Jack frowned. “You’re also—”
“Her ex-husband’s love child?” Daisy finished his sentence for him.
Jack released an exasperated breath. “I wasn’t going to put it so eloquently, but yes. That alone might disqualify you, Daisy.”
Daisy squared her shoulders. “If it does, it does,” she retorted, more than willing to do battle.
Jack extended a beseeching hand. “Daisy—”
She put up a hand to ward him off and stepped out of his reach. “Don’t tell me not to do this, Jack. I’ve spent my whole life hearing what not to do. I don’t need that kind of nonsupport from you, too.”
“In this instance,” he corrected just as short-temperedly, “I’d be right.”
“Oh…go jump in the ocean.” Daisy scowled and rushed out the door into the dusky light.
“Daisy—” Jack’s voice trailed after her.
She refused to turn around. “I’m going for a walk.” She tossed the words over her shoulder. Daisy had at least twenty minutes until it got completely dark and she intended to use every second of it.
She heard him swear as whatever it was he was cooking on the stove threw off a burned scent. Hands stuffed into the pockets of her shorts, head bent against the wind, Daisy headed across the dunes to the shoreline. The temperature had dropped into the low seventies—cool for that time of summer—the wind had picked up something fierce and the surf was rolling in. Barefoot, still steaming over her fight with Jack, she walked to the water’s edge.
Seconds later, she heard someone come up behind her. Daisy turned, expecting to see Jack, wanting to continue their argument. Instead, she saw a striking woman in her late-thirties, with dark-red hair. She was looking at Daisy as if she wanted to say something. “Can I help you?” Daisy asked, aware the woman looked oddly familiar.
The woman smiled nervously and pivoted away before Daisy could figure out where she might have seen the striking redhead. “No,” the woman said, and quickly headed back down the beach.
GINGER’S HEART was pounding. She didn’t know what had gotten into her, thinking she could approach Daisy Templeton-Granger that way. After all, she had already talked to Richard’s other daughter, to no avail. Iris had refused to get involved. Just because Daisy had sown a few wild oats and was fresh out of college herself, and bound to understand why it was so important Ginger’s daughter get the same opportunity to test her wings, did not mean Daisy would help.
This was her father they were talking about, after all.
No, Ginger decided as the sun began to set, she was going to have to keep to the original plan. She had seven more days to earn the rest of the money, of doing whatever Richard pleased, no matter how sick, risky, perverted or degrading. Whenever, wherever he said. And then the rest of the money—all twelve thousand of it—would be hers.
And if he didn’t give her the money?
Then, Ginger knew, she would have to sink to his level and hurt him and his family the way he had been hurting hers. Ginger could only hope, as she chanced another look back at Daisy, still standing on the shoreline gazing dispiritedly out at the ocean, that it wouldn’t come to that.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT?” Jack asked Daisy as he walked out to stand next to her on the beach.
“I’m not sure.” Daisy bit her lip as they both turned and watched the curvy redhead disappear into the distance. “It seemed like that woman wanted to say something to me, but then, when I spoke to her, she seemed to chicken out or something, and just walked away.” Daisy paused, doing her best, it seemed to Jack, to act as if they hadn’t just had their very first fight, then looked back up at him, her expression still troubled. “I gather that means that you don’t know who that woman is, either, then,” Daisy said.
Jack shook his head. He just knew when he had looked out the window and saw her approaching Daisy so deliberately, he’d felt a flicker of alarm and worried she was up to no good. “She’s not a neighbor,” Jack said. “Not a close one, anyway, or I would know her.”
Daisy frowned and shoved the hair from her eyes. “She looked kind of familiar to me. But I can’t place her.”
Jack fell into step beside Daisy as she headed off across the sand. “Maybe you’ve just seen her around—shopping or something.”
“Maybe,” Daisy agreed, but her words lacked confidence.
“Listen,” Jack said, touching her elbow gently. “I’m sorry about what I said.”
“That’s okay.” Daisy brushed past him, quickening her steps so they were no longer walking side by side. “You’re entitled to your feelings. We both are.”
Jack kept pace with her anyway. “I don’t want to fight,” he told her quietly.
“Then let’s don’t,” Daisy said, breaking into a run and letting him know the subject was closed.
Once home, they ate dinner and then Daisy went to bed. Jack stayed up awhile, as had become their custom since he’d brought her home from the hospital. It wasn’t the way he preferred to spend his evenings with Daisy, but it had been necessary, in the beginning anyway. After her surgery, she’d had trouble finding a comfortable position in which to sleep. And there were times when he knew she cried into her pillow for a good half hour or more before drifting off. But if he slipped into the bedroom to comfort her, she always pretended that wasn’t the case at all. And then found some excuse to slip out of bed again as soon as he got in, and go watch a movie or read a book in the living room.
Realizing she needed her space to come to terms with the loss they had both suffered, he had tried to give Daisy the room she yearned for.
But his patience was wearing thin, Jack realized as he drank the last of the lemonade from his glass. He wanted to be able to do more than just hold her when she was slumbering. He wanted to be able to kiss her whenever, wherever, however he felt like it. And make love to her again and again. He even wanted, God help him, another baby with her. One they planned and made deliberately.
