Flowers on Main by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m calling, in fact. I’m interested in leasing the space that’s available on Main Street.”
    “Really?” Susie said, not even trying to hide her shock. “I thought you were doing so well with your plays.”
    “I was doing well enough,” Bree hedged. “But I want to do something different. How about I come by now and sign the paperwork?”
    “It’s a two-year lease,” Susie reminded her. “We don’t like instability downtown.”
    “I’m not crazy about instability myself,” Bree said. “Two years is fine.”
    “Do you mind if I ask what kind of business you’re planning to open?”
    “A flower shop,” Bree said, her voice brimming with excitement. “Flowers on Main.”
    “You even have a name for it?”
    Bree laughed. “And that’s about all I have at the moment. And a lease, if you’ll wait for me to get over to the office.”
    “I’ll wait,” Susie promised. “I want to hear all about why you’ve decided to come back home.”
    Mostly so she could report it to the rest of the family, Bree was certain. Still, word would get around soon enough. She just had to make sure that Gram, Mick, Abby and Jess heard about it from her before anyone else went running to them with the news.
    And by the time she talked to her family, she was going to have a whole lot more than a lease and some vague idea that she could reinvent herself as a florist. Otherwise they’d start worrying about her the same way they fretted about Jess, convinced that she’d jumped into something without thinking it through.
    Which, of course, was exactly what she was doing. But for the first time in months, she actually felt a stirring of excitement deep inside, a resurgence of self-confidence. Maybe her destiny had been to work with flowers all along. Or perhaps this was just a stopgap measure until she got her feet back under her. Either way it felt right for now.
     
    “You’re going to do what?” Marty demanded, his tone incredulous when Bree worked up the courage to call and tell him she wasn’t coming back to Chicago. “Surely you’re not serious. What can possibly have possessed you to evenconsider giving up the theater to open a flower shop? Are you having some kind of breakdown?”
    His scathing tone stiffened her resolve. That a man who’d claimed to love her could even ask such a question in that tone was proof that she’d made the right decision. Chicago was not the place for her, and he was most definitely not the right man.
    “Thank you,” she said wryly.
    “For what?” he asked, clearly confused.
    “For making it clear that I’m doing the right thing.”
    “What are you talking about? I certainly said no such thing.”
    “No, you said I must be having some kind of a breakdown.”
    “Well, aren’t you? No one in their right mind would give up the opportunity you’ve had here to stay in that little hick town playing with posies.”
    “I think I’m more suited to ‘playing with posies,’ as you put it, than to being demeaned at every turn by you.”
    “When have I ever demeaned you?” he demanded, sounding genuinely shocked by the accusation. “All I’ve ever done was to support your work and offer constructive criticism.”
    “Potato, potahto,” she said.
    “What the hell does that mean?”
    “Your version of constructive criticism is to tear me down until I’m no longer convinced I can write a coherent thought or a well-drawn character. Oh, I’ll admit, in the beginning I was so in awe of you that I took every word as a pearl of wisdom, but I see now that in taking your criticism to heart, in molding my stories to win your approval, I was losing myself. The voice that I brought to my first play faltered in the second one and disappeared completely by the third.”
    “You’re blaming me because your third play was a disaster?” he asked, incredulous.
    “No, absolutely not,” she said swiftly. “I blame myself,because I listened to you. Don’t get me wrong, Marty. You taught