Chapter 7

Burke drove away from Ash’s sewing studio, the sign with Dress of Your Dreams fading in his rear-view mirror until he couldn’t read it anymore.

He had no idea what he was doing. Before the conversation with his father a couple of weeks ago, his life was simple, made up of flowers and friends and informality.

But now, he had feelings he had to face, and new feelings for Ash he didn’t know how to deal with, and frustration with his father he’d never experienced before.

“And now they want to have dinner.” He flipped on his turn signal a little too roughly and it bounced back to the off position. He didn’t care. He turned left and headed down the highway toward the flower farm. There was always something to do there, and maybe he could drown some of his worries and irritation in the warehouse.

No matter what, Opal would put him to work. A Hawaiian woman about a foot shorter than him, Opal came with a firm tone and a smile for everything she said. Burke had always respected her, and she’d worked for their company for twenty years.

After parking and going inside the cool warehouse, he found her standing at a counter with a delivery driver. Burke hung back, listening but not intruding. The man—Kevin Diamond—finally had Opal sign the clipboard, and he turned toward Burke.

“Hey,” he said, but no grin came with it.

Burke lifted his hand in a semi-wave as Kevin passed, his eyes storming with annoyance. “What’s going on with him?” he asked as Kevin continued to retreat, climb in his truck, and drive away.

“We lost a shipment of flowers at the airport this morning,” Opal said as if she were discussing the weather. “Kevin’s sure one of his guys didn’t make the pick-up, but I was here, and it was Davy.”

Burke rolled his eyes. “Davy’s so unreliable. Where would he possibly have taken an entire truck of flowers?”

“I have my suspicions,” she said, rounding the counter.

“You think he’s selling them on his own?”

“That’s right. And I told Kevin he better find those flowers—and Davy—and pay us back or get our flowers to the shop at the airport.” She exhaled and looked down at the large desk calendar on the counter. “Now we’re behind in packaging for the overseas shipment.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Burke said. “Put me to work.”

Opal beamed up at him, her dark eyes seat against her dark skin broadcasting her affection for him. “You’re such a good boy, Burke.”

Burke was anything but a boy these days, but he simply smiled and followed Opal toward packaging, where flowers were being placed in plastic containers and then put in boxes with dry ice. “The truck will be here in an hour, and we have all of these to do.”

The scene before Burke looked like a swimming pool filled with orchids. But he pushed up his sleeves and got to work.

Unfortunately, the work wasn’t taxing. Didn’t require him to think that hard, and that left his brain to wander down strange roads where he held Ash’s hand, kissed her, and whispered all kinds of personal things to her. Things he hadn’t told anyone else.

Like what had happened with Bridgette. He wasn’t sure why Ash hadn’t asked before, or why he’d shared with her today. But if there was one person he trusted explicitly, it was Ash. Plus, now that they had these roles to play, she deserved to know.

A rumbling engine sounded behind him, and he hurried to box another flower. Then another. The people he worked with didn’t look up. They simply worked as a couple of men started loading the boxes that were ready. The screech of tape being stretched to secure one more box rang out over and over.

“Truck’s full,” he finally heard, and a collective sigh of relief went up. No, they hadn’t boxed all the flowers, but that didn’t matter. They needed full shipments to go out, and they’d accomplished that.

While Opal took care of the paperwork for the shipment of flowers heading by plane to Oahu, Burke looked around at the rest of the people, who continued to box flowers. “We’re doing them all?” he asked the man nearest him.

Jorge said, “Yeah, another plane tomorrow. They’ll keep in the fridge.” His fingers moved with quick strokes, always on target.

Burke got back to work, half-hoping that this job would make it impossible for him to eat with his parents.

You really need to figure out what to do about Ash.

Because he could tell his dad the truth—that he’d thrown out Ash’s name on a whim, when they weren’t dating. But the last two weeks with her had been…different. And a good kind of different.

The kind of different Burke wanted. He just hadn’t known it. He liked going out with Ash instead of just hiding inside her house. Liked holding her hand as they walked down the beach as the sun set into the water. Liked it when other men looked at them like he’d gotten a prize they wanted.

He liked listening to her talk about her scuba diving lessons, and ask him questions about his flower farm, and detail how her mother was doing.

I like Ash, he thought, and while he’d admitted it out loud to her only a few hours ago, he now knew that it was a romantic kind of like and not just a best friend like.

Could she ever think of him as her real boyfriend?

He thought about the question as he finished boxing the last of the orchids. As he showered and drove to her cottage. When she answered the door wearing the same flowing, flowery dress she’d had on while she sewed, Burke’s heart did a little breakdance inside his chest.

“Hey,” he breathed, maybe a little too much emotion in his voice. He wanted to sweep into her personal space, wrap his arms around her, and press a kiss to her temple.

He reminded himself that she was his best friend, not his girlfriend, and that he’d fallen way too fast in the past.

