Daisy's Choice (A Tale of Three Hearts) (38 page)

“
Yes you did,” she chuckled.

He scratched the back of his head. “Okay,” he said trying to smile, perceiving it to be a joke. “Yea, yes I did.”

He dropped his hand, pushed them both down in his pockets, fingering lint and loose change. They walked closer to the shore as the tide rolled in and out with ease.

“
I guess you’re right,” she spoke, this time looking off down the coast at the stretch of beach ahead, her thoughts like his, open and free. “I did want to step backward, some reconnecting. Something to replace all the loss I felt these past weeks.”

“
Through Pete?” he pressed.

She didn’t answer. The breeze tossed long strands to and from her face, blowing the shirt he lent her behind them like a cape. She lowered her hand and reached for his. Aiden didn’t acknowledge the gesture at first. It was to soon, too sincere. So he stared at the offering, not trusting, looked away, unsure. Her mixed signals were part of the problem. He was beginning to resent them and her.

She tugged at his wrist, made him withdraw his hand from his pocket and took it in hers. “I made peace with Pete today. Maybe it was not the right kind of peace since there is so much… so much still unsaid between us. But the good news is we aren’t fighting. We aren’t angry. So when I was upstairs, I thought about what you said and how you wanted me to hurt you earlier. I realized that this is partly my fault. This thing that still flames between us. I also realized that you may be my baby's father. So I should make peace with you too. Right? Isn't that why you really came? You want peace of mind. You can start with me. Then move on.”

"I don't want to move on."

"We all have to move forward, Aiden. There can be no more living in the past."

“
Peace, huh?”

“
Yeah. Janette, she says it’s time for peace. I agree.” Daisy stopped, forcing him to stop. She held his hand and looked up at him. “Don’t you want this to end? Aren't you tired of it all, Aiden?”

“
I don’t know what I want besides… this,” he said, lifting her hand and kissing it.

She smiled. “Finally, the truth.”

“
I was always truthful with you.”

Her brow arched and a cynical smile curled the corners of her mouth.

“
Well a lot of the time I was.”

“
Maybe. Maybe your brand of truth is just different than mine.” Daisy stepped closer to him. The salt from the sea was pushed from his nasal passage and replaced with the clean soapy smell of her skin and hair. “I kind of get it now, Aiden.”

"What do you get?” he asked. She was too close, and again, his urge to touch her was overcoming him. He took a cautious step back into the rolling in tide, soaking the hem of his pants leg, running grains of sand and suds over his feet.

“
I understand some of what you need.”

“
Do you?” He let her hand go.

“
Yes. Thing is, you have to stop attaching your happiness to me. It’s more pressure than I want. I can’t be the person that saves you.”

“
That’s not—”

“
It is. You need saving, from you… but I… I can't. Amy is my priority, not romance.”

"Not romance, or not romance with me? You just admitted you wanted something with Pete."

"Pete and I are different."

"Right, because I'm evil."

"Aiden, stop."

"I don’t want your help, Daisy. I never did.” He removed a lock from her brow and tucked her loose wind-blown hair behind her ear. “Of course you have enough for romance. If you give me a chance, all I want… I just want is for you to let me in.”

She turned her face away, unwilling to hear him, truly hear him.

“
Daisy?”

“
That time we were together showed me you were different. Mean, cruel."

"I'm sorry."

"Let me finish. You were also conflicted.” She looked back into his eyes. “You weren’t even happy when you won. You treated me kind of like an experiment. Remember? Like a toy.”

“
No, I never did.”

“
You did. I agreed to it. Everything I did, you mocked… you and that woman.”

“
I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“
You didn’t know me. You didn’t want to know me. Hell, Aiden, you wrote a contract to say that you didn’t want to know me. What was I to think? That good sex—”

“
Great sex.”

“
Okay, okay, okay.” She tossed her hands up. “The best sex of my life. There, I said it. The best sex of my life meant love. Pete and I never had ‘great’ sex. We were good together and we had something else, Aiden, that was better than sex: friendship, trust, respect. Even if I abused it or he did, we had it. We were in in love. That’s what’s missing between us.” She gestured between them both. “We don’t have that… no in between.”

He bit his bottom lip as anger closed his throat. Still he managed to speak. “I suppose those things… friendship, respect, trust… that can’t happen with me?”

“
I don’t know. Who are you? You never told me.”

“
I told you.”

“
You told me why you don’t trust women. You never told me who you were. You showed me such cruelty at times and then you showed me kindness. I don’t know who you are. Does that make sense? I’m just trying to be honest.”

“
Yes, you're doing a great job,” he said stiffly.

“
Don’t be mad.”

“
Why not? You keep dismissing my feelings and you keep talking like I’m some fucking wacko! I’m sick of that! So what it didn’t start as a fairytale. So what!"

"Don't yell at me, Aiden. I won't put up with it."

"Stop telling me how to act!" he shouted. "If I don’t have dirt and grease under my fingernails, I don’t deserve you? You want me gone. Then to hell with this. I'll go!”

She reached for his hand again. He had an urge to snatch away and to head for his car. But her touch stayed him. “Don’t be mad. Chill out. I’m talking to you.”

Aiden clenched his jaw.

