It All Started With You: A heartbreaking, uplifting read from Debbie Howells

By Debbie Howells

A totally brilliant, escapist and uplifting read that will break your heart and put it back together again, perfect for fans of Cathy Kelly, Jill Mansell and Debbie Macomber.

I always thought I was going to be a girl who did something. I was going to run my own business and find fame and fortune! Fall in love…

But here I am. Still waiting for it all to happen, sitting on the floor, surrounded by lilies and roses, trying to do my best friend’s wedding flowers because – in her words – ‘how hard can it be, Frankie?’. The answer is actually ‘very hard’ but it’s not the only thing that’s tough right now. My boyfriend won’t commit, I barely have a job, and once again I have the hangover from hell…

What I don’t know is that life’s about to throw me a curveball. A new friend I will make with a beautiful, sad-eyed little boy who is so very tragically ill. I still don’t know about that heartbreak.

Even so, in this moment, I know that it’s time for some changes. Maybe it’s time to make my dreams come true? To try to become a marathon-running, healthy-living, wildly-in-love florist-to-the-stars!

Because I’m beginning to realise that you only get one chance at life. I don’t yet know how you change everything, all at once, but what I do know is it all starts with me…

Previously published as Wildflowers by Debbie Howells.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boldwood Books
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781805492252

Debbie Howells

Debbie Howells is a Sunday Times bestseller, who is now fulfilling her dream of writing women’s fiction with Boldwood. She has perviously worked as cabin crew, a flying instructor, and a wedding florist! Now living in the countryside with her partner and Bean the rescued cat, Debbie spends her time writing.

Book preview

1

It began with a bossy friend and a small word. Two letters. Rhymes with Joe, but no matter what’s in my head, what comes out is always ‘yes’. And in the case of the well-meaning, about-to-be-married friend whose florist let her down at the last minute, it didn’t matter I’d never put together a bouquet, let alone worked as a florist. My fate was sealed.

Honey has a lot to answer for, but as I soon discovered, there’s something seductive about flowers. Not just the luscious scents and vibrant colours, but it’s the symbolism. The hidden sentiment; the love, passion and beseeching, artistically arranged and gift wrapped in crunchy brown paper. The ultimate gesture of romance – but so much more.

I’d always loved flowers. But. Put simply, being a wedding florist was an accident. It just happened – but then that’s the story of my life.

‘It can’t be that hard,’ Honey begged me. Actually begged rather than ordered, which wasn’t Honey-like at all, but desperate times called for desperate measures, plus she’d morphed into a hideous bridezilla by then. It’s to be expected, I’ve learned since – only some are worse than others and Honey never does things by halves.

‘Fricking woman’s let me down. You’re creative aren’t you? And it’s just plonking a bunch of flowers in a vase… Please, Frankie, pleeease… I’ll pay you…’ She mentioned a sum that would keep my bank manager off my back a little longer. ‘Otherwise it’ll be the most miserable wedding ever…’

Not for nothing is Honey a successful lawyer, though put on the spot, I always forget this. She had me cornered and she knew it. I thought about it – but not for long. Only the hardest-hearted person could bear their best friend’s big day to be anything less than perfect, and if I’m honest, a tiny, insecure part of me liked the idea that just for once, I could do something she couldn’t. Before I knew it I’d muttered those immortal words.

‘I suppose…’ At which point she’d whooped triumphantly and flung her arms round me, leaving me spluttering in a cloud of Chanel.

If only I’d stopped to think, even fleetingly, that this was a wedding. Worse, it was Honey’s wedding, and no matter how hard I wanted to trivialise it, I wouldn’t be able to, because make no mistake… it mattered.

Try taking your worst nightmare and multiplying it a hundredfold, because as I’ve learned since, with weddings, there are no second chances. No saying it’s okay, we’ll sort it out tomorrow. Everything has to be perfect – on the day.

This wedding brought out the very worst in my friend, because as well as manipulative, she’s a control freak. Finding the right flowers in precisely the right colours and degree of openness kept me awake at night. Imagine – sleepless nights over bunches of flowers. It’s about as insane as the bride who measures the diameter of roses, and believe me, Honey did that, just as she insisted they match the bridesmaids’ dresses which were a washed-out grubby shade of lilac.

Antique, I was told, sternly, as I stared in horror at the fabric swatch she’d waved in front of me. Did flowers that colour even exist?

When I expressed my concerns, Honey was dismissive. ‘Look online. It can’t be difficult to find them.’

