the case, he’s gentleman to the bone,” Kath noted. “The world could use several more just like him.”
Byron tossed a heated glance into Grim’s office when he heard his business partner snigger. “Thank you, Kath.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said as she returned to the lobby.
As Byron stuffed the folder into his satchel and pulled on his coat and scarf, his father buttoned his peacoat. He peered into Grim’s office and asked after Priscilla and the baby before joining Byron at the door while saying, “Vivi’s flight was delayed again.”
“She still hasn’t flown out?” Byron asked, pushing the door open into the cold. Byron didn’t particularly care for his sister being on another continent, not to mention a third-world country. The flying didn’t soothe him either. She and her fiancé, Sidney, treasured their humanitarian calling. Their work was important, but Byron would feel a lot less edgy when his baby sister was back on home soil. “She’s going to miss her own wedding.”
“She’ll be here. Don’t you worry.” Constantine clapped an arm around Byron’s shoulders. “Remember, you need us, we’re here.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Byron said, amused.
“Go see Athena.”
“First chance I get,” Byron promised. He wrapped an arm around his father. “Come here, you old geezer.”
“Ah.” Constantine squeezed him into a bear hug, rubbing circles over Byron’s back just as he had when he was a child. He gave him a few thumps for good measure. “Fruit of my loins.”
“Pop, word of advice,” Byron quipped. “Don’t talk about your loins when you’re hugging people. Unless it’s Ma. In which case please ensure the rest of us aren’t anywhere within hearing distance.”
A laugh rolled through Constantine’s torso. He grabbed Byron’s face and kissed him square on the mouth. “I love ya.”
Byron rubbed his lips together. “Save some for her, huh?”
Constantine opened the driver’s door of the Prius and folded his long frame behind the wheel, defying everything Byron knew about logic. He winked. “Valentine’s Day, leap year, Lincoln’s birthday...” He cranked the Prius to life. “Doesn’t matter what day it is. My girl gets the lion’s share.”
Byron threw his father a casual salute. He waited for him to leave the parking lot before starting off for the library to the north. He bypassed the children’s park, taking a shortcut between the buildings that walled off Fairhope’s version of the French Quarter to cut the wind off his face.
As he came out onto De La Mare and turned east toward Section, he collided with the brunt of an icy gale. His scarf loosened and went flying. He spun around quickly to snatch it. The wind swirled, sending the scarf sailing the other way. And a torrent of rose petals rushed up to meet him.
He raised his hands to shield his face from the odd deluge. When he lowered them, he saw the woman standing on the curb, looking at him in dawning horror. Her peaches and cream complexion went white as Easter lilies as the petals winged away. “Oh, God,” she uttered, the round box in her hands empty.
Byron reached out to grasp Roxie Honeycutt’s arm. She looked dangerously close to falling to her knees. “Hey, hey. It’s all right. They’re just flowers.”
Her gaze seized on his, her lips parting in shock.
Clearly not the right thing to say to a wedding planner. He extricated the box from her gloved hand. “I meant there’s probably more where those came from, right?” He tried smiling to draw her out of her blank stare. The woman he’d known for a little over a year was normally expressive. Bubbly, even. Sure, she’d been a thinner, quieter, more subdued version of Roxie over the last ten months thanks in large part to her husband’s affair.
Idiot, Byron thought automatically whenever Richard Levy was mentioned. Make that her ex-husband, and rightly so. Any man who slept with one of his wife’s sisters deserved to be kicked brusquely to the curb.
Roxie licked her lips. “I’m...so dead.”
Her hand was in his. It was small, wrapped in cashmere. It folded into his big, icy fist like the wings of a jewel-breasted barbet. He moved his other palm over the back of it for friction. “Let’s call Adrian,” he said instantly. The florist was a mutual friend. She and Roxie often collaborated on events. “She’ll get what you need.”
Roxie blinked. “Adrian? She’s doing flowers for a wedding in Mobile.”
“Shit. Sorry.” He shook his head. It was ridiculous. They were friends. He could curse in front of her.
She always put him on his toes. Not that she ever spared him the free-flowing tap of her amiability. There was just something about her... It didn’t set him ill at ease. Not at all. It...brought him to attention. Close attention.
Kath would’ve said it was the “gentleman” in him responding to the lady in her.
“I’m sure there’s a solution,” he asserted, giving her hand a squeeze. He looked to her Lexus. There were boxes stacked neatly on the ground and more in the trunk. “First...why don’t I help you get these where they need to go?”
She nodded. “That would be wonderful.” Her gaze locked onto his again. Her mouth moved at the corners. “Thank you, Byron.”
The first time he’d seen her smile, he’d stopped breathing. Actually stopped breathing. The zing of her exuberant blue eyes, her blinding white teeth—straight as Grecian pillars—had hit him square in the chest. Her beauty was impeccable. He remembered thinking that she was the most unspoiled thing he’d ever seen.
She was riveting. The kind of riveting that made a man stare a few seconds too long.
Carefully, he looked away from her warm round eyes. Growing up, his parents had lived in a house on the outskirts of Atlanta. Larkspur had grown there, blooming in blue-flamed spikes in high summer. When he looked into Roxie’s eyes, he remembered just how blue those spikes were.
He bent to retrieve her packages. “Where’re you headed?”
“Just around the corner,” she told him, placing the empty box in the trunk as he gathered the others. “To the library.”
“Fancy that,” he said. “Me, too.”
The small smile grew by a fraction. “That is fancy.”
They crossed De La Mare, bound for the intersection of Section Street and Fairhope Avenue, the hub of downtown. On one corner was the white Fairhope Pharmacy. On the other was the city clock that chimed the hour. As they waited for traffic to move off so they could venture across, Byron saw that Roxie’s pale cheeks were tinged pink. He might’ve thought it was the wind had her smile not grown into a full-fledged grin. “What?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
He nudged her arm with his. “Come on.”
She licked her lips. Then she said, “You just always show up on my epic fail days.”
He
