“Okay I have to admit he’s hot. I bet whatever it is he does, he’s the best,” Julia said. “I can almost understand why someone would have an affair with him. He’s all yours, but if he asks you out, don’t invite him back to your place. Unless he works for pest control.” She disappeared into the back of the shop where they stored more flowers.

Flora felt a rush of exasperation.

He wasn’t hers, and he wasn’t going to ask her out. He was ordering flowers, that was all.

“How may I help you?” She pushed her conversation with Julia to the back of her mind. If he was having an affair, it wasn’t her business. Human beings were flawed, she knew that. Life was messy. Flowers brightened life’s mess.

“I need to buy a gift. For a young woman.” His eyes were ice blue and a startling contrast to the jet-black of his hair. “A special woman.”

Maybe Julia was right. Maybe it was an affair.

You saw the whole spectrum of life working in a flower shop, from celebration to commiseration. It shouldn’t have bothered her, but still she was disappointed.

“Is there an occasion? Anniversary? Apology?”

His brows knitted together. “Apology?”

Had she said that aloud? Silently she cursed Julia for infecting her with cynicism. “If you tell me the occasion, I can recommend the perfect flower to convey your message.”

“I doubt that.”

“Try me. I love a challenge. What is it you want the flowers to say?”

He studied her. “I want them to say sorry for all the times I’ve screwed up over the last few months. All the times I’ve said the wrong thing, or done the wrong thing; stepped into her room when she wanted privacy, or left her alone when she wanted company. I want them to say that I love her, and I will always love her, even though maybe I don’t show it in the right way. I want them to say that I’m sorry she lost her mother, and that I wish I could bring her back, or make the pain go away. I especially wish her mother were here now, because she would have known what to buy our daughter for her seventeenth birthday and I don’t.” He paused, conscious that he’d perhaps said too much. There was a faint flush of color across his cheekbones. “And if you can find a way to say that in flowers, then you’re smarter than I am.”

Flora felt pressure in her chest and a thickening in her throat. His pain had spilled over and covered her, too. The silence from the back of the store told her that Julia was listening.

Dead wife.