Love in Bloom by Arlene James

vestibule of the church. Lily looked down thoughtfully at the stack of papers in her hands then abruptly smiled as an idea came to her.
    “Did you ever pray then suddenly get an answer?”
    “Oh, yes,” Coraline told her. “I might be looking at a living, breathing answer to prayer at this very moment.”
    Lily took a deep breath. “You’re talking about the town, of course.”
    Coraline smiled gently. “Yes. That and other things.”
    Before Lily could ask her to explain that, Coraline joined Ann, and the two women climbed the steps to enter the vestibule. Lily carefully tucked Isabella’s crayon-colored pictures into her Bible and followed.
    * * *
    A percolator. Tate shook his head in wonder. She’d used a rusty old percolator, turned it on its side and had it spilling flowers, along with coffee grounds, so artistically that people stood around gaping at it. Josh Smith had joked that people were too busy staring at Lily’s flower arrangement to buy coffee, but judging by the line at the counter, that wasn’t strictly true. Still, it had drawn a crowd.
    Tate had forced himself to stop in the Cozy Cup Cafe first on that Grand Opening Monday, reasoning that his impulse to go charging over to the floral shop could not bode well for anyone, especially after Isabella had harangued him about checking on Lily all weekend. After seeing Lily’s creation on display at the coffee shop, however, he hadn’t been able to make himself go inside the bakery, which was the logical next stop. Though gratified by the line trailing out the front door, he had paused only long enough to look through the window.
    When the crowd had parted, he’d caught a glimpse of the bread box Lily had shown him the other day. Painted white and trimmed in pink, it disgorged a froth of pastel blossoms sparkling with some sort of glitter. The arrangement looked good enough to eat, and people kept touching the flowers to see if they were real.
    Amazed at the inventiveness of the town’s young florist, Tate avoided two women on the sidewalk—one carrying long-stemmed carnations and another a small arrangement in a ceramic baby shoe—on his way to Love in Bloom. No line snaked out the front door of the flower shop, but the place was jammed, as Tate discovered the instant that he opened the door.
    Lily looked up with a ready smile from rearranging the glass display shelves, but the blue eyes behind her glasses showed signs of strain. Before Tate could greet her, a woman holding a squat burgundy vase asked Lily a question. The pair then turned and walked toward the humidifier to pick out flowers. Tate took the opportunity to look around the shop. She had achieved a charming mix of innocence and sophistication with her decor. At first he couldn’t imagine how she had done it, but then he looked closer.
    Astonished, he stepped up to the shelves she had been rearranging and studied them in detail. Isabella’s colored sheets peeked out at him from amidst figurines and vases filled with flowers both real and silk. Lily had trimmed the images, encased them in glass and framed them with ribbon color-coded to the picture and the display. Isabella would be thrilled. He was thrilled and not a little proud of both Lily and his daughter.
    As he looked around the shop, the bell above the door continually rang, with people coming and going. The cash register rang quite often, too, Tate noticed. He also noticed that Lily seemed frazzled already. Deciding he’d been patient enough, Tate made his way to her and shoved his as yet untouched iced coffee into her hands.
    “You look like you could use this. They’re giving them away over at the Cozy Cup, but I prefer my coffee hot and black, even in the middle of July.”
    Lily took the light brown cup into her finely boned hand and sipped at the contents. She looked very pretty in a long soft yellow top with elbow-length sleeves and matching pants. The slashed neck of the top had been embroidered with purple flowers and