I watched Patricia walking slowly through my mother's backyard garden in her lace blouse and blue jeans. It was an early summer's evening and the daylight seemed to settle around us in that soft, tenderness of light that only the embers of an early summer's day can make. The rhododendron, the bluebells and the roses were all blooming. As it grew slowly darker Patricia moved closer to me and her delicate perfume was like the fragrance of the roses blooming white, pink and red in the garden. She seemed to be waiting for a sign from me; her body a challenge and a promise at the same time.

I felt that I should say something, do something. I walked up beside her, as she smelled first the pink rose, and then the red one.

"Which of the roses is your favorite?" I asked her.

"The red one," she said warmly, turning to face me. "Red is for romance."

"Do you want me to cut one for you?" I asked her.

She smiled shyly, and nodded.

I went into my father's shed and got his clippers and snipped off a perfect red rose for her, tightly wound with its velvet petals, on an elegant, long stem. I handed it to her with a flourish of my hand.

She put her arms around my shoulders and held her face up to me. With a beating heart that flushed my lips I put my arms around the curves of her waist and leaned in and kissed her. She stood still as I ran my hands over the curves of her hips, her back, and her shoulders.

All the years of waiting and searching had come to an end, for one moment at least, and the whole world we were in seemed contained in that garden of red and white roses. Even the stars overhead were standing still.