“I can’t,” she said, her soft words warm against his skin.
“Am I keeping you awake?”
“Yes.”
Had he been snoring? Taking up too much space in the bed? “I can move to another room, sleep on the couch if I’m...”
Her hold on him tightened, and she threw one leg over his as if to hold him in place. “Don’t you dare go anywhere. Not tonight,” she added in a lowered voice.
It was so natural to tilt her face up and kiss her. She was right there, in his arms, so close she was almost a part of him already. The kiss deepened, her hands wandered and so did his.
She’s mine. I’ll never let her go again.
Yet as much as he wanted to believe that, he knew that nothing had changed. The clear light of day dispelled some of the emotion from the previous night. Her life was here and his was not. She wasn’t his anymore and might never be again; and when he left Bell Grove it was very possible he’d have no choice but to let her go.
Chapter Eleven
“What? Is this some kind of a joke?” Daisy felt the floor beneath her spinning. Why now? Everything had been going so well. She’d hummed like a complete loon as she’d walked to work today, leaving Jacob asleep in her bed. Naked and rumpled. Beautiful. She’d smiled as she’d waved to neighbors who were walking their dogs or sitting on front porches drinking coffee. Her body ached, but it was a good ache. The song she kept humming was one they’d danced to last night.
She’d wondered more than once if Jacob would ask her to go to San Francisco with him when they weren’t both naked. She wondered if she’d say yes while he was awake and could hear her.
Logic was highly overrated when it came to love.
It had been such a wonderful morning...for a while. Her short-lived happiness had come crashing down around her without warning, as if the universe was displeased that she was content. As if it wasn’t in the cards for her to have everything she wanted.
Daisy—and her parents before her—had rented this space from the Chestnut family for more years than she could count. They hadn’t had an actual lease since before her folks had died. The rental agreement went month to month, and they discussed expenses if they went up or down. Of course, expenses never went down. Still, she’d never felt the need for a lease. In this part of the world a handshake was as good as a contract, anyway.
Well, apparently that was no longer the case. Martin Chestnut was standing in front of her, his face a little pale as he explained what had happened. Someone had bought up this entire side of the square. Every space, every store. Including hers. The offer that had come his way had been too good to pass up.
She had a week to get out. A week! The other tenants along the strip would be allowed to stay; they’d simply be paying a new landlord. But the new owner wanted this space emptied.
There was a lifetime of memories here, she made her living here! The house was paid for, but she did have living expenses. Mari was still in college. Daisy needed food, she had to pay her property taxes and that old house was in constant need of some sort of repair. She had savings, but not enough. Maybe she had been considering leaving town with Jacob, if he asked again. But facing the reality of leaving everything behind was very different from fantasy.
“I’m sorry,” Martin said, not for the first time. “But I’d be a fool to let a chance like this one pass me by.”
“Yeah, yeah, you said that already.” She waved off his offered excuses. “Who’s the buyer? What do they plan to do with the space? Do you know of another space I could move to, at least temporarily?”
Even as she asked, she knew another space wouldn’t do. It was in this space that her parents had lived and laughed, here that she still felt their presence, some days.
All idyllic thoughts of a new life elsewhere had been ejected from her head. Another chance with Jacob wasn’t a done deal anyway, it was just a dream. A lovely fantasy fueled by sex and memories. Belle Grove was home; this shop was hers. Well, apparently not as much hers as she’d thought.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, and no. Sorry.” Martin backed toward the door as if he expected her to shoot him in the back if he dared to show it to her. “I’m thinking of retiring soon, and this was just...”
“Too good to pass up,” Daisy snapped. “Yeah, I got that.”
When he was gone, Daisy collapsed into her client chair, breathless. She felt as if someone had pulled a rug out from under her. Her business! Everything she’d worked for! Her home, her way of life, all of it just gone. For a while she allowed herself to panic, to imagine the worst—which included homelessness and complete destitution—and then her heart slowed and a strange clarity washed over her.
It wasn’t hers, not really. This shop, her home, they were all she had left of her parents. This was their life, their dream. Had she been trying to keep them alive by stepping into the life they’d left behind? Was that what held her here?
Even though it was legally hers, this shop had never been her dream. She’d taken over because it had seemed the best choice at the time. The only choice, to be honest. She’d had sisters to raise and the insurance money had only gone so far. It wasn’t like her folks had expected to die too soon and made plans accordingly. Daisy loved her home, but she still slept in her old bedroom because she couldn’t make herself move into the master suite that had been her parents’. That was their home, still, not hers.
She had stepped in and taken over their life, and somewhere along the way she’d given up on building one of her own. Why had she never seen that so clearly before this moment when the business was being yanked out from under her?
Recognizing what she’d been doing made it possible for her to truly think beyond today for the first time in years. She’d loved her parents dearly, loved them still, but she couldn’t bring them back. She couldn’t replace them, either. Tears filled her eyes, dribbled down her cheeks, and she mourned her mother and father all over again. It still seemed wrong to walk away from everything they’d built, to let it die as they had died, but maybe it was time.