Whatever, I thought.

And it wasn’t just plonking things in vases, either. Oh, no… There were fifteen of them, to be all identically just so and exactly like the picture she gave me, with sticky out bits and twiddly things – this was Honey, after all. Not to mention the small matter of the church.

‘Just pretty it up a bit, Frankie, I’ll leave it to you… only can you make sure you do the windowsills and a big thingy by the altar and pew ends and confetti cones with real rose petals and…’

Pew ends, schmew ends. I didn’t know how to make them back then, so I tied bunches of flowers on with long trails of ribbon. It was pretty – but if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have sneaked lavender in there for constancy, and exquisite stars of stephanotis for a long and happy marriage. And hazel twigs of course, because no wedding’s complete without them.

But then, none of this mattered, because hazel twigs or not, it was a romantic, magical day as all weddings should be, with Honey dazzlingly adorned in Caroline Castigliano, her beloved Johnny on her arm and a scattering of tiny bridesmaids following behind. And as I eavesdropped shamelessly on the many admiring comments, I couldn’t help but feel a small, secret glow of pride that a tiny part of this was all mine.

As it turns out, Honey loved what I’d done, so much that when my latest job collapsed in tatters around me, fresh back from Honey-moon, she came to see me. Tanned and glowing after a fortnight in the Caribbean, bridezilla had gone and my old friend, the ball-busting lawyer, was back. ‘You can’t seriously have thought you’d spend the rest of your days being a waitress? I mean, really…’

Of course, I’d seriously thought no such thing. ‘I just needed money and took the first job that came along.’

She stared disbelievingly at me. ‘Frankie. We’ve known each other for years, haven’t we? In all that time, the longest you’ve stuck at any one thing is about, what, eight months?’

‘More like six,’ I told her miserably, feeling a pit of despair open up in front of me. At times, she really could be brutal.

‘It’s time for a change, don’t you think? Take something seriously, for once.’

Easy for her to say. I sighed. I knew what she was doing. Honey’s philosophy with everyone, friends included, is to break them down to build them up – sympathy doesn’t come into it. Naturally, I didn’t argue.

‘I get by. And it’s not like I don’t try,’ I objected, trying to justify myself. ‘Really I do. It’s just, well, you have to agree, I am quite unlucky…’

But as I topped up her glass of Pinot Grigio, even I knew how lame that sounded.

‘Thank you. Well, go on a course. Get a qualification. But get off your arse and do something, or you’ll be squatting in this flat of yours forever.’

That last bit needled me, because I love living here. Dexter’s Green is one of those picture-postcard villages, consisting of a handful of pretty old cottages which are home to an assortment of equally colourful residents, with the ubiquitous village pub and the most lethal cider for miles, and Demelza’s, handy for emergency supplies of chocolate and not much else.

My flat’s tucked away above the post office, with a front door off a quiet road and a personality all of its own. The ceilings are crooked and part of the floor creaks ominously, and if it rains overnight the roof leaks, but the views are to die for. And it’s cheap.

Suddenly Honey leaped up, looking delighted with herself. ‘Frankie! I’ve got it! Flowers! You did mine, didn’t you? Go back to college and learn to be a proper florist. I’ll write you a testimonial if you need one.’

As if my future could be decided as simply as that.

But Honey likes to channel her bossiness into worthy causes and as true friends always do, she had my best interests at heart. Over the years I’d resisted her attempts to interfere, but this time, I had to concede she had a point. I’d worked in coffee shops and care homes and garden centres, which meant I scraped by, but only just. Part of me craved more. Why shouldn’t I have a flashy car and expensive clothes, instead of simply admiring those everyone else had? I pictured my own neat little house, the mortgage paid each month on the button instead of muddling along struggling to pay my rent.

The long and short of it was, she got me thinking, because somewhere along the way, I’d missed that elusive something that all my friends had figured out. There was a future out there, I was sure of it, no less, no more than anyone else’s. And I’d wasted enough time, taking the path of least resistance while I waited for life to happen.

It was as a glimmer of an idea was taking seed that one gloriously sunny morning a few days later, I was walking around All Hallows, a town about five miles away, window shopping because it was the only kind of shopping I could afford. Then, as I turned up a cobbled side street, right at the end, I saw it. The most humble of florists, called Daisy Chain.

If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have probably carried on walking. You see, there are florists and there are florists… about as many worlds apart as McDonald’s and The Dorchester. However, this was then, and without a second thought, I went in.

