Daisy's Back in Town (18 page)

He stood very still as his stomach twisted into a knot. Daisy's words affected him more than he would have thought. He hadn't watched either of his parents die, and for that he was grateful. He had dark enough memories.

"Did you know that coffins have springs in them?"

"Yeah." He and Billy had had to pick out two. At that time, he hadn't had enough money to afford much of anything. His parents had been buried without springs and fancy satin pillows. "I knew that."

"Oh. That's right." She looked back out the window. "I remember your parents' funeral. You were so young to have such a horrible thing happen to you. I didn't appreciate how horrible then. Not really. I do now."

Jack moved to stand behind her and he raised his hands to grasp her arms. But before he touched her, he thought better of it and dropped them to his sides.

She took an envelope from a pocket in her ugly dress and set it next to the sink. "This is the letter from Steven.

The one I told you about."

He really didn't want to read it, and knew that made him all kinds of a bastard. But he really didn't want to be reminded of the black hole of his past.

"Steven and I never meant to hurt you, Jack. We were all such good friends, and it never should have ended between us the way it did. We were so young and stupid. The night we came to you was one of the worst nights of my life." She paused a moment and said just above a whisper, "You were wearing a white T-shirt that night too."

Yes, they'd been standing in the moonlight. He'd been pleading with her not to leave him. He'd beaten the hell out of his best buddy, and now his best buddy was dead. Something in Jack had died that night too. For some reason, hearing about it this morning, made it more real then it had been in years. Brought it all back to life.

Made the places in his soul burn. "Stop it, Daisy." He grabbed her aims below the sleeves of her T-shirt. "Don't say any more."

"I have to, Jack." She looked up over her shoulder into his face. "When you told me that we needed time away from each other, I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. You have to understand how scared and -" He lifted her chin as his mouth swooped down on hers, silencing her with a hard kiss. He pulled her back against his bare chest and wrapped his arm around her stomach. He did not want to hear anything he just wanted to feel. Feel her pressed against the length of him. Naked. He wanted more mind-numbing sex again and again until he finally got her out of his system. Out of his head.

At first she stood stiff in his arms, her lips pressed together but when he softened the kiss, her lips parted. A silent invitation to take what he wanted.

The telephone rang and he let it. It rang as his tongue entered her mouth, and she tasted as she had before, on the trunk of the Custom Lancer. Warm and sweet like Daisy. She tasted of things long forgotten. Of soft skin and need and lust and a love that had ripped his heart out.

He pushed the memories from his head as he slid one hand to her right breast. The phone continued to ring as he cupped between her legs through the heavy denim. "Daisy," he spoke to the side of her head and breathed deep the scent of her hair. "Come to my bed and let me remind you about sex again."

The ringing stopped but instantly started again. Daisy slid out of his grasp and moved across the kitchen. "That might be important," she said.

He had a pretty good idea who it was. Buddy Calhoun was supposed to come by and pick up a Corvair Monza sitting in the shop and take it to his garage in Lubbock. Buddy was the best body man in the state, and one of the few restorers Jack trusted to take a vehicle out of his shop. But his timing sucked. Instead of pursuing Daisy, he walked to the telephone, his boot heels an angry thud against the old linoleum floor. "This better be good,"

he said into the receiver.

"Hello," a female voice spoke, "this is Louella Brooks. Is Daisy there?"

He glanced back at Daisy. "Oh, hello Mrs. Brooks. Yeah, she's right here."

Daisy walked across the kitchen and took the phone from him. "Hello?" She looked up at him and frowned.

"What? What happened? Is she okay?" Her brows lifted almost to her hairline. "Good. Where's Pippen?" Daisy covered the side of her face with her hand. "Thank God." There was a pause and then she said, "Okay. I'm on my way." She hung up the telephone and turned to Jack.

"What's the matter?"

"My sister has officially lost her mind. That's what's the matter," she said as she moved to the counter and picked up her purse.

He ignored the ache between his legs as he reached for his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. "Is Lily okay?"

