Daisy's Back in Town (33 page)

Around two o'clock, his head quit pounding, but the pain and anger in his chest remained. A constant reminder of what he'd almost had, and what he'd lost.

When Nathan came to work that Thursday, it got a whole lot worse. He mentioned that Daisy was leaving Monday for Seattle. They'd sold their house.

That night as Jack finally dealt with the mess in his backyard, he couldn't help but think of Daisy and how she was getting on with her life. Moving forward, while he seemed forever stuck in the past.

He put all the pieces to his mother's table in a shed on the side of the house and he stuck the chair in there too.

Maybe he should move. He'd thought of it a time or two. He'd thought of converting the house into more office space. That in turn would open up more space in the garage.

Jack sat on the back porch and looked out over the yard. He couldn't see tearing it down. The house held too many memories for him and Billy. It's where he and Steven had dug up the time capsule and read Daisy's diary.

Right in the corner of the yard under the maple tree. It's where they'd buried it too.

He stood, and before he could give himself time to think better of it, he walked to the shed and grabbed a shovel. The earth was packed solid. Sweat ran down the side of his face as he dug for over an hour. It was somewhere around seven-thirty and the sun was still blazing when the end of the shovel finally hit the old red can. He exhumed it from its twenty-one-year-old hiding place. The paint was faded and it showed signs of rust.

The plastic lid had turned a dull yellow but was still intact.

Jack took the can to the back porch. He sat on the top step and dumped it out. Green army men, Hans Solo and Princess Lea Star Wars figures, and a switch comb fell out first. Next, Jack's "Dukes of Hazzard"

Matchbox car, a whistle and a pack of trick gum. Daisy's diary, a fuzzy pink barrette, and a cheap ring with about a three-carat hunk of glass fell on top of the pile. She'd said he'd given her the ring. He didn't remember it, though.

He picked up the ring and put it in his breast pocket. He reached for the little white book with a yellow rose on it, the lock busted from the last time he'd held it in his hands. The pages had yellowed and the ink had dulled.

He leaned forward, rested his forearms on the tops of his knees, and read: Mr. Skittles bit Lily on the nose today. I think she was trying to kiss him, Daisy had written when they'd all been in about the sixth grade. My mom put a stupid Snow White in our front yard. It's soooooo embarrassing.

Jack smiled and flipped passed references of her cat and yard decoration. He stopped when he saw his name.

Jack got in big trouble for climbing on the roof at school. He had to stay after and I think he got a whooping.

He said he didn't care, but he looked sad. It made me sad too. Steven and I walked home without him. Steven
said lack would be okay.

Jack remembered that. He hadn't gotten whooped, but he'd had to wash all the windows in the school. His gaze skimmed past more entries about her cat, what they'd all had for dinner, and about the weather.

Jack yelled at me today. He called me a stupid girl and told me to go home. I cried and Steven told me Jack didn't really mean it.

Jack didn't remember that one, but if he'd yelled at her it was probably because he had a little crush on her and didn't know what to do about it.

Steven gave me a sticker for my bike. It's a rainbow. He says it's too girly for his bike. Jack said it looked weird.

Sometimes he hurts my feelings. Steven says he doesn't mean to. He doesn't have sisters.

He'd never known she was so sensitive. Well, yeah, he guessed he'd known that. But he'd never known she'd gotten upset over stuff like saying a sticker was weird.

Yesterday was Halloween. My mom made me be Annie Oakley again 'cause I haven't outgrown the stupid
costume from last year. Jack was Darth Vader and Steven dressed up as Princess Lea. Steven had big cinnamon
buns over his ears to look like her. I laughed so hard I about wet myself.

Jack chuckled. He remembered that costume, but he'd forgotten most of the other things Daisy had written about. He'd also forgotten that Steven loved to tell jokes. A lot of them Daisy had jotted down in her diary. He'd forgotten that Steven was a pretty funny kid and that they'd spent hours together laughing about Mrs. Jansen walking her old dog, or their favorite episode of "The Andy Griffith Show."

I don't know why they talk about that show so much, Daisy had written. It's stupid. "The Love Boat" is soooooo much better.

