Ashling

Muscle. That was the first impression. Then the strong jaw, hidden a bit by a sexy beard.

And why did this person, this Jessie Hoolihan, have to smell so good? Had she hit her head after crashing into that slut? She felt Jessie’s hand on her elbow and his breath behind her.

She should have cleaned up the mess and headed out of that gym, but she was bleeding. And it was kind of a mess.

Jessie led her to a room that had a table in the center with some sort of cushion on top.

“Hop up there, Miss.”

“That’s not really necessary.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Mirth. That was the second impression. There was a kind of mirth in Jessie’s tone and a twinkle in his eyes. It had already made her blush, because he looked at her like she was the only thing to look at in the room.

Ash shook it off. She had to; it was not a terrific idea fantasizing over this American fighter. Romance was not her mission in the States, no.

She had all she could handle dealing with the state of affairs that she’d willingly stepped into.

“You probably should get back out to your party. I just need a tissue or something, really.”

Jessie ignored her and came over with a bottle and some cotton.

“Give it to me.” There was no room for argument. She lifted her hand, palm up, so the cut was easy to see. The musclebound beast of a man took her hand gently in his. Ash found herself swallowing hard and too late she realized she’d licked her lower lip. Jessie’s eyes went from mirth to something else. She hadn’t meant to flirt. It just happened. It had been so long since she’d even had a moment to sit down. Much less have this handsome fighter dote on her.

“What is that in the bottle?”

“Special soap, super strong. You don’t want an infection or MRSA, do you?”

“MRSA?” Ash hadn’t thought about that.

“It’s a gym, we’re clean, but we’re also paranoid. Now, this is going to sting.” Jessie put the soap-soaked cotton on her cut, and she flinched.

“Ew.”

“Shh.” She tried to pull her hand away, but Jessie tugged it a bit toward him and then leaned down. She watched as he blew a cool breath over her cut.

“I think I’m spick and span now.”

“Spick and span?” He raised an eyebrow at her, and she figured it must not be an American phrase.

“Let me get a bandage. We have just the right size for every single cut. Don’t move, and keep that hand up.” The big man let go of her hand and rifled through a cupboard.

She tried not to notice his ass when his back was to her, but it was impossible. He surely didn’t look like any man she’d ever seen in Cork. None of the men in this place did. Jesse quickly returned and took her hand again.

She offered it with no protest, and he expertly applied the adhesive.

“You’ll live, but I probably should give it a kiss for luck.”

“That’ll do, Mr. Hoolihan.” She yanked her hand back and hopped off the table. The idea of a kiss from this man was very interesting and exactly why she better get out of there. But getting out of there would be difficult if he didn’t move out of the way.

“Ah, well, I can wait then.”

“Wait? You’re pretty cocky, aren’t ye?”

“Yes, that’s true. Hell, I’m a rising MMA star.”

“Are ya now? Well, I’m a lowly florist, and I’m late for the next delivery. I’m going to get that hallway cleaned and let you go on and twinkle.” Jessie laughed at her. Oh, this one was cocky, but maybe there was hope. He did just take a joke about his star status.

“So no kiss? How about dinner?” She slid past him and back out to the hallway. She hoped he didn’t follow her, but of course, he did.

“What the?” Ash looked down to see that the mess of flowers and glass had already been cleaned by an old man with white hair.

“Hello. Name’s Whitey. And I can’t leave glass and standing water. I got it up fast, lawsuits, injury. Always starts with a puddle of water. Anyway, Jessie, leave this little lady alone. Your call is coming in.”

“Okay, Grandpa.” Jessie looked at her.

“I’ll have to get a kiss from you some other time.”

“Get out of here.” The old man scooted Jessie with the broom he held, and the sight made Ash laugh. Jessie walked back to the main room of the gym.

“You’re working at O’Shea’s, I see. Straight from the mother country, is that right?”

“If you mean Ireland, yes. I’m Ashling, a niece from the old country, I guess you could say.”

“Ashling? Ah, that’s an old-fashioned name.”

“You can call me Ash. So sorry about the mess.”

“No trouble, and if my grandson gets cheeky again just let me know. I can still take his ass down. And I will. Contender or not.”

“I can handle it, but thank you.”

“Sorry to hear about old Peter O’Shea. May God rest his soul. Been a while since I ordered flowers. But I always keep it local.”

“Well, if there’s a Mrs. Hoolihan you ought to come in. I know she deserves something pretty.” Whitey had a grizzled face, and it looked like his nose was broken more than once. She wondered what a Mrs. Hoolihan looked like. And just what she’d had to put up with from this one!

