should. I own this place.”
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