Beneath the Night Tree by Nicole Baart Page A

Flowers had never really been my thing, but these were exquisite—not your typical bouquet of red roses. I recognized the tall spires of purple delphiniums and the smaller clusters of white freesia. There were magenta spider lilies and pale yellow chrysanthemums the size of dessert plates. When I looked closer, I saw that there were roses, too, but they weren’t red—they were the color of tangerines and sunrise, of a warm summer flame.
    My breath was caught in my throat, and when I finally grasped that I was suffocating and took in a wheezing breath, the scent of all those flowers was nearly overpowering. Michael, I thought. It had to be Michael. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I paused. If Parker had my e-mail address, it wasn’t a huge leap to imagine he’d tracked me down. But the bouquet before me was too personal. He wouldn’t, I assured myself. He wouldn’t dare.
    I lunged for the credit card–size note that was wedged between two waxy leaves. The envelope betrayed nothing more than my name, written in a curlicue script that was anything but masculine. So a florist wrote the note. No hint there. I ripped it open and found one line in the same handwriting. Call me. It was signed M .
    All at once I felt winded and dropped into my office chair with a moan of relief. In comparison to Parker’s loaded e-mail, Michael’s unexpected gift of flowers felt safe, almost homey. I was overwhelmed by the reminder that whether or not Michael had proposed to me a week ago, he loved me. I loved him. He was my best friend and confidant. He made my pulse race. Somehow I had lost sight of that in the midst of my disappointment that everything had not turned out exactly as I dreamed it would. I had lost sight of us.
    I fumbled in my purse for my cell phone and dialed Michael’s number with trembling fingers. “Pick up,” I whispered. “Pick up.”
    It rang only once.
    “Hey, you.” Michael’s voice was soft and familiar. It sounded as if he had been expecting my call.
    “Hey, you,” I echoed.
    “Got the boys dropped off at school?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And you’re at work now?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So you . . .”
    “Are staring at the amazing flowers you sent me.”
    “I hoped you’d like them.”
    “I do. And I’m not the sort who goes all wobbly at the sight of flowers, but . . .”
    Michael laughed. “You’re wobbly?”
    “It might have more to do with you than the flowers.”
    His low exhalation spoke volumes, but I was surprised when he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
    “You’re sorry? For what?”
    “For putting you in such an awkward place. How could I expect you to just pack up and leave everything? Your job, Nellie, your home . . . And all I offered you in return was a social experiment.”
    I giggled. “You’ve been in med school too long.”
    “Yet I’m nowhere near done,” Michael said, his voice low and serious.
    “I know.” It broke my heart a little that what had started out so innocent—a moment of renewal, of reconciliation even—had turned into something somber in the span of a second. “So . . .”
    “So we forget my ridiculous—my insensitive proposal.”
    I wondered if he realized the way that word stirred my soul. A proposal was a promise, a pledge, the assurance of forever. His offer in the grove hadn’t been a proposal. Far from it. And yet it was something. “You want to just go back to the way things were?” I asked, my words light as the air it took to voice them.
    “No.” Michael’s answer was immediate. “No, I think we’ve come too far to turn back now.”
    Hope pricked at my heart, made tiny holes where everything I felt for him began to leak out, slow and warm. It filled me, made me believe for the first time since his awkward proposition that we could still make this work. “What do you mean?” I whispered.
    “I have an idea.”
    “You do?”
    “But I’m not going to tell you over the phone.”
    “What?”
    “This is more of a