Daisy's Back in Town (10 page)

He smiled as he leaned forward and poured himself a Dr. Pepper from a pitcher. She gave him that grow up glare like she had the other night, then she turned to his brother.

"Do you mind if I hold Tanya?"

"Not at all." Billy handed her over the baby, and Daisy stood Tanya in her lap. Jack half expected the six-month-old to start screaming, instead she laughed and pinched Daisy's cheek.

"Look, Pippen," Daisy said to the kid in the high chair beside her. "Isn't Tanya just a sweet little love muffin?"

"No!"

"Can I open my pez-ent from Uncle Jack?" Lacy asked in her tiny three-year-old voice.

"It's okay with me if it's okay with your Uncle Jack," Rhonda answered.

"Have at it kid," he said, although he would have preferred that Daisy wasn't sitting across the table when that stupid cat present was opened. Why he should give a shit, though, he didn't know that either.

Lacy tore off the bow and chucked it behind her shoulder. She ripped the paper and gasped as she tossed the shredded remains on the floor. "Kitty Magic! My fav-rut thing in the world!"

"Hey, that's what you said this morning when you got your Barbie Power Wheels," Billy reminded her.

Lily leaned across the table, and she and Rhonda chatted about what they'd been doing since high school. While Lacy and Amy Lynn took the cat and her kittens out of the box, the two women talked about kids and theft lives; and when Lily said something about "Ronnie the Rat Bastard," Jack took it to mean she was getting a divorce. It also explained why she looked terminally pissed.

He took a long drink of his Dr. Pepper and sucked an ice cube into his mouth. He glanced across the table at Daisy and Tanya and Pippen. Tanya still stood in Daisy's lap, blowing raspberries. The little boy laughed and Daisy laughed, too. His gaze moved to her hands and her blood-red fingernails. A thin silver bracelet circled her slim wrist and a tiny heart rested against her pulse. The bracelet sparkled in the light, and as if she felt his gaze on her, she looked at him over the top of Tanya's dark head. Her smile fell and her brows drew together slightly.

She stared at him through brown eyes that he used to think looked like melted chocolate. But that had been when he'd been ten years old and thought chocolate was the best thing in the world. Then he'd gotten older and discovered something better. Something darker and richer in those eyes. A knot twisted low in his belly. He wouldn't call it desire, but it wasn't disinterest either.

Billy plugged the mother cat with batteries and set it on the table. Lacy stood in her chair again, and Jack turned his attention to his niece. She stuck the kittens on the mother's side, and damn if it didn't make weird sucking sounds.

"It's a... well it's a nursing kitty." Daisy looked up from the pink Persian and laughter lit up her eyes. "Jack, why that's so sweet."

"Are those nipples on that thing?" Billy wanted to know.

"It looks like she has hearts instead of nipples," Jack told him.

"How come?" Amy Lynn wanted to know. They had a real mother cat at home, and she knew mommy cats didn't have hearts there.

Neither Billy nor Jack could think of an answer. Daisy looked at Amy Lynn and said, "Because hearts are cuter than nipples."

If they'd been alone, Jack might have told her exactly why she was wrong about that. Instead, he bit his ice cube in half and pushed it to one cheek.

"And they got some sunglasses, Lacy," Amy Lynn pointed out.

The center curtains on the stage parted and three big mechanical bears sprung to life, dancing and pretending to play instruments. A song about a happy frog filled the dining room, and Lacy clapped her hands.

Lily's kid let out a scream at the top of his lungs.

Daisy handed Tanya back to Billy and she took the little boy from the high chair. She said something to Lily and walked from the room with the boy still screaming. Jack's gaze slid down the back of her tank top to her behind in those jean shorts.

"Did you see 'Monster Garage' the other night?" Billy asked over the music.

While Jack occasionally watched the show, Billy was a fanatic. "No, I missed that one."

"They turned a school bus into a pontoon boat?" he said, but the noise from the stage made it impossible for him to say any more.

Jack waited about five minutes before he followed Daisy and her nephew. He found the two of them in the play area. She'd cleaned Pippen's face, and he was playing in a pit of multicolored balls surrounded by mesh that went clear to the ceiling. She stood outside the mesh watching him wade through the balls as if he were walking upstream.