“Ah, she does. Seeing that red hair of yours reminds me of her, to be honest. Ahck. I gotta go.” Mr. Hoolihan seemed to be distracted all of a sudden, and he walked away. He muttered as he disappeared down the hallway. Ash didn’t have time to decipher what he was saying. She really did have to finish deliveries. She didn’t want to get Aunt Theone angry. It was easy to get her angry.

Ash hustled out of the gym, leaving Jessie and more muscles than she’d ever seen behind.

She was still getting used to driving the O’Shea’s Florist van. It was probably older than she was, but it got her around. It had the old logo on the side and the phone number. That reminded her. She had to get a new logo approved soon. They were going to need it for the website, and Instagram, and Pinterest. She was doing her best to keep the nostalgia of her uncle Peter’s store but make it hip and modern for today.

It was hard to do the marketing and all the labor. But that’s what she’d been doing since she’d arrived. Everything.

She made two more deliveries in Irish Town and parked the van in the back of the store.

O’Shea’s was a four-story brick building. The first two floors were the store and the offices. The middle floor was a huge warehouse space filled with the mess of fifty years of inventory that Uncle Peter thought he’d need just in case. The top floor was a tiny apartment, and it was her home. Uncle Peter had moved to the suburbs years ago.

She had been here a month, and nothing was as she’d envisioned.

Uncle Peter died less than one week after she arrived. Her Aunt Theone was in charge of the shop now. And in charge of Ash.

It was part of the deal she hadn’t bargained for. Uncle Peter had asked her to live with them. But Aunt Theone had made no such promise.

She was allowed a little more than a bedroom, a sitting room, a bathroom, and tiny kitchenette above the rundown flower store.

Uncle Peter was going to let her live rent free.

Aunt Theone was not.

“You’ll pay what I could get to rent it out. You’re not freeloading.” Theone had informed her of this at the funeral. While Uncle Peter looked like a kindly Irish Santa Claus, Aunt Theone was no Mrs. Claus. She was significantly younger and wider, and so far Ashling had yet to encounter a kind bone in her body.

Nor one that wanted to work. Ash was doing every single chore that this flower shop needed, and it was barely enough to pay the rent Theone was charging.

Uncle Peter was not the man she remembered when she arrived. He was weak, and before she even had a chance to get her bearings he died of a massive heart attack. And the business he’d hyped up when he asked her to come to America was on its deathbed too.

The building was falling down, the customers were drying up, and the bills were piling up.

Ash had hope, though. Maybe she could change things. Maybe Aunt Theone’s meanness was grief.

It was still her dream to run a shop, this shop, in America.

If she could keep making changes, keep working, maybe she could turn O’Shea’s around. She was no quitter. And she was tough. Aunt Theone wasn’t going to break her. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to run back to Ireland with her tail between her legs.

Nope. Ash was determined to keep her chin up.

She was running behind thanks to her collision with Jessie Hoolihan’s groupie. Jessie. The image of him popped up in her head: muscle, scruff, and eyes that made her think he had a lot of ideas to make her blush. And she was blushing. Alone in the alley behind the store, she was blushing thinking of Jessie Hoolihan. Ashling Byrne was not boy crazy, and she never understood girls that were. She never lost her head even when she and Sean were hot and heavy. No. She had her head on straight.

So why in the world was she getting flushed thinking about how Jessie might look in the ring, shirtless? Ahck. Back to work! Ash squared her shoulders and walked in the service door of O’Shea’s Florist.

Gus was the first to greet her.

“Did it go okay? It took you twice as long as I normally take. Did you get lost?” Gus was in his early fifties, and he’d worked for Uncle Peter for a long time. He was strong and reliable, and he was right. He was a much faster delivery driver than she was.

“Gus, I could never do this as fast as you do. But it was good to get out of the building. How’s the back feeling?”

“Chiropractor did the trick, back to normal. I’m going out to the van to be sure you didn’t break anything.” Ash shook her head. Gus and Colleen were the only employees of O’Shea’s. Aunt Theone’s daughter, Carrie, hung around, but Ash had no idea what she did.

Uncle Peter had been the only one in his household who actually cared about flowers and from what Ash could determine, and his ideas were stuck firmly in the Sixties on a bad day and in the Eighties on a good day.

Aunt Theone watched the money and her but didn’t lift a finger to help put arrangements together or answer the phone or clean up.

Aunt Theone hated everything she did and fought her at every step. She also seemed to genuinely hate most people.

“Where were you?” Aunt Theone asked. She was sitting, as usual, on a stool behind the register.

