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Bronwyn
said that she’d been feeling your resentment for some time.”
    He started to tell him he never resented
his job when he realized that was it. He loved numbers. When they lined up in
neat rows and added up to the correct sum, he was thrilled to death, but he
felt that there had to be something out there that gave him more than that. He
looked at the shop again.
    “Do you suppose she’ll let me have a
job? I could work with her a few days and come into the office a few days. I’m
nearly burnt out and this might have what I need.” His brother nodded as they brought
the empty carts back in. Karin asked him if he had some time to get another
thing for her.
    Ryland brought him in a shirt and a pair
of tear away pants to change into, then he and Bronwyn took his mom home along
with her purchases. Neal parked Brock’s truck as far from the front as he could,
leaving the front spots for shoppers. He was pulling a large tree from the
middle of a line of them when he smelled Rayne come up behind him.
    “I thought I asked you to leave,” she
said. He handed the apple tree to the man and turned to Rayne, but before he
could speak, she said, “You should have left over an hour ago, not getting in
the way of customers.”
    “I’ve been helping the customers, not
getting in their way, and your mom asked me to. Besides, you said to go away,
not to leave. I went away.” She stiffened when he took a step toward her to go
around. “I’m not going to touch you. Though I’m not sure how we being mates
will work if I can’t. But I’m sure there are ways.”
    He left her standing there as he went to
help another customer lift a large container of flowers onto her trolley. He
was watching the names of things as he put them out and helped tote them around.
The ones he was helping with now were pansies. He thought they looked like
happy little flowers. But damn, they were colorful.
    He saw her a couple of more times over
the next hour. She was helping customers as well. When her mom asked to speak
to him, he walked to the counter where she was ringing out the customer. She
smiled at him.
    “I need to go and get us some lunch, but
we’ve been so busy that I can’t leave. Do you think you could run the
register?” He looked at it and then her. “Everything is marked with the prices,
and when you can’t find them, just use the intercom to call for Rayne. She has
another three special projects to do and the people need them today.” He
nodded.
    How hard could it be?
    Much harder than he’d ever thought it
could be. First of all, he had no idea how to use the little wand thing. He’d
called Rayne out twice when it refused to scan. Then she’d picked it up and it
read it like it was nothing. Then a man wanted to pay by check, as his credit
card didn’t scan. Rayne had told the man that she didn’t accept checks because
the bank wouldn’t take them from her due to her status as a small business. He
was sure it was more of a trust issue with the bank in that the customer’s
check might bounce and she couldn’t afford it. It was a nice way to say it, he
thought. He’d heard that before from someone he’d met at the gym and decided
he’d help her with that too. The man left but promised her he’d be back with
cash. Neal thought he’d never return.
    The fourth time she’d had to be called
out, she’d huffed at him and told him to go back and get all the stuff she was
working on and to bring it out where they were. He put everything on the cart
and wheeled it out as she was telling a man that she wasn’t available to go out
with him, but thanks for asking. She glared at him when he growled.
    “Behave. He asks me every time he comes
in here. He has a wife and four kids. He comes in here once a month to buy her
a planter. She kills them faster than I can pot them. But he stupidly loves her
and keeps doing it.”
    “You don’t believe in love?” he asked. She
didn’t answer him as she started to work on the