Not that they could start working on that right away, however. For one thing, it would be another week before she got the all-clear from her doctor that would simply allow them to have sex. And although Jack didn’t know a lot about such female matters, he guessed it would probably be a little bit after that before her doctor said they could try again.
In the meantime, he had to convince Daisy that they still had a future together. So what if it wasn’t the romantic happily-ever-after version of love and marriage that every little girl dreamed about? It had been his experience very few relationships these days were put together that traditionally.
Couples either stayed together or they didn’t. Same with families. Daisy might not realize it yet, but it was better to go into a relationship without stars in your eyes. Better to start with just a few promises and even fewer expectations and build something solid and lasting on that than dream of everything and lose it all, either one disillusioning moment at a time, or in one hideously traumatic event.
Sighing, Jack stood, carried his empty glass to the sink and began turning off the lights. He had just started through the darkened hallway that ran the width of the house, when he heard a commotion and a crash—like glass shattering—and then Daisy let out a bloodcurdling scream.
DAISY WAS TRAPPED and she couldn’t get out, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see who it was coming toward her, but she knew the person in the mask was obviously a would-be intruder, so she kept screaming until she felt warm strong capable hands clasping her shoulders and a firm reassuring voice in her ears.
“Daisy. Come on now. You’re dreaming. Wake up, sweetheart, wake up!”
A strangled sob caught in Daisy’s throat as she struggled to open her eyes. The hands shook her again, even more firmly. And then the darkness began to recede. The bedroom began to come into view. The bedside lamp was on and Jack was next to her on the bed. He looked as frightened and upset as she felt.
“You were dreaming,” he repeated again.
And trembli
ng and crying, Daisy realized. She tried to take a deep breath and only partially succeeded.
“You’re okay,” Jack said, climbing into bed with her. He sat back against the headboard and pulled her onto his lap. “You’re all right, baby. You knocked your water glass off the nightstand, and it shattered. See?” Jack pointed to the mess on the floor.
Daisy nodded. She could see what had happened, she knew she’d been dreaming, but she couldn’t get rid of the overwhelming fear or stop her shaking.
“What was your nightmare about?” Jack asked as he smoothed a hand through her hair.
Daisy shuddered as she buried her face against the warmth and solidness of his chest. “It’s the s-s-same one I always have.”
Jack’s hand stilled. “A recurring dream?”
Daisy nodded, and clung all the tighter. “Since I was a kid.”
“All the time?”
“No.” She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes to hold back the tears—they came anyway. “Just when I’m upset or under a lot of stress.”
“Tell me about it,” Jack encouraged in a low, unflappable tone.
She took a deep, stabilizing breath and waited for some of the terror to ease. He was patient, waiting. Finally, she was able to speak. “I’m in this dark windowless room. It’s small and it’s kind of damp and close and awful. And I hate it there. And I’m scared, but I can’t get out of there.”
“There’s no door?” Jack asked, gently rubbing her back, shoulders.
“There is.” Daisy closed her eyes so she could visualize it better. “But there’s something wrong with the door because whenever I try to open it, it won’t budge.”
Jack’s hand stilled. “Is that why you screamed?”
Daisy shook her head. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. She dashed them away with the back of her hand. “No,” she explained, wary of revealing too much to the person who had the power to hurt her more than life, but even more terrified of continuing to keep all the fear bottled up inside. “I screamed,” Daisy explained in a hoarse voice, “because the person in the mask came in and shut the door, and then I’m trapped with the person in the mask.”
“And then what happens?” Jack asked gently, even as his arms tightened protectively around her.
Daisy felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “And then the person hisses at me to be quiet and reaches for me, and I know the person is going to hurt me, and that’s when I scream and that’s always when the dream ends.”
JACK’S CHILDHOOD had been no piece of cake. According to Jack’s grandfather, until the day his mother had walked out for good when Jack was three, she had tried to abdicate her responsibilities to Jack and fought incessantly with her father when he wouldn’t let her. And in turn according to all accounts, Jack’s grandfather had called Jack’s mother a no-good tramp every chance he got.
In retrospect, Jack could see both family members had a point. His mother reportedly had been a lousy parent, filled with angst and resentment and impatience, but given the fact she was only sixteen and unmarried when she had him, her attitude was, if not acceptable, at least understandable, in Jack’s opinion. She had simply been too young and immature to have a baby and bring that child up responsibly. And her father should have known it and helped her take steps to either give her a lot more assistance in raising Jack in those early years, and still have something of a life for herself, or he should have helped her find a good home for her baby and give it up for adoption.
Instead, his grandfather had been of the opinion that Jack’s mother had made her bed and should lie in it. Period. Age had not mellowed him one bit. To the day he died of a massive coronary, Jack’s grandfather was a gruff, unsentimental, harsh man who had no time for any nonsense, nonsense being anything that didn’t have to do with his work at the docks or the sports teams he followed.
