Slay it with Flowers Read Free

like a grinning cat, a few framed photos, and assorted office items—and went to the kitchen to grab a plate of food. While I ate, Lottie and I went over the orders and discussed the coming week so we could make a list and call our suppliers. After washing my plate in the tiny kitchen sink, I tacked the orders on the corkboard and sat at my desk to call Trudee.
    I had just punched in her number when I heard the bell over the front door jingle, and a moment later the curtain parted and the bride-to-be swept in, pausing to look around the room in confusion. I could understand her bewilderment. The workroom was a riot of color and shape and texture and scents. Dried and silk flowers sat in tall containers, ribbon-festooned wreaths adorned the walls, and brightly hued foil and painted pots lined the shelves. A small person like me, even with my red hair, could blend right in. A female Waldo.
    “Abby!” she cried dramatically when she spotted me, brushing a silken strand of copper hair off her face. Jillian never did anything without drama. “Thank goodness you’re here!” She threw her long, tanned arms around my shoulders and sobbed hideously, ignoring the phone pressed to my ear.
    “Trudee? This is Abby Knight. You called?”
    “It’s horrible, Abby. I just can’t bear it,” Jillian wept. She lifted her head from my shoulder to stare me in the face, and since she was taller than me—everyone was taller than me—it required her to bend her knees to put us at an even eye level. She cupped my head with her hands. “Abby, you have to help me.”
    “Wednesday at four o’clock?” I said into the phone, giving my cousin a hard glare while trying to maintain a smile in my voice. “It’s on my calendar. I’ll see you then.”
    Jillian took the phone from my hand and put it in the cradle. “Are you listening to me?”
    “No, I am not listening to you. I’m seething with fury and that tends to make the blood pound in my ears. Did you happen to notice I was on the phone?” I turned to write Wednesday’s meeting on the calendar hanging on the corkboard.
    “Irate customer?” Jillian asked, settling herself on a stool at the worktable. When I looked around at her to see if she were serious or just really stupid, she had crossed one linen-clad leg over the other and was gazing at me expectantly, her tears magically gone.
    I saw Lottie hovering outside the curtain and knew she was waiting to get on the computer. “Let’s go to the parlor and talk.”
    We settled at a table in front of the bay window in the cozy Victorian-style parlor. Once Grace had brought coffee for Jill and refreshed my cup I said, “What’s the problem?”
    “Claymore. He’s being completely unreasonable. He insists that Punch be his best man even though Punch dumped Onora and now she refuses to walk up the aisle with him. And please don’t tell me to switch my maid of honor. I simply must have Onora as my maid of honor. I mean, look at her name, for heaven’s sake. Abby, what are you staring at? Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
    I dragged my gaze from the scene across the street, where sheriff’s deputies were moving prisoners from a van to the courthouse for hearings. “Sorry. You lost me after you said Punch. Who’s Punch?”
    “Claymore’s best man, former fraternity brother. You met him.”
    We paused as three middle-aged women came into the parlor and took seats at a table nearby. Grace immediately breezed over to take their orders. “I haven’t met any of the wedding party,” I said to my cousin.
    “Right. Okay, Punch, Flip, Bertie, and Pryce are the groomsmen. They were in the same fraternity at Harvard, except that Pryce graduated two years earlier.”
    “With names like those I would have guessed the Ringling Brothers School for Acrobats.”
    “The Ringling what?”
    “The Ringling Brothers . . . Barnum and Bailey . . . A circus, Jill. Did you grow up in Azkaban? Never mind. Hand me the pitcher of cream. And the