“Me, too.” He produced his credit card. “Given that you may be saving my life, I should probably know your name.”
“Flora.” She ran the card through the machine. “Flora Donovan.” She glanced at the name as she handed it back.
Jack Parker. It suited him.
“Flora. Appropriate name. You have a gift for what you do and I’m the grateful recipient.”
Flora wondered if Becca had been good at arranging flowers.
“Are you having a party for your daughter?”
“She said she didn’t want one. That it wouldn’t be the same without her mother there. I took her at her word.” He slid the card back into his pocket. “Was that a mistake?”
It must be so hard for him trying to get under the skin of a teenage girl.
“Maybe a party wouldn’t be right. You could do something different. Something she wouldn’t have done with her mother.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know—” Flora thought about it. “Is she athletic? Go to an indoor climbing wall. Or spend the day making pottery. Take her and her friends to a salsa class. Or do something together. If she’s feeling lost, what she really wants is probably to spend quality time with you.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Dads are an embarrassment when you’re a teenage girl.”
Flora wished she had the experience to know. She would have given a lot to be embarrassed by her dad, but her dad had wanted nothing to do with her.
You’re my world, her mother had always said but after she’d died Flora had wondered whether life might have been easier if their world had included a few more people.
She wanted to ask him more about his daughter, but there was a queue of customers building and Celia was frowning at her across the store.
But he seemed in no hurry to leave. “How long have you worked here?”
“I don’t remember a time when I didn’t work here.” She glanced up at the high ceilings and the large windows. “My mother worked here, too, before she died. I helped her from the moment I could walk. Many of our customers were my mother’s customers. We deliver flowers right across Manhattan.” And she was proud to be continuing what her mother had started. It brought the past into the present and gave her comfort.
“How old were you when you lost your mother?”
“Eight.” Barely older than his younger daughter was now.
“And your father?” His tone was softer now, and she was grateful for his sensitivity.
“My mother raised me alone.”
“How did you handle it—losing her?” He sucked in a breath. “I apologize. That was an unforgivably intrusive question, but right now I’m at that stage of looking for answers everywhere. Something I can do, something I can say—I’ll try anything.”
“I’m not sure I handled it. I got through it, the best I could.” Her life had gone from warm sunshine to bitter cold. She’d moved from a warm, safe place to one where she felt vulnerable and exposed. “I’m not sure what helped me, would help others.”
“What did help you?”
“Things that made her seem closer. Flowers. Flowers were like having my mother with me.”
He studied her and she could have sworn for a moment that he saw her. Really saw her. Not the rose-colored dress or the hyacinth tights, or the hair that tumbled and turned and refused to behave in a predictable manner much to the annoyance of her aunt, but the gaps inside her. The pieces that were missing.
He smiled, and she felt warmth spread through her and spill into those gaps. Her heart beat faster and stronger.
There was so much charm in his smile. She was pretty sure that he’d be single for as long as he chose to be and not a moment longer.
“You seem to have turned out all right.” He was in no hurry to leave. “I’ve been worrying my girls won’t be okay. That their lives are ruined. But here you are. You give me hope that we might get through this.”
There was a strength to him, a seam of steel, that made her sure he would get through anything.