Bloom of Love E-Book

Erin Wright

• Herausgeber: Wright's Romance Reads
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Enjoy this steamy cowboy series by USA Today Bestselling small-town romance author Erin Wright…
Maybe it’s not too late for her happily ever after…
Carla’s always been a romantic. As the owner of the only flower shop in the small mountain town, she believes in true love and can, of course, quote every line in The Princess Bride.
Which wouldn’t be quite so pathetic if she wasn’t thirty-seven and still single. So single, in fact, she’s forgotten what it’s like to have a man give her a single carnation, let alone a dozen roses.
Then Christian walks into Happy Petals, and she knows the fragrance of flowers has to have gone straight to her head. It’s inconceivable that the cute Spanish guy she remembers from high school would be interested in her…
She’s the girl of his dreams, and way out of his league…
Family is important to cowboy Christian. Why else would he be living in a company trailer? It’s a sacrifice he has to make so he can afford to send his sister to college. But nearing forty, his own chances of starting a family aren’t lookin’ too hot, especially considering he hasn’t been out on a date in years.
So it makes no sense at all he can’t get Carla out of his head. Not only is she gorgeous, she’s college-educated and way too good for a barely educated guy like him.
Only, she does seem interested.
Maybe, if he hides the truth about just how out of her league he is, he might have a chance…
Bloom of Love is the tenth novel in the Cowboys of Long Valley Romance series, although all books in the Long Valley world can be read as standalones. A HOT romantic story with a guaranteed happily ever after, it does have some strong language and oh my, sexy times. Enjoy!

Leseprobe

Bloom of Love

A BBW Interracial Western Romance

Cowboys of Long Valley Romance

Book One

Erin Wright

Copyright © 2021 by ErinWright

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

RichardRodgers & OscarHammersteinII © 1943 – Oh, What a BeautifulMorning

CarrieUnderwood © 2009 – Mama’sSong

MarkKnopfler & WillyDeVille © 1987 – StorybookLove

CoverDesigned by SunsetRoseBooks

This one’s for all of my fans who waited patiently (whether they wanted to or not), as the release date of “Bloom of Love” was pushed back again and again.

I hope it’s worth the wait.

PSTo my hubby – I’m so glad you loved ThePrincessBride. It would’ve been sad if I would’ve been forced to turn down your proposal.

ChapterOne

Christian

QuickNote: If you enjoy Bloom of Love, be sure to check out my offer of a FREELongValley novella at the end.

With that, enjoy!

* * *

As you wish.

~Westley in ThePrincessBride

* * *

End of May, 2020

“Wehave to get ElTrono, Mamá,” NievesPalacios said, the whine in her voice grating on her brother’s nerves. “Everyone at school will make fun of me if we book CaféRubio instead. They’re just a bunch of old men. I told all my friends we’re gonna have ElTrono. We can’t change it now.”

ChristianPalacios flicked through Instagram mindlessly, his irritation growing by the second with his youngest sister.

It was bad enough that she was spoiled rotten. It was even worse that he had to sit through yet another quinceañera planning meeting.

Yesenia, his second youngest sister and the complete opposite of Nieves in every way, caught his eye and grimaced. She was just as unhappy as he was to be there, but yet, there they were. Him, to be ordered around and told what heavy stuff needed to go where. Her…well, because she was single and still lived at home between semesters at college, so she always got sucked into Nieves’ World.

“I’ll talk to them,” Autumn said calmingly, patting Nieves’ arm. “Maybe they can change their bookings around.”

Autumn, friends with yet another sister – Rosa, this time – had somehow been roped into actually planning this party. How that had happened, Christian wasn’t sure. Maybe she was masochistic and loved nothing more than helping a spoiled brat plan a quinceañera that was more extravagant than most weddings.

“Okay,” Mamá said in her heavily accented English. She very rarely spoke that, instead preferring to stick to her native tongue of Spanish, but with Autumn there, she was doing her best. “We do that. ElTrono, just for you. Now, we not talk about flowers yet. JoyfulFlowers is good.”

The whole room paused for a moment, everyone scrambling to figure out who or what JoyfulFlowers was. Autumn beat them all to the punch. “Oh, you mean HappyPetals?” she asked with a sincere smile at Mamá.

