Daisy's Back in Town Read Online Free

she'd envisioned. And what she'd envisioned had been pretty dang hard.
    "Now you don't have to wonder." He pointed with his milk carton toward the other room. "If that's all, there's the door."
    "No, that's not all." She looked down at the toes of her boots, the black leather spotted by the rain. "Steven wanted me to tell you something. He wanted me to tell you that he's sorry about everything." She shook her head and corrected herself. "No... was sorry, I mean. He's been gone seven months and it's still hard for me to remember him in the past tense. It seems wrong somehow. Like if I do, he never existed." She looked back at Jack. His expression hadn't changed. "The flowers you sent were really nice."
    He shrugged and set the milk on the counter. "Penny sent them."
    "Penny?"
    "Penny Colten. Married Leon Kribs. She works for me now."
    "Thank Penny for me." But Penny hadn't sent them and signed his name without his knowledge.
    "Don't make it a big deal."
    She knew how much Steven had once meant to him. "Don't pretend you don't care that he's gone."
    He raised a dark brow. "You forget I tried to kill him.
    "You wouldn't have killed him, Jack."
    No, you're right. I guess you just weren't worth it."
    The conversation was headed in the wrong direction and she had to turn it around. "Don't he ugly."
    "You call this ugly?" He laughed, but not with pleasure. "This is nothing, buttercup. Stick around and I'll show you how ugly I can get."
    She already knew how ugly Jack could get, but while she might be a coward, she was also as stubborn as ragweed. Just as Jack was not the same boy she'd once known, she was not the same girl he'd once known either. She'd come to tell him the truth. Finally. Before she could get on with the rest of her life, she had to tell him about Nathan. It had taken her fifteen years to get to this point, and he could get ugly all he wanted, but he was going to listen to her.
    A flash of white caught the corner of Daisy's eye a second before a woman entered the kitchen wearing a man's white dress shirt.
    "Hey, y'all," the woman said as she moved to stand by Jack.
    He looked down at her. "I told you to stay in bed."
    "I got bored without you."

    Heat crept up Daisy's neck to her cheeks, but she seemed to be the only embarrassed person in the room. Jack had a girlfriend. Of course he did. He'd always had a girlfriend or two. There had been a time when that would have hurt.
    "Hello, Daisy. I don't know if you remember rue. I'm Gina Brown."
    It didn't hurt any longer, and Daisy was a bit ashamed to admit to herself that what she mostly felt was an overwhelming relief. She'd come all the way from Seattle to tell him about Nathan, and now all she felt was relief. Like an axe had been lifted from her throat. She guessed she was more of a coward than she thought.
    Daisy smiled and moved across the kitchen to offer Gina her hand. "Of course I remember you. We were in American Government together our senior year."
    "Mr. Simmons."
    "That's right."
    "Remember when he tripped over an eraser on the floor?" Gina asked as if she weren't standing there wearing Jack's shirt and, Daisy would bet, nothing else.
    "That was so funny. I just about -"
    "What the hell is this?" Jack interrupted. "A damn high school reunion?"
    Both women looked up at him and Gina said, "I was just being polite to your guest."
    "She isn't my guest and she's leaving." He pinned his gaze on Daisy, just as cold and unyielding as when she'd first walked in the door.
    "It was nice to see you, Gina," she said.
    "Same."
    "Good night, Jack."
    He shoved his hip into the counter and crossed his arms over his chest.
    "See you two around." She walked back through the dark house and out the door. The rain had stopped and she dodged puddles on her way to her mother's Caddie, parked on the side of the garage. Next time, she would definitely call first.
    Just as she reached for the car door, she felt a hand on her arm whipping her around. She looked up into Jack's face.