Okay – so it wasn’t The Dorchester, but it was a proper old-fashioned florist shop and actually, it was sweet in there, with lots of traditional flowers like carnations and chrysanthemums and frothy white clouds of gypsophila. Of course, there were tasteless add-ons and plastic tat in abundance, but then a short, rotund figure popped up amongst the buckets, her salt and pepper hair stuck out at shoulder length. It was my first glimpse of Mrs Orange.

‘Can I help you, pet?’

‘I don’t know. I… I’m looking for a job. You see, I want to learn to be a florist.’ My earlier confidence seemed to wither up and die as her beady eyes scrutinised me.

‘Work experience, duck?’ she said, raising an eyebrow, which I took to be encouraging. At least it wasn’t a straight ‘no’.

‘Um, well, sort of,’ I said. ‘But I do need paying.’ Which was a bit cheeky, considering.

She made a strange sound – ttch, ttch – with one eye squinting at me and then I noticed the hands poking out of her shirtsleeves. They were shrivelled looking and dry. Old hands. It didn’t put me off.

‘You can have a trial, my lovely. One week. I ain’t payin’ you for it, mind. But if you turn out to be useful, we’ll see. Monday morning. Eight o’clock sharp.’

I was in no position to argue – anyway, as I saw it, this was my chance! I danced out of her shop and made for the library, where I picked up as many books as I could carry on flowers for the home, from round the world, tedious textbooks and gloriously photographed coffee table books – getting some funny looks from the librarian as I piled them onto the desk.

‘I’m training!’ I told her, needing to share it with someone before I burst with excitement. ‘My new career! I’m going to be a florist!’ Completely missing the nervous looks they exchanged as I staggered out carrying them all.

But as soon as I was home, I started reading.

As I flicked through page after colourful page, immersing myself in this glorious new world, I completely lost track of time. Forget floristry, this was art. The only the trouble was, the more I read the more I realised there were one or two little things I needed to learn along the way.

So, the very next day found me sitting at my kitchen table with a bunch of Tesco’s cheapest and a textbook. Cursing and swearing and stabbing my fingers, I learned to wire flower heads and invisibly thread leaves so they hold their shape, wondering if I’d ever be brave enough to demonstrate this to the mighty Mrs Orange.

I was beginning to think that perhaps I’d found my calling, or maybe it was sheer desperation at embarking, yet again, on something completely new, but this time I was fuelled with determination.

Those first days in the shop, in that rite of passage that belongs to all fledgling florists, I scrubbed endless numbers of buckets and swept thousands of petals off the floor. Mrs Orange watched me like a hawk and pulled me up on almost everything, but she must have seen a shred of something in me. At the end of the week, I waited with bated breath.

‘S’pose I’ll be seeing you on Monday, my lovely,’ was all she said.

I was tired, and more broke than I ever remembered being, but it was a magical, fairy-tale moment. All I could think was, I’d done it! Slightly disbelieving, as her words sank in, a wave of euphoria washed over me. At last I was on my way to a proper career!

And gradually, after months of slaving away making old-fashioned bouquets and sympathy flowers, my confidence grew. Enough to cockily suggest she should change the name of her shop to Orange Blossom and try to attract more weddings. I’d been daydreaming about how we could draw in the rich and famous from miles around, becoming the florist from whom everyone who was anyone bought their flowers.

But Mrs Orange had no such inclination.

‘Daisy Chain’s done me fine.’ Putting me firmly in my place, in her next breath, she knocked me sideways. ‘And I can’t be doing with any more of them brides. Trouble, the lot of them. Anyway, my lovely, what with me retiring next month, it ain’t worth it.’

At which point, I gasped in horror.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. Again. Just as I’d found my feet, the floor was being whipped away from under them, but I could hardly blame her. At seventy-three, she was looking forward to selling up and finishing with flowers for good.

‘I’ve done with them earlies, my lovely. And me poor hands…’

I could see her point and I had to agree about the hands – they were shocking. But it was a sad day when she closed. The end of an era – and the end of my dream. Her most loyal customers flocked in that evening to drink warm cava and wish her well, and for me, it was back to square one – or so I thought, as I slipped out of the shop for the last time.

But I’d reckoned without Honey’s interfering ways and as I wandered home dejectedly, wondering what on earth I was going to do next, my mobile rang in my pocket. She’d had another of her ideas, but this time, as it happened, a really good one.

