‘So what do you think it means?’ Juliet held her phone in her hand. Lucy’s face filled the screen. She was eating an early breakfast in her Edinburgh apartment. In Maryland it was the middle of the night, but Juliet hadn’t been able to sleep a wink.
‘I’ve no idea.’ Her sister laughed. ‘I’m a lawyer not a mind reader. What do you think it means?’
‘I don’t know,’ Juliet admitted. ‘I don’t even know if it’s Ryan who left the flower. All I know is he tried to call me this afternoon, and then when we got home this evening, I found the daffodil on the front step. Come on, Lucy, you’re good with this stuff. Tell me what to do.’
‘You’re asking me for advice about men?’ Lucy grinned. ‘After I did almost everything wrong in the early days with Lachlan? You’re asking the wrong person.’
‘But you’re the wisest woman I know.’
Lucy brushed her hair from her eyes, and took a sip of her coffee. ‘What did he say when you called him back?’
‘I haven’t called him back,’ Juliet admitted.
Lucy almost spat her coffee out. ‘Jeez, you’re right, you do need my advice. Rather than sit here all night speculating, why don’t you just call the man?’
‘What if it’s not him?’ Juliet asked. ‘What if he wants to say goodbye again and rub it in?’
‘Then you’ll know he isn’t the man for you.’
But he was. He was the man for her. He was the only man. The one she saw when she turned out the lights. The one who flickered through her thoughts in the morning before she even managed to untangle them.
‘Jules?’ Lucy prompted.
‘Yeah?’ She shook her head, trying – and failing – to get him out of her mind.
‘Go to sleep. You look exhausted.’
‘So do you.’
Lucy grinned. ‘Thank you kindly for the compliment.’
‘Goodnight, Luce.’
‘Night, sweetie. Oh, and Jules?’
‘Yes?’
‘Call him.’
‘Momma, there’s another one!’ Poppy called out from the kitchen. Juliet pulled her hair back into a ponytail, snapping it tightly in place with a band, and ran down the hallway, muttering to herself as her feet slapped against the floor. They were running late. Again. Thanks to her phone battery dying a slow death as she listened to his message over and over, and the alarm failing to go off.
By the time she reached the kitchen, Poppy was trying to fit the key into the back door, the metal scraping against the door as she failed to push it into the slot.
‘You know better than to open the door without me here,’ Juliet scolded. ‘What are you doing, anyway? It’s freezing out there.’
Though the snow hadn’t lasted long after they arrived home last night, the temperature was still frigid. She could hear the boiler working overtime in an attempt to counteract the cold.
‘I wanted to see the flower.’
‘What flower?’ Juliet asked. She walked over to where Poppy was standing, staring out of the kitchen window.
There was a single red rose on the doormat, just where the daffodil had been the previous night. The bud had only just come into bloom, the petals nestling tightly together as if to keep warm.
‘Another one,’ Juliet murmured, pressing her forehead to the glass.
‘It’s pretty,’ Poppy said. ‘Where do you think it came from?’
‘I don’t know.’ It was only a white lie. Designed to buy some time. Her phone felt heavy in her jeans pocket, a reminder of his message. Juliet tapped it, but didn’t pull it out. She should call him, she knew it. But what if the flowers weren’t from him?