"How'd you manage to get yourself invited to Lacy's birthday party?" he asked as he came to stand beside her.

She glanced up into his face. "Lily and Pippen and I were already here when they walked in."

"And it was a complete surprise?"

She shook her head and her ponytail brushed her bare shoulders. "No. I knew you were going to be here, but I didn't expect Rhonda and Billy to invite us to sit with them."

"What's it going to take for you to leave me alone?"

She turned her attention back to her nephew. He picked up a plastic bail and threw it. It missed a little girl by about a foot. "You know what I want."

"To talk."

"Yes. There is something important we need to talk about."

"What?"

Sirens from a skeet-ball machine blared in the background. "Something too important to talk about in the middle of Showtime."

"Then why are you here, tonight? Stalking me and my family?"

"I'm not stalking you. I just wanted to remind you that I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere until you talk to me." She glanced down at her feet. "I have a letter Steven wrote to you. I don't have it on me, though."

"What does it say?"

She shook her head again, then stared straight ahead. "I don't know. I haven't read it."

"Send it to the shop."

"I can't do that. He asked me to give it to you in person."

"If it's so damn important, why didn't he give it to me himself? Instead of sending you?"

"Pippen, don't throw that," she told her nephew before she turned to face Jack. Red and blue lights from a video game to the right flashed on her bare shoulder, the side of her neck, and the corner of her mouth. "I think he meant to at first. For the first year of his illness, he believed he'd beat his cancer. We knew all along that no one had ever survived glioblastoma, but he was young and healthy and the early treatments seemed to be working.

He fought so hard, Jack." She turned back to Pippen and grasped the mesh with her hands. "By the time he accepted that he was going to die, it was too late to talk to you in person." The little heart on her bracelet dangled from her wrist. He stared at it, not wanting to feel anything for Steven or for her. Not wanting to give a shit.

But he did have one question. "How long did he live after he accepted that he was going to the?"

"About eight or nine months."

That's what he thought Steven had always wanted someone to "go first" - whether it was telling Daisy she had a big ugly hair bow, or jumping off a roof, or throwing rotten tomatoes at cars. Growing up, it had never bothered him, but that was a long time ago. "Then there was time to come and talk to me before he died. He didn't have to send you."

She laughed ruthlessly. "You've obviously never seen anyone who's gone through radical cancer treatments. If you had, you wouldn't say that." One of her hands dropped to her side, and tears shimmered along the bottoms of her eyelids as she gazed up at him. "You wouldn't have recognized him, Jack." One tear slid from her lashes and ran down her cheek. He clenched his hands to keep from reaching up and wiping it with his fingertips.

"Toward the end," she continued, "he forgot how to tie his shoes, but he insisted on getting dressed every day like it mattered. So, I lied his shoes for him... every day. Like it mattered. And it did because it gave him a little dignity, I think. Some feeling like he was still an adult. A man."

A piece of his heart fell to his stomach and his breath with it. "Stop it, Daisy."

"Jack -"

"No." He knew she would not stop until she carved him up. Just like before. He wasn't about to let that happen.

Not again. Not for anything. "I don't want to hear any more." He was sorry for Steven. Sorrier than he would have thought possible two minutes ago, but he would not let her tear him to shreds.

"I didn't mean to talk about this now." She wiped the tear from her cheek. "Meet with me later so you can hear me out."

The only thing I want to hear from you, Daisy Monroe, is the word goodbye," he said, and then he walked away. He moved back into the dining room and told his brother and Rhonda he was leaving. For once he was grateful to the damn dancing bears and their loud annoying music that didn't allow for questions. He gave his nieces some money for game tokens and left. He didn't see Daisy when he walked back out, but he wasn't looking for her either.

He took a deep breath and kept right on moving. He didn't think he took a full breath again until he was home.

Shut up in his house. Locked tight against the memory of Daisy and Steven and him. But the memories followed him inside, and he sat down hard on his mother's piano bench and put his hands on his knees.

