Daisy's Back in Town (3 page)

He raised the milk and drank from the carton, waiting for her to elaborate.

"I thought you should know."

His gaze met hers over the carton, then he lowered it. Some things hadn't changed after all. Jack Parrish, bad boy and all around hell-raiser, had always been a milk drinker. "What makes you think I give a shit?" he asked and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

"I didn't know if you would. I mean, I did wonder what you'd think, but I wasn't sure." This was so much harder than she'd envisioned. And what she'd envisioned had been pretty dang hard.

"Now you don't have to wonder." He pointed with his milk carton toward the other room. "If that's all, there's the door."

"No, that's not all." She looked down at the toes of her boots, the black leather spotted by the rain. "Steven wanted me to tell you something. He wanted me to tell you that he's sorry about everything." She shook her head and corrected herself. "No... was sorry, I mean. He's been gone seven months and it's still hard for me to remember him in the past tense. It seems wrong somehow. Like if I do, he never existed." She looked back at Jack. His expression hadn't changed. "The flowers you sent were really nice."

He shrugged and set the milk on the counter. "Penny sent them."

"Penny?"

"Penny Colten. Married Leon Kribs. She works for me now."

"Thank Penny for me." But Penny hadn't sent them and signed his name without his knowledge.

"Don't make it a big deal."

She knew how much Steven had once meant to him. "Don't pretend you don't care that he's gone."

He raised a dark brow. "You forget I tried to kill him.

"You wouldn't have killed him, Jack."

No, you're right. I guess you just weren't worth it."

The conversation was headed in the wrong direction and she had to turn it around. "Don't he ugly."

"You call this ugly?" He laughed, but not with pleasure. "This is nothing, buttercup. Stick around and I'll show you how ugly I can get."

She already knew how ugly Jack could get, but while she might be a coward, she was also as stubborn as ragweed. Just as Jack was not the same boy she'd once known, she was not the same girl he'd once known either. She'd come to tell him the truth. Finally. Before she could get on with the rest of her life, she had to tell him about Nathan. It had taken her fifteen years to get to this point, and he could get ugly all he wanted, but he was going to listen to her.

A flash of white caught the corner of Daisy's eye a second before a woman entered the kitchen wearing a man's white dress shirt.

"Hey, y'all," the woman said as she moved to stand by Jack.

He looked down at her. "I told you to stay in bed."

"I got bored without you."

Heat crept up Daisy's neck to her cheeks, but she seemed to be the only embarrassed person in the room. Jack had a girlfriend. Of course he did. He'd always had a girlfriend or two. There had been a time when that would have hurt.

"Hello, Daisy. I don't know if you remember rue. I'm Gina Brown."

It didn't hurt any longer, and Daisy was a bit ashamed to admit to herself that what she mostly felt was an overwhelming relief. She'd come all the way from Seattle to tell him about Nathan, and now all she felt was relief. Like an axe had been lifted from her throat. She guessed she was more of a coward than she thought.

Daisy smiled and moved across the kitchen to offer Gina her hand. "Of course I remember you. We were in American Government together our senior year."

"Mr. Simmons."

"That's right."

"Remember when he tripped over an eraser on the floor?" Gina asked as if she weren't standing there wearing Jack's shirt and, Daisy would bet, nothing else.

"That was so funny. I just about -"

"What the hell is this?" Jack interrupted. "A damn high school reunion?"

Both women looked up at him and Gina said, "I was just being polite to your guest."

"She isn't my guest and she's leaving." He pinned his gaze on Daisy, just as cold and unyielding as when she'd first walked in the door.

"It was nice to see you, Gina," she said.

"Same."

"Good night, Jack."

He shoved his hip into the counter and crossed his arms over his chest.

"See you two around." She walked back through the dark house and out the door. The rain had stopped and she dodged puddles on her way to her mother's Caddie, parked on the side of the garage. Next time, she would definitely call first.

Just as she reached for the car door, she felt a hand on her arm whipping her around. She looked up into Jack's face. Security lights shined down on him and shadowed the angry set of his jaw. His eyes stared into hers - no longer cold, they were filled with a burning rage.

