“Yes. Romantic.”

She tapped her fingers on the counter. “You’re not giving me a lot to go on.”

“I want her to feel…wooed.”

“Ah. All right.” She held up a finger. “Give me a few minutes.”

A few minutes passed and Marigold returned with what seemed like a bush in her hand. “What do you think?”

“That’s a lot of flowers.”

“It’s a medium-size bouquet. It’s not that many.”

Looked like a lot to him. “And a woman will like that?”

Marigold gave him a withering glance. “Most women I know would love this.”

“Good.” He whipped out his credit card, but held it just off the counter. “You didn’t put anything witchy in there, did you?”

“Did you want me to?”

“No.”

“Then you’re in luck. I charge extra for that anyway.”

“Good to know.” He dropped his card on the counter. “Could you send a bouquet like this to my house every day for the next three days? Not the same bouquet. Different. But similar.” Why was this so hard?

Marigold nodded. “Absolutely. You want me to send this one?”

“No, I’ll take that one with me.”

“You have a vase, right?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had no idea if he had a vase.

She waved her hand. “If you don’t, call me and I’ll send one with tomorrow’s delivery. You want a card with them?”

“Is that what people do?”

“Normally, yes.” Her eyes narrowed. “Haven’t you ever sent flowers before?”

“No.” He and his siblings often sent flowers to his mother for her birthday, but Bridget always took care of the details. “What do you put on the card?”

“Whatever you want to say.” She pointed to a clear plastic stand in front of the register that held three rows of small, mostly white cards. “You can pick any one you like, but I’ll need three of them for the rest of the deliveries.”

He grunted. The cards all looked the same to him. He pulled out the first one.

She pushed a pen toward him. “You probably don’t want that one.”

“Why not?”

She pointed at the flowing script at the top. “This says In Sympathy. The woman in question might not feel too wooed if she thinks she’s getting funeral flowers.”

With a small noise, he stuck the card back into the holder.

Marigold lifted out another one. “How’s this?”

The card had a zebra-striped border outlined in bright pink. Very girly. And Ivy’s nails had been zebra-striped. “That one’s good.”

He grabbed the pen and jotted down the first thing that came to mind.

To Ivy, from Hank.

Not the most poetic thing he’d ever written, but the point was the flowers, not the card.

Marigold sighed. “Sorry, no.”

He looked up. “What?”

She pointed at the card. “Is that really what you’re going to say?”

He held back a growl. “You have a better suggestion?”

“Only like a thousand of them.”

He waited. “Such as?”

“You need to write from your heart, not your head. To and from are not romantic.”

Neither am I, thought Hank. He came up with something that didn’t make Marigold wince, then wrote three more like that, paid, took the bouquet she had made up and headed home, his head reeling like he’d been trying to understand a foreign language.

He parked his duty car in front of the garage. It was odd to come home to his own house and find it lit up. It was even stranger to walk inside and feel the hum of activity. He glanced at the clock on the dash. He was fifteen minutes late, thanks to the stop for flowers. He hoped Ivy wasn’t going to nag him about that.

His stomach rumbled as he approached the kitchen and the delicious smells of dinner reached him. He stopped just outside the kitchen, a little overwhelmed by the thought that it could always be this way.

Someone waiting for him.

That hadn’t happened since he’d been a boy living at home, and that someone had been his mother. Now, that someone was a very sexy, very beautiful woman who would soon be his in every sense of the word.

The reality of that sent a tingle of sensation down his spine and a sharp jolt of possibility into his bloodstream.

He held the flowers behind his back as he walked in. “Smells good in here.”

Ivy was at the counter, icing the chocolate cake. A plate near the stove held two steaks waiting to be cooked. She turned as he came in and smiled. “Hey, welcome home. How was your day?”

“Busy.” Not a word about him being late. He smiled. “I brought you these.” He pulled the flowers from behind his back.

Her face lit up as she took them. She stuck her nose in them and inhaled. “They’re gorgeous and they smell like spring.” Her eyes suddenly went liquid. “I don’t think anyone’s ever brought me flowers before. Thank you.”

“No one’s ever brought you flowers?” That angered him for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint, but also gave him a sense of happiness that he’d been the first.

She shrugged, a sad smile bending her mouth. “I’m not that kind of girl, I guess.”

“You are now.”

She blinked and her smile lost its sad edge. “This is a good start to the wooing. Do you have a vase I can put these in?”