Free One Red Rose by Elizabeth Rose

Chapter 1
     
     
    One red rose and her heart stood still.
    Eva Dobbs blinked once, then twice, bewildered at the flower lying precariously atop her desk. She closed the door behind her softly, and made her way across the floor of the Tyme Travel Agency where she’d worked since her twins, John and Julie went away to college.
    She reached out cautiously, fingers stretching to pick up the icon of love, but pulled away before she’d touched it. It wasn’t the first red rose she’d ever received. But it was the first in a very long time.
    “Carol?” she called to her coworker, typing at the desk behind her.
    “Yes, Eva?” the plump woman asked, without looking up. The keys clicked away at a 120 words per minute. Eva never could understand how woman over sixty could move so fast. Carol was a good twenty years older than herself, and yet the woman never seemed to tire.
    “Do you know how this got here?”
    Eva stood stiff and still, the memory of a happy time in her life brought to the surface by the sight of a mere red rose. Times long ago forgotten of a foolish young couple so much in love they’d eloped at the mere age of eighteen.
    It’s not that she wasn’t happy being married to her high school sweetheart, Cooper Dobbs for close to twenty-five years now, but things changed. Complacency beguiles one’s need for romance after so long. They hadn’t thought they really needed the touch of intimacy, but truth won out in the end. It was one year ago today they’d separated. One long year of emptiness in her soul, wishing for those high school years where romance was all that mattered.
    “How what got there, honey?” Carol typed off another fifty words before Eva was able to actually reach out and touch the precious flower. Being careful of the thorns, she pushed back the green tissue wrapping and gently lifted the rose in her fingertips, holding it up for Carol to see.
    “This,” she mumbled, still bewildered. “This beautiful rose.”
    “Hmmm?” Carol stopped her typing and looked over. “Oh, that!” she said, bright and cheery. “A delivery man dropped it off about an hour ago.” She picked up her mug of coffee and brought it to her mouth.
    “Well, whose is it?” Eva asked carefully, thinking they’d been using her desk again for drop-offs and deliveries. She’d really have to make it clear that just because her desk was nearest to the door, it didn’t mean everything got dumped there.
    Carol just about burned her mouth on her coffee and decided to blow on it instead.
    “It’s yours, sweetie. Who else would be getting a rose around here?”
    Eva pondered the thought and looked around the room. Her boss, Chadwick Tyme was a man in his fifties who had an office in the back. The only other person working there besides Carol and herself was Carol’s grandson, Leif, who’d just graduated high school and cleaned the office and refilled supplies. She looked over to him, surveying his spiked hair, black clothes and black painted nails, and decided right then and there he wasn’t the kind of guy who would have girls sending him flowers.
    “Did you say this was delivered to me?” she asked, still not believing it.
    “Sure I did,” said Carol dipping her finger into her mug and pulling it out quickly. “There’s a card there with your name on it if you don’t believe me.”
    “Card?” Eva reached down inside the wrapper and brought forth a small white envelope. Putting the rose down on the desk she used both her trembling hands to open it. Eva, it read. You are in my heart. Love, your secret admirer.
    Who’s it from?” asked Carol, putting down her coffee and looking over.
    “I…I’m not sure. It reads your secret admirer .”
    “See what happens when you moonlight on the stage?” Carol laughed. “You can’t expect to play a chorus girl at the village theater every night this month and not have some man want a date.”
    “Date?” Eva dropped her purse to the floor and slid into her