Bloom of love, p.11
Bloom of Love, page 11
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said as calmly as he could, holding up his hands in surrender, but his heart was thumping along in his chest, an out-of-control animal faced with the unacceptable: Losing Carla. “Let’s…let’s back up the train for just a moment.”
She ignored him, struggling to put on her shirt again, but it was twisted somewhere and one sleeve was inside out.
“Carla!” he shouted.
She jerked and then stopped, panting, staring at the ground, back to refusing to meet his gaze. He tried desperately hard not to get sidetracked by her heaving chest and instead chose to stare at the crown of her head.
“Carla, mi querida, I don’t know what just happened,” he said quietly. “I need you to talk to me. I was just looking at you—”
“You were staring at my fat rolls,” she said dully. “I get it, okay? I know I’m heavier than most. I just thought you knew that, and I thought…” Her voice grew shaky and he was sure she was on the verge of crying. “I thought you liked me. The way I am. So stupid. Stupid Carla.” She swiped at her face, still hiding behind the curtain of her hair, but now he was sure she was crying.
Not how he’d wanted this to go.
Worse, he had no idea why things had gone off the rails.
Tentatively, delicately, he tried to figure out what had happened. He was sure that someone trying to defuse a live bomb was less cautious than he was at that moment.
“I think you’re gorgeous,” he whispered, reaching out and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t looking at you and thinking you were fat. I was thinking you were perfect. Those old paintings – you know those ones where the women are mostly naked and laying on their sides and you can see all of their curves? Painted a long time ago.”
“You mean a Rubens’ painting? From the 1500s or whatever?”
“Yes! Him!” Christian said, delighted she’d put the pieces together from old paintings and mostly naked women. “You look like one of those paintings. I had paused because you’d taken my breath away, not because I was turned off by you. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Are you…really?” she breathed, pushing back her hair as she lifted her face to look at him. Tears had left their trail on her cheeks and he was sure she’d die if she knew how messed up her makeup was, but none of that mattered. He used his thumbs to wipe the worst of it away.
“Yes, really.” He chuckled a little and shook his head. “You really don’t know, do you. Mi querida, every time I look at you, you take my breath away. You are the most gorgeous woman I have ever met. When I was in high school, I was obsessed by Laura and somehow, I guess we just didn’t cross paths since. At least not while I was paying attention. But I promise you, I’m paying attention now.”
Slowly, giving her time to change her mind and praying that she wouldn’t, he leaned forward to kiss her again, and this time, she melted into him. The tangled mess of a shirt went somewhere, and she was tugging at his clothes, murmuring, begging him to let her touch him.
Let her? He wanted to laugh at such a crazy statement. He’d give his right arm to have her touch him.
This time, when he finally got her on her back again, he used his fingers and his eyes to feast on her curves.
“Hermosa,” he breathed as he ran his lips and tongue over her skin. “Mi hermosa…”
He couldn’t hold himself back any longer. The years dotted with one-night stands and the rare casual relationships hadn’t been enough and he was now straining with a need so deep, he couldn’t breathe. Settling himself between her thighs, he plunged inside of her, long strokes giving way to shorter ones as his self control slipped, and then disappeared.
“Carla,” he cried as his back arched and his body froze, his desire spurting out of him in waves, the world white and featureless around him. He didn’t know…he couldn’t breathe…
Finally, his body unclenched and he propped himself up on his elbows, looking at Carla through bleary eyes. “Are you okay?” he made himself ask. Please let her say yes. He’d lost control there at the end, and he knew it. He wasn’t proud of it, but with Carla, he couldn’t help it.
“Okay?” she breathed, her own eyes fluttering open. “I could fly.”
He laughed at that – now that he’d watched The Princess Bride, he knew that was a line from the movie – and then rolled over onto his side, tugging her up against his front, spooning her, and kissed the nape of her neck.
“I could fly, too,” he whispered, and together, they drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 16
Carla
Buttercup’s emptiness consumed her.