"No, she's a nut. What did she and mother do before I came to visit?" she asked, distracted as she shoved her hand inside her purse and pulled out a set of keys. "Run around acting weird and delusional? What are they going to do once I go back home?" She walked from the kitchen and through the living room. "Good gravy I have my act together more than either of those women. Now, how darn scary is that?"

He didn't answer because he pretty much figured it was a rhetorical question and he didn't want to upset her more.

Through the screen door, he watched her jump in her mother's car and drive away. A glimpse of the Caddy's taillights and whine of the steering linkage as she pulled around to the street, was the last he expected to see or hear of Daisy Monroe.

Jack walked back through the empty house to the kitchen. He returned the milk to the refrigerator, and his gaze fell on the white envelope she'd left behind. Steven's letter. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. His name was written in all capital letters in blue ink on the front.

He opened a cupboard door and stuck the envelope between two coffee mugs. He'd read it someday. But not now. Not when the memory of Daisy, naked on the back of the Custom Lancer was still so fresh in his head.

Not when the taste of Steven's wife was still in his mouth.

Since she'd, been back, he'd wondered if being with Daisy would be as good as he remembered. The answer was that it was better. Better in some way he didn't even try to define. He just knew that being with her was different. It was more than just sex. More than the pleasure he usually found being with a woman. More than a quickie on the trunk of a car.

It wasn't love. He knew for a fad that he wasn't in love with Daisy Lee. He might talk slow, but he wasn't stupid.

And loving Daisy was just plain stupid. He didn't know why being with her felt different, but he didn't want to know either. He wasn't the kind of guy who dissected his life and looked for hidden meaning. No, he was the kind of guy who pushed it down deep until it went away. All he knew for certain was that sex with her was better than any he'd had in a long time, and it was a good thing that she was leaving so he could return to his life. His life before she'd blown into town and reminded him of things that were better left forgotten.

She was gone now, and there was no reason why he should think of her again.

No reason at all.

A black-and-white tow truck pulled up to Ronnie's house as Daisy and Louella drove past on their way to the hospital. It was only a few blocks out of their way on Locust Grove, and they had to see the destruction for themselves.

Ronnie's little house was beige stucco and someone had nailed a longhorn skull over the front door. His yard consisted of stubby brown weeds, and it would have been a drab scene if not for Lily's Red Ford Taurus sticking half out the front room.

"Was Ronnie home?" Daisy asked as she floored the Caddy and sped on. She figured all the cops standing around were too busy gawking at Lily's Taurus to take notice of a speeder.

"I don't think so, but we won't know for sure until we get to the hospital."

Daisy hated hospitals. No matter the city or state, they all smelled and felt the same. Sterile and cold. She'd spent enough time in them with Steven to know that they dispensed a lot of medication and advice, but rarely good news.

She and her mother walked through the small hospital's emergency room doors and, after a few moments, were taken to Lily. Pippen was at home with Louella's next-door neighbor, and it was a good thing he wasn't with them. The second the nurse pushed back the green-and-blue striped curtain separating the beds, Louella burst into tears.

"It's okay, Mom," Daisy said, suddenly feeling like the only sane person in a family that had lost its collective mind. She took her mother's hand and held tight. "Lily's going to be okay."

But Lily didn't look okay. The left side of her face was swelling and there was a gash on her forehead. Blood caked her blond hair and the corners of her closed eyes. Some sort of bandaging immobilized her left arm, thick and very white, except where bright red blood seeped through. There was an Win her right forearm, which wasn't bandaged, and her clothes had been cut off. A young male doctor in green scrubs lifted the sheet to listen to her heart and lungs. He looked up at them through wire-framed glasses.

Louella moved to the head of the bed and Daisy went with her. "Lily Belle. Momma's here. Daisy too."

Lily didn't respond and Daisy reached out to touch the side of her face that wasn't swollen. Her sister looked deadly pale, and if it weren't for the steady rise and fall of her chest, Daisy would have thought she really was dead. It was too much in an already emotionally charged day, and like the flip of a switch, Daisy's autopilot kicked in, and she felt herself go numb inside.

"What's the matter with her?" Louella asked.

