Grace sent Daisy a sad, reflective smile. “While you’re cowering here, feeling sorry for yourself, like the whole world is against you, Jack is taking action.”
No surprise there, Daisy thought. Jack had always been a man of action. She sat up straighter against the pillows propped against the headboard. “What kind of action?”
Grace turned at the doorway. “The kind Tom and I never ever wanted to see. Jack handed in his resignation to Tom this morning. He’s at his beach cottage packing up his stuff as we speak.”
Daisy stared at Grace. That couldn’t be true. But apparently, it was. Reminding herself of what Jack had done to her, Daisy folded her arms across her chest. “Maybe that’s for the best,” she said stubbornly.
Grace turned her hands, palm up, and gestured ineffectually. “Perhaps it is, if you can’t find it in your heart to forgive him,” she agreed.
Warmth started in Daisy’s chest and moved swiftly to her face. Before she knew it, she was scrambling out from beneath the covers, standing on her knees on the middle of the bed. “He lied to me! He deceived me! He made a deal with Tom behind my back, to stay on after I lost the baby.”
“I know Jack made mistakes,” Grace said quietly. “I also know the entire time, he was trying to protect you.”
“Well, I don’t need that kind of protection,” Daisy grumbled even more obstinately as she sat back on her heels. She didn’t need to feel as if she was living life on the edge, always waiting for the love just within her reach to slip away again.
“You’re right,” Grace agreed sweetly, coming nearer once again. “You don’t. What you need, Daisy,” Grace continued, her voice breaking emotionally, “is what I’ve found with Tom—a partner who loves you enough and cares about you enough to risk being honest, even when it hurts.” Grace paused, blinking back empathetic tears. “I’m the first to agree with you, Daisy, that there should be no more secrets between you and Jack, and the entire Deveraux-Templeton families.”
Daisy drew a deep, bolstering breath, aware that the inner vulnerability she had thought she had shelved for good the night before was back full-force. “But you also think I should forgive Jack, don’t you?” Daisy asked huskily, tears of regret and longing clouding her eyes and clogging her throat.
Grace nodded and reached out to embrace Daisy in a warm, maternal hug—the kind every stepmother should give a hurting stepchild. “I also think you should go and see him. And when you do, bear this in mind. The bigger the mistake, the bigger your heart has to be.”
DAISY STAYED IN BED another ten minutes after Grace left. She half expected Charlotte to come up to check on her. Charlotte didn’t. Which left Daisy to fend for, and think for, herself. And the first thing she wanted to do was take a shower, wash her hair, find something not quite so outrageous to wear. Because serious conversations deserved serious clothes. And Grace was right, Daisy realized as she brushed her hair into a dignified upsweep on the back of her head and put on a plain white sheath and matching sandals, if for nothing else but closure, she had to seek out Jack one more time. One last time, she amended fiercely. Because there was still no way she was forgiving him or Tom Deveraux for what they had done.
An hour later, she was driving along the causeway that connected the city with the beach where Jack lived. Fifteen minutes after that, she was parking in his driveway, right behind his black SUV. Relieved he was still here, she got out, walked to the door. Used her key and let herself in.
She didn’t have far to look. Jack was in his study, emptying out the banged-up file cabinets that still hadn’t been replaced. He was wearing khaki shorts and a worn university T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved, and the golden-brown beard lining his face gave him a faintly dangerous look. Standing there, Daisy realized all over again just how appealing she found him in every way, regardless of his appearance. But the feeling wasn’t mutual, she noted as he looked up when she entered the room, then went wordlessly back to his work.
Daisy’s heart sank. Closing the door on their time together was going to be harder than she realized. Too late, she realized he had been afraid of being abandoned, too.
Heart pounding, she dropped her purse and keys on the chair closest to the door and sauntered over to the file cabinet where he was working. “Hi,” she said softly.
And just that quickly it became clear to her exactly what she was about to throw away. Not just a marriage that had been made for all the wrong reasons, but turned out to be more right than anything she had ever felt before in her life. But also friendship with the only person in the world who had ever understood her and accepted her for who she was. Jack had watched out for her when no one else had. He had made love to her as if she was the only woman on earth and he was the only man. He had opened up his heart and soul to her, and encouraged her to do the same. And, she saw now, he hadn’t done any of those things because he cared about pleasing Tom. He had done them because he was drawn to her in the same undeniable way she was drawn to him. Because they were right for each other in a way only two people who were destined to love each other for the rest of the lives could be. And she had been about to throw it all away.
