Daisy's back in town

Chapter Four

The front door of the club swung open, and as if his thoughts had conjured her, Daisy stepped outside. Shesettled the little gold chain of her purse on her shoulder and glanced around as if she couldn't quite recall whereshe'd parked her car. Her gaze locked with his, and she stared at him across the distance. The light from thefront of the club lit half her face and left the rest in variegated shadow.

"Shay's going to throw her bouquet in a minute," she said as if he'd asked. "And I don't want to pretend to catchit."

"You don't want to get married next?"

She shook her head and her hair brushed her shoulders.

He didn't ask why. He didn't want to give a shit. His gaze moved to her full breasts pressing against the redmaterial of her dress and down all those buttons on the side.

"This morning I was thinking about my first day at Lovett Elementary," she said and took a step toward him.

"Do you remember that?"

He stood and looked back up into her face. "No."

Her red lips turned up at the corners. "You told me my hair how was stupid."

And shed burst into tears.

"My mama made me wear that dumb thing."

He looked down into her face, with her smooth perfect skin, straight nose, and full red lips. She was as beautifulas she'd always been, maybe more so, and he was doing a really good job of feeling nothing. No anger. Nodesire. Nothing. "What are you doing here?"

She took a step closer. If he reached out, he could touch her. Daisy's big eyes stared into his and she said, "Shayinvited me to her reception this morning when I saw her buying a can of Aqua Net at Albertsons."

That wasn't want he'd meant. "Why are you in Lovett? Dredging up the past?"

She lowered her gaze to his chest but didn't answer.

"What do you want, Daisy?"

"I want to be friends."

"Why, Jack?" She looked back up, her gaze searching his face. "We were friends once."

He laughed. "Were we?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"I think we were more."

"I know, but I mean friends like in before all that."

"Before all that sex?"

He wasn't sure, but he thought she blushed. "Yes."

"And before you had sex with my best friend?" He folded his arms across his chest. Maybe he did feelsomething. Maybe he was a little more pissed off than he'd thought, because he said, "Are you here to startthings up again? Continue right where we left off?"

She looked away. "No."

"I know I'm not supposed to flatter myself, but are you sure you don't want to tear one off in the back of mycar?" She shook her head, but he didn't stop. "For old time's sake?"

Her gaze returned to his. "Don't, Jack." She raised her hand between them and pressed her fingers against hisups. "Don't say any more."

The touch of her fingers took him off guard. He caught the scent of perfume, but underneath that, he smelledher. Daisy. She might cover it with perfume and move away for fifteen years, but it hadn't changed. Even at theage of seventeen, when she'd worked at The Wild Coyote Diner; even beneath the scent of fried chicken andbarbeque, she'd always smelled like a warm summer breeze.

With her fingers pressed to his mouth, he stared at her for several long heartbeats. Sometimes he'd had to searchhard for the scent of her beneath the smell of all that grease, but he'd always found it. Usually in the crook ofher neck. He grabbed her wrist and took a step back. "What do you want from me?"

"I told you. I want to he friends."

There had to he more. "We can never be friends."

"Why?"

He let go of her wrist - "You married my best friend."

"You broke up with me."

No, he'd told her he needed time to think. "So, to get back at me, you married Steven." It wasn't a question.

Rather a statement of fact.

She shook her head. "You don't understand. It wasn't like that."

It was exactly like that. "You and I were lovers. We were doing it every which way to Sunday. Then you up andmarried my best friend the same week I buried my parents. What part did I get wrong?" Through the darknesshe watched a crease draw her brows together.

"The timing was real bad."

Bitter laughter clogged his chest. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry Jack." She looked sorry, too.

He didn't care. "Don't be. It all worked out for the best."

"I came back because I have to talk to you."

There was absolutely nothing she had to say that he wanted to hear. "Save your breath, Daisy," he said as hewalked past her toward the bridge separating the entrance from the parking lot.

"It's the reason I'm here," she called after him.

"Then you've wasted your time."

"Don't make me chase you."

That stopped him and he looked back at her. Her hands were on her hips, and although he couldn't see herfeatures clearly, he could feel her gaze on him, staring him down. It was like looking at the old Daisy.

"I'm trying to be nice about this, but you really don't have a choice. You're going to listen to me; and if you getugly like you said, I'll become your worst dang nightmare."

Damn, but she was the old Daisy. All hot temper and feisty belligerence wrapped up in such a soft girlypackage. He almost smiled. Almost.

"Too late, buttercup," he said as he turned to go. "You became my worst nightmare years ago."

* * *

Daisy hung her dress in the closet, pulled the red slip over her head, and put on her short nightgown. Then shewashed her face. It was a little after ten, and her mother was already asleep.

She sat on the edge of her bed and dialed her son in Seattle. It was only eight in Washington; she was sure thatNathan was still up.

She was right. "Hey, sugar muffin," she said after Nathan picked up on the fourth ring.

"Mom."

Well, it wasn't a great beginning to their conversation, but it was great to hear his voice. "How are things?"

"Gay."

"I miss you."

"Then come home."

"I will a week from Sunday."

"Mom, I do not want to stay here for a week."

She'd had this same conversation with him before she'd even left. Junie and Oliver were not his favoriterelatives. They weren't horrible, just boring. Especially to a fifteen-year-old boy. "It can't he that bad."

"How do you know? Have you ever lived with Aunt Junie and Uncle Know-it-Olly."

"Nathan, they'll hear you!" Unfortunately Oliver was one of those men who liked to impress people with hislimited knowledge on every subject known to man. Steven had started calling him Know-it-Olly years ago.

"No, they won't. They're not even here. They left me to baby-sit Michael Ann and Richie."