“I was filling in for Gus, remember?”

“Oh, well, get moving. The glass cases are empty.”

They got one, maybe two customers an hour if they were lucky. There was no reason Aunt Theone couldn’t have filled the cases.

“You know I made a dozen new display arrangements. They’re all in the warehouse cooler. You can bring them down anytime. Or maybe Carrie could have?”

“That’s not Carrie’s job. Plus she’s at her pageant coaching session, which you’d know if you’d paid attention.”

Aunt Theone seemed angry most of the time.

She seemed to only be in the store to make sure no one stole money. She looked at Ash, Gus, and Colleen with suspicion.

Even more troubling to Ash, not one bride had come into the store in the month she’d worked at O’Shea’s. And brides were the bread and butter of the flower industry.

Ash had laid out plans to acquire new customers with brides as the focus. She kept sharing her ideas with an unreceptive Aunt Theone.

“They’re nuts, impossible to please. We’ll do the funerals. No one complains at the funerals,” said Aunt Theone when Ash pointed out the need to market to brides.

The problem with Uncle Peter’s and now Aunt Theone’s funeral business plan was that it relied on the churches in this neighborhood. There used to be a half a dozen. But Ash had done her research, and the old churches had closed. The new residents of Irish Town in Grand City were younger, hipper, and not spending money on grave blankets.

Aunt Theone brushed off her ideas and heaped on projects like, “move those buckets.” Not at all what she wanted to do. Unfortunately, her dreams about America were turning into a nightmare.

Aunt Theone was twice her size. From the looks of Theone Ash figured she’d sucked the life out of Uncle Peter and left a husk of him to die. It felt like that’s what was happening to Ash some days.

Ash was increasingly fearful of Theone but tried to brush it off. They’d all experienced a trauma with Uncle Peter’s death. Things were unsettled. Aunt Theone couldn’t possibly be as mean as this all the time.

The store door chime sounded, signaling a new customer. It was a rare sound, and Ash was glad to hear it.

“Who’s this now?” A man stood at the counter, looking more serious than a man of his age ought to.

“I’m Wade Kazcala.”

“Hello, Wade. Picking something out for your lady?” Ash sensed that was not Wade’s mission, but she tried to charm him nonetheless.

“Go in the back and get those case arrangements like I told you.” Theone barked it and pushed her out of the way. Ash retreated slightly but stayed in the showroom. Taking orders from Theone wasn’t her job, dammit.

“Hello, uh, Mrs. O’Shea?”

“Yes.”

“I’m here to remind you that despite the death of Mr. O’Shea the improvements still need to be made.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Aunt Theone seemed genuinely boggled.

“The building code violations. They must be rectified, and they must comply with the standards of the Renewal District.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. How can you even bring this up to me? I’m in mourning. My husband just died.” And for the first time since Uncle Peter died Aunt Theone started bawling. Loudly, and for the benefit of Wade Kazcala, Ash had no doubt.

“Miss, uh, despite the circumstances with, uh . . . there are 90 days, and you have to have a plan, or this place will be shut down. You’re a daughter? An employee?” Wade addressed her now that Theone was apparently inconsolable about Uncle Peter.

“Miss Byrne, the name’s Ashling Byrne. I was Mr. O’Shea’s niece.”

“Miss Byrne, as a business owner in the Renewal District Assessment Zone, your uncle was responsible for keeping this building up to code. Further, as part of the renewal district, the architecture must fit into the architectural standards of this district, as agreed upon by the board. If building upgrades are not performed these fees will be assessed, and fines. And eventually, we will have to condemn the place. Do you understand?” Ashling was processing that long sentence while Theone got hysterical.

“It’s robbery!” Theone yelled and then made a show of blowing her nose. Wade ignored her and focused his gaze on Ash. He was earnest, and she didn’t think the man was trying to rob them. He lowered his voice and explained himself to her as Theone wailed on.

“We worked hard to bring this neighborhood around, and we have to be rigorous, or it will stagnate or worse, go back to being dilapidated and nearly vacant.” Wade was almost pleading with her to understand. In some ways she did. But this was all too much, and the feeling of being in over her head was real.

“Do you have paperwork? A list of what needs to be fixed and upgraded?”

“I provided this to your uncle on three separate occasions. You have to see we’re not being capricious here, Miss Byrne.”

“I guess. Call me Ash.”

“Ash. This used to be crack houses and pawnshops; before that it was a vibrant neighborhood. That’s what we’re reviving.”

“It’s a lot to take in. And I just work here for Uncle Peter, I mean Aunt Theone now.”

