It Must Be Magic by Jennifer Skully Read Free Book Online

changed one iota.
    Lili couldn’t figure out how to help the lady. She could help cats, dogs, hamsters, rabbits, the occasional horse — though she’d never tried goldfish or snakes, and what about that infestation of carpenter ants from the oak trees around the house? — but she couldn’t help Lady Dreadlock. It left Lili feeling helpless and inadequate, because she
wanted
to help.
    She juggled her mocha and Danish, unlocked the front door of Flowers By Nature, scrambled inside, then locked it again until opening time. The perfume of tens of different kinds of flowers soothed her, along with the aroma of damp soil in the potted plants. She loved the scents after the store had been shut up for a night, like a jungle after a hard rain, semidark and earthy. Plants and flowers ringed the small shop, with a center aisle of arrangements and two stone pathways on either side leading to the back. With the light hum of the refrigerator units along the end wall, it was never quiet, but Lili sometimes thought she could almost hear the flowers talk.
    “You should call the cops on that woman.”
    Lili shrieked and almost dropped her coffee.
That
certainly wasn’t a flower talking. “Don’t scare me like that, Kate.”
    Kate Carson, her boss, counted cash at the back by the register, several blond curls escaping the stylish knot on her head. Kate wore her hair up — it gave her three extra inches of height above her own five foot three — but by noon, the mass of curls would have fallen past her shoulders.
    “How can you keep track of the cash and scare me at the same time?” Lili lost count if someone talked to her, which was why she liked to get in early and have everything set up before anyone else arrived for work.
    “I’m an excellent multitasker.” Kate also had eyes out the back of her head. That was the only explanation for how she’d even seen Lili with Lady Dreadlock outside the Stain. Kate licked her index finger and started on another stack of green bills. Her red lipstick matched her nail polish.
    Kate could rub her tummy and pat her head at the same time. Lili couldn’t. A couple of years older than Lili, her boss was expert at a lot of things. The name of the shop, Flowers By Nature, was Kate’s brainchild, and it was perfect. In the five years Lili had worked for her, Kate had gone from one employee to three designers, a clerk to process the phone and Internet orders, a teenager to clean and prep flowers for the cooler, two delivery guys, and besides Lili, a part-time salesgirl.
    “I thought I was opening for you today.” They were closed on Sundays, but Lili worked the other six days a week, though only half days on Tuesday and Saturday. She always opened the shop. Opening was her favorite time of day. “I would have brought you coffee if I’d known you’d be here.”
    “I felt lazy sleeping in.” Kate flipped her wrist and glanced at her watch. “Had to be up early anyway. A couple of meetings, one at Swann’s and another wedding. ’Tis the season.”
    “Ooh, you’re going to Swann’s.” Lili waggled her eyebrows.
    “Do
not
give me a look. I’m not interested in Mr. Swann.”
    Kate had a goal — growing her flower business — and she didn’t let growing a relationship get in her way. Lili had thought about giving her one of the cats for company, but the only living things Kate wanted in her condo were of the variety that had their roots in soil. Kate dated, she liked men, but she always had her eye on the objective.
    Lili thought she was missing out on a great opportunity. “He’s such a hottie.”
    Joseph Swann had dark mahogany hair and lapis-blue eyes. Lili’d tried to see if he wore colored contact lenses or if the color was natural — because it was almost…unnatural — but she never had figured it out.
    Kate straightened the stack of cash, pushed the bills into the register drawer, then stared down her nose at Lili. Despite being shorter, it worked. “I am not,