Daisy's Back in Town (6 page)

She reapplied her red lipstick and dropped it into her purse. Let Jack do his worst. She might even deserve some of it, but she'd survive. She'd lived with just about the worst that life could deal her, and nothing Jack could do would be as bad as that.

Daisy stopped in the bar and bought a glass of wine, then made her way back toward the banquet room.

Jack stood in the long hail with one shoulder shoved against the wall. He held a cell phone in one hand, the other was in the front pocket of his pants. He glanced up and watched her as she moved toward him.

"That'd be fine," he said into the phone. "I'll see y'all first thing Monday."

Her first impulse was to hurry past, but she stopped in front of him instead. "Hey, Jack."

He disconnected and put the phone in his pocket. "What do you want, Daisy?"

"Nothing. Just being friendly."

"I don't want to he 'friendly' with you." He straightened away from the wall and took his hand from his pocket.

"I thought I made myself clear last night."

"Oh, you did." She took a drink of her wine, then asked, "How's Billy?" All she remembered of Jack's brother was a pair of shiny blue eyes and sandy blond hair. Other than that, she couldn't recall much about him.

He looked over her head and said, "Billy's good."

She waited for him to elaborate. He didn't. "Married? Kids?"

"Yep."

"Where's Gina?" His gaze met hers and, in that suit, his eyes appeared more gray than green.

"At Slim Clem's, I imagine."

"She's not here?"

"I don't see her."

She took another sip of her wine. She was going to be pleasant if it killed her. Or him. "You didn't bring her with you?"

"Why would I?"

"Isn't she your girlfriend?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

They both knew what had given her that idea. "Oh, maybe because she was wearing your shirt last night, and nothing else."

"You're wrong about that. She was wearin' a black lace thong." One corner of his mouth slid up, purposely provoking her - the jerk. "And a satisfied smile. You remember that smile, don't you, Daisy?"

She would not lose her temper and give him what he wanted. "Don't flatter yourself, Jack Parrish. You weren't that memorable."

"What? I was talking about Gina's smile last night." The other corner of his mouth slid up and laugh lines appeared in the corners of his eyes. "What were you talking about, buttercup?"

They both knew he hadn't been talking about Gina's smile. "You haven't changed since high school." She gave him a withering glance and walked away before she lost her temper and said something she might regret. Like that he should grow up.

Jack watched her go. His smile flat-lined, and his gaze slid from her blond hair, all slick and smooth, down the back of her red dress to her behind and the backs of her thighs. Who the hell was she to judge him? She'd screwed around with him, said she'd love him forever; then married his best friend the same week he buried both his parents. In his book, that made her a hardcore hitch.

She disappeared into the banquet room, and Jack waited a few moments before he followed. At thirty-three, Daisy was even more beautiful than she'd been at eighteen. He'd seen it last night. In his kitchen, and he saw it now So much about her was different, yet the same. Her hair was still the same shiny blond, but it wasn't big and curly and sprayed stiff. Now it was smooth and sexy as hell. She'd grown an inch maybe two, to what he figured was about five-foot-five, but she carried herself like she was still queen of the Lovett Rose Festival. Her large eyes were still the color of rich mahogany, but they'd lost the innocence and passion that he'd once found so fascinating.

He walked down the hall and entered the dark banquet room. Marvin stopped him to talk about the '67 Ford Fairlane he'd just bought.

"It has its original 427," he said while Jed and the Rippers sang a Tim McGraw song about a girl in a miniskirt.

Like a magnet, Jack's gaze found Daisy. She stood at the edge of the lighted floor across the room, chatting with J. P. Clark and his wife, Loretta. Daisy's red dress hugged the curves of her body without looking too tight. She clearly hadn't gone too fat. Didn't have thick ankles or a droopy butt. Which was too bad, as far as Jack was concerned.

For years he'd forgotten about her and Steven. He'd buried them in the past and got on with his life. Now here she was, dredging it all back up again.

Cal Turner approached her and she followed him to the middle of the dance floor. Everyone knew Cal was a horny bastard and would naturally take all those buttons on the side of that dress as an invitation to let his fingers do the walking. Maybe that's what she wanted. To get something going with Cal. Didn't matter, though.