Why? Because he’d made a secret deal with her birth father behind her back? She’d already forgiven him once for doing Tom’s bidding—the night of the break-in when she had discovered how long he had been acting as her unofficial guardian angel. So there was technically no reason she couldn’t forgive him for promising Tom he would stay with her after the miscarriage and make sure she was all right. That, she knew in retrospect, had been the only decent thing for Jack to do at the time. And he was, above all, a very decent, loving, caring man.
No. The reason she had walked out on Jack was because he scared her. Because opening up her heart to him meant doing the unthinkable for her—it meant walking on the wild side and making and keeping a commitment to him that would last a lifetime. It meant opening up the possibility of being hurt again more than she had ever been hurt in her life. And Daisy had thought—erroneously, it now seemed—that it would be safer to go on alone than risk being disappointed or disillusioned again.
But she saw now, after only a mere twenty hours or so, what a lonely and foolish way that would be to spend the rest of her life. When everything she had ever wanted was standing right here in front of her.
The question was how to make Jack see she’d had a change of heart. And planned to change her way of life. Starting here. Starting now. If—and she was beginning to see it was a very big if—he would let her.
Daisy swallowed hard around the building apprehension in her throat. “I thought maybe we should talk.”
His expression was completely devoid of hope as he continued stacking files in cardboard storage boxes. “We said everything there was to say last night.”
Daisy swallowed hard and recalled what Grace had told her. The bigger the mistake, the bigger your heart has to be. “Not everything.” She edged closer and put a staying hand on his forearm before he could pull out another file. “I was wrong to ask you for a divorce the way I did.”
Jack straightened slowly. “You didn’t ask. You stated. And as for methods—” he plucked her hand from his forearm like an unwelcome mosquito, and smiled at her sardonically “—it got the point across.”
Don’t give up. “Bucky Jerome didn’t print a word of what I said last night in his column today,” Daisy pointed out with all the cheerfulness she could muster.
“No reason to,” Jack retorted even more dryly. He gave her a long, telling look. “The news is already all over town.”
Daisy gulped. This was definitely not going the way she wanted. What had happened to the Jack who had chased her halfway across the country, and insisted, no matter what, on staying in her life? As her lawfully wedded husband?
Aware her knees were beginning to feel as shaky as the rest of her, Daisy backed up until her hips touched the edge of Jack’s desk. Adopting what she hoped was a breezy posture, she braced herself against it. “Along with the
true facts of my parentage, which was in the newspaper.” And, because of the connection to Grace, would soon be picked up by the wire services, if it hadn’t been already.
Jack leaned back against the dented file cabinet. He folded his arms implacably in front of him. “So you finally got what you wanted,” he said, looking neither happy nor sad about that.
Daisy braced her hands on the edge of the desk on either side of her. “Not quite.” She tilted her head up to look into his face. Took a deep breath and tried again. “I want you, Jack.”
His sensual lip curved into a cruelly disbelieving smile. “So you say today.” His glance narrowed as he took in the length of her before returning slowly, deliberately to her face. “Who are you trying to tick off this time?” he asked in a soft, sarcastic voice that sent her spirits tumbling all the more. “Can’t be Tom, he’s given us his blessing. Ditto Charlotte and Iris.”
It was Daisy’s turn to pause. Neither woman had said anything of the kind to her. All Charlotte had wanted was for Daisy to get up, out of bed, and start dealing with the problems Daisy faced instead of hiding her head in the sand the way Charlotte had for so many years. “Since when?” Daisy demanded, irritated Jack was once again one step ahead of her when it came to family matters that concerned Daisy.
“Both telephoned me this morning, telling me they hoped we would work things out.”
Daisy curled her toes and dug them into the flat, padded sole of her sandal. “What did you tell them?” she asked hopefully.
“That it wasn’t going to happen.”
Okay, don’t give up just yet. “Why not?” Daisy asked, doing her best to emulate Jack’s calm but determined behavior when she had been the one turning away from their marriage.
“Because,” Jack retorted gruffly, his golden-brown eyes suddenly filled with hurt, “I don’t have any interest in trying to make someone who doesn’t love me love me.”
“But I do. Love you.”
The room went so silent Daisy could hear their watches ticking.
Jack’s eyes glimmered wetly. “That’s not funny, Daisy,” he said in a low, choked voice.
“It’s not meant to be,” she said as emotion boiled over and the tears she’d been holding back flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, too. She pushed away from the desk, wreathed her arms around him and aligned herself against him, letting the soft warmth of her body penetrate the hard steel of his. Tilting her head back, she looked deep into his eyes, no longer caring that her heart was on her sleeve. “Because I do love you, Jack,” she said purposefully as even more tears flowed. “I just didn’t want to admit it.” Daisy gulped. “I didn’t want to take a chance that you would walk away from me, too.”