He wasn’t going to do that again. Even if he found the courage to tell Ash about his new feelings for her, he wasn’t going to give her his whole heart at once. He’d done that before, and Bridgette had given it back to him in pieces. In fact, he suspected some shards of it were strewn from here to Cancun and he’d never get them all back.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Ash ran her hand over her hair self-consciously. “Too much makeup?”

Burke blinked and drank in the beauty of her face. Those wide, dark eyes, the curls that fell just below her shoulders, the bronze skin that said she spent a lot of time in the sun when really she didn’t. Her father had simply been Hawaiian and given her his coloring.

“You look great,” he managed to say.

“I didn’t have time to change. Your Tidal Forever called me over for a consultation this afternoon, and I ended up signing another bride.”

“That’s good, though, right?” He offered her his arm, which felt like a simple step down the boyfriend lane.

She stared at it for a moment and then lifted her eyes to his before slipping her hand along his forearm. “It’s good, yes. It’s a January wedding too, which is pretty rare around here.”

“True. People tend to book for Christmas, right?”

“Burke, I had no idea you listened to me when I babble on about my work.”

Burke laughed and tightened his arm against his body. “Of course I do.”

“Well, I can barely tell you what you grow up on that farm of yours.”

“Oh, I barely know that.”

She laughed with him, and Burke felt like they could definitely take their relationship out of the friend zone. Easily.

His throat went dry when he thought about kissing Ash. Sure, he’d entertained the idea years ago—many, many years ago, when they were both still teenagers.

But her brother Leo had squashed that idea right out of his head. Burke wondered what Leo would say now, and his gut twisted when he remembered that Leo and his whole family would be coming to the barbecue tomorrow, because his wife worked in the Petals and Leis human resources department.

“I think you should get a dating app,” Ash said as he started his car and eased onto the road.

“A dating app?”

“To meet someone,” she said. “It’s low-key, and you can do as much or as little as you want.” She shrugged. “You know, like send messages, or ignore them. Whatever you want. Sometimes it’s freeing to be able to just talk without the pressure of being together.”

He cut her a glance out of the corner of his eye. “Have you used an app before?”

“Yes,” she said. “I just changed my status back to available on Get Together.” She drew in a deep breath. “I need to move on from Milo too. I figured maybe you and I could figure out how to move on together.”

Burke frowned, quite sure he didn’t want her dating anyone new. “Why did you like that guy anyway?”

“He was….”

“An idiot,” Burke said.

“I know you didn’t like him. But he was different in private.”

“And that’s a problem, don’t you think?”

“Is it?” She turned toward him fully. “You’re different in private, Burke. You realize that, right? Who you are while lying on my couch is the complete opposite of what everyone else on this island thinks about you.”

Burke opened his mouth to argue, defend himself, but found he had nothing to say. “Point taken.” He pulled into the restaurant parking lot where they’d be meeting his parents and took the car out of gear. “Are you ready for this?”

“I guess so.” Their eyes met for a brief moment, but Burke didn’t let himself gaze at her for too long. Number one, he didn’t trust himself not to reveal too much, and number two, they were already a few minutes late. His father did not like to be kept waiting.

He took Ash’s hand in his as she joined him at the front of the car, and they walked into the open-air restaurant together. Misters hung high in the trees to keep people cool, and the scent of fruit filled the air.

“They’re over there.” He nodded toward the corner of the restaurant and led Ash toward his mom and dad. Every cell in his body quaked, but he gathered up all the wit and bravery he had.

He could do this. After all, he liked Ash and wished he was brave enough to tell her about his recent revelations about her.

“Hey, Dad. Mom.”

They both stood and Burke gave his mom a quick kiss on the cheek. “You both know Ash, I think. Ash, my mom, Heather and my dad, George.”

“Of course,” Ash said in the tone she used on new clients. “We’ve met before.”

“You look lovely,” his mom said while his dad simply shook Ash’s hand and sat back down.

After a few seconds where everyone got settled at the table, his dad asked, “So you two are serious, huh?”

“Dad, I never said we were serious.” Burke wanted to reach under the table and squeeze Ash’s hand. “I said—”

“We’re not serious?” Ash asked, interrupting him.

His eyes flew to hers, searching. Needing to find an answer without having to ask a question verbally. “Well….” He had no idea what to say.

“He practically proposed the other night.” Ash grinned like they were sharing secrets at this table and picked up her water glass. “Or maybe I misread him.”

With both of his parent’s eyes on him, Burke felt like a rubber band had been wound around his neck. “No,” he said. “I was serious.”

The conversation in question had never happened, but his parents didn’t know that.

“So, you’re engaged?” his mother asked.

A long beat of silence descended on the table, the tropical music the only sound between the four of them.

“No,” he heard Ash say at the same time he said, “Yeah, we’re engaged.”