The One Who Changed Everything (The Cherry Sisters)

by Darcy, Lilian

  She’d thought that she and Tucker and Mary Jane would sit down and sample them right here in the restaurant, served just as they would be on Thanksgiving night. She’d noted down every detail on ingredient quantities and cooking time, and still had opinions to consider, and more notes to make. They needed to order some smaller casserole dishes, for example.

  None of it seemed to matter right now.

  Should she call Mary Jane to warn her that Tucker was coming?

  She picked up her phone and stood there looking at the thumbnail picture of her sister. All she had to do was touch that section of the screen. But Mary Jane never answered her phone when she was at the wheel, and hadn’t looked as if she was in any mood to pull over at the sound of her ringtone. She might drive for miles. Hours.

  And what would I say? she asked herself. This whole thing was between Mary Jane and Tucker, and she could easily make it way worse for her sister if she got in the way. They were both miserable right now, but at least if Tucker could manage a decent apology, Mary Jane might not feel quite so thoroughly destroyed.

  The cleanup beckoned.

  It was all she could think of to do. She was all alone here, her hands needed something practical and the kitchen was a mess. She tackled it one step at a time, loading some items into the industrial dishwasher and washing others by hand, putting away half-used ingredients, wiping down countertops.

  While the food cooled.

  Mary Jane came back eventually.

  No Tucker.

  When she heard a car, Daisy ran to the restaurant windows to check. Her heart did its sinking thing again and she cursed her own illogical emotions. She’d just broken up with him. Would she take him back so easily, if he begged?

  He wasn’t going to beg.

  This was Mary Jane’s zippy blue thing swinging into the space behind the restaurant, not Tucker’s huge pickup. She parked where Tucker had—How long ago had that been? An hour?—and jumped out. Daisy was waiting for her, with questions. “Are you okay? Did you see...? Did Tucker find you? He went after you.”

  “He found me,” Mary Jane answered shortly.

  “Where?”

  “Pulled over. Opposite the trail-ride place. I shouldn’t have driven off like that. I skidded on a patch of frost and nearly ran off the road. Came to my senses and stopped.”

  “So? What did he do?”

  “He apologized.”

  “Good.”

  Mary Jane nodded. “Yes. He said he’d told you.” She pressed her lips together. She wasn’t intending to give the details on what he’d said, either when they’d argued or when he’d apologized for it. “He said you’ve...ended things.”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. Not for my sake.”

  “What, I’m going to stay with a man who calls my sister a bitch?”

  “He apologized.”

  “That’s not good enough.” She tried for some flippancy and achieved a very wobbly version. “Lucky I never told Lee that we were dating, hey?”

  Mary Jane shot her a swift glance. “That’s not really what you’re thinking about.”

  “No.”

  “You’re in love with him.”

  “I thought I was.”

  “You’re not in love with him?”

  “I’m furious with him. It’s—it’s the way I fell out of love with Michael. It was perfect, and then there was one chink, and the chink grew, and the whole thing cracked wide-open, and the process of dealing with that was...pretty horrible...and I’m not going through it again. I should have taken more notice of that first chink. So I am taking notice this time. I shortcut the whole process. Ended it clean.”

  But it didn’t feel clean.

  Mary Jane started making sympathetic noises. “Are you sure, Daisy?”

  “What, you’ve been so keen for me to tell Lee in case it’s a problem for her, and now there’s no need, and it won’t be a problem for her, and you’re wanting me to rethink?”

  “You’ve seemed so happy.”

  “Thought I was.”

  “It’s...been great to see. Made me jealous sometimes, yes, which I hate—I hate!—but other times...really happy for you.” She thought for a moment, then added, “He’s—he’s a decent guy, Daisy. Shoot, this is so hard for me to say, and it shouldn’t be! He’s a really decent guy, he’s been in love with you for ten years, and the two of you should be happy together, and sure there was a chink tonight... I’m sure he’s not perfect. What human being is? But the chink was partly my fault. Lots my fault. I think I was being a bitch. And I don’t want to think that one argument between him and me was enough to ruin the whole thing for both of you.”

  “Wait a second, back up!”

  “Back up where?”

  “In love with me for ten years? No! Just...no!”

  Mary Jane shrugged. “Yes. At first sight pretty much. You probably don’t even remember.”

  “I think I would if it were true.”

  “You don’t remember what happened? Don’t remember that night?”

  “Which night? The night I got back from Paris? What happened? Nothing happened.”

  “He and Lee went out together after dinner. When they got home, she went up to her room and shut the door. I think things were pretty rocky between them. You were in your room, and you’d left your hairbrush in my car, and you leaned out the upstairs window to call for me to bring it up. Or throw it up, actually.”

  “Yes, I do remember that.”

  “You thought it was me down below, but it was Tucker. I was on the steps. And I saw his face as he looked up at you, and I understood. He was marrying the wrong sister, and he knew it. They called off the wedding the next day.”

  Daisy’s head was in more of a whirl than ever. “B-but nothing ever happened. Nothing! Not a look or a touch or—”

  “It would have, if you hadn’t left for California so soon, I’m sure of it.”

