At that, Nan grabbed Doreen’s hand. “Sweetheart, you can come with flowers, or without, as long as you come,” she said, “because the joy of having you close is knowing that you care enough to come at all.”

  Doreen smiled, leaned over, and kissed Nan on the cheek. “That won’t change,” she said. “It’s just that I wanted to bring you something special. And I don’t cook well, and I don’t have money to buy you gifts, so I was walking outside in the backyard, and I saw the dahlias and thought of you.”

  “I’m delighted that you did. And, even more than that,” she said, “I’m delighted that you sold them. I know how much you need the money, and this could be the perfect way for you to make a little bit of extra cash to tide you over until you get paid for the antiques. I had no idea all that Christie’s would do before having an auction.”

  “Me neither.” Doreen nodded. “I was wondering if selling flowers could be a business opportunity for me.”

  Nan’s face lit up. “Oh my,” she said, “you could do custom floral arrangements.”

  “I don’t have any talent for that.” Doreen frowned.

  “I don’t know about that,” Nan replied. “You used to do them when you were with your ex, didn’t you?”

  At that, Doreen nodded. “Sure, I put them together in the kitchen all the time.”

  “Exactly,” Nan said, “so I wouldn’t worry about whether you have a talent for it or not. Obviously you do, if whatever you created today was pretty enough that a perfect stranger stopped you, wanting to buy it.”

  “Well, that’s true,” she said, “but maybe she was just desperate.”

  Nan chuckled. “There you go again, knocking yourself down because you think nobody could possibly ever want what you have.”

  “You have to admit it’s an odd thing, bringing flowers for you and selling them to a stranger. I tried to just give them to her. Selling them made me feel like I was, I don’t know, greedy.”

  “I couldn’t care less,” Nan said, “but I love flowers. So can you bring me more next time?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Will you sell the next bundle?”

  “I don’t know, but I hope so.” And she stared at Nan in delight.

  Nan chuckled at the joke. “You have to consider every possibility in your situation, and what you have created right now could be a whole new doorway. Now it’s up to you if you want to go through it or not.”

  Chapter 17

  Monday Evening into Tuesday Morning

  Nan’s words resonated deep in Doreen’s brain as she returned home again, and the words kept resonating through to the next morning, when she woke up, wondering … she got dressed and took a look at her garden, determined to take something to Nan today. Something to make up for the flowers that she had sold yesterday. She couldn’t believe how guilty she felt; yet she firmly believed that Nan was happy with Doreen’s decision to take the money.

  And, even now, she gazed at the extra $50 in the cash bowl with absolute delight. If she could find a steady way to do that, it would be a whole different story for her because then she truly would make a little bit more. Even if she could sell one bouquet a week, it would supplement the $40 she made on gardening. And that was barely enough to keep her in tea and coffee. But, hey, she was doing something to pay her bills.

  Outside, with a cup of tea in one hand and her garden scissors in the other, she wandered the garden, looking at what she had to make up future bouquets. She had quite a few different plants and flowers coming along, from green to ready to start opening soon. Dwarf sunflowers, more dahlias, a little bit of everything—even a very late tulip. She wandered over and stared at it. “What are you doing still trying to bloom?” she asked. “Your time has generally come and gone.” The tulip didn’t seem to care, but it valiantly struggled.

  “So should we immortalize you?” she muttered. “Should we take you to Nan, so that she can enjoy you for a little bit?”

  It was just starting to open, so a perfect time to pick it for a fresh bouquet. She cut the tulip, then wandered around her garden and picked several dahlias. She even had painted dahlias, which had bright pink petals. She also had some crazy daisies that always made her laugh because they grew in every direction but the normal one. She could use them to wrap around the base of the lone tulip and the pink dahlias.

  All in all, by the time she had a little bouquet picked, she found some green tissue paper and a ribbon, bundled up the bottom of the stems, trimmed them up nicely, and put the ribbon around it. With that, she called the animals to her. “Let’s go, guys.” They raced to her, and she headed to Nan’s again. As she walked across the grass toward Nan’s apartment, Doreen heard a commotion. She called out, “Nan, are you there? Is everything okay?”

  But, with all the yelling going on, nobody appeared to hear. Doreen walked through Nan’s apartment from the patio and opened the front door to the hallway, leading to one of the common rooms. There, she found Richie and a few other people, including Nan, having a heated argument over something. Mugs woofed at the unusual noise. Goliath retreated slightly. Doreen stopped and stared. “Nan, are you okay?” she asked, moving to her grandmother’s side.

  Nan threw on a big smile. Then she saw the flowers, and her expression softened. “Oh my,” she said. “Those are lovely.”

  In fact, the conversation died completely. One of the other women looked at the bouquet. “Oh my goodness,” she said. “Where did you get that from?”

  Doreen shrugged a little self-consciously. “I picked them from my garden and brought them for Nan.”

  And, just like that, the whole heated conversation, whatever it had been about, had completely switched over to talk of Doreen’s garden and the flowers.

  “They are really beautiful,” the woman said.

  “Right,” Nan said. “Doreen wondered if she could go into business selling these bouquets, and I told her that she was doing a beautiful job with them.”