He'd hated Steven for about as many years as he'd loved him like a brother. But even in his earliest rage, he'd never wanted Steven dead. Not really. Maybe there had been a time in the beginning when the thought of Steven wiped off the planet had held a certain appeal, but he had never wanted him to die the way Daisy had described it. Not like that. Not even back when his anger had burned the hottest.

When it came right down to it, he'd never wanted him to die at all. Because in the end, he understood Steven.

He understood that he had betrayed Steven every bit as much as Steven had betrayed him.

It'd been Steven who'd told him about Daisy being stood up for that damn high school prom their senior year. It had been both their ideas that Jack take her since Steven already had a date. It had seemed so simple at the time.

Take Daisy so she wouldn't spend the night crying her eyes out. No big deal, but that night had changed all their lives.

Jack didn't really remember the actual dance, other than trying to touch as little of Daisy as possible. What he did remember, though, was standing on her front porch looking down at her, wanting her so much he ached, and telling himself to leave. To get into his car and drive away.

Then she kissed him.

Compared to kisses he'd experienced with other girls, it was nothing really. Just her closed lips pressed to his, but it had hit him square in the chest. He'd been stunned and angry and he'd pushed her away. Then she'd touched the side of his neck and looked up at him as if she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. As much as he'd always wanted her.

"Please, Jack," she'd whispered, and even as he'd lowered his mouth for more, he'd told himself it was a mistake. Even as he'd stood there, kissing her and tasting her mouth, he'd told himself to stop. Even as he'd kept his grasp on her shoulders, he'd pulled her into his chest and felt the weight of her breasts against hint Even as he told himself that it could not happen again, he'd known that it would. He'd wanted her for years, and one little bite had not been enough.

Not nearly.

He'd told himself to stay away, but even if he'd been able to control his eighteen-year-old lust, Daisy wouldn't let him. At Jimmy Calhoun's party the next night, she'd pulled him into a dark closet and put his hand on her breast.

"Touch me, Jack," she'd whispered into his mouth, and he'd about gone off in his boxer shorts.

A few days later he'd told Steven he couldn't hang out because he was grounded. Then he'd jumped in his Camaro, picked Daisy up at her house, and they'd driven out to a deserted road. He'd parked and told her about Steven, about the two of them being attracted to her, and he explained why he and Daisy had to stop.

She said she understood. She agreed, then she'd kissed his ear and told him that Steven didn't have to find out.

"I love Steven. He's my friend," she'd said. "But I don't think of him the same way I think of you. I'm in love with you, Jack. I want more from you. I want you to show me how to make love."

That night he'd taken off her shirt and unhooked her bra. White with tiny blue dots on it Her breasts were the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. Firm and white, her tight pink nipples fit perfectly into his mouth.

He hadn't made love to her that night No, he'd tried to do the noble thing. He'd told her he didn't mess with virgins. He'd told himself it was okay as long as he didn't stick his hand in her panties and touch her there. He'd told himself to go slow with her, but that resolve quickly disappeared like a kid with candy. Then he'd had to tell himself it wasn't really wrong unless he took her hymen.

After two weeks of touching and kissing and rubbing against each other, he'd picked her up and driven with her to a hotel on the outskirts of Amarillo. They'd taken it all the way that night, and he'd leaned the difference between sex and making love. He'd learned the difference between sex where just his genitals were involved, and sex that involved his soul. He'd learned that being inside of Daisy Lee burned hint up and left his chest aching. And the whole time he'd known it was wrong. He'd known Steven loved her as much as he did, but he'd told himself that Daisy was right It was okay as long as Steven didn't find out.

In public, he and Daisy behaved as they always had, as friends, but it hadn't been easy. Seeing but not touching had driven him insane. Watching her walk down the school halls or jump around in her little cheerleader skirt, had made him insanely jealous.

He hadn't been the only one driven crazy by their situation. Daisy had always wanted him just as much as he'd wanted her, and when he couldn't meet with her, which wasn't often, she'd accuse him of not loving her. Of being with other girls. She'd tell him she didn't love him anymore, then the next chance they got, they'd tear at each other's clothes and satisfy the lust that burned too hot.