  “He never said a word.”

  “How could he say something, Daisy?”

  “You never said a word.”

  “Oh, sure, I was going to create a situation where you and Lee never spoke to each other again. Life took you in other directions.”

  “And then life brought us back together, and you didn’t want the Cherry sisters working with Reid Landscaping.”

  “I thought somebody might get hurt.”

  “And you were right.”

  “No, I—I was just scared.”

  “Scared?”

  “Scared of how badly I would handle it if love’s young dream happened all over again.” The bitterness was back in her voice. “Instantly, like it did before. All Romeo and Juliet, effortless and beautiful, with a happy ending this time, while I was—” She broke off, and made an impatient sound. “And I hate myself.” She laughed harshly, and blinked back more tears.

  “No, you don’t.” Daisy touched her arm.

  “The times I haven’t felt that way have been so good. I’ve kept trying to hold on to those.” Mary Jane didn’t throw off the contact. In fact, they hugged, and it was good. “Now, just when I feel I might be winning this whole battle, you tell me there’s no Tucker and Daisy for me to be happy about?”

  “No, there isn’t. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” They hugged some more. Mary Jane was the one to get practical first. “We should taste all this, and make sure it’s all doable for a big crowd, too.” She swept a hand over the countertop, where Daisy’s dishes sat waiting.

  “My heart’s not in it.” My heart has gone.

  “No, mine isn’t, either. But let’s do it anyhow.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fork, fork, knife, knife, spoon. Fork, fork, knife, knife, spoon...

 
; The restaurant tables were covered in snowy cloths and Daisy was laying out silverware beside the gleaming white china plates. In the kitchen, new and returning staff had begun preparing tomorrow’s lavish Thanksgiving meal. They were fully booked, with local people, resort guests and tourists staying elsewhere.

  Whether it was the time of day they’d chosen that had made the event so popular, or the menu, or the lure of an opening celebration, Daisy didn’t know. Or maybe it was none of those things. There seemed to be a lot of local goodwill toward Spruce Bay Resort. She’d taken several phone calls for bookings, in which the caller expressed their best wishes for her mom and dad’s retirement, and fondness for Mary Jane. People were rooting for the resort’s renovation to succeed.

  And I want that, too. I just wish I could feel right now.

  All she could really think about was Tucker. Missing him. Wanting him. Questioning her own behavior. For the past week, she had seen him almost every day, and yet she felt as if she hadn’t seen him at all. They’d both been ferociously busy with preparations for the reopening and the festive meal, with Daisy working indoors and Tucker seemingly everywhere at once.

  At least three times she’d looked out the restaurant windows at the sound of an engine, hoping it was one of the Reid Landscaping pickups, with Tucker’s familiar silhouette at the wheel. Yesterday, she’d gone over to the cabins to place the fresh towels and soaps in the brand-new bathrooms and had heard his voice coming from down near the lake, where the steps and walkways were almost completed.

  “Left, Kyle. No, it’s not level. Back it up a bit.”

  New kitchen hand Molly appeared at that moment with a tray of wineglasses, and it happened again—the Reid Landscaping truck went by, heading toward the lake, with Tucker driving. “Are they going to be finished in time?” Molly asked. “There’s still nothing in the planter boxes on the deck.”

  “They’ll be finished,” Daisy said. Yesterday, Tucker hadn’t left until after dark. Today, she knew he’d be here till midnight if he had to, and again at the crack of dawn tomorrow.

  “They seem like a great crew,” Molly chattered happily, sounding like the teenager she was. “Tucker is pretty cool, a really nice guy. I was talking to him yesterday when he was dumping soil into the planters. Seems very hands-on.”

  “He is. He is a nice guy.”

  And he was so different from Michael. Michael wouldn’t have behaved the way Tucker had this past week. Michael would have been in her face, making her know down to the last detail how much this was totally her fault. Tucker was so different.

  Yes, he’d made a mistake last week, brushing aside Mary Jane so hurtfully, but at least he’d apologized for it. Daisy was beginning to think that her own mistake had been much bigger. She’d let her bad experience with one man cloud her judgment of another.

  Tucker wasn’t Michael.

  She wanted so badly to give him another chance. To give herself another chance. The most painful thing of all was that he didn’t seem to want one.

  “He is a nice guy,” she repeated to Molly. “Funny and smart and hardworking. Always tries to do the right thing for the people he cares about. And when he makes a mistake, he admits it.”

  I need to admit it, too. And I need to give us both a better shot at this. It’s too good to let go. I’m not going to accept him pushing me away without a fight. It hurts too much.

  The pickup came back the other way.

  “Molly, can you finish here? I need a word with Tucker.” She dropped her tray of silverware on the table and went for the deck door and down the steps. The pickup was already halfway to the place where the driveway disappeared into the trees. She ran, saw the truck gain speed, almost gave up.

  But finally Tucker had seen her in his mirror. He stopped and she caught up, breathless. He slid his window down and put his elbow on the sill, his mouth steady and his expression shuttered. “Sorry, I didn’t see you. I’m picking up the plants for the planter boxes. Is there a problem?”