Christian had never had much reason to hang around Autumn up to this point in his life, but her tact and lack of snottiness about his mamá’sEnglish was endearing him to her more by the moment. She was gorgeous, to boot. It was too damn bad she was so young. She had to be, what, 26, 27 years old? Compared to him at 38, she seemed like a child.

And then, the full force of what Autumn said actually hit him and his thumb stopped scrolling and his mouth dropped open. “I’ll go!” he practically shouted. “To go pick up the flowers,” he added.

The room stopped.

Every eyeball was pinned on him.

EvenYesenia, who’d also been glued to her phone – no doubt scrolling through Facebook, hoping that the agony of this meeting would actually end someday – was staring at him, mouth agape.

“You guys are busy. With planning the—” he almost said TheParty from Hell, which was what he’d been calling it in his mind for weeks now, “the quinceañera. Lots to do and still figure out. Music, and…and stuff. Carla always knows what to do when it comes to flowers, right?”

They still just stared.

He felt the sweat beading on his brow. He shouldn’t have been so eager. So obvious. But the chance to see Carla again…

“Are you sure…?” Autumn asked slowly, the skepticism obvious in her voice. She and Nieves exchanged quick glances. “Flowers aren’t really your specialty.”

“Like you said, Carla always knows best.” Actually, it was him who said that, but he didn’t slow down long enough to let them remember that fact. “I’ll just bring the fabric samples down, show them to her, and let her spin her magic.”

“Right…” Autumn said, her dark green eyes narrowed as she stared at him, clearly trying to figure out what his game plan was. “Carla is good, though,” she said begrudgingly. “Just let her know what the budget is and give her these.” She held out a few fluorescent-colored strips of fabric. “Do you have any flower preferences, Nieves?”

His youngest sister shook her head, staring just as hard at him as Autumn was. “I only care about the colors. No pastels.”

“Well,” Autumn said with a forced cheerfulness, “we have the music maybe figured out and the flowers for sure figured out. Let’s talk food.”

Christian pocketed the strips of fabric, trying to hide the ridiculously giddy smile threatening to spread across his face. Yesenia caught his eye and cocked one eyebrow.

He shrugged nonchalantly and began flicking through his Instagram feed again. Yesenia may be his favorite sister, but that didn’t mean he was gonna say a word to her about Carla.

Carla.

He was gonna see her again.

He only barely kept himself from whistling.

ChapterTwo

Carla

Isn’t that a wonderful beginning?

~Grandfather in ThePrincessBride

* * *

Start of June, 2020

“Oh, what a beautiful morning,”CarlaGrahame sang from one of her favorite Roger & Hammerstein movies, Oklahoma, as she threw together a quick rose bouquet. Perfect for those times when a guy really shoved his boot into his mouth. “Oh, what a beautiful day.”

It was her Monday – Tuesday to the rest of the world – and although she hadn’t had much of a weekend, what with Mr. Ziebarth’s funeral and all, she was still happy to be at work. Who wouldn’t be happy, surrounded by beauty all day long like she was?

A thorn sliced through the hard callous on her thumb and with a moan of pain, Carla popped her thumb into her mouth, automatically turning to pull out her ever-present box of bandaids. She really should just wear gloves while she worked like every other florist out there with two brain cells to rub together, but she never seemed to remember to put them on⁠—

The doorbell jangled and Carla looked up automatically, her professional smile sliding into place even as she quickly pulled her thumb out of her mouth.

Whoa.

ChristianPalacios. She hadn’t seen him in ages. He was standing by the glass front door, the bright sunshine streaming in around him, making it hard to see his face, especially under the brim of his baseball cap. But she’d recognize him anywhere.

A guy like ChristianPalacios didn’t just walk into a store without a girl noticing. That simply didn’t happen.

She quickly wrapped up her still-bleeding thumb in the bandaid, throwing away the wrapper even as she rounded the counter. “Hello!” she said warmly. “How are you today?”

He moved a little further into the shop, edging in like he was afraid he was going to somehow breathe wrong and destroy the whole place.

This was the way guys always felt in her shop. More than one guy had told her that he felt like a bull in a china shop. She figured that it was just nerves. They didn’t know what they were looking for, and they were nervous they were going to pick the wrong thing.

Which was why she was there. She’d never lead anyone astray.