If Jacob asked her again to move, if he made the offer when they both weren’t naked and thinking with something other than their brains, she’d definitely say yes. No second thoughts this time. Even if he didn’t ask, even if that opportunity had passed...it was time for her to move on, time to start something new.
New.
Her initial panic faded away entirely. Yes, she’d miss her friends if she left Bell Grove, and she’d certainly miss her childhood home. But that’s all it was, her childhood home. Her life had just opened up in an unexpected and oddly exciting way, and once she pushed past her initial panic she realized that she’d just been set free.
She had a little savings, and if she could sell the house quickly she and her sisters would have a sizable bit of cash to split. That would help with Mari’s college expenses. She could sell the furniture, too. Looking at it objectively, there was very little in her home that she’d want to take with her. A few keepsakes, but other than that it could all go.
She was free. Daisy found herself smiling and crying at the same time, planning ahead as she mourned the past. Soon enough the tears stopped. The smile remained.
Daisy spent the afternoon calling her clients. She squeezed as many as she could into the next few days, but left a couple of days clear for cleaning out the shop. She called Lily and Mari, and explained to them what had happened. They were initially horrified on her behalf, but she was no longer horrified for herself and once she explained that to them, they were reluctantly happy for her. She heard the hesitation in their voices and wondered if they, too, hadn’t felt as if something of their parents remained as long as Daisy kept the shop and house as they’d always been.
She didn’t tell them that Jacob might be a part of her new life. That was still up in the air, a variable. She was hopeful that variable would work out the way she wanted it to, but until then she’d keep it close. If he broke her heart again she’d keep it
to herself. There would be no need to burden her sisters with her pain—which would also mean sharing her foolishness with them. No, for now she’d keep Jacob and those possibilities to herself.
She called the house, but Jacob didn’t pick up. Why would he? It wasn’t his house. He had a cell phone, but she didn’t have the number. Come to think of it, in the past few days she hadn’t seen that phone at all. She’d tell him the news later, and maybe he’d take the opportunity to ask her again to leave with him when he left town. She had to admit, the timing would be perfect.
Daisy was putting her house up for sale.
She was closing her business.
It was scary, but there was also a strange sense of excitement inside her. She didn’t know where she’d go, she wasn’t even sure what she wanted to do, but one way or another the last of the Bells was about to leave Bell Grove for good.
* * *
Jacob drove out to Tasker House not because he wanted to leave Daisy’s place but because he needed a razor and a change of clothes. Daisy had shared her shower, soap and shampoo, and she’d found him an unused toothbrush with the name of her dentist stamped on the side, but he needed more. If nothing else, the razors in her bathroom were unacceptable.
Before he’d left the house yesterday he’d made sure his mother had known not to expect him home. He hadn’t added “If I’m lucky,” though to be honest he hadn’t been positive Daisy would ask him to stay.
Not until he’d kissed her.
Tonight he’d ask her again to come to San Francisco with him. While they were both fully dressed and she couldn’t accuse him of asking only because he was carried away, caught up in the moment. It might take time to convince her. She had the house, her sisters...business concerns. He would have to make changes himself. He couldn’t work the kind of hours he and his company had come to expect, couldn’t devote himself entirely to work if he had a woman in his life. But he was suddenly certain they could make it happen. He wanted to make it happen.
He found his mother sitting on the front porch swing, drinking tea, looking as sour as the lemon slice in her beverage.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good afternoon.” Susan’s response was sharper than was necessary.
Jacob, wearing the suit he’d worn last night but without the now-rumpled tie, headed in his mother’s direction. “What’s wrong?”
There were new lines on his mother’s face, a strain no amount of makeup could hide. “What isn’t wrong? Your grandmother is more of a trial every day. In the past couple of years she’s run off every caretaker we’ve hired to help, and will only tolerate me or Lurlene and we both have our hands full without taking care of her. Thank goodness Ben has taken on so many of the business responsibilities, but to be honest I miss it. I want to get back to work.” She smiled a little. “Your little brother is more than competent but I enjoy working, and I like being needed for my brain. You know very well that the Cyrus Tasker branch of the family doesn’t have the good sense of a fence post, and the Clyde Tasker branch has sold almost everything away. Uncle Carlton is the only one with any sense, and when he dies, well, I don’t even want to think about it. He’s pushing ninety, you know. Your father would rather play golf and drink beer with his friends, but he does help out at work when I need him. He’s no help with your grandmother, though, because she still sees him as a child.” Her smile was gone, and her eyes shone bright. She didn’t let a single tear fall, though. “And Daisy. Really, Jacob, how could you take up with her again, after everything she put you through?”
Jacob leaned against the house and looked down at his mother. “Everything she put me through?”
“Yes! She broke your heart...don’t think I didn’t see that. She should’ve...she could’ve...” Her lips pursed and the line between her eyebrows deepened. “Oh, who am I kidding? Daisy didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did you. It’s all my fault.”
Jacob was accustomed to his mother’s dramatics, but this one surprised him. “Your fault?”
The dam broke and tears ran down Susan’s face. This was a woman who never cried, no matter how bad things got.