2

Starting up on my own was something I hadn’t considered, but the following evening, when Honey took me to see the building she had in mind, I felt the faintest flutter of excitement. Just a few minutes’ walk from my flat, it was, well, scruffy. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of place tagged on the end of someone’s barn – but with weathered timbers and thick, whitewashed walls to keep the most delicate of flowers cool in summer. Honey stepped inside and turned up her nose at it, but then her idea of stylish was modern and minimal with granite worktops. To me, quite simply, it was perfect.

As I walked slowly around, touching the cool stone of the walls and feeling the breeze whisper in through the door, a picture stole into my head. Of every corner crammed with flowers, with colour, the air heady with their scents. Of wedding photos covering the walls. A big painted sign outside and me inside, creating sublime bouquets for a host of grateful, admiring clients…

But the picture faded just as quickly. How could I, Frankie Valentine, actually do this? I’d never organised anything in my life and even if I dared to think I could, there was one teensy little problem.

‘If I were brave enough,’ I told her, ‘which I’m not, it would be perfect, Honey. It really would. But there’s one teeny little problem.’

‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘I’ll cover the deposit.’

‘You can’t!’ I told her, horrified and excited at the same time.

‘Think of it as payback for my wedding flowers,’ Honey had said firmly. For all her bossiness, she’s also incredibly generous.

‘But you paid me!’

‘Not enough, and you got me out of a fix. Just bring me a bouquet every week.’

Suddenly, I really wanted this, far too much to let it pass me by.

It happened like lightning after that – Honey saw to it. She arranged the opening party too, complete with champagne and the local press in attendance, who printed a photo of me looking rather squiffy. But she made it clear too, that this is my shop. And she’s as good as her word – mostly she stays out of it, though every so often she can’t help herself.

‘You need to ditch the mad old bat,’ she told me, shortly after I opened. ‘Seriously, Frankie, she’ll put your customers off. It’s that stare…’

I knew what she meant. But Mrs Orange reserves her most evil glare for Honey, who’s too posh and outspoken for her liking.

‘But we agreed it’s my shop – and she did teach me everything I know,’ I said stubbornly. ‘Sorry – I want her to stay.’

So Mrs Orange continues to pop in and out when she feels like it and spies on my brides from across the road while she gossips to Mr Crowley in Demelza’s.

Every so often she imparts gems of doom, like ‘That young couple, that carrotty one and the skinny lad, it won’t last, you mark my words. You can tell…’

‘I hope you’re wrong,’ I told her, horrified. ‘They’ve just ordered a ton of flowers and paid me a lovely fat deposit. I’m absolutely sure they’re serious…’

‘Ttchh… don’t mean nothing, girl. When are you going to learn?’

With Mrs Orange clucking in the background, I took the plunge. So much for her retiring. Once I was up and running, she couldn’t stay away.

And so three years later, I’m still here. Welcome to my world! It’s the small, converted cowshed on the edge of Dexter’s Green, with a hand-painted pink-and-white sign outside – ‘Valentine’s Flowers’ – next to an old water trough overflowing with daisies. The stable doors are tatty, the brick floor uneven, which means the buckets tip over and there’s virtually no passing trade, but that’s not why I’m there. You see, things have moved on. It just so happens the sun is shining, I’m slap bang in the middle of wedding country and my accidental business is positively blooming.

It was entirely a stroke of luck, but I’ve discovered since opening that brides travel miles to get married in one of the many barns or country houses within a radius of here. There’s even a real-live castle, complete with portcullis and dungeons and a headless ghost, the kind of venue many girls dream of, along with the frou-frou dress and the towering cake no one eats. And with my penchant for low carbon footprint, real, seasonal flowers, I, too, am the latest fashion. None of your Dutch roses or all year round gerberas for me. Think instead of an exquisite country garden, the air heavy with the scent of old-fashioned roses and herbs, or in winter, little white narcissi and hyacinths lighting up the darkest corners. What could be more perfect for that once-in-a-lifetime fairy princess day?

‘You need some hazel with them roses, pet,’ Mrs Orange butts in. She’d be a dahlia if she was a flower. One of those brightly coloured pompom ones – round, loud and forthright. ‘Good for reconciliation, hazel is. Pop a bit in, so they don’t see it, like.’

‘It would look lovely,’ I agree, ‘but it’s a wedding bouquet, not a peace offering and the client wants just flowers. No leaves, no twigs, no anything else at all.’

