Free Chapter Friday: Marigolds and Mayhem

Susan spreads the sketches across the counter and Presley is certain this year's festival will be the best one yet. Pumpkins and scarecrows worked into the forest theme. Just do not tell her mother whose idea it was.

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Marigolds and Mayhem is Petal Pushers book 3. Read it free in Kindle Unlimited.

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Here is the whole first chapter. If it grabs you, the link to keep going is right below it.

Chapter one

"Susan, I think this festival is going to be the best one yet," I said, looking down at the sketches of the proposed flower arrangements that Susan had placed in front of me.

"Don't tell your mom, Presley, but I agree. Your idea of incorporating pumpkins and scarecrows into our forest theme was genius."

"Don't tell my mom that either," I said with a laugh. "When she was trying so hard not to suggest what I should do for the Fall Harvest Festival, she did tell me I needed to stick with the purity of flowers and let the flowers tell the story. She might think this plan strays too much from that idea."

My mom had been traveling the world and enjoying retirement with my father after Cooper and I got married. In a surprising turn of events last year, she gifted me her flower shop as a wedding present, but it was hard for her to stay completely hands-off. It was going to be interesting when she finally came back to town. She claimed she wouldn't interfere, but I knew my mother, and I wasn't sure that would be possible.

"Your secret's safe with me. I'll be honest, Presley, I wasn't so sure what working with you would be like when you took over for your mother. She is the most creative person I know when it comes to flower arranging, but you bring just a slightly different element, which might win us first place again this year."

Susan Meriwether was my mom's age and a kindergarten teacher in town. She was as obsessed with flowers as my mother, if not more, and that was saying something. Each year, the town of Hunter's Hollow held the Fall Harvest Festival, and part of the festival was the flower arrangement contest. This was an event my mom and Susan had won for the last ten years, so to say there was a little bit of pressure on me this year was an understatement.

"I appreciate you saying that, Susan. I have big shoes to fill, and I don't want to be the reason we lose."

"I have no doubt we will be champions yet again. No one, not even Mabel Winters, will beat us."

For a kindergarten teacher, Susan was quite feisty. I remembered having her as a teacher, and I liked her back then, but I knew she and my mom had some big arguments about how things should go in previous years. My mom had always told me that Susan could be a little bit opinionated. I had experienced a bit of that while we were preparing our designs for the contest, but I certainly hadn't let it get to me since she knew a lot more than I did and deserved to have her opinion heard.

"Has Mabel come in second to you for the last several years?"

"Yep. And let me tell you, that woman is a sore loser. But she is just going to have to get used to it again." Susan cackled.

Susan also had quite a competitive streak. She had been talking more about winning in the last few weeks than about the flowers. This was a bit different from how my mom operated. She just had supreme confidence in her creativity and flower arranging abilities, so she didn't talk about winning. She used to tell me and my brother Jesse the same thing when we were kids. Do your best, and as long as you've done your best, that's winning. Although, considering she'd won the last ten years, I was pretty sure she would consider not winning as not doing my best.

"Although, we and Mabel better bring our A-game. I heard that Josie MacArthur is entering this year."

Susan said this as if I should know who Josie MacArthur was, but I had no clue. She must have noticed the confused look on my face because she continued speaking.

"Josie MacArthur owns Purple Posies."

That still didn't ring a bell. Maybe I should actually start reading the Midwest Flowers magazine that came to Petal Pushers. "Who exactly is Josie MacArthur?"

"She is a florist who owns one of the premier flower shops in the Midwest. She works primarily with brides, and her bridal bouquets are award winning. She's really good at what she does. Trust me, if your mom were here, she'd be nervous."

That didn't really put my mind at ease. "Then shouldn't we be nervous?"

"I'm confident in what we're putting together. It won't be easy, but we've got this."

I was glad she was confident, but if this Josie was as good as Susan was implying, winning this thing wasn't going to be easy. The last thing I wanted to do was let my mom down, so I had to trust Susan assessment that what we were entering was going to blow everyone away.

"Is that everything you wanted to go over today?" I asked.

I had taken the morning off so Susan and I could look at our space at the event venue and finalize designs so I would know what flowers to order. However, it was Saturday, which was a busy day at Petal Pushers, and I didn't want to leave Wendy and Cynthia alone all day.

"That's it with the designs. Let's go check the coolers. Last year, the temperature in the one we were assigned wasn't accurate, and we almost had a wilting problem."

I almost wanted to laugh at how serious she looked when she mentioned the wilting problem. I knew it had been a big deal. My mom talked about it for weeks afterward. While I was getting better at flower arrangements and recognizing flowers, I wasn't exactly fanatical about them. Not like Susan. Even my mom wasn't as emotionally invested in the Fall Harvest Festival as Susan was.

My mom had warned me that Susan could be a little intense, and she had been right. I followed her to the area of the event venue that was labeled "Employees Only," and when she went through the door, I did too, assuming she knew where she was going. The back room was just a big open area that was a bit messy, actually. The Fall Harvest Festival was being held just a little ways out of town at Adams Creek Farm, which had an apple orchard and a pumpkin field. The Adams Creek Farm was where everyone in the county went in the fall for apple cider, cinnamon donuts, hayrides, and the corn maze. The festival being held in two weeks was essentially a big party for the community. People came to compete with flowers, like we were doing, but there was so much more. There was an applesauce contest, the biggest pumpkin contest, and a straw weaving contest.

On the property was a big barn, which was the event center for the farm and had activities all year round, not just the Fall Harvest Festival, in which everyone was assigned a table area to display their things. It seemed like in the back room, there were remnants of the last ten years of events and there was no rhyme nor reason to all that was strewn around.

I followed Susan to where three big walk-in coolers were lined up to the right side of the wall. She looked at the side of each of them, checked the temperature and then opened each door, stepping inside and almost closing it before going to the next one. It was quite an interesting ritual to observe, and I wondered if she could magically check the temperature with her body, or what she was gaining by actually stepping inside the cooler.

"This is probably something you shouldn't do alone. You wouldn't want to get stuck inside the cooler," I joked.

"They have safety latches," she said, matter of fact. "These all seem to be at the right temperature. Now if everyone makes sure to close the door behind them when they put their flowers in, it should be fine."

Her face was completely serious. Clearly, there was no joking around with Susan.

"Well, if you think the coolers' temperature is fine, then I think I'll head out now."

"Of course, of course. I'm going to stick around here and talk to Scott. See if he will make sure we don't share a cooler with any newbies. They're the ones more inclined to not make sure the cooler doors are firmly closed."

Scott Lamont was the manager of the farm, and if that's what she wanted to do, far be it for me to stop her. "I will make sure to order the flowers on Monday morning for delivery next Tuesday. That gives us Wednesday and Thursday to get things put together and get them over here for the start of the festival on Friday."

"Sounds good to me."

Want to keep reading?

Marigolds and Mayhem is Petal Pushers book 3. Get your copy here — free to read in Kindle Unlimited, or listen to the audiobook.  

New to Petal Pushers?

Petal Pushers is a fourteen-book cozy mystery series set in Hunter's Hollow, where Presley runs her mum's flower shop and keeps finding bodies instead of customers. They stand alone, but if you like starting at the beginning, Secrets and Snapdragons is book one. See all my cozy mysteries here.

Already know Presley? The Presley Thurman mysteries come first — eighteen books that run from her very first case through to her wedding. Petal Pushers picks up after she and Cooper move back to Hunter's Hollow for good.

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Autumn festival or spring festival? And what is the one stall you always go to first?