  “Well,” Doreen said, “it doesn’t seem quite right.”

  At that, Ritchie looked at her in surprise. “What’s this?” he asked. “You’ll start a business as a florist?”

  “No, no, no,” she said immediately instinctively stepping back slightly, forcing Mugs to shift around her legs. “It just crossed my mind that I might make a little bit of money selling some bouquets. But, hey, it’s just an off-the-cuff idea.”

  “But it’s a good one,” one of the other Rosemoor ladies said. “All you really need is a website, listing what you have fresh for the day.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “but can you imagine if somebody doesn’t come and pick them up? I mean, I’d be pretty upset at the waste.”

  “You could find somebody else to sell them, or,” one of the women said, “go to some of the local markets and sell them. Or, even better, go to some of the smaller grocery stores, the ones that buy all local and sell them daily. At the end of the day, whatever hasn’t sold, you could pick up.”

  “Or the next day—or the day after that,” Doreen said. “When they’re fresh like this, they’ll last for several days.”

  “There you go.”

  And, just like that, as if there hadn’t been yelling of any kind, everybody added their thoughts and ideas to the plan of setting Doreen up with a business.

  She stopped and stared. “Of course I do have to remember that it would be a secondary business.”

  Several of them stopped, looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Obviously I’ll still work on my cold cases,” she said.

  Big fat grins circled around the large common room immediately.

  “Of course you do,” one of them said. “Do you have a new case right now?”

  She nodded. “Maybe, it depends on a local death.”

  “Oh, Gloria,” said one of the women. “We’re all just heartbroken.”

  “Yet really,” Doreen said in a gentle tone, “it was her time, wasn’t it?”

  “You could say that for all of us.” Richie laughed. “It’s all of our times. Most of us here are pretty pragmatic about it,” he said. “We face the possibility on a daily basis.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “but Gloria had also lived a good long life and hopefully enjoyed a lot of it.”

  Richie nodded. “She did, until her son died anyway.”

  “Right,” Doreen said, “and that is one cold case I was wondering about.”

  Immediately they stopped, stared at her, and everybody agreed. Richie added, “That would be a lovely thing to do to honor Gloria.”

  “I’m sure she would have preferred to have the answers before she died,” Doreen corrected him.

  “But we can’t always get what we want,” Richie said gently. “But what we do want is not to be forgotten.”

  “Knowing that you would still look into her son’s case, even though she’s gone, would be sure to make her smile.”

  Doreen wasn’t altogether certain that she was up for doing something just because an older lady had died a natural death. In Doreen’s mind, it was more because of the niece still living, who might want answers. She turned to Nan. “Shall I put these in a vase for you, Nan?”

  “Or,” one of the other women in the room interrupted, “you could sell them to me. I’m heading to Gloria’s right now.”

  For the second time in a row, Doreen found her flowers sold to somebody who was not the intended recipient. She turned to look at Nan with an open mouth. Yet Nan took the flowers from her hands and passed them to the other woman. At that point, Doreen didn’t know what to say.

  Nan just shook her head, a twinkle in her eye. “This is so much fun,” she said. “I am absolutely loving it.”

  “Maybe you are,” Doreen replied, “but I put a lot of time and attention in making that for you.”

  “And I thoroughly appreciate it.” Nan gave her a beaming smile. “And now Gloria’s niece will appreciate it too.”

  There wasn’t a whole lot Doreen could say to that. And the bouquet was more or less Nan’s to do with as she wanted, but, when the woman returned almost immediately with $60 and handed it off to Nan, who immediately turned and gave it to Doreen, she stared down at the money in shock, then groaned in wonder.

  “It’s beautiful,” the other woman said to Doreen. “Thank you so much.” The woman leaned over, kissed Nan on the cheek, and, with the flowers firmly in hand, she quickly disappeared.

  Chapter 18

  “Most of us have known Gloria all of our lives. … At least those who have been here that long,” Richie noted, “and we’re all sad to see her go.”

  “And yet,” Doreen said ever-so-gently, “as you said, it’s a natural progression, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “It is. And I know my day will come.” He paused. “Sometimes I even wish it would come faster.” With that, he turned and slowly shuffled out of the common area, where everybody else stood around.

  Doreen watched as he headed to his room, before turning to Nan. “Tough day here for everyone, isn’t it?”

  “For everyone,” Nan said, trying to sniffle back tears as she bent down to cuddle Mugs. “Your arrival was a godsend.”

  “It sounded more like I was needed as a referee,” she said, with half a smile.

  “You could be right about that. But we get over this stuff.”

  “You do fight a lot here.”

  “Sometimes,” Nan said. “When you get to be our age, it’s too much effort to fight for very long. So we go at it, and then, all of a sudden, it’s over because nobody can continue. Most can’t even remember what started the fight in the first place.”

  Doreen smiled and nodded. “Still, it would be nice if you didn’t do any fighting.”

  “But that’s not reality,” Nan said comfortably. “Come on. Let’s head back to my room.”