He shot her a smile so brief, if she hadn’t been watching closely, she would’ve missed it, and began looking at the bouquets in the buckets, studying them as if his life depended upon it.

And thus began the game that she always played when a nervous guy came into the store – the “WhatDidHeScrewUp?” game.

He cheated on his wife. Oh. Never mind. No ring. So,maybe his girlfriend. Or! He forgot her birthday. Maybe their anniversary. Poor woman.

He’d moved on and was now looking at the most expensive bouquets in the store.

Oh my God, he called her the wrong name during sex!

Now that she’d hit upon it, she was sure that was it. Funny – she couldn’t remember ever hearing that he’d gotten married, but maybe it happened while she was gone to college, or while she was working at the ToadstoolFlowerShop in Boise. She certainly hadn’t done the flowers for his wedding. Somehow, she was just sure that with the bouquet sizes he was eyeballing, it had to be for a wife. Girlfriends didn’t merit bouquets that big.

Poor woman. I can only imagine how hard she’s taking this. I wonder if she kicked him out. I would kick him out.

She admired the long, sleek muscles of his arms as he picked up and put down some of the figurines in the window display.

Huh. It’d have to be really obvious he’d called me the wrong name, though. Not just a grunt that could be misunderstood or something.

How long had it been since she’d had arms like that wrapped around her in bed?

She let out a long sigh. If she could have arms wrapped around her like those, she might just put up with him singing another woman’s name during sex.

“I’m here to order the flowers for my youngest sister’s quinceañera,” Christian rumbled suddenly, breaking the silence of the store, and her wandering thoughts.

Her mouth gaped open for the barest of moments – quinceañera? The last time a guy was sent in to pick out flowers for that was…oh that’s right, NEVER – and then she regained her composure. “How nice of you to help out,” she said with her warmest smile, immediately flipping the script in her head. No wife in bed, eh? Maybe…

Maybe their parents died in a car wreck, and that’s why his mother isn’t in here, ordering the flowers for the party. And his sister was in the car too, and now she’s paralyzed, and this is a big party to commemorate her parents’ passing, combined with her 15th birthday party.

Yes, that’s it.

She was quite proud of herself for figuring that one out with only the barest of clues. She only just restrained from physically patting herself on the back, but she made sure to give herself a hearty mental pat. SherlockHolmes didn’t hold a candle to her and the clients in her shop.

“Did your sister give you any ideas on what she’s wanting?” she continued.

Christian had moved from the figurines back to the flower section again, this time gently stroking the petals of the deep red roses bouquet that she’d been sure just minutes before he was going to be buying for his girlfriend / wife.

But…maybe he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Or a wife.

She tried to squelch the excitement just that mere thought flamed up inside of her. ChristianPalacios would be interested in her – a big, fat lump of a girl like her – about the same time he’d be interested in stabbing himself in the eyeball with a fork.

“She…uhhhh…didn’t mention which kind of flower she wanted,” he finally said, almost like he was embarrassed to admit that. Carla was busy trying to figure out why that would be embarrassing when he pulled some silky strips of fabric out of his pocket.

“These are her colors,” he said, holding the fluorescent-colored strips out to her. “She said any flower is fine, but no pastels.”

Carla took the strips in hand with a little laugh. Construction orange, bright purple, and eye-popping pink.

No, pastels wouldn’t work at all.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, running her calloused thumb over the fabric mindlessly, the bandaid keeping her from bleeding all over them, “I think I might have just the thing for your sister. Something she’s never seen before. What’s her name?”

“Nieves.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Carla said, attempting to snap her fingers and failing because of the ribbons she was holding. Flushing, she ignored this flub and hoped he’d follow her lead. “And you said she’s the youngest of the family, right?”

“The baby.”

There was a wealth of meaning behind those two words that Carla was both dying to know, and happy she wasn’t a part of. Christian’s tone…there was drama happening in the Palacios family, she was sure of it.

Well, of course there is, Carla! You silly goose. After all, their parents are dead and Nieves is now in a wheelchair. Huh. Funny, I never heard about the car wreck. Poor guy. Doing so much to help his baby sister.

“Well,” she said with a bright smile, “tell her that I’ll make sure she’s taken care of. There’s a form you need to fill out with budget and date of delivery and such on it; you’ll need to answer that while I take some pics of these ribbons. That way, you can have them back.”

