Read Online The Little Flower Shop by the Sea by Ali McNamara - Free Book Online

back down.

However, by sticking to my guns this time, it would mean I’d have to give this flower shop thing a go.
Flowers and me
. I screw up my face. Not exactly a match made in heaven.

It’s getting quite warm in the little bedroom now, and I wonder if perhaps today will be a nice sunny day in St Felix, and I’ll get to see the town in a better light. I kick the eiderdown off, and begin thinking again:

Would staying for a while in this quiet little seaside town really be so bad?

What had I got to look forward to if I went back on my word and sold the shop and cottage and returned to London? I’d just been fired from the hotel job, I didn’t really have any friends, and I lived in a tiny flat above an off-licence in Barnet, having insisted on paying my own way when my mother wanted me to take a job in Violet and Petal’s shop in Liverpool. Also I’d have an excuse not to visit Teresa for a while; her receptionist had been chasing me to reschedule the appointment I’d cancelled four times already. Much to my annoyance, my mother had insisted on continuing to pay for my therapy, even when I had taken to paying for everything else. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get away from it.

But
selling flowers
…

Just the thought of it is making me feel very uneasy indeed.

Maybe I could get someone in to help me? Then I might not have to have too much contact with the flowers. I could concentrate on the day-to-day running of the shop, and let my assistant do the rest!

Brilliant! Yes, I could try that for a while, and if it didn’t work out I could leave before the rough winter weather set in. It might be nice to spend the summer here in St Felix…

I lie there in bed, happy that I have a plan, and not a bad one by my standards. One that will not only keep my mother happy, it will appease the people of St Felix for a while.

Suddenly I hear banging on the front door.

‘Who on earth is that at…?’ I glance at the bedside clock and realise it’s nearly 8 a.m. I must have been lying here thinking longer than I thought.

I get up off the bed and head through the hall and across the kitchen in my PJs. Then I open the wooden front door and peek through the gap.

I don’t know who or what I expect to find standing outside my door at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, but it’s not the riot of colour, wild hair, and general exuberance that greets me.

‘Oh boy, are you Poppy?’ she asks, trying to poke her head through the gap.

I open the door a bit wider.

‘Yes…’ I say hesitantly. ‘Who are you?’

‘Amber – your mom sent me,’ she says, as though I should know exactly what she means.

‘She did?’

‘Yeah, to help you with the shop. She did tell you, right?’

‘Nope.’

‘That’s odd. She said she was gonna call you…’ Amber appears to be thinking. She runs a bejewelled hand over her wild red hair while she screws up her freckled nose. ‘It is Wednesday, right?’ she suddenly asks.

‘No, it’s Tuesday.’

‘Ah!’ She throws her hands up in the air. ‘That’s why. She’s supposed to call you today. I must have lost a day somewhere over the Atlantic.’ She looks at me and smiles. ‘Can I come in?’

I shake my head to try and wake myself up. An enthusiastic American hippy was not what I was used to before I’d even had coffee in the morning.

‘If Mum sent you, then I guess you’d better,’ I sigh, moving aside to let her into the cottage.
     
    Amber and her luggage are now scattered across the sitting room while I make tea – herbal for Amber, which she has produced from one of her many bags, and black for me, after I realise I don’t have any milk in yet.

All I’ve discovered so far is that Amber flew in to Bristol Airport early this morning from New York via Dublin. Then she got a train, and finally a taxi to St Felix. She says she hasn’t slept in twenty-four hours, which is why she’s acting ‘pretty wired’ and has got her days mixed up.

I carry our two mugs of tea