And the client will be livid if she gets them. It’s a dummy run for a mega-wedding and a complete pain in the arse. Personally, I blame the wedding magazines. Ask your florist to mock up your bouquet in advance… Who came up with that bright idea? Not helpful. Not at all, especially when said bouquet features spring flowers and your bride wants to see it in November.

‘Now, I’m hoping you’re going to tell me that young bride’s got black hair, my lovely… and green eyes, I’m thinking. Yes, green,’ she says firmly, gazing at my flowers. Not entirely blameless in my accidental career, she has some fairly outlandish ideas. And she’s completely mad, by the way – in case you hadn’t guessed.

‘Yes, Mrs Orange, as a matter of fact she has. The hair, I mean. I haven’t a clue about the eyes. Now if you’ll excuse me…’

But she just stands and chuckles as I tear around my shop, my own hair flying all over the place, one eye on the clock as I snatch up roses from the dozens of buckets that fill the floor space.

‘I told you, pet, didn’t I, that it’s the flowers that chooses the bride, not the other way round. Here, you can’t go putting those two together…’

She clucks disapprovingly and tries to take the flowers from me. ‘Ttch, ttch, the florist knows best, that’s what I always say. Give her the hazel twigs. She’ll come round.’

‘I don’t think so.’ I whisk the flowers away from her – she keeps on about it but I don’t buy into all that superstitious nonsense. ‘These are perfect as they are. Anyway, I thought you didn’t like weddings?’

Fortunately, she backs off. As I wind the stems with beautiful, hand-woven ribbon, right on cue a shiny silver car pulls up. Mrs Orange stomps over to the door, a short stumpy figure in layers of clashing clothes, peering nosily outside.

‘You expectin’ someone important, my lovely? It’s one of them real posh jobs,’ she says loudly over her shoulder.

‘Sshh. It’s probably my client.’

Which it is. Sarah McCauley, the mother of the bride, strides up the steps, squeezing past Mrs Orange who comes up to her elbow and refuses to budge from the doorway. I feel a flicker of pride as I glance around. It’s gorgeous in here this morning, like an English country garden crammed into buckets, with tall lilies in various stages of opening amid gracefully arching stems of foliage, with all the smaller buckets filled with delicious-smelling things like roses and lavender and mint. Not that Sarah notices.

‘Morning, Frankie. I’m early. I hope that’s all right?’ She’s thin and glamorous, Sarah, in pale cashmere and immaculate white jeans, and smells of Chanel No 5. But it’s her hands and the hair that I notice. She’s clearly one of those ladies who have their nails done and their highlights touched up before they need to. Unlike me. My hands are beginning to look like Mrs Orange’s.

‘Mrs McCauley! Of course. Do come through. I’ve just finished it.’

It wouldn’t look out of place in a glossy magazine – a soft confection of the most delicate scented roses contrasting against the rough wood of the workbench. Stems of apricot Paul Ricard nestle beside ivory Margaret Merril, with a scent to die for. In between are glimpses of the palest green hydrangea. Not too round or symmetrical, though I say so myself, it’s perfection.

‘Hmmm.’ She picks it up. She doesn’t rave about it – clients like Sarah McCauley rarely do. They discern… She turns it this way and that, studying it closely, feeling the ribbon between her fingers.

‘I suppose it’s what Melissa wants,’ she says dismissively. ‘I’ll tell her I’ve seen it. Add it to the bill, will you?’

I know for a fact it’s exactly what Melissa has in mind. We’ve spent many hours and countless emails deliberating over precisely which varieties of rose to use. Sarah marches back outside, and through the window, I watch her toss it carelessly onto the back seat of her Mercedes. She didn’t even bother to inhale the sublime scent. I wince – that’s a hundred and fifty pounds worth of my favourite roses, tossed…

Mrs Orange might be a bit of a fixture, but she doesn’t actually do any work, just pitches up when she’s got nothing better to do, now and then, divulging pearls of wisdom as the mood takes her, so I ended up advertising for an assistant. After nine interviews that were as painful as extracting teeth, Skye was number ten and the only one with a modicum of creativity. She wears odd clothes, like today’s purple camisole with enormous army surplus trousers held up by men’s braces, and the DMs she wears with everything, but she’s a hard worker, though more than a little flaky at the best of times.

‘D’you think…’ she says absent-mindedly, screwing up her face and peering through her round glasses at the particularly