He scribbled a few answers on the paper – true to form, since guys were never as detailed and thorough as women – and then pocketed the ribbons once she’d taken a few photos with her phone.

“I can deliver the flowers out to this address,” she murmured, pulling her reading glasses off the top of her head and settling them on her nose as she scanned over the form to make sure that nothing stuck out as needing extra attention. “Everything looks fine,” she said, pulling her glasses back off and settling them back into her hair. “Since the party doesn’t start until the afternoon, I’ll drop the flowers off in the morning so they’ll be as fresh as possible. Does that work?”

“Sure,” he said, and flashed her a quick smile, again so quickly that if she hadn’t been watching him closely, she never would’ve seen it. He was one she really had to pay attention to – just brief glimpses of emotions or thoughts and then it was hidden away again.

Instead of heading for the door, though, he just stood there, shuffling his feet and mindlessly rotating his baseball cap in his hands.

“Is there…something else?” Carla asked politely. Every one of her spidey senses was going off – there was something going on here. Something she hadn’t figured out yet.

The only thing she loved more than a mystery was solving a mystery.

“No, no,” he mumbled, pulling his cap back on his head firmly. “Have a goo – is this your cat?”

Carla blinked twice, completely confused by the change in topic, and then saw him leaning over to pet Leo, and she laughed. “Oh yes, he’s mine. He’s our shop cat. He loves everyone. He’ll let you pet him until the cows come home, and then still complain that you haven’t petted him long enough.”

“Nice kitty,” Christian crooned, and Carla smiled to herself. He sure was a damn nice guy, which squared up with what she remembered about him from high school. He’d been a year ahead of her and they’d never really run in the same circles, but she’d never heard a bad word about him.

He straightened up and pulled on his cap in one swift motion. “Have a good one,” Christian said, pulling on the brim of his cap, and then he was disappearing through the front door, the jingle of the bell co-mingling with Carla’s lusty sigh.

Thatass.

Thoseeyes.

She had about as much chance of dating him as she had flying to the moon next week, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate a good-lookin’ man when she saw one.

And there was a lot about ChristianPalacios to appreciate.

ChapterThree

Christian

I myself am often surprised by life’s little quirks.

~Westley in ThePrincessBride

Christian scratched at the rash again, cursing fluently under his breath. The best thing about being bilingual was, he knew all of the best swear words in two languages.

“What’s up with the rash?” StetsonMiller asked, jerking his head towards the swollen red bumps on Christian’s arm.

“Nothin’,” Christian said automatically, dropping his arm by his side and flashing his boss a quick grin. “An allergic reaction. I just took a Benadryl. It’ll calm down here in a minute. Must’ve gotten into something.”

Stetson nodded, unconcerned, already having mentally moved on. “Good. Look, I need to head over to Declan’s place for a minute. He’s fighting his new combine and needs me to take a look at it. You guys got this handled?”

“Of course. We’ll be fine.”

Stetson headed out, his pickup leaving a cloud of dust in its wake, as Christian turned back to the fence they’d been fixing, wiping at the sweat trickling down his brow. Two more farm hands were further down, fixing another weak spot, but after this, they could probably call it for the day.

Which was damn good. Because petting Carla’s shop cat was quickly turning into an incredibly stupid thing for Christian to have done, and he was officially miserable. Fixing fence was never fun at the best of times, but doing it while wanting to tear at his skin was making the project just that much worse.

He realized he was scratching the rash again and forced himself to stop. Picking up his wire pliers, he knelt down in the lush summer grass and grabbed the thin metal strand, pulling on it and tightening it up. Cows used any excuse in the world to go wandering out where they weren’t supposed to be, and a loose fence was more than enough of an invitation for them to take a stroll into the neighbor’s field.

The rash on his arm was distracting as all hell, though, pulsing with each beat of his heart, and he had to grit his teeth to avoid the temptation to tear at the skin.

So yeah. He was allergic to cats. He should’ve petted Carla’s shop cat like he should’ve eaten glass for breakfast. But he’d wanted some reason – any reason – not to leave the shop, and had been desperate enough to do something he damn well knew he shouldn’t.

Desperation. It was a thing.

And after causing one of the biggest flare-ups to his allergies that he’d had in years, he’d gotten what out of it again?

That’s right, nothing at all.