~Grandfather in The Princess Bride
August, 2020
Ahhhh…the Huckleberry Festival. Carla grinned with happiness as they wandered through the booths, the sweet smell of huckleberries drifting on the warm summer breeze. This was the perfect date – free, fun, and lots of great samples. There were huckleberry jams and huckleberry pastries, of course, but here at the festival, she could also taste-test huckleberry coffee and huckleberry wine and huckleberry pancakes and her favorite, huckleberry ice cream. Especially right now, in the heat of the summer.
“I keep expecting to see a huckleberry beer for sale,” Christian murmured in her ear, and she laughed.
“If we find that, I promise to buy you a six-pack,” she said with a saucy wink.
“Yeeaaahhhh…let me try it first,” Christian said skeptically. “The huckleberry wine was good, but I’m not so sure about huckleberry beer.”
Just then, Carla saw a flame of red that caught her attention and she turned to look…
Iris and Declan were there, wandering around the booths also.
Carla froze.
Shit, shit, shit.
Normally, seeing her friend would be cause for celebration. She’d hurry over and give her a hug and they’d hang out and look at huckleberry paintings and…
But today was not a normal day.
Austin Bishop had called the shop right at closing time the night before – Saturday night – and had asked for a bouquet to be delivered on Tuesday that would put all other bouquets in the history of bouquets to shame.
His wife, Ivy, was pregnant.
Iris’ younger sister had beaten her to the punch.
Worse yet, as far as Carla knew, they hadn’t even been trying. Ivy and Austin had gotten married in a quiet ceremony last summer, with only a few people in attendance. Carla’d only found out because Ivy had come in and asked her to create a bridal bouquet for the wedding. It was the only flowers she’d had at the affair.
If they’d been trying for kids since then, Austin wasn’t following in his brother-in-law’s footsteps and sending his wife bouquets each month.
“You okay?” Christian asked, stiffening up and looking around, clearly trying to spot the danger. “What’s happening?”
“Oh, uh, nothing,” she said, trying to conjure up a believable smile. They should change directions. Hide. “What if we—”
“Hi Carla! Hi Christian!”
And…double shit.
She turned back to her red-haired friend with a huge smile pinned on her face. “Hey Iris! Declan! How are you guys?” She and Christian waited for the other couple to join them since they were under the shade of a huge elm, and didn’t want to give up their spot. It was too hot to stand out in the full brunt of the sunshine.
“Damn, this heat,” Declan said, once he reached them, and pulled off his hat to wipe at his brow. “I swear I can almost hear the kernels of wheat ripening. A couple more weeks of this, and harvest will be here in record time.”
“I keep telling Stetson we need to put a camera on the fields,” Christian said with a chuckle. “I think we can watch the hay grow in real time. When we get to harvest, you and I are gonna need to arm wrestle for who gets to use the new Case-International Magnum 400. I’ve been pumping iron every day so I can win.” He curled his arm, showing off his biceps like a body builder, and even as Carla laughed at his antics, she felt a little bead of sweat form across her upper lip.
Time had gotten away from them since their hike up to Christian’s tree, and they hadn’t made love since then. Carla was getting hornier by the day, and just watching the muscles of Christian’s arm was enough to get her motor revving.
Declan and Christian fell to chatting about tractor scheduling and when which Miller farm would harvest what – a topic guaranteed to put Carla to sleep in 30 seconds or less – so she turned to her friend instead.
“How are things going for you?” she asked brightly. Can’t talk about bouquets or infertility or Ivy’s pregnancy.
Which meant, of course, that was all her brain wanted to discuss.
Helpful, that.
“Good,” Iris said just as brightly. “I love the flowers from Happy Petals. Declan is sending me a bouquet every month, of course, and they’re just gorgeous. You do such a good job. I swear you work magic with flowers, and they always last forever, too!”
“Oh, uh, thanks,” Carla said, trying to brush off the compliment. Talk about something else. Something else. Think of something else.
