Trying to chew, swallow, and jog after her all at once just about killed me. I choked on my food for a solid twelve seconds, long enough to almost catch up with her, before I finally dealt with it.
“Daisy!” I croaked, completely out of breath by the time I got to her.
She just about jumped out of her skin, flinching and going pale like she was afraid to be hit. I cleared my throat and was just about to make a joke out of it when I saw her pulse racing in the hollow of her throat. She hadn’t just been startled; she was completely terrified.
“Daisy? Sweetheart, you good?”
“Oh.” She laughed weakly and shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. I—I didn’t sleep very well last night, I guess. I’ve been jumpy all day.”
I frowned and tried to meet her gaze, but her eyes slipped away from mine like a couple of front-facing magnets.
“Well here,” I said, reaching for the beer she carried. “If you’re that tired, let me help you.”
That seemed to alarm her more. “No!” she said, her voice sharp and clear. She clutched the box and twisted it out of my reach then frowned. A deep breath in and a long exhale out, she shook away some of the nerves that had been holding her hostage. “No. But thanks for the offer, Kash.”
She moved and I moved with her. “Did something happen, Daisy? I thought we had a good time last night.”
Her eyes flew wide and darted around. “Hush! I don’t want to talk about it. You know how gossip moves around here. Just pretend I told you off and go sulk at home.”
I stepped in front of her, forcing her to stop. She still wouldn’t look at me. It was starting to piss me off—not at her, but at whoever put the fear of God into her.
“Okay, now I know something’s up. You’re not tired, you’re exhausted. You look like you’ve been crying all day and you can barely handle that box. What is going on?”
Her lower lip trembled, and it broke my heart. She pressed her mouth into a thin line and swallowed hard. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper.
“Kash, if people see you helping me like that everybody’s going to say I’m screwing my brother’s killer.”
I winced like she’d slapped me with the back of her hand instead of her words. Her eyes flicked to my face and away again, and she bit her lip so hard I thought she would draw blood.
“We talked about this,” I said, my voice coming out hoarse.
“I’m not saying I believe it,” she said.
I couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t saying she didn’t believe it either, but who was I to split hairs.
“But that’s what everyone else is going to say. They’re going to say it loud and often and my dad will hear about it before the end of the day and he’ll come after you.” She paused to swallow hard and take a breath. “Somebody will get hurt. I can’t be seen with you, Kash. Now please move.”
I had plenty of arguments at hand for this situation, but as I cycled through them, I realized they all hinged on the assumption that her dad wasn’t much of an actual threat. Daisy clearly thought otherwise, and any argument I made would essentially be telling her that I thought she was full of it. Which wasn’t the case—I was sure she believed everything she was saying—but I knew what I was capable of, and I had a pretty good idea what a twenty-year drunk was capable of. As far as I was concerned, there was no contest.
Or maybe it was an excuse. Maybe she’d just been telling me what I wanted to hear, or she’d been caught up in the moment and temporarily forgotten her fears. Maybe I wasn’t standing on solid ground with her after all. I wanted to know. I wanted to make her talk until she told me every layer of every thought in her pretty little head.
But I stepped aside and let her pass without me. The look she shot me was one of pure gratitude, which didn’t give me a whole lot more to go on but made me lean more toward the former explanation than the latter. If she was secretly scared of me, she wouldn’t have looked at me at all after getting her way. So, assuming that prying eyes were really her biggest concern, I turned and walked down the alley beside the store.
A few shortcuts and a lot of fence jumping later, I was at the bend in the gravel road which was out of sight of both the main street and the trailers. The secret little spot had served us well as kids when the sheriff was out looking for curfew breakers or one of us was grounded. For seventeen yards, a person could be completely invisible. No one, but Daisy, me, and Hunter ever really traveled these roads, so I decided that it posed the least risk of getting caught. If she wanted privacy, she could have it here.
Just like I’d thought, she came around the bend and saw me but didn’t react at all until she was well inside the safe zone. Then her pace quickened, and her eyes burned directly into my soul.
She shook her head as though she couldn’t believe I had the nerve to follow her. “What did I just say to you, Kash?” she asked.
I held up a finger. “You said you didn’t want anybody to see me helping you. So nobody will see me helping you. Let me
