Page 11 of Flowers Go Flying in Crumbleton

Murray bit his tongue to stop himself from letting out a snort of surprised laughter. That had to go down as one of the least romantic sentences ever to be uttered by a newlywed - in the history of forever.

The bride turned to him with narrowed eyes, and he flinched.

‘We’ve got five minutes to throw these!’ she hissed, thrusting her massive bouquet under his nose. ‘Get everyone out there pronto. As soon as that’s done, I need them all in their seats and ready to eat in under ten minutes. GO! GO! GO!’

Murray sprang away from her and shot Philip a look of pure pity – only to find him gazing at his bride in total adoration. The man was either mad… or drugged? Either way, he was going to get out of there before Bridezilla could say anything else.

He started to usher a couple of befuddled-looking guests towards the back of the hotel. If he was lucky, maybe he’d bump into Milly out there. He’d love to say hello before the meal kicked off. If his mounting nerves were anything to go by, there was a good chance he might make a bit of a prat out of himself - and he’d prefer to get it over and done with outside, where people were less likely to overhear him placing his foot firmly in his mouth.

Murray had nearly caused chaos during the ceremony as it was. Just as he’d reached out to hand over Philip’s wedding band for the “with this ring, I thee wed” part of proceedings, he’d caught sight of Milly in the crowd. He’d promptly fumbled with the ring on its ridiculously slippery satin pillow - and disaster had only been averted when the celebrant had miraculously caught the glinting golden band in mid-flight.

After narrowly avoiding the embarrassing prospect of asking the entire congregation to get down on their hands and knees to search for a missing wedding ring, Murray had kept his back turned on them for the rest of the ceremony. He couldn’t afford to risk catching sight of Milly’s smile again. Heavens only knew what he’d do next!

As he stepped through the doors into the busy carpark, Murray took a deep breath of fresh air. Good. There were enough people out there already that he clearly wasn’t needed for a few seconds. He’d find a convenient spot to gather his wits - maybe somewhere over near the horse and carriage.

Murray skirted around the edge of the gathering crowd, making his way towards the shady patch where the horse stood with its eyes half-closed, ignoring the goings on around it with an air of admirable boredom.

Murray came to a halt just beyond a cluster of eager-looking women who were busy rolling up their sleeves – making sure their elbows were at the ready. He scanned their faces, searching for one in particular. Milly wasn’t amongst them… but then, considering she’d made the bouquet, he couldn’t imagine she’d want to take it home with her at the end of the day.

Where was she, though…?

Maybe it would be a better idea to focus on the task at hand, rather than ramping his nerves up even further. It wasn’t too long before he’d have to make his speech – and he’d been ordered to keep it under three minutes! He’d managed to cut it down to just two jokes, and a toast to the happy couple. If only he could remember the punchline to the second joke, he should be fine.

The problem was… it kept slipping his mind! It had something to do with a penguin… and a dragon? Or was it an armadillo…?

Damnit, he was going to have to check his notes again!

Murray fumbled in his pocket, and his fingers had just found the soft edges of his dog-eared speech when the gentle mutterings around him rose in volume.

Glancing up, he spotted Elizabeth yanking impatiently at the skirts of her big, white dress so that she could take up her position with her back to the group of waiting women – who were now screeching with excitement.

Murray watched as she raised the huge bunch of flowers in the air… and they started to fly. Distracted by the cheers from the rest of the crowd, his eyes swept over them, searching for Milly once again.

Suddenly, the sun went in and he shivered. Typical timing for it to cloud over! He glanced up at the sky in irritation - only to spot something huge heading straight for him.

That certainly wasn’t a cloud.

It was a bunch of bright sunflowers, roses and gerberas – large enough to obscure the sun.

Murray didn’t even think about ducking – there simply wasn’t time. He had just started to wonder exactly how much this was going to hurt… when everything went black.

CHAPTER 5

MILLY

Milly quickly decided it was probably best if she just stayed out of the way. She’d taken a first aid course at school… but she couldn’t remember much about it other than lots of giggling when it came to doing mouth-to-mouth on the CPR dummy. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine she’d be much help right now.

Besides… she was a florist, not a doctor.

A florist who was currently feeling ridiculously guilty about the poor bloke who’d just received a faceful of Milly’s Flowers’ finest.

There was a tight knot of guests crowded around the spot where the drama had taken place – though Milly had a feeling they weren’t doing much to help the casualty either. In fact, the majority of them had their mobile phones raised in the air, intent on capturing everything.

Whatever everything was! Milly shuddered. She wasn’t really sure she wanted to know.

From the half-horrified, half-delighted murmurs that kept drifting her way, it sounded like there was a lot of blood involved… and several missing teeth. Milly had her fingers crossed that this was just a really bad case of Chinese Whispers. Yes – it was a big bouquet, and yes – it was very heavy, but surely it couldn’t have caused any serious damage… could it? Even if the bouquet had fallen on him from a pretty impressive height - blood and missing teeth seemed to be a bit far-fetched.

At least… she was busy praying that was the case!

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