Yeah, and Jack remembered he and Steven laughing about "The Love Boat" behind Daisy's back.

The more Jack read, the more he laughed out loud at some of the things they all used to do. The more he laughed, the more he felt some of his anger subside which surprised the hell out of him.

The more he read, the more he saw a pattern of Daisy turning to Steven when she was upset about something, or when Jack had unknowingly hurt her feelings. Last Sunday night, she'd told him that Steven was not only her husband, but her best friend. She'd said she could talk to him about any thing. That she and Steven had laughed and cried together.

Jack wasn't the type of guy who cried. Instead he stuffed everything deep until it disappeared. Only it didn't.

Daisy had been right. They couldn't be together if he couldn't get past his anger. Yes, he had a right to it, but being right was very lonely.

Jack shut the diary and looked out over his backyard. He had two choices. He could live the rest of his life with a chest full of anger and bitterness. Alone. Or he could move on. Like Daisy had said. At the time she'd said it, it hadn't seemed possible. Now he felt the glimmer of something in the pit of his soul.

Yeah, Daisy and Steven had kept his child a secret. Yeah, that sucked, but he couldn't let it eat at him any longer. He had to let it go or he was afraid he'd die a bitter and lonely old man. He hadn't known Nathan for the first fifteen years of his life, but Jack figured he had a good fifty or so ahead of him. And he had to decide how he wanted to spend those years.

He stood and shoved everything back into the old coffee can. He walked back into his house and took the letter Steven had written him from the drawer he'd tossed it in. This time when he read it, he read something he'd missed the first time. Steven wrote about the two of them and how much he'd missed Jack over the years. He talked about loving Daisy and Nathan. He ended by asking Jack's forgiveness. He asked Jack to let go of his bitterness and to get on with his life. And for the first time in fifteen years, Jack was going to try to do just that.

He didn't have a plan. He just thought of his life, and he didn't try to stop the memories. Good or bad. He didn't tap them down or shut them out.

He felt every damn one of them.

Friday after work, he asked Nathan to follow him into his office. They stood next to each other as he pulled out the coffee can and handed Nathan the switch comb. "This was your dad's when he was in sixth grade," he said without a trace of anger. "I thought you might like to have it."

Nathan pushed the button on the handle, and surprisingly it sprang open. He combed the side of his hair.

"Sweet." Nathan took the Star Wars figures but decided against the green army men.

"You're getting your license Monday, right?"

"Yeah. Mom says I can drive her Caravan sometimes." He frowned. "I told her, no way."

"It's hard to be cool in a Caravan." Jack tried and failed not to smile. "Hard to burn 'em off."

Nathan shook his head. "She just doesn't get it."

Jack grabbed the coffee can and wrapped an arm around Nathan's shoulders. Together they walked from the office. "And she won't either."

"'Cause she's a girl."

"No, son. Because she's not a Parrish." At least not yet.

"Mom! Guess what?" Nathan said the second he walked into the back of the house. "Jack let me drive the Shelby. Sweet!"

Daisy was up to her elbows in cake frosting. She was throwing a party for Pippen, who'd gone three days without peeing in his pull-ups. "What? You'll kill yourself."

"He was very safe," Jack said from the doorway. "He even reminded me to put on my seat belt."

At the sight of him standing there in a pair of khaki pants and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, her heart seemed to squeeze and swell all at the same time.

His gaze met hers and something hot and vital simmered in his eyes. When he spoke, it was low and sexy.

"Good evenin', Daisy Lee," he said, and the velvet in his voice seemed to reach across the distance and touch her.

There was definitely something different about hint tonight, but before she could respond, Lily hobbled into the kitchen on crutches. "Hey, Jack. How's it goin'?"

He turned to Lily and whatever had been between

Daisy and Jack evaporated like a heat mirage. "Hey,

Lily. Hot enough for ya?"

"Shoot. It's hotter than a honeymoon hotel." She moved to the counter and looked in the mixing bowl. "Did you drop by for Pippen's potty party?" Lily stuck her finger into the cake frosting, then licked it dean.

"Yes, Jackson, you have to stay," Louella insisted as she walked from her bedroom into the kitchen. "We bought coonskin hats for everyone, and we'll eat off Thomas the Tank Engine plates."

