Free Aphrodite's Garden (A Fast Break Romance) by Deborah Grace Staley

Dedication
    For Ethan Staley
    Thanks for the roses on Mother’s Day and for being a phenomenal son!
    Aphrodite’s Garden
    “What do you mean there are no roses?”
    Aimee Rose looked at her teenage son and said, “There’ll be no roses for the town’s Rose Day Celebration, or for June weddings and anniversaries, or probably even for the rest of the year.” She placed another red carnation in the arrangement she was working on, alternating white and pink. Exhaustion pulled at her like a weight pressing down on her shoulders. “People will just have to use other types of flowers this year for their special occasions.”
    “But nothing says ‘I love you’ like a dozen roses. That’s what you always say. Heck, it’s your motto, Mom. No one does roses like you.”
    “It can’t be helped, Ethan. A blight has taken out the entire rose crop from all the suppliers in the southeast. Growers are afraid the bushes and vines are a total loss. That they’ll have to replant.”
    “But–”
    “You’re going to be late for basketball practice, honey.”
    “But–”
    Aimee reached out and touched her son’s shoulder. The concern etching his features made her eyes sting, but she refused to cry. She couldn’t afford to, not now. She had to focus every ounce of creative energy she possessed toward creating the most spectacular arrangements she could for the anniversary orders she had without using roses. Problem was, for the past ten years, she’d done no arrangements without them. They were her signature.
    Every single arrangement contained at least one rose. “It’ll be all right. Now, off with you. I’ll meet you at home for supper.” Ethan leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Okay, Mom.
    Love you.”
    “I love you, too, honey. Be safe.”
    The tinkling, heart-shaped bells on her front door jingled as her son left. Aimee turned back to the arrangement she’d been struggling to create. It smelled sickeningly sweet to her. How she missed the unique, spicy scent of her roses. No matter what she added to the arrangement, it fell flat. Nothing could lend the elegance or romance of a rose to a floral arrangement.
    She sat back on her stool and rested her chin in her hand.
    Three days before the Garden Club’s annual Rose Day Celebration.
    They’d been holding the event every year in Perry, Georgia for as long as Aimee could remember, but this year was special. Congress had declared it the Year of the Rose, and June National Rose Month. The ladies had been working overtime to make this Rose Day extra special as a sort of kick-off to a month of events. They’d scheduled garden tours, teas, seminars, fashion shows, a beauty pageant . . . but now they were faced with the stark reality that there would be no roses this June.
    It was normally one of the busiest times of the year for Aimee. Rose day aside, she would be planning for weddings and making arrangements for all the anniversaries that those weddings created. But the phone hadn’t rung more than twice today. Without the income she received in June, she didn’t know how she’d make ends meet. She couldn’t even think about what might happen if there were no more roses for the rest of the year. And with Ethan starting college in the fall . . . well, she knew her son’s father would be as financially unavailable as he’d been absent since the divorce.
    The bells tinkled again, signaling that she had a customer.
    Her first of the day. Aimee looked up to see a voluptuous woman with a Marilyn Monroe walk enter her shop. She wore a form-fitting white suit and red stiletto pumps. Her long, thick blond hair hung in waves nearly to her waist beneath the wide brim of a red straw hat. Her red leather purse . . . heart-shaped.
    Aimee belatedly snapped her mouth shut and stood. She met the woman at the counter and said, “Hi. How may I help you?” The woman plopped her purse onto the counter and removed her hat. “Oh, honey, you’ve done more than enough to help me.