Carla had been so damn sweet, promising him that she’d drop the flowers off herself the morning of the party. It’d been the one thing he’d held onto after he’d left sans a date or a promise to chat later or even her phone number. He could’ve asked – he should’ve asked – but he had just as much experience asking girls out on dates as he did riding bucking bulls.

He did both of those things a couple of times when he was young and dumb and full of cum, but hadn’t in years.

In this moment, a bucking bull seemed a lot less scary than CarlaGrahame. Her, with her thick, long brunette hair, and her big hazel eyes that could change from blue to green and back again in the space of a heartbeat, and her even bigger tits.

She was gorgeous.

She was way too good for him.

Her straight, white teeth flashed through his mind, her natural cheeriness omnipresent even in his memory, when snap! The strand of wire broke, his pliers flew out of his hand, and the roll of wire zinged back onto the spool, the end slicing across his left forearm, leaving a thin red line in its wake, already oozing blood.

He let loose with a few of his choicest swear words and Dave looked up from his work. “You okay, boss?” he called.

“Yeah, yeah,” Christian said, waving the farm hand’s concern away. It was what he deserved for concentrating on Carla’s smile instead of the damn fencepost.

Grumbling, he pulled the spool of wire back into place and began wrapping it around the T-post again. Between the bleeding cut across his left forearm and the rashy bumps across his right forearm, though, he was having a damn hard time paying attention to what he was supposed to be doing. His temper wasn’t much improved by the fact that his mother had been downright pissed with him when he’d visited his parents’ place after ordering the flowers from Carla. Didn’t he know he was supposed to ask her what kinds of flowers she was going to use? Didn’t he know that he was supposed to get all of these stupid details that only women cared about?

Christian yanked the wire into place with a little more savagery than he probably needed to.

Women.

How was he supposed to know he was in charge of asking Carla all of these questions? No one had said a word to him about it.

Show her the fabric samples and give her the budget, they’d said.

NotReenact the SpanishInquisition on her ass.

Pissy, his mom had huffed that she’d go and pick up the flowers the morning of the party to make sure that they’d work. He’d tried to tell her that Carla had offered to drop them off, but his mother had dismissed that suggestion angrily. No, she had to go check on them herself. She shouldn’t have let him order them to begin with.

With a grunt, Christian clipped the wire and then looked critically at the fence repair. It looked good, which meant he could call it a day. Finally.

He waved to the farm hands further down the fence to let them know he was heading out, and then grabbed his tool bag to head for the farm truck.

So what if his mom was going to pick the flowers up for Nieves’ quinceañera. That didn’t mean Christian couldn’t trump up some other excuse to go back to the flower shop. He could…

Dammit. He was drawing a complete blank. Yesenia, his favorite sister, didn’t have a birthday until February. It was the start of June. He wasn’t willing to sit around for another eight months.

There was Mother’sDay, but that was even further away – almost a full year. Mother’sDay this year was why he’d crossed paths with Carla to begin with.

Weeks ago, he’d been heading home from the morning chores when he’d remembered that it was Mother’sDay, and he hadn’t bought his mom a damn thing yet. HappyPetals had been right there, so he’d taken a left into the parking lot, intent on grabbing a small bouquet in under five minutes to save himself from the guilt trip that would’ve otherwise happened.

Except…

Well, he didn’t think the heavens had opened and the angels had actually sang, but he’d be willing to go so far as to say that they should have. There she’d been, behind the counter, working and smiling and chatting easily with customers, always moving, efficient but warm and friendly. He’d watched her for a bit, the stream of customers seeming to be neverending, and was just trying to decide if he had the guts to ask her out, when a kid – she had to be in high school – came over and asked him if he was going to buy something or not. Christian had flushed red; he hadn’t even realized that there was another employee in the store, and to be caught standing in the back and spying on Carla was mortifying.

He blindly grabbed the bouquet nearest to him and thrust it at the high schooler. It wasn’t until she’d rang him up and he’d headed out the door that he’d realized that there was a Congratulations! balloon sticking out of the bouquet, with a pink baby rattle tied to the neck of the vase. Embarrassed, he pulled out the balloon and baby rattle, and had thrown them out in a trash can at the city park on the way home. He could only imagine what his mother would’ve thought if he’d presented her with that bouquet for Mother’sDay.