Nathan moaned as if in severe pain and Jack looked at his son as if he sympathized. But he said, "I'd love to stay, Miz Brooks. Thank you." He moved to the counter next to Daisy, and the sleeve of his shirt brushed her arm as he tasted her frosting. He licked it off and looked down into her gaze.

"Mmm, that's good, buttercup." Then he bent down and whispered into her ear, "I wanna lick this off your thighs."

"Jack!"

He chuckled and grabbed her hand. "If y'all will excuse us for a few minutes, I need to talk to Daisy." He pulled her behind him out the back door. As soon as the door shut behind them, he drew her against him and lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was sweet and gentle and so heartbreaking she pulled away.

"I've missed you, Daisy," he said.

"Jack, don't. This has been so difficult for me."

He pressed his finger to her lips. "Let me finish."

He dropped his hand to the side of her neck and looked into her eyes. "I'm in love with you. It feels like I've been in love with you my whole life. You're it for me, Daisy. You always have been." His thumb lightly brushed her jaw. "Over the Years, I've held on to a whole stomachful of anger and bitterness. I blamed you and Steven for everything, when the truth is, I had a hand in what happened to us. I still don't like that I wasn't around when Nathan was growing up, but I just have to believe things happened the way they did for a reason. I can't fight it or argue with it or hold on to it. I'm just letting it go. Like you said."

"Are you sure you can do that?"

"I'm tired of being mad at you," he said as if he meant it. "And I'm tired of being mad at Steven too. I loved Steven when we were kids. We were buddies. In the letter he wrote to me, he asked if I ever missed him." Jack took a deep breath, then cleared his throat. "I've missed the Steven I grew up with every day He's gone, and J

can't hate a dead man." His paused and his gaze skimmed her face. "Remember the first night you came to my house and I told you I'd make your life a misery?"

She smiled. He'd broken her heart, and now he was fixing it. "Yes."

"I want you to forget I ever said that, because I want to spend the rest of your life trying to make you happy" He fished around in his breast pocket and pulled out a cheap little ring. The gold was chipped off the band and the glass "diamond" had dulled. He reached for her hand and placed it in her palm. "I gave you this ring when we were in the sixth grade. If you'll have me, Daisy, I'll buy you a real one."

Her mouth fell open. "This is the ring I put in the time capsule."

"Yeah. I dug it back up the other day. I have your diary too." His fingers brushed the side of her throat. "Marry me, Daisy Lee."

She nodded. "I love you with all my heart, Jack Parrish. I have always loved you, and I believe it is my fate to love you forever."

He let out a pent-up breath like there had been a doubt. He pulled her into a hug that lifted her off her feet.

"Thank you," he said and pressed his smile to her lips.

The back door opened and Nathan stepped out. "Mom, you have to come inside. Grandma-" He stopped when he realized what was going on.

Jack set Daisy on her feet and she turned to face her son. Jack wrapped his arms around her middle and pulled her back against his chest. Nathan looked from one to the other until his gaze stopped on Daisy.

"Your grandma is what?" Daisy asked.

"She's rambling on about people I don't know and don't give a crap about again," he answered, distracted by the sight of the two of them. He raised his gaze to Jack. "What's going on?"

"I asked your mother to marry me."

Nathan stood perfectly still as he absorbed what that meant.

"I've loved your mother since the second grade when I looked across the playground and saw her standing there with a stupid red hair bow." Jack's fingers brushed her stomach as he spoke. "I let her get away once. I'm not going to make that mistake again." He pulled her lighter against his chest. "I want the two of you to move here and live with me."

"To Levett?"

"Yeah. What do you think?"

Daisy didn't remember him asking her what she thought.

Nathan looked at both of them as he mulled over his options. "Do I get the Shelby?"

For several long moments Daisy feared Jack would say yes. "No, but you can have your mom's Caravan."

"That's not funny!'

"Maybe we can work something out."

Nathan smiled and nodded as he walked back into the house. "Sweet," he said.

Jack leaned down and whispered into her ear, "Can we skip the potty party?"

"No." She turned and wrapped her arms around him. Breathing in the smell of his shirt and of him. "But we don't have to stay long."