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 showyou 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 asragweed. Just as Jack was not the same boy she'd once known, she was not the same girl he'd once knowneither. She'd come to tell him the truth. Finally. Before she could get on with the rest of her life, she had to tellhim about Nathan. It had taken her fifteen years to get to this point, and he could get ugly all he wanted, but hewas 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'swhite 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. Jackhad a girlfriend. Of course he did. He'd always had a girlfriend or two. There had been a time when that wouldhave 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 anoverwhelming relief. She'd come all the way from Seattle to tell him about Nathan, and now all she felt wasrelief. 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 inAmerican 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 wearingJack'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'dfirst 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 shedodged puddles on her way to her mother's Caddie, parked on the side of the garage. Next time, she woulddefinitely 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'sface. Security lights shined down on him and shadowed the angry set of his jaw. His eyes stared into hers - nolonger 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 pronouncedthan 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 orI'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.
Chapter Two
Daisy blew into the mug of hot coffee as she raised it to her lips. The sun had yet to rise, and her mother wasstill asleep in her bedroom down the hail. Besides updated appliances, little had changed in her mother'skitchen. The counter tops and floor tiles were the same matching blue, and the same Texas bluebells werepainted on the white cabinets.
As quiet as possible Daisy slipped into her raincoat, hung by the back door the night before. She threaded onearm then the other through the slicker until it covered her short pajamas. She crammed her feet into her mother'sgarden clogs, then she slipped outside into the deep shadows of early morning. Cool air touched her face andbare legs, and a slight breeze pulled several strands of hair from the claw at the back of her head. The Texas airfilled her lungs and brought a smile to her lips. She didn't know why, or how to explain it, but the air wasdifferent here. It just seemed to settle in her chest and radiate outward. It whispered across her skin andanswered 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 richgreen 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 inthe shape of a little love bite on the top of her left breast. And like her love bite, Lovett hadn't changed in thepast fifteen years. The population had grown by several hundred; there were a few new businesses and one newgrade school. The town had recently added an eighteen-hole golf course and a country club to its landscape, butunlike 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 Oakleystatue, and a dozen or so flamingos were etched in black. Growing up, her mother's taste in exterior decor hadbeen a constant source of embarrassment for her and her younger sister, Lily. Now the parade of flamingosbrought 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 babiesstacked on its back. Daisy hadn't slept well the night before. Her eyes felt puffy and her mind sluggish. Sheshivered and set the mug on her knee. Before she'd seen Jack last night, her plan had been so clear. She'd cometo Lovett, intending to visit with her mother and sister for a few days, then talk to Jack and tell him aboutNathan. 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 herpocket, she still had the letter Steven had written before he'd lost the ability to read and write. When he'daccepted that he would die, that there would be no cure for him, no more experimental drugs to take, no moreradical surgeries to try, he'd wanted to make things right with the people he'd felt he'd wronged in his life. Oneof 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 onewho 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 knewtoo. He'd always known that he had a biological father named Jackson who lived in Lovett, Texas. They'd toldhim 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 ofcoffee. A fifteen-year-old son with a pickle green Mohawk, a pierced lip, and so many dog chains hanging offhim 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 givenfive months to live. He'd lasted almost two years, but it hadn't been an easy two years. Watching Steven fight tolive had been hard on her, but it had been hell oil Nathan. And she hated to admit it, but there had been