“
It’s like a minefield with you," Daisy said. "I don’t know where to step. You’re so closed off and away from the world, you know? I can see you at the Shamrock in that kingdom you built, watching everyone through those security lenses with contempt. Every day you do it. Don’t you? You surround yourself in others greed, then blame them for it. You hate greed. Your father was destroyed because of it. Yet, you force yourself to be reminded of it. That’s a choice I don’t understand, Aiden.”

“
Don’t feel sorry for me, Daisy. My life isn’t that pathetic,” he said bitterly.

She nodded. “Okay, like I said, I understand.”

He glared. “No you don’t. You can’t. It’s always this… this push and pull between us. I don’t think we’ve ever had a honest, um—”

“
Conversation?”

“
A conversation.”

She shook her head. “Of course we did. We talked plenty. Well, I did the talking, and you did the staring, like you’re doing now.”

“
I like listening to you.” He shrugged off his anger.

“
Nope, don’t even go there. You like being silent, observant.” She playfully poked him in the side. “Digging in. Huh? Revealing nothing.”

“
Wrong. I just like to hear you talk.”

“
Really? So you'd enjoy an in-depth conversation about um… eh… the Travel Channel?”

“
I watch it now too,” he smiled.

“
Do you? Seriously?”

He smirked. “If I said yes, what’s my reward?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ll never change.”

“
Depends. What exactly do you mean by change. Will I always be intense, stubborn, and set in my ways?”

“
I say, yes.”

“
You’d be correct, Ms. Johnson.”

She smiled at his reply. Her hands tugged at the front of the shirt he loaned her, closing it around her. Even if the night air didn’t chill him, he felt compelled to make her comfortable. He moved in closer to put his arm around her shoulder. She looked up at him but didn’t shy away. Her arm eased around his waist.

“
How’s your arm?”

“
Fine,” he said, more focused on holding her and the walk at her side.

“
Who is Danielle Locke?” he asked.

“
She’s the owner of Jahi, the creator of every girl’s fantasy.
Jahi
is really that, you know, a girl’s fantasy. It’s kinda what makes a woman celebrate her femininity.”

“
No.” he squeezed her shoulder. “Your sister mentioned the name as if she knew it. I'm wondering why you’d choose it.” He looked down at her. “It’s a name you know. Isn’t it?”

Daisy nodded. “Yeah, a fantasy.”

“
Fantasy?”

“
Yes. Why is that strange? You of all people know I love fantasy."

Aiden chuckled. "True."

"Let me explain. When I was a little girl, every weekend we’d do the shopping and other errands. Saturday mornings meant me and my sisters got a trip to Main Street.”

“
I saw it when I passed through Hollow Creek and thought about buying it,” he joked.

Daisy glared and his smile faded. He saw her eyes narrow with suspicion, but whatever she was going to say she decided against. The joke had fallen flat. He admitted it was strange that he was roaming the streets of her hometown when she was trying so hard to keep the truth about them away.

“
There was a nail salon. I used to wait outside of it while mama shopped across the street. I watched the ladies get their toes and nails manicured. Fantasize. I was eight.”

“
Thus your love for salons?”

“
Thus my love for Danielle Locke,” Daisy smiled. “Home girl was fierce.”

“
Home girl?” he frowned.

She hit his chest. “Listen. She was so pretty. Definitely your type, Aiden.”

“
My type, huh?”

“
Yep, smelled so expensive and fancy. She wore these big church hats,” she gestured. “When she walked in, the women fanned and rolled their eyes. But the men… Well every eye was on Mrs. Locke. She’d sit at the front. I always got a good look at her. She was Marvella Jefferson’s daughter. Married this rich man and left before I was born. I think he was white cause it was a big deal for some reason.”

“
Why would his being white—”

“
C’mon, Aiden, south of the Mason Dixon line it still is a big deal in towns like Hollow Creek.”

“
But Pete is white.”

Daisy smiled. “Yeah he is. Pete don’t give a damn about what anybody thinks of him. He was the biggest catch in town and he did as he pleased. His mother hated me on sight. She probably still does. Pete's color blind. He's just cool like that.”

“
Yeah, Pete’s a great guy,” he said snidely.

Daisy responded only with a smile. “Anyways, she came back from New York City when her mama took sick and left again after she died.”

“
I’m getting a visual.” He smiled at the animated way she explained.

“
Well, one Sunday she asked momma if she could take me shopping. Just picked me out of all my sisters. I guess she saw it in me, that thing you saw.”

He stopped and frowned. “What thing?”

Daisy kept talking, forcing him to walk. “She told me about New York, including things you shouldn’t tell an eight year old. Oh, and she gave me a sip of her ‘get-lose-juice’. That’s what she called it. She kept it in a silver flask down in her fancy bag. It was the first time I saw a Gucci purse. Hell, it was the first time I heard of Gucci.”

Aiden frowned. “Wait? She got you drunk?”

Daisy laughed. “Yeah, well no. It was just a sip. She was something else. I worshiped her. Because of her, I got my nails and toes done and the prettiest dress. Then just like that, she was gone. But I never forgot her. Guess when mama saw her name on my business card she assumed the worst. Yep, she assumed I was Danielle Locke.” Daisy stopped again. “Nothing wrong with fantasies or dreams, Aiden. You just got to know what to reach for… and what not to… I guess.”