No, waiting for Mother’sDay almost a full year to go back and see Carla again was even less tenable than waiting for Yesenia’s birthday.

Surely he had an aunt or a cousin who had a birthday coming up. He’d ask Yesenia. She’d know, and might even tell him without forcing him to tell her why he suddenly cared.

He felt his mood grow cheerier already. He’d get the birthdate of the next female relative of his – God only knew, he was related to so many, this wouldn’t be hard – and then with that in hand, could go back and order flowers from Carla again.

And not pet the cat this time.

And ask Carla out on a date.

He could totally do that.

ChapterFour

Carla

Who said life was fair?

~Grandfather in ThePrincessBride

Carla picked up another red rose and snipped it short, plucked the baby’s breath from its pile, and wrapped it all up quickly with florist tape, her fingers conducting the dance without missing a beat.

She could probably make boutonnières in her sleep.

She probably had at least once, come to think of it, during a late-night push. Boutonnières never had the good graces to come in gentle waves, but were rather like tsunamis, burying unsuspecting florists beneath their onslaught.

“AuntCarla, we want to play GoFish,” whined Noah, her adorable 7-year-old nephew.

Or, at least he was adorable when he wasn’t whining and complaining.

So, not so adorable right now.

“I know, dear,” she said, setting a third finished boutonnière down. Only 61 more to go. “I have to finish these first, and then we will, I promise.”

“She’s busy,” Maggie said officiously. Carla opened up her mouth to thank her 10-year-old niece for her understanding, when she added, “She always is. She’s not going to play with us. C’mon, let’s go build a fort in your bedroom.”

Carla snapped her mouth closed, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. She didn’t think she was that awful of an aunt, was she?

A fourth boutonnière was added to the growing pile and already, she was working on a fifth one as she watched her niece and nephew tear down the hallway to rip Noah’s room to pieces. She should probably tell them not to make it too big of a mess, but Maggie’s words stung, and she couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.

Honestly, this was all Sammy’s fault. If he’d given her more than two hour’s notice that she was in charge of watching her niece and nephew overnight, she would’ve asked her high school assistant, Valrea, to come into the shop for a few extra hours of work this afternoon. Valrea could’ve knocked these out and Carla would’ve been free to actually play with Noah and Maggie this evening instead of dragging buckets of flowers, snips, floral tape, and pins to her brother’s house.

A thorn sliced through her middle finger and Carla quietly let out a curse, popping the offended digit into her mouth.

“Sammy,” she muttered around her finger, fishing through her bag with her other hand for the always-present box of bandaids, “you owe me big time.”

Instantly, she felt the guilt wash over her. Of course Sammy didn’t owe her anything for the privilege of watching her beautiful niece and handsome nephew. Why, she was downright blessed to be able to watch them.

A couple day’s notice wouldn’t kill him, though.

She shoved the thought down into the depths of her soul. How could she think such a thing of her younger brother? He’d had a babysitter arranged for tonight. He’d told her so when he’d called to ask her if she could step in instead. The babysitter had flaked on him, though, and so he’d had to ask her at the very last moment. Totally not his fault.

Funny how his babysitters are always so flaky. The same thing happened the last two times he took his wife on an overnight trip. It’s almost like⁠—

Just then, Noah let out a blood-curdling scream as Maggie began yelling too, the cacophony reverberating through the house. Carla let out a sigh as she shoved herself to her feet, setting #27 boutonnière off to the side. Despite the fact that they sounded like someone was dying – or perhaps more than one someone – Carla knew better. They were fighting over something stupid, no doubt.

Noah went quiet for just a moment and Carla winced inwardly as she headed to his bedroom door. Some people might be lulled into thinking that the sudden silence was him quieting down, but Carla knew better. It was just him sucking in a deeper breath so he could really⁠—

“Aahhhhhhhhhh!!!”

And there he went.

As she pushed the bedroom door open, revealing a wrecked room and two very petulant children, Carla promised herself that after she finished the boutonnières, they’d watch ThePrincessBride as her reward for getting her work done, and not even killing any small children in the process.

She wanted her own Westley – oh, how she wanted – but in the meanwhile, she’d just have to content herself with MovieWestley.

ChapterFive

Christian

Anything you want.