It was none of Jack's business.

"Tile vinyl roof needs to be replaced," Marvin said, then rambled on about the interior.

Cal wrapped an arm around Daisy's waist and she smiled up at him. Light from the crystal ball slid along her cheek and got caught in her hair. Her red lips parted and she laughed. Daisy Lee Brooks, the fantasy of every horny guy at Lovett High, was back in town, turning heads and leading guys on with a smile.

Some things never changed.

Only she wasn't Daisy Lee Brooks. She was Daisy Monroe and she had a kid. A son. A baby with Steven. He didn't know why that surprised him. It shouldn't. Of course they'd had a kid. When he thought about it, it was more surprising that they'd just had the one.

Unexpected and unwanted, the memory of her flat stomach flashed across his brain. His mouth tasting her bare skin just above her navel as he gazed up into her face. At the hot drowsy passion in her eyes as he worked his way down. Hcr lips moist and abraded from his kiss.

"Excuse me," he said just as Marvin was getting all hot about the Ford's dual carhs. He walked toward the exit sign and out the doors. He moved down the hall and out the front doors of the country club. The warm June night touched his face and throat. The sound of insects was thick in the air. There was some sort of pond to Jack's right and lightning bugs blinked like white Christmas lights on the golf course beyond. A memory of catching lightning hugs with Steven and Daisy flashed across his brain. That had been back before insecticides reduced their numbers, and they were still easy to catch in Mason jars. He, Steven and Daisy would smear the bugs on their arms, making fluorescent streaks that lasted a good ten minutes.

He pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and walked to a stone bench just beyond the lights of the club. He sat and slid off the cigar hand. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth and patted his pockets, searching for the box of matches he'd picked up in the tobacco store. He didn't smoke that often, but he did occasionally enjoy an expensive cigar.

His pockets came up empty and he stuck the cigar back in his breast pocket. A bank of windows from the restaurant threw watery light on the pond. He ran his fingers through his hair, leaned his head back against the building, and stared out at the night. His life was good. He had more business than he could handle and was making more money than he needed. He'd taken Parrish American Classics and made it bigger and better than his father had ever dreamed. He owned his home and his business. He drove a Mustang worth seventy grand and a new Dodge Ram truck to pull his twenty-one-foot boat.

He was content, so why did Daisy have to show up now and dredge up old memories that were better left long buried? Memories of him and her. Of him and Steven. Of the three of them.

From almost the first day in grade school, he and Steven had both been a little in love with Daisy Brooks. It'd started out innocent enough. Two boys looking across the playground and seeing a little girl with gold hair and big brown eyes. A girl who could play baseball, swing on the monkey bars, and outrun them. The attraction had been pure and naive.

In the third grade, when Daisy had worried about who she'd marry when she grew up, they'd all three decided that she would marry the both of them. They'd all live in the tree house they planned to build, and Jack would get rich and famous driving NASCAR. Steven would become a lawyer like his dad, and Daisy a beauty queen.

They'd never heard of polygamy, and neither he nor Steven had thought of Daisy in a sexual way. Not that he and Steven hadn't talked about sex. They just hadn't thought about it in relation to Daisy.

But all that changed the summer going into the eighth grade. Daisy had gone away to work on her aunt's ranch in El Paso, and by the time she'd come hack, she'd popped out a pair of perfect breasts. She'd left looking like the girl they'd always known, skinny and flat-chested, but she came back changed. Her legs longer. Her breasts bigger than his hands. Her hips fuller. Even her hair had seemed shinier.

Back then, his body had never needed a reason to get an erection. It was just something that happened to all pubescent boys for no reason at all and was embarrassing as hell. Sometimes it'd just happened when he was doing nothing more exciting than geometry or mowing the lawn.

But that summer, he'd taken one look at Daisy, and his body had reacted to the two very distinct reasons pressed against her T-shirt. His thoughts had dropped right to his crotch, and he'd gotten so hard he'd about passed out from lack of blood to his brain. She'd come over to tell him about her aunt's ranch, and while she was sifting there beside him on his front porch, talking and laughing and filling him in on the horses she'd ridden, he was trying not to stare at her tits. Yee-freakin'-ha!

