Page 17 of A Dream for Daphne

Her jaw dropped and she slapped her brother’s arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you were proposing? When did this happen? Oh my God!” she squealed and reached for Raine to give her a hug, not caring that the wine was between them.

Raine was laughing and set the two glasses down and embraced her again.

“It happened yesterday,” Raine said. “We had a little picnic out here and your brother asked me to marry him.”

“I love the teardrop,” she said. “What’s around the band?”

Raine slid the ring off her finger and handed it to Daphne to look at. “It’s a raindrop,” Aster said. “Flowers need rain. I told her I needed her. There are daisies on the band.”

Aster was a flower in the daisy family. Her name was a flower too.

She found it funny since her mother had never been a whimsical person to have named them that way.

When her father joked that her parents were high one night and those names popped into their heads and they decided to stick with it if they had kids, it’d made more sense to her.

“It’s stunning,” she said. “I’m sure Rose made it.”

Rose Bloom-Klein was a jeweler and oversaw that part of Blossoms. It seemed like everyone got some kind of a flower-inspired ring when they got engaged.

She found it such a sweet bonding connection between everyone that the Bloom sisters touched in their lives.

“She did,” Aster said. “I wanted it to be perfect. It was hard keeping it from Ivy.”

She was getting all the names and relationships in place now. Ivy Greene-Scarsdale worked for the sisters and was Raine Scarsdale’s sister-in-law.

“But you did,” she said. “I’m sure everyone in your family is thrilled, Raine. They’d be nuts not to love Aster.”

“They do love him,” Raine said. “Almost as much as I do And of course, I’d love you to be in the wedding and help plan it.”

“Seriously?” she asked. She’d never been in a wedding before. Never planned one either.

“Yes,” she said. “We are pretty much keeping it to family and not big. I don’t have a large family and I know you don’t. River’s wife, Emma, is going to be my matron-of-honor, Ivy and you bridesmaids.”

River was Raine’s brother, along with Brooks who was married to Ivy.

“I trust you not to say anything,” Aster said. “But I’m asking Zane to be the best man when I see him next, then Raine’s brothers. Keeping it simple.”

“Simple is best,” she said. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”

“I will at some point,” he said. “Maybe this week I’ll send them a text.”

She laughed over that. Her parents only called Aster if they wanted something, but he’d never shut them out of his life.

She couldn’t either, but she minimized the exposure as best as she could.

Being so far away made it much easier.

“I don’t want a long engagement,” Raine said. “I want a baby. Ivy is trying too.”

“I want you to have a baby. I want a niece or nephew to spoil.”

“Fingers crossed we can get you one. We met in the fall, and I’d like to have a late fall wedding. I’m going to call Mona tomorrow and find out the dates she has open and we’ll pick one of them. I’m not even fussy about it.”

Daphne knew a lot of people got married at Wright Marina. Mona Wright owned the restaurant. Wesley Wright the marina and was married to Ivy’s sister Jasmine, who ran the greenhouses for Blossoms.

That crazy small world of connections again.

“You tell me what you need from me and I’ll do anything. I don’t care. Put me to work.”

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