  “Can we talk?”

  “Yes, we can talk. If you want.”

  “Not like this.”

  “Like how, then?”

  “Don’t.” The intimacy between them was still there. She could feel it like a force, or a hot thickness in the air. It cut through everything, despite how much he was clearly trying to shut it out. It let them talk in short snatches and still say a huge amount, it made both of them dizzy and lost, and she wasn’t going to let him ignore it.

  “Come sit in the truck, then,” he said, voice slurred with reluctance. “I’ll pull over all the way.”

  She climbed in and he drove another twenty yards to where there was room on the shoulder of the driveway. He switched off the engine, leaned on the wheel and looked at her with suffering in his blue eyes, and they sat in the quiet, confined space of the truck cab, and she didn’t know where to begin.

  In the end she just cut to the heart of it. “You made one mistake, and I was wrong to react so strongly. You apologized to Mary Jane, and now it’s my turn to apologize to you. I’m sorry, Tucker. I know you wouldn’t shoot your mouth off like that and just let it go. You were...tired, or something. You weren’t thinking straight.”

  She touched his arm. It had been a starting point for them before, but today he didn’t return her touch or lean closer, and all she could feel was muscle rock hard with tension beneath her fingers.

  “Stop making excuses for me,” he muttered.

  “I’m not. I’m saying I understand.” But she took her hand away, since he so clearly didn’t want it there.

  “You don’t. You can’t.” The expression on his face was as solid as a brick wall.

  “Then tell me,” she said softly.

  “I have told you. I’ve told you a lot of it. About my father.”

  “How is this...us...anything to do with your father?”

  “He hurt so many people with his self-absorption, with the unlimited license he gave himself to follow his needs and emotions wherever they led. I caught myself behaving the same way and I didn’t like it and I’m not going to let it happen again.”

  “You apologized to Mary Jane.”

  “And how many times can I keep doing that? Who else am I going to hurt? How long does the list have to get, Daisy, before it includes you, with your name in really big letters at the very top? How will you feel then? Will you keep letting me off the hook, the way you’re trying to do now?”

  “You’re making too much of this. You’re making yourself into a monster that doesn’t exist.”

  “I’m not.” He clenched his teeth around the words.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I lived with it for four years. I saw it in action. I saw how ruthlessly selfish someone can get when their heart dictates their actions. Feelings are an incredibly unreliable compass to point our direction.”

  “They can be. They’re not always. Not when they match everything else. Head and logic and faith.”

  “Human beings need something else. We need right and wrong. We need rules and—I don’t know what the word is. Precepts, or something. The sanctity of marriage. Do unto others. We need that stuff!”

  He thumped his hand on the wheel so hard it must have hurt, but that was nothing compared to the hurt inside him, and suddenly she could see it.

  See all of it.

  See down to the why of it, and the stubbornness of it, and exactly where it had come from.

  But still she kept trying to argue the unarguable. “And you have it, don’t you?” she said.

  “Yes, I have it, and that means you have to get out of the car and let this go.” He was practically trembling, she could see, with his effort at staying in control, at winning over those feelings he distrusted so much. He was beating himself up as much as he was shattering her. “I’ll driv
e you back if you like,” he offered, so wooden and polite she would have laughed in any other situation but this.

  Would have laughed if she hadn’t been so painfully close to tears.

  “No, thanks. I’ll walk.” She opened the door, and didn’t even try to touch him because she knew he wouldn’t accept it. He was good at pushing her away when he really tried.

  “Seriously, I can drive you.”

  “Seriously, Tucker, I’m going to walk because I need to breathe some air.” Her cheeks felt flushed, and beyond the hurt at their failure to get past this, she was angry suddenly, but it was a very different kind of anger to what she’d felt last week after Tucker’s exchange with Mary Jane.

  She understood a whole lot more now, and she was helplessly, passionately angry with Tucker’s dad.

  * * *

  Done.

  Tucker smoothed the soil around the last of the plants in the final planter box on the restaurant deck and stood to stretch his back. He was really done. Every walkway swept clear of dirt, every winking white fairy light strung around pergola frames and deck railings. Every piece of mess from the work cleaned up, and every tool loaded into the back of the pickup.

  The rest of the Reid Landscaping crew had the day off for Thanksgiving, but Tucker hadn’t planned to stop until the work was truly done. He’d started at seven this morning, before the sun was even up, and there’d already been lights on in the restaurant kitchen.

  Daisy, probably.

  It was after eleven in the morning now, and more people had arrived to work. He could hear voices in there, and the clang of pots and pans. He could smell the cooking, too—the most delectable aromas of onions and bacon and roasting turkey.

  He had to go tell someone that his own work was complete, and he could feel his heart beating faster as he thought about it. He would go knock at the staff entrance to the kitchen, and maybe it would be Daisy who opened it, and he wanted it to be Daisy, and he really, really didn’t want to want it that much.

  Suck it up, Tucker, just get it done and go.

  He was due at his mother’s at noon.