That summer, he and Steven had known without exchanging words that each felt an attraction for her that was no longer innocent. It was there between them. For the first time in their friendship, they had a real big problem.

One that wasn't going to be solved with an apology or an extra slug to equal things out.

Later they'd talked about it, about how they felt about Daisy. They decided that neither could have her. In order to remain friends, they promised to keep their hands to themselves. Daisy was off limits. Jack had broken that promise, but Steven had ended up with her.

The front door of the club swung open, and as if his thoughts had conjured her, Daisy stepped outside. She settled the little gold chain of her purse on her shoulder and glanced around as if she couldn't quite recall where she'd parked her car. Her gaze locked with his, and she stared at him across the distance. The light from the front of the club lit half her face and left the rest in variegated shadow.

"Shay's going to throw her bouquet in a minute," she said as if he'd asked. "And I don't want to pretend to catch it."

"You don't want to get married next?"

She shook her head and her hair brushed her shoulders.

He didn't ask why. He didn't want to give a shit. His gaze moved to her full breasts pressing against the red material of her dress and down all those buttons on the side.

"This morning I was thinking about my first day at Lovett Elementary," she said and took a step toward him.

"Do you remember that?"

He stood and looked back up into her face. "No."

Her red lips turned up at the corners. "You told me my hair how was stupid."

And shed burst into tears.

"My mama made me wear that dumb thing."

He looked down into her face, with her smooth perfect skin, straight nose, and full red lips. She was as beautiful as she'd always been, maybe more so, and he was doing a really good job of feeling nothing. No anger. No desire. Nothing. "What are you doing here?"

She took a step closer. If he reached out, he could touch her. Daisy's big eyes stared into his and she said, "Shay invited me to her reception this morning when I saw her buying a can of Aqua Net at Albertsons."

That wasn't want he'd meant. "Why are you in Lovett? Dredging up the past?"

She lowered her gaze to his chest but didn't answer.

"What do you want, Daisy?"

"I want to be friends."

"Why, Jack?" She looked back up, her gaze searching his face. "We were friends once."

He laughed. "Were we?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"I think we were more."

"I know, but I mean friends like in before all that."

"Before all that sex?"

He wasn't sure, but he thought she blushed. "Yes."

"And before you had sex with my best friend?" He folded his arms across his chest. Maybe he did feel something. Maybe he was a little more pissed off than he'd thought, because he said, "Are you here to start things up again? Continue right where we left off?"

She looked away. "No."

"I know I'm not supposed to flatter myself, but are you sure you don't want to tear one off in the back of my car?" She shook her head, but he didn't stop. "For old time's sake?"

Her gaze returned to his. "Don't, Jack." She raised her hand between them and pressed her fingers against his ups. "Don't say any more."

The touch of her fingers took him off guard. He caught the scent of perfume, but underneath that, he smelled her. Daisy. She might cover it with perfume and move away for fifteen years, but it hadn't changed. Even at the age of seventeen, when she'd worked at The Wild Coyote Diner; even beneath the scent of fried chicken and barbeque, she'd always smelled like a warm summer breeze.

With her fingers pressed to his mouth, he stared at her for several long heartbeats. Sometimes he'd had to search hard for the scent of her beneath the smell of all that grease, but he'd always found it. Usually in the crook of her neck. He grabbed her wrist and took a step back. "What do you want from me?"

"I told you. I want to he friends."

There had to he more. "We can never be friends."

"Why?"

He let go of her wrist - "You married my best friend."

"You broke up with me."

No, he'd told her he needed time to think. "So, to get back at me, you married Steven." It wasn't a question.

Rather a statement of fact.

She shook her head. "You don't understand. It wasn't like that."

It was exactly like that. "You and I were lovers. We were doing it every which way to Sunday. Then you up and married my best friend the same week I buried my parents. What part did I get wrong?" Through the darkness he watched a crease draw her brows together.