"I don't know what you came here looking for, absolution or forgiveness," he said, his drawl more pronounced than before. "But you won't find it." He dropped her arm as if he couldn't stand the touch of her.

"Yes, I know."

"Good. You stay away from me, Daisy Lee," he said, drawing out the vowels in her name. "You stay away or I'll make your life a misery."

She looked up into his dark face, at the passion and anger that had not abated in fifteen years.

"Just stay away," he said one last time before he turned on his bare heels and disappeared into the shadows.

She knew she would be wise to heed his warning. Too bad she didn't have that option.

Although he didn't know it yet, neither did he.

Daisy blew into the mug of hot coffee as she raised it to her lips. The sun had yet to rise, and her mother was still asleep in her bedroom down the hail. Besides updated appliances, little had changed in her mother's kitchen. The counter tops and floor tiles were the same matching blue, and the same Texas bluebells were painted on the white cabinets.

As quiet as possible Daisy slipped into her raincoat, hung by the back door the night before. She threaded one arm then the other through the slicker until it covered her short pajamas. She crammed her feet into her mother's garden clogs, then she slipped outside into the deep shadows of early morning. Cool air touched her face and bare legs, and a slight breeze pulled several strands of hair from the claw at the back of her head. The Texas air filled her lungs and brought a smile to her lips. She didn't know why, or how to explain it, but the air was different here. It just seemed to settle in her chest and radiate outward. It whispered across her skin and answered a hidden longing she hadn't even known rested deep in her soul.

She was home. If only for a short time.

For fifteen years she'd lived in the Seattle, Washington, area. She'd grown to love it there. She loved the rich green landscape, the mountains, the bay. Snow skiing. Water skiing. The Mariners. So many things.

But Daisy Lee was a Texan. In her heart and in her blood. In her DNA, likelier blond hair. Likelier birthmark in the shape of a little love bite on the top of her left breast. And like her love bite, Lovett hadn't changed in the past fifteen years. The population had grown by several hundred; there were a few new businesses and one new grade school. The town had recently added an eighteen-hole golf course and a country club to its landscape, but unlike the rest of the country, and more urban Texas, Lovett still moved at its own laid-back pace.

Daisy gazed into the shadows of her mother's backyard. The outline of the five-foot windmill, an Annie Oakley statue, and a dozen or so flamingos were etched in black. Growing up, her mother's taste in exterior decor had been a constant source of embarrassment for her and her younger sister, Lily. Now the parade of flamingos brought a smile to her lips.

She took a drink of coffee, then she sat on the top concrete step next to a stone armadillo with several babies stacked on its back. Daisy hadn't slept well the night before. Her eyes felt puffy and her mind sluggish. She shivered and set the mug on her knee. Before she'd seen Jack last night, her plan had been so clear. She'd come to Lovett, intending to visit with her mother and sister for a few days, then talk to Jack and tell him about Nathan. All within twelve days. Which, until last night, she'd figured would be plenty of time.

She'd known it would be difficult, but clear-cut. She and Steven had talked about it before he'd passed. In her pocket, she still had the letter Steven had written before he'd lost the ability to read and write. When he'd accepted that he would die, that there would be no cure for him, no more experimental drugs to take, no more radical surgeries to try, he'd wanted to make things right with the people he'd felt he'd wronged in his life. One of those people was Jack. At first he'd thought to send the letter, but the more the two of them talked about it, the more they'd concluded that it should be delivered in person. By her. Because ultimately, she was the one who had to deal with Jack Parrish, and she was the one who'd wronged him most.

They'd never really meant to keep Nathan a secret from him. Her mother knew. So did her sister. Nathan knew too. He'd always known that he had a biological father named Jackson who lived in Lovett, Texas. They'd told him as soon as he'd been capable of understanding, but he'd never expressed any interest in meeting Jack.

Steven had always been enough father for him.

It was time. Perhaps past time that she told Jack he had a son. A moan escaped her lips and she took a sip of coffee. A fifteen-year-old son with a pickle green Mohawk, a pierced lip, and so many dog chains hanging off him he looked liked he'd broken into the animal shelter.

