“He said so?” Harry asked, obviously taking his brother’s okay as reassurance.
“He sure did.” Actually, Jason had just said, “Whatever.” Neither of them had ever varied the lunch menu from brats in a decade, but then, Jason wasn’t the most inventive short-order cook on the planet. “I’ll tell you a secret, Harry.
“All right, but then what’s this other thing?” Harry pushed in his stomach so he could find the space to ease in next to her, still looking suspicious.
“Just chicken.”
“That isn’t
“Jason
“I am worried. About you. You’re young. You’re beautiful. You’re dressed-” he motioned to her Versace silk blouse and navy slacks “-like a million dollars. Yet you’re cooking in my cafe. I don’t get what’s going on here.”
“But I told you what’s going on, Harry. I’ve been cooking for you because I love to. It’s always been a hobby, and I haven’t had a chance to do it in years, and what fun would it be to cook for myself?”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard all your malarkey.” A phone rang from the back office. Harry cocked his head toward the sound. “Go. I know it’s for you.”
The chance of the call being for her was one in a zillion, but Daisy swiftly wiped the flour off her hands with a linen towel and hustled. It’s not that Teague had never called her here, but he generally used her cell phone. Harry just liked her to answer the phone because she played bodyguard for his unwanted calls-particularly from his ex- wife.
The closest phone was in his office-which hadn’t seen a dust rag or vacuum in this century, possibly longer. She grabbed the receiver and started to say Marble Bridge Cafe, but her sister never waited to hear her voice.
“Oh, Daisy. It’s me. I was going to wait to call you until a reasonable hour, but I couldn’t sleep anyway and I had to tell you. I had an ultrasound. It’s a girl.”
“Oh, baby.” She’d talked to her mom and Camille over the past couple weeks, but she’d only been able to catch Violet when both of them were on the run. Just hearing her sister’s voice brought a smile. Clamping the receiver to her ear, she wandered back to the kitchen. She couldn’t cook one-handed, but there were always dishes to rinse, bowls to put away. “I’m so thrilled for you. Are you still feeling good?”
“Better than good. I’m fat as a slug, but I don’t care. I’m just so
“Don’t be scared. You deserve happiness.” She could hear Violet sniffing, and though it was crazy, she almost started sniffing herself. Margaux and Violet were the emotional ones in the family. She’d taken after Dad, could hide her feelings like a pro, but damn. For years Violet had believed she was infertile. She and Cameron talked about the coming baby as if it were a priceless treasure-which, of course, it was. “You’re taking good care of yourself?”
“Hey, this is me. You know I eat right. How’s the cooking going?”
“Fabulous. I’m having a ball. I’ve been using your lavender right and left. Made every recipe Mom ever taught us. Hey, you, we have to schedule a baby shower-”
“Oh, yeah, I’m all about it. But not quite yet. And in the meantime…” Violet cleared her throat. “Now Daisy-”
“Uh-oh. Nothing good ever follows ‘now, Daisy.’”
“I’m just saying. I haven’t always been rolling in it, but I am now. I know, I know, you told everyone you got out of the divorce okay, but just in case you need some help, just say. Mom and Dad will never know. No one will ever know, I promise-”
“I don’t need a thing, sweetie. But you’re a love to ask. What’s the baby’s name going to be?”
“Well, Cameron and I are still fighting about that. Because we three girls got stuck with Camille, Violet and Daisy, you’d better believe there isn’t a chance I’m naming this kid after a flower. But Cam, he’s got his heart set- he thinks-on Rose. In the meantime, hey, any men on the horizon?”
Daisy’s heart instantly leaped to Teague, and in a millisecond flat, her pulse wanted to sing arias. She dropped a dish towel. Then her favorite wooden spoon. “I’d have to be nuts to get involved with anyone until my life’s more settled, don’t you think?”
“Well, yeah. But I hate to think of you alone.”
“I’m not afraid to be alone.” At least that was the whole truth. “You can be lonelier with the wrong person than being by yourself.”
“You’ve sure got that right. Been there, done that, didn’t like it.”
“What I’ve been doing…” In the process of fumbling with the phone, she somehow knocked the napkin holder on the floor. “Is writing up a resume. Getting going with my life. Figuring out something serious to do for a career.”
“That sounds good. So what kind of job are you thinking about?”
Daisy knelt down to pick up the scattered bunch of napkins. The truth was, she hadn’t thought about sending out resumes, hadn’t made any moves to leave White Hills. She hadn’t made a single plan since making love with Teague-except for stockpiling every dime she could. Now, though, her throat felt as thick as pea soup, not because she was telling her sister lies, but because they shouldn’t have been lies.
“I’ve been happy to be home for a while,” she admitted to Violet. “To be honest, I kind of felt crushed when I got here. It’s been good, being back in White Hills, getting back on my feet, but in the long run…you know how restless I am. I was thinking about a job in the travel industry. Cruise director, something like that. Maybe I could be a courier for a jeweler. Or work in insurance in the estates area. There has to be something that a woman who’s been spoiled rotten is uniquely qualified to do.”
Her sister laughed.
When Daisy hung up the phone, she found Harry still sitting in his favorite booth-on the same page of the newspaper he’d been before. He shook it, though, as if turning to the next page. “Sheesh,” he muttered with a short glance at her, “whoever you were talking to, don’t talk to them again.”
“Why?”
“Because you look like you lost your best friend.”
“No, no. In fact, the call was from my sister. Nothing but great news. She’s expecting a baby-” Daisy motioned to the newspaper. “When you’re done with that, would you mind saving me the classified section?”
“You don’t have enough work between me and these projects you’re doing with Larson?”
“I’m not looking for jobs, Harry! I just want the lost and found section.”
“What’d you lose?”
Her entire mind, she thought darkly. By one o’clock, though, as she drove Teague’s car to his current work site-a den he was paneling in tongue-and-groove redwood for some absentee owners-she’d pepped up.
She found exactly the present she wanted for Teague in the newspaper-although she wouldn’t have the chance to see it in person for several days yet. Finding that, though, knowing how badly she wanted to give him this particular gift, forced her to soul search her feelings about Teague.
She was afraid of loving him. She was afraid to trust her own judgment. And she had reasons for those fears, considering her past history with falling for men who inspired her hormones but never had a chance of working out.
She was mighty afraid a relationship couldn’t work out with Teague, either. With reason. But as she found the address and pulled his sacred Golf into the driveway, Daisy told herself that she was armed with several fresh coats of caution. She’d been honest with herself this time. And more than that, so much more than that, Teague was different from any man she’d ever known. This feeling of love was too new, too different, too wonderful to run away from it. She couldn’t give it up. She just couldn’t. Surely it had a chance to work out if she were just more careful. More smart. More certain that she wasn’t repeating past mistakes.
Buoyed with resolve, she hiked up the snowy walk and rapped on the door. There was no decorating to do on this job. Teague just said he’d pay her for helping him finish the wood, because together they could get it done in half the time, and his work schedule was jammed.