~CountRugen in ThePrincessBride

Christian finished up his morning chores out at the farm as quickly as he could, practically chucking the hay at a few of the slower moving cows. “C’mon, you guys,” he muttered under his breath. “Mymamá is already pissy. I can’t be late.”

Finally, cutting a few corners he could only hope wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass later, he hollered a quick goodbye to Stetson and headed out for his parents’ house.

Today was the BigDay. A person could be forgiven for thinking that Nieves was getting married, based on the size of this damn party, but considering Nieves was turning 15, Christian could only hope that marriage wasn’t anywhere close to being on the horizon.

He was also quite sure that his mother had gone completely ‘round the bend. He had six sisters. He knew what a quinceañera should look like. He’d lived through five others.

Today’s party was nothing like anything he’d ever seen before.

Was it because Nieves was spoiled rotten?

Probably. She was the baby of the family, in every possible meaning of that word.

But his parents had managed to raise six other children who weren’t spoiled rotten. Somehow, with Nieves, they’d completely lost their minds and had decided that giving her whatever she wanted was exactly the right path to take.

His mom had never said as much, but he wondered if it was because when the older six children had been growing up, they’d struggled for money. Oh, how they’d struggled. Moving from farm to farm, migrant workers without stability or guarantees that they’d even have a home the following week.

ThenWyattMiller hired Christian’s father, and things slowly got better. They had a place to live, even if it was a double-wide trailer. His dad was the foreman, so he wasn’t being laid off at the end of each season. They weren’t moving every couple of months, following the produce around the country.

Of course, things got much better after Wyatt met and married Abby. If there was ever a case for a woman changing a man, it was Abby changing Wyatt. Christian would’ve swore that nothing on the planet could change Wyatt, but he would’ve been wrong.

AbbyConnelly did the impossible. Personally, Christian figured that Abby should wear a cape everywhere she went, because there was nothing closer to Superwoman than her.

But not only did falling in love with Abby change Wyatt from the inside out, it also meant that he wanted to build a bigger and grander house than the old Connelly homestead. WhenWyatt approached Christian’s dad about buying the old home and moving into it (and out of the drafty double-wide where the Palacios’ family had been stuffed for years…)

Well, everything had changed again. Eighteen years after Christian’d graduated from high school and left his parents’ house, they were finally financially stable. They were finally the middle-class family that his mom had always wanted to be.

And in her mind, that meant throwing the Party of the Year for her youngest daughter’s quinceañera.

Christian pulled up in front of the old Connelly-homestead-turned-Palacios house, and let out a deep sigh. He had hours yet to go, a stressed-out mom who was going to be barking orders at him all night, and no chance of seeing Carla, thanks to his mother’s belief that he’d incompetently ordered flowers.

How he could possibly have screwed up ordering flowers, he couldn’t begin to guess. WasCarla going to bring over beautiful flowers that matched his sister’s color choices? Yes.

What else was there to worry about?

Women.

Which was when he saw Carla’s delicious ass sticking out of the back end of the bright turquoise HappyPetals van. There was a van no one ever missed – it was bright and cheerful and eye-catching.

Just like its owner.

Suddenly feeling about a thousand times better, Christian hopped out of his truck and hurried over to her side. She was there. She wasn’t supposed to be, but she was.

He sent up a silent thank you to the heavens for this excellent bit of luck.

She spotted him and smiled broadly in greeting, and then picked up an oversized cardboard box with a swirl of bright colors poking out of the top.

“I thought my mom was going to pick this stuff up from you,” he said as he reached her side, and then took the box out of her arms, ignoring her protests. No woman was going to carry a heavy box while he was around.

He breathed in deep. The flowers smelled good; Carla smelled amazing.

“Your sister frantically called me just a little bit ago and told me they didn’t have time to come pick them up, and asked if I minded bringing them over after all. I told her of course not. She also asked if I had bright orange fabric – I’m hoping this will work.” She gestured towards a box filled to overflowing with construction orange fabric. It was ugly as sin, so of course Nieves would love it.

The flowers in the box Christian was holding had been outshone by Carla’s beauty, but something about them now caught his eye. He did a double-take and stared down into the box.

“What…what happened?” he whispered, in awe.

He’d never seen anything like these roses before. Swirls of brilliant pink and orange and purple – all of his sister’s colors, but tie-dyed across the petals. “Do they grow like this?!”