“Are we ever off?”
She scowls. “Maybe I shouldn’t do this. I shouldn’t hide things from Julio.”
Arden rolls his eyes. Little hypocrite. She’s already hiding the fact that she cut her shifts at the Breeze Mart. “Really? You think now’s the time to grow a conscience? Besides, you’ve given him enough freaking money to buy a Lamborghini. Oh, I know,” he says, waving his hand at her. “You don’t want to talk about what he’s doing with it.” He covers her mouth with his hand, to prevent the usual well-it’s-not-your-business remark, which she says with a stinging effortlessness. It’s true, it’s not his business, but who likes hearing that? And especially in the way she says it? All hoity-toity.
His reflexive action earns them some knowing glances in the hall, and another scowl from Carly. He steps away from her then, shoving the offending hand in his jeans pocket. “Oh God, I’d better go. I think someone’s pulling a party invitation out of their pocket and we can’t have that now, can we?”
He nearly breaks into a run to get away from her, and behind him he can hear her giggling in his wake. And he decides it’s one of his favorite sounds.
* * *
Arden pulls the truck around to the front of Best Buy to pick up a beaming Carly. The box she’s holding barely fits in her arms, but when she passes it to him across the seat of his truck so she can get in, he decides it’s full of cotton balls instead of the latest and greatest technology. “Um, is the laptop in here?”
Her eyes actually sparkle. “I know, right? It’s supposed to be the lightest model. It will fit almost anywhere in my room, and Julio won’t have to know. He can keep using the old junky school computer and I can have this all to myself.”
She slams the door, something Arden has asked her not to do time and again. But this time she’s all apologetic. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m just excited is all.” And he believes her.
But before he becomes enchanted for the rest of the darkening afternoon, he has a phone call to make. He pulls into a parking spot and gives Carly a humor-me look as he dials his cell phone.
“Gulf Coast Florals” is the answer he receives.
“Hello, this is Clarence Barnes. I’d like to send a dozen roses to my sweetheart, Sherry Moss.”
There’s a long pause on the other end. Then, “The last time she received these from you, sir, she said she didn’t know who you were. Said she couldn’t accept them ever again, as she’s a married woman.”
Arden winks at Carly, who’s giving him an inquisitive look. “She might not accept them, but you’ll still be paid for delivering them, is that right?”
Another pause. “Well. Yessir.”
“So then it’s good business for you to deliver flowers without questions and get paid for doing it. I’m sure this sort of situation has come up before, hasn’t it? Where it was a friendly admirer who wanted to show their appreciation anonymously? What the lady wants to do with the flowers is her business. Good God, man, if you can’t do this, then how do you ever survive Valentine’s Day?”
Arden can tell his mind game is working. He hears scribbling on the other end. Beside him, Carly is covering her mouth in case of a giggle. “I suppose we’ve done it before. From an anonymous gentleman, I mean. Mr. Barnes, last time I see we delivered the roses to Forty-Two Longfellow Lane, is that correct?”
Arden is delighted to hear his own address. “That’s still correct, yes.”
“And we delivered two dozen roses. Is that the standing order?” Arden checks his wallet. Since he’s been working for Uncle Cletus, he has a little more cash to go around. “That’s right. What’s that come to, about fifty bucks?”
“Delivered? Oh no, sir, that’s more like eighty dollars. Plus tax.”
Arden grins into the phone. “Anything for my sweetheart, you understand?”
A sigh resonates through the receiver. “I understand, Mr. Barnes. How would you like to pay today?”
Arden pulls out his gift card that he’d loaded money on. Gift cards can’t be traced; there’s no name on them, just good old-fashioned money. “Today will be Mastercard … er, what did you say your name was?”
“This is William, sir.”
But Arden already knows it’s William, the store owner, taking the order. He’s done it countless times with William. William is more concerned with making a sale than delivering roses to a married woman from a mysterious man. Arden reads him the card number and expiration date, and William reads back the information to him verbatim.
“Will that be all today, Mr. Barnes?”
“I think that’s quite enough, don’t you, William?”
“Indeed sir. Indeed.” William hangs up then, probably clinging to his last shred of morality.
Carly’s eyes are almost bulging out of her head. “You sent flowers to your own mother? Who is Clarence Barnes?”
Arden shrugs. “That’s for my mother to fret over, and my father to lose sleep over.” Though he doubts the great Sheriff Moss loses sleeps over anything. And his mother only called the florist at his father’s insistence because of how it looked. Secretly, he hopes she likes getting roses, even if they are from a perfect stranger.
Carly is quiet for a few minutes as he turns the truck onto Highway 98 and heads in the general direction of Roaring Brooke. “Are you trying to break up your parents?”