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“Thought you might like this one for Stacy.”
    Jack took the daisy and smiled at Mr. Wienfelt, his heart squeezing in his chest. “Sure Nora won’t mind?”
    “She always liked little Stacy.” He smiled and climbed into his Crown Victoria, driving away in a puff of dust.
    Jack plunked his cowboy hat on his head and wove through the headstones, until he reached hers. “Hi, Stacy.” He squatted beside the marker and laid the single daisy at the base of the granite. “Remember how you always got jealous when I looked at another girl? Well, I’ve been doin’ a lot of thinkin’ lately and I know you’d want me to be happy, no matter what. You always had such a big heart and, if you could, you’d tell me it was time to move on.” He scraped his hat off and twirled it slowly between his fingers. “Hope you don’t mind, but me and Cory kinda like Ms. Bunny Leigh from the flower shop, and we’d like to date her.” He paused, closed his eyes and listened for a sound, a sign, anything that he could construe as a response.
    Nothing stirred, not a breeze, bird or insect made a sound. Even the traffic on the highway seemed to have disappeared. Who was he trying to kid? Stacy had been dead for three years. She couldn’t hear him all the way up there in heaven. He kissed his fingertips and touched the name engraved on the stone. “I’ll always love you, sweetheart. But I have room in my heart to love again. I just know it.”
    Jack pushed to his feet, settled his cowboy hat on his head and stared across the central Texas horizon—the rolling hills, the huge, pale blue sky and the soft green pastures stretching away from the cemetery. Stacy had loved the Texas sunshine, just like Nora Wienfelt. The warmth of the sun on his back felt like a caress. Almost as if Stacy was smiling down at him, touching his back with a soft hand, urging him to find another love to fill the lonely hours.
    As he walked toward the truck, the soft coo of a dove sounded from the big oak tree. Jack tipped his hat back and looked up in time to see a gray dove take off, its wings spread in flight.
    The bird dipped low over his head and winged away into the brightness of the morning sunshine.
    Yup, it had to be a sign. With a lighter heart, Jack climbed into his truck and headed to town. After he and Cory talked through the details, they’d start courting Bunny. And with Stacy’s blessing, they couldn’t lose.
     
     
    “So it’s agreed?” Cory leaned back in the booth at PJ’s Diner at ten past eleven o’clock that morning. “The date is set. It’ll be the both of us, and we’ll behave like gentlemen. No expectations of anything afterward?”
    Jack sighed. “I had hoped for more. I hadn’t realized just how obsessed I was with her until I counted the number of bud vases in my closets. Do you realize I’ve been in that flower shop once a week for six months? I have twenty-six vases taking up room at the house.”
    “Take them back to Bunny. She could use them for your next twenty-six purchases.”
    “I can’t do that. Then she’ll know I wasn’t buying them for my mother.”
    Cory shook his head. Jack had a heart as big as his shoe size. “Well, don’t think I’m going to let you win her over all to yourself. I’ve been delivering flowers for her for the past three months, even though I don’t need the money.”
    “You know? We’re pretty darned pathetic if you ask me. Why the hell have we been beatin’ around the bush when we could have fessed up and been datin’ her all along?”
    “I didn’t want to commit to anything until I finished my undergrad degree. And with med school looming, I’m still straddlin’ the fence. She put her ex through dental school. I wouldn’t blame her if she ran screaming from a relationship with me, because I’m going to be gone to school in Dallas all week, every week for four years.”
    “Yeah, you got it rough.” Jack’s lips quirked upward on the sides. “Which should make her