She had nothing.
“It really is lovely,” Iris said, breaking into the silence. “Getting flowers, I mean. I really—” Her voice broke and before Carla even looked, she knew Iris was crying.
Dammit.
“They…they make a difference,” Iris continued valiantly, her voice warbling. The tears were running ever faster down her face.
“Hey, we’re gonna go look at that display over there,” Carla said to the guys even as she looped her arm around Iris’ thin shoulders and led her away.
“Thanks,” Iris said, her voice muffled by the fabric of Carla’s shirt. She’d practically buried her face into Carla’s chest, trying to hide her tears from the rest of the world, but Carla didn’t mind. God gave her an extra generous helping of padding for just this reason.
She steered Iris behind a tall row of lilacs, the spring blossoms gone for the year but their greenery forming a perfect barrier, and then pulled her friend into a full embrace. Iris sobbed, her shoulders shaking as she let out the anguish.
“Shhh…it’s gonna be okay,” Carla whispered as she gently stroked her hand down the cascade of red. She’d always wanted red hair, and seeing the sunlight play with the color reminded her of just how much she’d love to have hair like this, instead of the average dark brown hair. Carla’s hair was nothing special – not like Iris’.
We all want what we don’t have.
“I’m sorry,” Iris said, her voice still shaking as she pulled away, rubbing at her eyes with the backs of her hands. She wasn’t using her cane today, and Carla thought about asking if this meant she was getting stronger, when Iris said, “Declan and I have been trying for months to get pregnant. Months and months…actually, over a year now.”
Carla nodded, not pointing out that it was her handwriting on the card included in the flowers each month. Declan always dictated the message over the phone, but it was her hand that wrote it.
Next month, honey
It’ll happen – keep the faith
I love you more than anything else in the world, even kids
“We started going to a doctor in Boise, actually. Did you know that infertility is one of the last big mysteries of the medical world? That 33% of the time it’s the girl’s fault; 33% of the time it’s the guy’s fault; and 33% of the time, they have no idea. They’ve run every test on the planet on the two of us, and lucky us, we fall into the third category. No one knows why I’m not getting pregnant. There’s not a damn thing wrong with either one of us. I mean, other than my car wreck back in 2017. Three years this month for that lovely anniversary.”
Even if Iris was walking today without her cane, Carla worried that her strength was going to give out, and decided to steer them towards a bench tucked off to the side, thanking the heavens above that it was actually empty. As many people as there were at the festival that day, she was sure this bench was only empty because it was so out of the way from the normal traffic pattern.
They settled down in the shade, Carla listening as her friend unburdened.
“They say the car wreck didn’t affect my, you know, ovaries and such, and shouldn’t be a factor in me getting pregnant, but I don’t know. I think it’s my fault. Why we can’t have kids, I mean,” she said miserably. “I feel terrible. Declan could have a happy life with someone else, and I’m just—”
“Now you hold on a minute here,” Carla interrupted. It was rude to interrupt, of course, but she couldn’t let her friend continue to spout such craziness. “You and Declan were a year ahead of me in school, sure, but I still watched you two. I’ve never seen a guy more head-over-heels in love than Declan was with you. When you two broke up and he ended up at the U of I without you, everyone was in shock. You two were the perfect couple. I’m a florist – I have a sense about these things, you know. You two were meant to be together. Declan doesn’t want to marry someone else, kids or no kids.”
Silence. Iris was working up the courage to get to the real problem, and Carla gave her the space to mentally steel herself to say it.
And then…
“Ivy is pregnant.”
Even as Carla’s heart broke from the pain in Iris’ voice, she was grateful she’d said the news out loud. Now Carla could stop pretending she was in the dark about the whole thing.
“She finally took a pregnancy test this weekend,” Iris whispered. “She missed her period, but she waited weeks to test anyway. She’s happy – so happy – but Carla…if that were me…I wouldn’t have waited one extra moment to take the pregnancy test. The fact that she could even wait…”
Iris’ voice broke as tears began trailing down her cheeks again.