"All we know so far," the young doctor answered, "is she has lacerations to her left arm and forehead and her ankle looks to be fractured. We won't know anything more until we get her CT scans."

"Why isn't she awake?"

"She took a pretty nasty hit to her forehead. I don't believe her skull is fractured and her pupils are responsive.

We'll know more after we get a look at her X-rays."

"Was there anyone else hurt in the accident?" Daisy asked, praying Lily hadn't mowed down Ronnie and Kelly.

"She was the only one transported from the scene."

Which told Daisy nothing. Ronnie and Kelly could have been treated at the scene or, God forbid, dead. She hadn't seen Ronnie, but she hadn't been looking.

They were only permitted a few moments with Lily before she was wheeled away. They were told a doctor would talk to them shortly, but Daisy knew "shortly" could take hours.

She and her mother were shown to a small waiting room, and it looked and felt like every other waiting room she'd ever been in. She figured that all hospitals must choose colors from the same palate. Blues, greens, and a dash of maroon.

They sat together on a small blue sofa, and on the table next to Daisy sat a fake fern, a copy of Reader's Digest, Newsweek, and the Gideon Bible. She'd read a lot of Reader's Digest over of the last two and a half years, and she didn't even have a subscription.

A man and a woman stood near the door talking in hushed tones as if they raised their voice they'd scream.

Daisy knew how they felt. She'd been here before, so many times. Finding distractions so she wouldn't scream and fall apart, concentrating on nice, even breaths so she could pretend her husband hadn't been dying. And now that her sister wasn't lying on a hospital gurney with blood crusted in her beautiful blond hair.

She picked up the Reader's Digest and flipped to "Humor in Uniform."

"She looked so white," Louella said, a tremble in her voice. "And there was so much blood."

"Scalps bleed a lot, Mom." She sounded so cool. As if she wasn't trembling inside, in the place where she shoved it all away. Down deep where she could control it. She'd gotten really good at sucking up her emotions and going numb inside. Never letting things get too close to the surface, because if she jet that happen, she'd lose it for sure.

Like with Jack today.

"How do you know?"

"Steven," she answered, and concentrated even harder on her magazine. She didn't want to think about Jack right now. She'd have to deal with him, and the repercussions of what she'd done, but not today. For now she pushed that problem down to the number two spot on her to-do list. Lily and the potential of murder charges moved to number one. She wondered how much a really good psychiatrist cost these days.

"Why wouldn't they tell us anything?"

"They don't know anything right now."

A police officer walked into the room and asked if they were related to Lily. He had a crewcut and wore a blue uniform and looked as if he could bench three hundred. He identified himself as Officer Neal Flegel. "I graduated high school with Lily and Ronnie," he said.

"You're Matt's little brother." Daisy shook his hand. "I went to a high school dance with Matt our sophomore year. Does he still live in Lovett?" she asked, because after all, this was Texas and manners came before emergencies.

"He just moved back from San Antone. I'll tell him you asked about him." He pulled out his notebook and got down to business. "I surely hated to see Lily in that car." He told them that the Taurus had come to a stop five feet inside Ronnie's living room. And as Daisy tried to figure out a subtle way of inquiring if Lily had killed Ronnie, Neal Flegel asked, "Do either of you have any reason to think she might have done this on purpose?"

That had actually been Daisy's first and only thought. "No." She shook her head and tried to look perplexed. "It must have been an accident."

"Her foot must have slipped," Louella said, and Daisy wondered if her mother actually believed it any more than she did. "And," Louella continued as if just struck by a thought, "she's been getting those blinding migraines lately."

"We spoke to Ronnie and he told us they'd been fighting a lot lately"

"You spoke to Ronnie today?" Daisy almost laughed with relief. "After the accident?"

"We contacted him at his girlfriend's."

"So he wasn't even home?"

"No one was in the home at the time."

"Thank God," Daisy sighed. Her sister wasn't going to fry for murder. This was Texas. If you were going to commit murder, Texas wasn't a good state to do it in. On the other hand, juries filled with Texas women did tend to sympathize with the wife of a cheating dog.