  “I wondered if anybody here knew the old guy who had the orchid like Gloria’s on display. He apparently was an old friend but now may be more like a ‘frenemy’ of Gloria’s.”

  Nan turned to her. “Are you talking about Stranden?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He lives on Abbott Street, but he had an absolutely stunning orchid, when we went to see him for the flower show.”

  One of the other women involved in all the discussions and the ongoing fights stopped by them. “Yes, that’ll be Stranden. He and Gloria were an item for a very long time. The son broke them up.”

  “Ah, I did get the impression that Stranden wasn’t very happy about the son,” Doreen said.

  The woman shook her head. “It was more like the son wasn’t happy about him. I think the son thought Stranden was after Gloria’s money or something.”

  Nan nodded in understanding. “Christina’s right.”

  “The trouble is,” Christina explained, “when we get to be our age, we don’t really care anymore. We just don’t want to be alone, and we are happy to take any friends we can get.”

  “Still, you don’t want to lose your life savings or be unsafe with your friends,” Doreen said.

  “There wasn’t anything harmful about Stranden,” Christina added. “He’s a bit of a character, and, once they broke up, nobody else was in his world. He was smitten in a big way.”

  “He seemed to be quite struck with her, when we talked to him Saturday night.”

  “Oh, he was,” she murmured.

  “And yet the son has been gone for a long time.”

  “Yes,” Christina continued, “but Lionel did a good job convincing her that Stranden was no good in the meantime, and Gloria wouldn’t have anything to do with him afterward.”

  “Was that justified, do you think?” Doreen asked the woman.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Christina said. “I’ve known Stranden a long time too. He’s a bit rough around the edges, but he came from the heart with her.”

  “That’s always a good thing,” Doreen said quietly. “The world would be a better place if more people did that.”

  The older woman chuckled. “Oh, so very true,” she said. “Yet it doesn’t happen all that often.”

  When they reached the front door to Nan’s apartment, Christina remained with them. Nan looked at Doreen and said, “You know what? If you solved the case of the son’s murder, it might put Stranden to rest too.”

  “How is that?”

  “Because everybody suspected he did it, which is why Gloria wouldn’t have anything to do with him,” Nan explained.

  “Oh, wow.” That’s not what Doreen expected to hear. Yet she should have. “I’m sorry for Stranden then. Living under a cloud of suspicion isn’t easy.”

  “You can never really clear your name when that seed of doubt is planted,” Nan explained, “in the absence of another suspect. No, Stranden never had a chance, and Gloria wouldn’t talk to him about it ever after.”

  Almost immediately Doreen felt sorry for Stranden because that had to be rough. “I’ll see,” she said, “but no promises.”

  “Ah,” Christina said, “when you get to be our age, promises don’t mean much either.”

  “That’s not true.” Nan looked at her in horror. “Promises are even more important.”

  “Sure, but old people get promises all the time from people who never intend to keep them,” the other woman said, with a shrug. “They do it just so that you get off their back or so you stay quiet or so they feel good for the moment. But as soon as they’re gone, they forget about you and anything else they may have said to you.”

  And, with that, she turned and headed down a different hallway, probably toward her own room. Doreen looked at Nan. “It sounds like she’s not had an easy time of it either.”

  “Many of us here have been through a lot of family wars,” she said quietly. “And sometimes the results are much less than joyful.”

  As they entered Nan’s small suite, Mugs raced to the middle of the room and started to roll. Goliath jumped on the small table and stared at them both with disdain. Thaddeus, not to be outdone hopped up beside him and started strutting. “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.

  Watching the animals relax, Doreen asked Nan, “Did you know Stranden very well?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I knew him before he hooked up with Gloria, though.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Was that an issue for you?”

  Nan looked at her sideways, a light of laughter in her gaze, and she shook her head. “Absolutely not,” she said. “As far as I was concerned, life was too short for just one man, and, once he met Gloria, he was a one-woman man anyway. That rendered him completely useless for me.”

  Doreen chuckled. “I think you want me to believe that you had a wild and woolly life,” she said, “but I’m not sure it was all that risqué.”

  “You’ll never know for sure,” Nan said with a smirk, “but no point in living unless you’ll make good of it. It’s one of the reasons I was so worried about you, when you were with that ex of yours. You weren’t living. You were merely existing.”

  Anxious to get off that topic, Doreen said, “Nan, did you ever hear any rumors about Stranden killing Gloria’s son?”

  “For a while that’s all there was for rumors,” she said, “until the next thing happened, and people had something else to talk about. You’ve got to remember that—whether in a small town, like Kelowna, or in a place, like Rosemoor—there isn’t much to do but gossip. Well, outside of having sex of course.”

  Doreen winced at that. The last thing she wanted to think about was Nan having sex.

  Nan started to laugh. “Oh, my dear, if you could only see the look on your face right now.”

  “It’s a little hard to think about my grandmother having sex.”

  “So, don’t think about it.” Nan gave an airy wave of her hand. “But I have no intention of being lonely anymore.”

  “And that’s fair enough,” she said, with a brilliant smile. “Just be safe about it.”

  “Of course. And you too.” She wagged her finger at her. “I know Mack will take good care of you either way but—”