“I do. And speaking of getting along, why was Detective Rappaport here?”
Jonas took a step away from her and hesitated. She recognized that stone face of his. It didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling anything. It meant he was probably feeling too much. The question was—would he share his feelings with her? They’d been seriously dating about nine months now. They’d come to a general understanding that they liked being together, and they were taking their relationship wherever it would go. But they both knew Violet’s baby could change that relationship. Jonas had insisted he’d support Daisy any way he could, and he’d stick around. But she wasn’t so sure.
Jonas began with, “The good detective wants me and Zeke to mend fences.”
Zeke Willet was also a detective who’d come to Willow Creek from Philadelphia. He was now Rappaport’s partner. But Zeke and Jonas had a history.
“You want that too, don’t you? You were best friends once.”
“We were. But Brenda’s death changed all that.”
Jonas’s significant other had been his partner in the Philadelphia police department. Brenda had been a friend of Zeke Willet’s too. The bottom line—Zeke blamed Jonas for her death.
Jonas and Brenda had been ambushed and Jonas had been hurt. Brenda had died. As far as Daisy was concerned, she didn’t think Zeke Willet was looking at it rationally. However, when you lost someone you cared about, could you look at their death rationally? She knew it had taken a good long time for her to move past her husband Ryan’s death. It wasn’t as if she ever forgot about him. It wasn’t as if a wave didn’t overtake her now and then and bring tears to her eyes. She understood loss. But she couldn’t quite understand the bad blood between Zeke and Jonas, and Jonas couldn’t either.
“Why is he pushing for you and Zeke to get past your history?”
“He believes the tension between us affected Zeke’s performance in their last murder investigation, and he might be right. Zeke missed more than one piece of evidence.”
Daisy knew for a fact that was true because she’d been involved. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll ask Zeke to go to Bases to watch a game with me and have a beer.”
“The same place fights broke out last night?” she asked with a bit of sarcasm.
Jonas shrugged. “I don’t think that ever happened before there. Besides, I don’t intend to let Zeke rile me enough to make me want to fight him. I understand why he blames me for Brenda’s death. Sometimes I wonder if I could have done something different. I know if we hadn’t had that argument before we left for our shift, everything might have been different. Maybe I would have been more alert. Maybe thoughts of her being pregnant or having her IUD removed without telling me wouldn’t have been clouding my mind.”
“You couldn’t know that the suspect you wanted to interview was going to ambush you. That was his doing, not yours.”
Jonas studied her for a few seconds, then took her hand in his. “You’re good for a man’s ego.”
“Nonsense. I’m just speaking the truth.”
Looking a bit embarrassed and as if he wanted to change the subject, Jonas did. “The last time I spoke to Jazzi, she told me she’s going to spend a weekend soon with Portia and her husband.”
“It’s all planned. I don’t know how it’s going to go. She’s excited about it, but also afraid that Colton will just shut her out and not want her to be involved in the family.”
Colton, Portia’s husband, had separated from Portia for a little while when he’d learned her secret—that she’d had Jazzi and given her up for adoption—because he hadn’t wanted his life to be disrupted. But Portia was Jazzi’s birth mother, and the two of them got along. Colton could complicate their relationship.
“I have a meeting with Vi and her midwife tonight. Willa thinks the baby could come at any time. Jazzi desperately wants to go to Portia’s, but she’s afraid Vi will have her baby while she’s there and she’ll miss it.”
“Even if Jazzi goes to Portia’s,” Jonas said, “we can let her know as soon as Vi goes into labor. I can be on standby to go get her if Portia or her husband doesn’t want to drive her back home.”
“Really?” Daisy was still surprised when Jonas wanted to go out of his way for her. Maybe she was the one who couldn’t trust.
“Really,” he said. “Allentown’s a three-hour drive. Hopefully, I could have her back before Vi delivers. First labors are supposed to be long ones, right?”
“They can be. I know Jazzi would be grateful if she knew you were her backup.”
“Then assure her that I am,” he said. “Tell her when she gets a chance to stop in and we’ll talk about it.”
Since Jonas was instrumental in finding Portia to begin with, Jazzi trusted him. Maybe Daisy should take a lesson from her daughter.
Chapter Three
“Do you like your mother?” Iris asked with a most serious expression the following day as she and Daisy waited for Rose to arrive for a late lunch.
Daisy’s breath hitched as she glanced toward the front door of Sarah Jane’s Diner before she even thought about answering her aunt’s question. Sarah Jane was hostessing and stood at the front desk talking to one of her waitresses. Her strawberry blond curls fell over her forehead. She was a bit overweight but had twice as much energy as a woman half her age. She was pushing hard for a meals-on-wheels service for Willow Creek, but for now the town council and the Chamber of Commerce were set on building a homeless shelter for the community instead.
Daisy focused on that tangent of thoughts, as well as Sarah Jane’s blue gingham apron and her fuchsia and green sneakers. That way she could avoid answering the question her aunt had posed. Daisy knew she couldn’t postpone answering for very long. Her aunt wouldn’t let her, and
