Jonathan puts down his scissors. “Your mother has her reasons for wanting to protect you.”

“Which are what? Her own paranoia that the outside world is some big, bad place? What does she think is going to happen to me ‘out there’ anyway? Is she afraid I’m going to sneak off with some guy and get pregnant, just like she did? Or is she more afraid that once I step foot outside town, I’m never coming back? Does she think I’ll abandon her, just like my father?”

Jonathan’s lips pull into a tight, thin frown and I know I’ve struck on something. A remorseful tone wafts off him as he sighs.

Truth is, I don’t know how to make it work. How do I go after my dreams and not end up leaving her in the red dust of southern Utah because she refuses to budge from this spot? “I love my mom, but someday I am going to have to leave. I need to know what else is out there in the world. I need to know if I can make it on my own.”

“Daphne. I know you can make it on your own—but this is a conversation you should have with your mother. Later when …”

“Later will be too late.” I place my hand over his large fingers before he can distract himself with cutting ribbons again. “Please, Jonathan. Let me go tonight—”

The shop’s bell interrupts me once more, only this time it’s much louder, like someone has opened the front door in a hurry. I wonder if Indie has sent another customer running.

But instead, a few seconds later, Indie comes bounding into the back room. Or at least she tries to before hitting the barricade of balloons.

“Hol-y amaze balls, Daph-ne,” she says, jumping up to see me over the balloons. “You will never guess who is in the shop—like, never, ever in a mil-lion freak-ing years!”

When Indie gets excited, she talks in short, staccato notes and acts like she’s had five espressos in the last half hour, even though Mom says she’s supposed to be on a strictly stimulant-free diet. I’m not sure where Mom got this information, nor where she found Indie. Despite being on a limited budget—because she flat-out refuses to accept any child support from “that man”—my mother has a tendency to bring home strays. Of both the animal and human variety. Most of her person rescues stay only long enough to collect their first paycheck, but others become part of the family and never leave. Like Uncle Jonathan, who’s been with us for so long, I can’t remember when my day wasn’t greeted by one of his Technicolor aprons, and CeCe, who’d practically become my sister since my mom brought her to the shop five and a half years ago, looking like a drowned rat—CeCe, that is, not my mom. I still am not sure where Indie is going to fit into the mix.

“Come on. You have to see him!” she says when I don’t follow her.

Jonathan and I glance at each other, and he chuckles. He always says that a flower shop is the worst place in town for meeting cute guys. You’d have better luck at the library. Because the guys who come in here already have someone to buy flowers for.

“She’ll learn.” Jonathan laughs again with a merry tune, the tension between us melting away. The skin around his eyes wrinkles with his smile all the way up to the graying hair at his temples. I can’t help thinking that I won’t allow myself to grow old while waiting for my Prince Charming in a place like Ellis. My mom thought she’d found her prince once, but he’d hopped off like the frog he really was before I’d even been born.

As far as I’m concerned, no guy is worth waiting anywhere for, nor following, for that matter—prince or not.

“I’m ser-i-ous, you guys.” Indie grabs my arm through the balloons. “You have to see this or you will nev-er be-lieve me. Crap, where did I put my phone?” She drags me, with that red and orange balloon bouquet still in my hands, to the front with her. Jonathan follows, making a bemused humming sound. I hope he doesn’t think our discussion is over.

The first thing I notice is a long Hummer limousine idling in the no-parking zone in front of the shop entrance. But before I even have the chance to be irked by the illegal parking job, or wonder why or how someone had gotten a limo for the dance around here anyway, Indie jerks my attention to the flower cooler, whose motor is chugging and buzzing like it’s about to die any second. Or rather, Indie turns my attention to the back of the man who is standing in front of the cooler.

“See,” she whispers.

The shop’s fluorescent bulbs reflect off the back of the man’s leather jacket, and his boots are just as shiny. He wears dark wash skinny jeans that look far too tight for comfort. In fact, everything he wears looks stiff and perfect, like someone else picks out a new outfit for him every time he steps out of his house. Considering it’s ninety-eight degrees outside, that person hadn’t done a very good job. The woman next to him looks just as crisp in a black suit and a patent leather briefcase that coordinates with her glossy red heels. She clutches the briefcase to her chest as if she’s afraid one of the potted azaleas is about to fling itself at her.

I glance at CeCe, who is ringing up a bundle of red roses and baby’s breath for a very nonoriginal customer at the register. She shrugs to show she has no idea what Indie is going on about.

The leather-jacket man seems intent on a bunch of ranunculus blooms, which are wilting in the half-dead cooler. The glossy woman clears her throat. The man brushes his long, wavy hair over his shoulder and turns toward us.

Indie squeals. CeCe swears.

“It’s really him!” Indie says. “It’s the—”

“Joe Vince,” Jonathan says. He makes a move like he wants to block the man from my view with all three hundred pounds of himself.

I hold my hand up to stop him.

The man’s lips part into a cheeky grin. He winks at Indie and then looks at me. “ ’Ello, Daphne,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”

I let go of the balloon strings.

“Dad,” I say.

“What are you doing here?” Jonathan demands.

“Didn’t your mother tell you?” Joe says to me in his British accent, which must have once charmed my mom off her feet. “A judge granted me custody. I’m taking you to live with me in California.”

A loud bang echoes above my head as one of the red balloons bobbing against the rough popcorn ceiling bursts.

Chapter three

HADEN

Rowan lies in wait for me in the antechamber beyond the throne room. I would not expect any less from him.