Something in her words must have gotten to him, because suddenly he was smiling and his arms were around her. “Don’t you know I would never ever do that?” he asked her huskily, pressing kisses in her hair, on her temple, down her cheek.
Daisy cuddled closer, aware she had never felt so wanted or happy or so safe as she did at that very moment. Still, for the sake of clarity, she felt she had to point out, “You left me last night.”
“Only,” Jack replied sternly, “after you told me it was over, that you would never under any circumstances forgive me.”
Once again, their gazes clashed. “I was a fool,” Daisy admitted soberly, knowing all the love she felt for him was reflected in her eyes. “But I’m not that reckless anymore,” she promised seriously. Not enough to give you up.
A smile slowly curved the edges of his lips as Jack threaded his hands through her hair. “You’re not.”
“I can be as conservative, as normal and down to earth as you need. See?” Daisy stepped back and held her arms akimbo. “Look at the way I’m dressed.” Even Charlotte would have been proud, her white sheath was so classic and discreet.
“I noticed.” Jack let his glance drift over her lazily before returning to her eyes. “And for the record, Daisy, you don’t have to do that,” he said as the pads of his thumbs delicately stroked her cheeks. “I like you reckless. I like you just the way you are, so you don’t have to change a thing.”
Daisy breathed a sigh of relief and looked up at him, admitting softly and shyly, “I’m glad, Jack, because I like you just the way you are, too.”
He studied her eyes, sensing there was still something amiss. “But?”
Daisy figured while they were at it, they might as well put all their cards on the table. “We need love, too—the real, enduring enough-to-last-a-lifetime kind.”
“Oh, Daisy, don’t you know?” Jack kissed her sweetly, passionately, and then tenderly once again. “Given the way I love you, and the way you love me, the way we feel about each other is never going to go away.”
“SO, YOU’RE REALLY hanging up your own shingle?” Tom asked several days later as Jack and Daisy worked together to clear out Jack’s office at Deveraux-Heyward Shipping Company.
Jack nodded as he removed his diplomas from the wall. “I’ll be available to help during the transition, with whomever you hire to replace me as company counsel, but from now on my office is going to be at the beach.”
Daisy took Jack’s law books from the shelves and put them into moving boxes. She turned to look at Tom, knowing they had a ways to go before they would ever feel like father and daughter, but also that with time it was going to happen. And that Tom would accept her the way her adoptive father slash grandfather, Richard Templeton, never had. With that knowledge had come an inner peace and happiness Daisy was still marveling over. “My brother, Connor, helped Jack and I find space in a commercial building on the Isle of Palms,” she told Tom. “We’ve rented suites that are side by side.”
“Does that mean you’re going to leave Grace’s show, too?” Tom asked curiously.
“No,” Daisy said. “I’ll be there for a while longer, but eventually I want to go out on my own, too.”
“Good for you.” Tom gave Daisy the same kind of approval Jack had, then paused as he looked at both her and Jack. “I know I’ve let you both down—” Tom began with difficulty.
“It’s all right,” Daisy interjected quietly as she linked hands with Jack and held on tight. “We forgive you.”
Jack nodded, letting Tom know this was so, that he and Daisy were in unison.
“And we ask that you forgive us for all our mistakes, too,” Daisy continued. Because she and Jack had certainly made a lot of them on their way to falling and staying in love, and making a real commitment that would last not just for however long it was convenient, but for a lifetime.
“Done, then,” Tom said. A contented silence fell between them.
“I read in Bucky Jerome’s column this morning that you and Grace are getting married again,” Daisy remarked.
Tom clapped a hand to the back of his neck and massaged the tense muscles there. “I don’t know how he found out about that. Grace and I hadn’t told any of the kids. Heck, we hadn’t told anyone.”
That was something, Daisy thought, that Bucky Jerome could have guessed. One look at Tom’s and Grace’s faces, not to mention the way they couldn’t seem to stop touching each other whenever they were together, was clue enough. The older couple was in love again, and in fact, Daisy realized, had probably never truly been out of love with each other, despite their difficulties. “Then it’s true?” Jack asked happily.
Grace entered Jack’s office. Like Daisy, she had come over straight from work at the television studio. “Yes.” Grace smiled as she stepped into Tom’s waiting arms. “It really is.”
“When and where?” Daisy asked.
“On the yacht, at sunset tomorrow night,” Tom said.
“We want you two to be there,” Grace added. “You’re family now, you know. Both of you.”
Daisy and Jack knew. And nothing had ever felt better.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7808-4
THE HEIRESS
Copyright © 2003 by Cathy Gillen Thacker
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