Nathan had had such a hard time these past two and a half years. When Steven was diagnosed, he'd been given five months to live. He'd lasted almost two years, but it hadn't been an easy two years. Watching Steven fight to live had been hard on her, but it had been hell oil Nathan. And she hated to admit it, but there had been times when she hadn't been at all attentive to her son. Some nights, she hadn't even known he was gone until he'd returned. He'd walk in the door and she'd scold him for not telling her where he'd gone. He'd look at her through those clear blue eyes of his and say, "I told you I was going to Pete's. You said I could." And she'd have to admit to herself that it was entirely possible that he'd told her, hut she'd been focused on Steven's medication or his next surgery - or perhaps that had been the day when Steven lost his ability to use a calculator, drive a car, or tie his shoes. Watching her husband struggle to maintain his dignity while trying to recall a simple task he'd been performing since he was four or five had been heartbreaking. There were times when she'd simply forgotten whole blocks of conversations with Nathan.

The day Nathan had walked in the house with that Mohawk had been a real wake-up call for her. Suddenly, he was no longer the little boy who played soccer, loved football, and watched "Nickelodeon" curled up on the couch with his special blanket. It hadn't been the color of his hair that had alarmed her most. It had been the lost look in his eyes. His empty, lost gaze had shocked her out of the depression and grief she hadn't even known she'd fallen into for almost seven months following Steven's passing.

Steven was gone. She and Nathan would always feel his loss, like a missing part of their souls. He'd been her best friend and a good man. He'd been a buffer, a comfort, someone who made her life better. Easier. He'd been a loving husband and father.

She and Nathan would never forget him, but she could not continue to live in the past. She had to live in the present and begin to look toward the future. For Nathan, and for herself. But in order for her to move forward, she had to take care of her past. She had to quit hiding from it.

Fingers of morning sun crept into the backyard and sparkled in the dew-covered lawn. The early sun cast long patterns in the wet grass, crept up the windmill, and shot sparks off the up of Annie Oakley's silver rifle. Daisy wished she had her Nikon and wide-angle lens on her. It was up in her room, and she knew if she ran up to get it, she'd miss the shot and the rising sun. Within seconds, dawn broke over Daisy's feet, legs and face; she closed her eyes and soaked it all in.

Living in the Northwest, Daisy had lost most of her accent, but she'd never lost her love of wide-open spaces and the huge blue sky stretching across the horizon in unbroken lines. She opened her eyes and wished Steven were here to see it. He would have loved it as much as she did.

Daisy looked down at the rubber garden clogs on her feet. She wished for a lot of things. Like more time before she had to confront Jack again. She was in no hurry to see the anger in his face. She'd known that he would not welcome her back with open arms, but she was surprised that after all of these years, he clearly hated her as much as he had the last time she'd seen him.

You call this ugly? he'd said. This is nothing, buttercup. Stick around and I'll show you how ugly I can get.

She wondered if Jack had realized he'd called her buttercup. His old name for her. The name he'd first called her on her first day at Lovett Elementary.

She remembered being nervous and scared on that day, so long ago. She'd been afraid no one would like her, and she'd suspected that the big red bow clipped to the top of her head looked stupid. Her mother had pulled it off the handle of a Welcome Wagon basket filled with coupons, a recipe hook, and Wick Fowler's chili kit.

Daisy hadn't wanted to wear the bow; but her mother had insisted that it looked good and matched her dress.

All that first morning, no one had spoken to her. By lunch, she'd become so upset, she was unable to eat her cheese yum-yum sandwich. Finally; during recess, Steven and Jack walked up to where she stood with her back against the chain link fence.

"What's your name?" Jack had asked.

She'd looked into those green eyes of his, surrounded by long black lashes, and she'd smiled. Finally someone was talking to her, and her little heart leapt with joy. "Daisy Lee Brooks."

He'd rocked back on the heels of his boots as he looked her up and down. "Well, buttercup, that's the stupidest hair how I ever did see," he'd drawled, then he and Steven howled with laughter.