But even given his miserable childhood, Jack had never had the kind of nightmare Daisy had just described. And he certainly had never had the same one over and over again. “What do you think triggered this one?” Jack asked, concerned.
Daisy sighed. “That woman on the beach. I guess the encounter with her unsettled me more than I realized.”
“Any particular reason why?”
“I guess it was the way she was looking at me when she first came up to me. Jack, it was like she knew who I was and had come there specifically to get something from me. And that just doesn’t make any sense.”
No, it didn’t, Jack thought.
Unless the woman had been sent there by someone like Bucky Jerome to try and strike up a conversation with Daisy and get information on her that way. Jack wouldn’t put anything past Bucky at this point.
“Is that the only time you have the nightmare?” Jack asked. “When you’re under stress?”
“Or when my life is particularly problematic,” Daisy confessed on a shaky sigh, “and I feel like I just want to go somewhere and hide.”
Like the way she had been hiding at his place the past week, Jack thought.
Daisy sighed and brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I feel like my life has been out of control for a while now,” she said. She buried her face in her knees. Then, resting her head on her upraised knees, turned to look at him. “That’s why I want to get a regular job, a start on a real career as a photographer. I thought it might help.”
Jack worried Daisy was setting herself up for even more disappointment in applying for a job with Grace Deveraux, given that Grace still couldn’t stand the sight of Daisy, due to the memories Daisy’s mere presence conjured up, but this time he said nothing to discourage Daisy. He figured this was one lesson she was just going to have to learn the hard way. “Why photography as a career?” he asked, moving off the bed and bending down to pick up the broken shards of glass.
Daisy put shoes on her feet, grabbed the bedroom waste can and came around to help him. “Because,” she replied, frankly meeting his gaze, “pictures don’t lie.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“ALL RIGHT, here’s the setup for the next segment,” Grace’s son-in-law, Nick Everton, said as he led Grace and Amy Deveraux over to the living-room set on the soundstage for At Home with Grace.
Nick regarded Grace with a mixture of affection and respect. “Grace, we’ll begin with the camera on you. You introduce Amy and talk about what an interior designer who specializes in redecorating actually does for a client, and then explain to her what you don’t like about how everything is arranged in this room. Amy will further analyze the design problems for the audience and then we’ll cut to commercial. Everybody got it?”
Grace, Amy and the crew nodded. Everyone took their places, the production assistant called, “Action!” and the tape began to roll. Feeling the purposeful, accomplished way she always did when she was working, Grace slipped into her role as show host as easily as a pair of old shoes. Not surprisingly, the segment went off without a hitch. So did the second—a cooking spot with a renowned Charleston, South Carolina, chef, and the third—a florist who demonstrated the proper arrangement of roses in a vase, as well as the final wrap-up of the day.
“Great job, everyone!” Nick smiled as he came up to give Grace and Amy congratulatory hugs. His handsome face filled with pride, Nick grabbed the conservatively tailored jacket of his Brooks Brothers suit off the back of a set chair and slipped it on. Nick’s tall, fit form dwarfed both Amy and Grace. “Now we’ve got five shows in the can,” Nick told them with satisfaction. Beside him, the pregnant Amy beamed. Joy filled Grace as she realized she had never seen her youngest child looking as happy and content as she had since she had met and married Nick.
“How long before we can begin signing up the stations to run the program?” Grace asked cheerfully as she took off her microphone and handed it to the sound-man.
“We need at least ten—or a solid two weeks of shows—to sell the program,” Nick said. “And then once we get twenty-five stations to air it, we’ll
set a debut and begin the publicity. In the meantime, we’ll keep filming so we have as many shows ready to air as possible. I want to be able to go at least six months without repeating one segment. And even then, the repeated shows will be few and far between. The key to a program like this is staying current, giving the viewer something fresh and interesting every time they switch on the program.”
“I agree.” Grace smiled.
Beside Grace, Amy tensed.
“What is it?” Grace turned in time to see Daisy walk in. She had a portfolio under her arm, a camera bag slung around her neck, another looped over her shoulder and a determined look on her face.
“I didn’t know you were interviewing for the show-photographer job today,” Nick said in surprise.
Her stomach twisting the way it always did when she saw her ex-husband’s love child, Grace did her best to maintain her outer serenity. “I didn’t have anything set up,” Grace told her daughter and son-in-law coolly. In fact, they hadn’t yet even advertised the position.
“I told Daisy you were looking for someone, Mom,” Amy said uneasily. “At the time, I thought maybe it would be a good idea for both of you…now that we know. Well, I’m sure you—” Amy cast a look over her shoulder and noticed that several crew members were within earshot “—know what I mean,” Amy finished lamely, after a moment.
Grace did. And now that she’d had a second to absorb what was going on, she wasn’t at all surprised. Amy was not just the baby of the family, she was the child who had always wanted most for Grace and Tom to put aside their differences and reconcile. To the point that during the fifteen years Grace and Tom had lived apart, the thirteen years they had actually been divorced, Amy never missed an opportunity to lobby for peace and reconciliation between her parents.
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