“I’m on a bunch of hormones,” she added dully. “The doctor told us that they’ll increase my chances of getting pregnant, but that they’ll also screw with my emotions. I haven’t gotten pregnant yet, but I can tell ya, they got the emotions part right.” She laughed mirthlessly. “Declan hates seeing me cry. He doesn’t know what to do when I’m over in the corner, bawling. I try to hide it from him. Ugh! Guys are so damn lucky,” she announced, straightening her back and glaring at Carla, as if she’d dared to contradict her on this topic.
Carla wanted to laugh at the rapid mood swing her friend was going through, but decided that wouldn’t be advisable under the circumstances, and nodded instead.
“Declan gets handed a girly magazine and a cup, and sent to the bathroom to go—” she lowered her voice and leaned towards Carla confidentially, “—jerk off. So they can do a semen analysis on him. Do you know what I have to do?” She straightened up again, her face alight with righteous indignation. “Get undressed and have some guy stick a cold metal spatula up me so he can poke around. It hurts. And then all of the shots…No one hands me a magazine and tells me to go have some fun.”
Carla wanted to both laugh and cry. “It really isn’t fair,” she agreed, pulling her friend up against her into a one-armed hug.
“I just want to be happy for my little sister,” Iris whispered, her shoulders slumping. “Austin is the best thing that’s ever happened to her, and she deserves this. I just want it too. Is that so much to ask?”
“No,” Carla whispered. “It’s not. I…” She hesitated for a moment and then plunged in, feeling like this was a story her friend needed to hear. “I went through the same thing myself.”
Iris pulled back, looking at her quizzically. “You wanted to get pregnant?” she asked.
“No,” Carla said, laughing for a moment. “Heavens no. Not right now. But, I did watch Hannah meet and fall in love with Elijah. You know that for a couple of years, Hannah and Michelle and I have met together down at the bakery for the Early Spinster’s Club?”
Iris chuckled herself. “I’d heard that. We’re not that old yet, are we?”
“Late 30s?” Carla said skeptically, one eyebrow arched. “Not exactly young spring chickens. But anyway, Hannah had always been the one in the group who didn’t want to date anyone. I wasn’t even sure if she liked guys, honestly. Michelle and I would drool over Gage or some other hot guy coming into the bakery, and Hannah was over there in the corner, not saying a word. Whenever she was forced to be around a guy, she shut up completely and would do her best to hide behind me.”
“I’m laughing because it’s true,” Iris said with a chuckle. “Hannah was not boy crazy.”
“No, she wasn’t. And then, she found the love of her life and was so happy, and she wasn’t even trying. She hadn’t wanted it for decades like I had. I had to put on my happy face, and I was happy for her. I just wanted it myself, too. It wasn’t fair how easily it came for her.”
It was Iris’ turn to pull Carla into a one-armed hug. “But you’ve found your own guy now,” she said. “And he seems to adore you.”
“I have found my own Westley,” Carla said with a secret smile. “But all these years…I didn’t know how it’d work out. You never know until it happens, and then looking back, it seems destined to have worked out that way.” She patted her friend on the hand. “Speaking of, we should probably go back and find our men before they send out a search party for us.”
“How does my makeup look?” Iris asked anxiously, looking straight at Carla to give her a clear view. “Declan just hates it when I cry…”
Carla wiped a bit of stray black away and then tucked a piece of her thick red hair behind her ear. “You look beautiful,” she reassured her friend. “I’ve always wanted red hair, you know.”
“Really?” Iris asked in surprise as Carla helped her to her feet and they began walking slowly back towards where they’d last seen the guys. Carla took her friend’s elbow, not sure if her gait was steady enough on the uneven ground. “I’ve always loved your hair and complexion. Your skin is dark and doesn’t show every blush like mine does. It’d be lovely to have dark brown hair and skin that actually tans, not just turns a darker shade of pink.”