“I didn’t want you to be saddled with a ready-made family, not at twenty-four. I pushed you to move on, to leave Daisy behind. I did my best to make sure her sisters were not a responsibility you’d have to bear.” She balled her fists. “I even...I even made sure she knew how happy you were in San Francisco, how well you were doing there. It’s easier to blame her, to twist my memories of that time around and forget my part in it all, but...I did everything but tell her outright that you didn’t need her.”
His heart constricted. “Whatever happened between me and Daisy is on us, not you.”
“You say that, but I could’ve helped. I could’ve made things easier for both of you, and I didn’t. I sat back and watched Daisy give up everything. She did a wonderful job of raising those girls.” She wrung her hands—another unusual gesture. “So I quit going to town to get my hair done. I started shopping in places where I knew I wouldn’t run into her. I avoided Daisy, because every time I looked at her I felt guilty.”
“We can all look back and see what we should’ve done,” Jacob said calmly.
“I was so wrapped up in the business, in seeing that you boys got a good start to your adult lives, I convinced myself that I didn’t have time to take on another responsibility. I loved the idea of being more businesswoman than mom, of not having a houseful to take care of, and I didn’t want to take on raising two young girls. I was selfish, Jacob. Horribly selfish. Now Daisy is here, day after day, playing this ridiculous game with you and the guilt is worse because I see how much you two care for one another. If I’d offered to take the girls in, if I’d pushed the two of you together instead of doing my best to tear you apart...”
“I don’t think Daisy would’ve agreed to leave her sisters here, not even with you,” Jacob said.
“But...but I could’ve done something to help. I should’ve done something. Anything.”
Jacob sat beside his mother and put an arm around her shoulder. For a moment they just sat there. She sniffled, but her tears didn’t last.
“The blame is mine, not yours,” Jacob said calmly. “If it makes you feel any better, I never believed what you said about taking on Daisy and her sisters being too hard, I never took that argument to heart. That’s not the reason it didn’t work. I got caught up in a new life, and I suppose the same thing happened to Daisy. We were young, and we let what we had fall apart all on our own.”
“I can hardly look at her without regretting all I did. And even more, I feel horribly guilty about what I didn’t do. I didn’t help...all I did was make matters worse. She’ll never forgive me.”
“You’re going to have to get past this, Mom,” Jacob said. “Because if I have my way you’ll be seeing a lot of Daisy.”
She looked up at him.
“I’m going to pack a bag and stay at her place for a few days, if she’ll have me,” Jacob said calmly. “And if I’m very lucky, she’ll agree to move to San Francisco with me.” If he left here without her, no matter how good his intentions were, he feared they’d grow apart all over again.
“The mother of my grandchildren will hate me,” his mother said softly.
Grandchildren? “She doesn’t hate you.”
“She doesn’t like me much, either. Not that I’ve given her reason.”
“Daisy hasn’t agreed to anything yet,” Jacob said with a tight smile. “And you’re getting ahead of yourself talking about grandchildren.” Way ahead. He was thinking of living together and seeing how things went, getting to know one another again, having Daisy in his bed at the end of every day.
“I’m not ahead of myself, you’re horribly behind. No one can watch the two of you together and not realize that you’re in love.”
First grandchildren, then love. The words shouldn’t come as a surprise to him, shouldn’t hit him with an almost physical force, but they did. He like
d Daisy, he wanted her, she was like no other woman. Was that love?
His mother sniffled, lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “Don’t ask her to move in with you.”
Not again! “Mom, I...”
“Marry her, Jacob. She deserves nothing less.”
* * *
Daisy was about to head for home when Martin Chestnut came back into the shop. He looked every bit as serious, and nervous, as he had that morning. She’d have to let him know that she was no longer upset, that it was okay...
“I got to thinking, after I left,” he began.
“It’s all right,” Daisy said.
“No, no, it’s not all right at all. At first I was just excited about the money, because the offer was so good. I was thinking about paying off the mortgage on the house, and retiring earlier than I’d thought I could. But after you asked who’d made that generous offer I got to pondering. I called my lawyer and asked him to do a little digging. He made a few calls, he asked all the right questions, I guess.” Martin fidgeted, he was sweating, and though it was a hot day it wasn’t that hot. And she had the air cranked up high.
“What did you find out?” Daisy asked, suddenly curious.
“The offer was routed through a couple of lawyers, like, you know, there was something to hide.”
Daisy’s spine went rigid. She tingled from head to toe, not in a good way but with an instinctive fear. She knew what was coming; she heard it in his voice. No. Please, no.
“It’s a Tasker,” Martin said. “Someone with the last name Tasker is trying to buy the downtown buildings.”
Chapter Twelve
Daisy walked home slowly. She didn’t hum, as she had that morning. She didn’t wave at neighbors as she passed by. Her body and her brain were both numb. She hoped with everything she had that Jacob wasn’t still at her house.
She wanted to kill him. Even before he’d asked her to go to California with him, he’d set a plan into motion to make sure she had no choice in the matter. The offer had seemed so spontaneous, as if he’d been as carried away by the moment as she’d been, but that wasn’t the case. As usual, Jacob Tasker had come up with a plan to get what he wanted. Her.
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