“This is now a block of valuable real estate. There are developers that are considering redoing apartments on this block. But not with this, uh, well, this building like it is,” Wade explained to her. She wanted to arrange flowers and centerpieces. This was so beyond that it was laughable.

“What’s the timetable again?”

“90 days and that’s with an extension.”

“You’re a thief, a bully, an insensitive . . .” Theone interjected and then burst back into tears. Ash rolled her eyes and ignored it. O’Shea’s was in real trouble if someone didn’t step up.

“Mr. Kazcala, perhaps you can give me the document there. I can look it over and get back in touch if I have questions.”

“Fine. But questions or not the clock is ticking. Your uncle had a year, and he’s done nothing. Now you’ve got months to get this done.”

The man handed her a stack of papers held together with a paperclip.

“It’s serious. I understand,” she said, and she felt Wade look at her with pity. Ugh. She hated pity.

“It is serious. And you better hope he’s got money socked away for the improvements or this place is gone.” Wade Kazcala nearly winced when he said it. He wasn’t a bad guy, Ash decided. It was just a bad situation.

“It was good to meet you. Can I offer you a flower, compliments of O’Shea’s to take back to your office?”

Ash maneuvered Wade away from Aunt Theone and over to the coolers.

“Your uncle was stubborn as a mule, and your aunt is in distress, but you’re going to have to explain to her the legal requirements.”

“Of course. Now here.” Ash opened the door and selected a fresh arrangement. One that Aunt Theone called ridiculous. It was a mix of wildflowers in a casual vase tied with raffia.

“I don’t need flowers right now.”

“Give ‘em to the ladies in your office. They’ll love ‘em.”

Wade took the arrangement, and Ash gently guided him to the door. The war of words with this Renewal District Assessment wonk wasn’t going to solve the problem. She felt a dryness in her throat that told her this was a big problem.

“Your uncle had plenty of time. This is a municipal law he’s flouting. Or he was flouting.”

“Okay, then, thank you. We’ll be in touch. A pleasure to meet you.” She hoped a little Irish charm would buy her some time. Or at least a bit of favor from this man who came in and said he could shut down O’Shea’s.

“The clock is ticking. I’m sorry.” Wade said as Ashling put a hand to her forehead as Wade left the flower shop.

The crying had miraculously stopped.

“Aunt Theone, we need to talk. Did you understand what that man said?”

“I’m not an idiot. I was trying to get him out of here to buy time.”

“Did you know about this? Did Uncle Peter have something saved?”

“It is none of your business. Your business is cleaning and filling orders. Period.”

“So how much? Did Uncle Peter get estimates? Do you have an idea what money needs to be found or raised or borrowed?”

“No borrowing. We’re already in hock. It’s no use.”

“How much? Aunt Theone? How much money to make the repairs and upgrades?”

“It’s at least $50,000 for these things he wants for the shop, so we look like we fit into the hipster bullshit.”

“Oh my God.” She leaned against the counter and looked at the legal papers that Wade had left.

How were they going to do it? Could they do it? The job of turning this business around just got taller than the stacks of old inventory on the second floor.

Thoughts of musclebound Americans were pushed away by the fact that everything Uncle Peter had built and everything she was trying to fix could be gone. And soon.

“We’re screwed. Thanks a lot, Peter O’Shea. Thanks a hell of a lot. Now Carrie and I will have nothing!” The waterworks came back. Ash decided this might be an opportunity in disguise. Maybe there was a way to get Theone to let her run things.

“Listen to me, Aunt Theone. I know you think my job is to sweep and do your bidding. But guess what? If you don’t let me do what I know I can to turn this business around you’re going to lose it. Just like you said. Let me do what Uncle Peter wanted me to do. And that’s run this place.”

“I am not taking orders from you. And neither is Carrie. You can barely speak English.”

“So is there $50,000 laying around for this?”

“No. In fact, I can barely pay you. So do your little arrangements and have your little sale. But you’re not getting help from Carrie or me. We’ll be busy with her pageant. You asked for it, this place is your problem now.”

“Aunt Theone I need the cash register, the books, the checking . . .”

Theone stomped out and muttered, “It’s all in the drawer. You better not steal a dime.”

“Thanks.”

Theone let loose a tirade of complaints.

“That man did this on purpose, ruining Carrie’s chances. It’s so unfair. It’s the worst timing. Just like him.”

Ash ignored her. She locked the door behind Wade.

It had been a stressful day. But there was a ray of light, and that was Theone promising to get out of her way and let her run the flower shop.

Maybe, just maybe, she could make something bloom in this dusty old place. Maybe her American dream could still take root here.