Daisy wedged the phone between her jaw and shoulder. "Michael Ann is only a year younger than you."

"I know. And she's a pain in the butt. She follows me around asking me if I get food stuck in my lip ring."

Daisy had asked him that too and thought it was a fair question. "I think she has a crush on you."

"Oh my God! That is so gross, Mom," he said, his voice cracking with indignation. "How can you say that?

She's my cousin."

"Haven't you ever heard of kissing cousins?"

Daisy teased him.

"Yuck. She still picks her nose!"

Daisy laughed and the conversation turned to school. There was only five more days left, than he would be outfor the summer. He'd just turned fifteen in December, and since about first grade, he'd been counting the daysuntil he could take driver's education. He had one more year to go, but he already had his car picked out. Forthis week anyway.

"I'm gonna get a Nova Super Sport. A four-on-four, too. None of that wussy three-speed crap. Why bother ifyou can't burn 'em off? It'll be fat." She didn't even pretend to know what he was talking about. He'd been borncar crazy. No way around it. She figured it was in his DNA. Plus, chances were good that he'd been conceivedin the back of a Chevy. Nathan had been doomed to be a gear head.

"What color?" she asked, not in the least concerned that he would ever actually drive a Nova 55 and burn 'emoff. Nathan didn't have a job.

"Yellow with a black top."

"Like a bumblebee?"

There was a long pause before he said, "White with a black top."

They talked for a few more minutes about the weather and where he might want to go on vacation when she gotback. He'd just seen a teen skin-flick and thought Fort Lauderdale would be good. Or Hawaii.

By the time she hung up the telephone, they'd pretty much decided on Disney World, although with Nathan thatcould change by the next time she talked to him. She squirted almond-scented lotion into her hands and rubbedit up her arms. A thin white strip of skin barely marked her left finger where her wedding ring had been forfifteen years. She'd slipped the two-carat solitaire into the inside breast pocket of Steven's burial suit. Shethought it appropriate that it should rest above his heart.

As she rubbed the lotion into her hands, she glanced about the room where she was staying. It was her oldbedroom, but nothing remained except the bed itself. Framed posters of windmills, the Alamo, and the RiverWalk in San Antonio hung on the walls, replacing her certificates from local photography contests she'dentered, her cheerleading plaques, and a poster of Rob Lowe she'd pinned up during his St. Elmo's Fire days.

She stood and moved to the closet and opened the door. The closet was empty except for a few old promdresses, a pair of her old red cowboy boots with white heart inserts, and a big box with her name written acrossit in black. She scooted the box across the floor to the bed, then sat looking at it for several long moments. Sheknew what she would find in there. Bits and pieces of her life, the memories she'd long ago shoved in a box andtaped shut. Earlier at the reception, she'd pushed the memories from her head, now here she sat staring at them.

Did she really want to look into her past?

No, not really.

She tore off the tape and opened the box.

A dried wrist corsage, her graduation tassel, and a few name tags that said HI MY NAME IS DAISY, sat ontop. She couldn't recall why she'd kept the name tags, but she recognized the corsage. She touched the dryrosebuds that had once been pink and white but were now a faded yellow. She brought the dried corsage to hernose and breathed deep. It smelled of dust and of old memories. She set it next to her on her bed, then pulled outher baby blanket and christening gown. A heart-shaped box with the necklace her grandfather on her daddy'sside had given her was next, followed by her school annuals. She reached for her tenth-grade yearbook andopened it. She flipped through the pages and paused on a group photograph of the teaching staff standing infront of the school. She'd taken the photo her first year of photography class, before she'd learned much aboutcomposition and lighting.

She turned to the pictures of her and Sylvia and the rest of the cheerleading squad. The picture had been takenof them in their gold-and-blue uniforms doing Herkie, toe-touch jumps, and handsprings. That was the yearshe'd cut her hair short like Princess Diana. While Diana had looked great, Daisy had looked like a boy in ashort pleated skirt.

She flipped to her class picture and cringed. Her big smile was filled with braces, and she had raccoon eyesfrom all the makeup she'd spooned on her face.

She turned a few pages and her finger moved along the row of photos and stopped on Steven. She touched thesmooth paper and smiled. He'd always been such a handsome all-American boy, with his wavy blond hair,smiling brown eyes, and a Texas grin as if he hadn't a care in the world. He'd played football and basketball andbeen involved in student government, going on to be class president his senior year.

Daisy thumbed a few more pages and looked at Jack's yearbook photo. Unlike Steven, Jack never grinned andsmiled as if he didn't have a care in the world. It wasn't that he was more serious than Steven, it was just that hedidn't waste energy laughing and smiling when he didn't feel like it.

During that school year, he'd turned sixteen, a year older than Nathan was now. The two had the same darkcoloring in hair and skin tone, and perhaps their noses were similar. She looked for other resemblances andfound none.

That was also the year jack had quit football because his father needed him after school in the garage. Up untilhis sophomore year, jack had always been the first string quarterback. When he quit, Steven took over theposition. As far as she recalled, he'd never had any hard feelings toward Steven, only a sadness that he could nolonger play ball.

That was also the year she'd started to fall in love with him. Oh, she'd always loved Jack in the same way shedloved Steven, but it seemed that one moment she'd been looking at him as she always had, and in the nexteverything changed.

On that particular day, he'd been waiting for Steven to finish football practice, sifting on the tailgate of hisdaddy's old truck. She'd stayed after school to make posters for the homecoming dance and later saw him in theparking lot, sitting and watching instead of playing.

Perhaps it had been a trick of the light, an early fall sunset casting him in gold. She didn't know, but she'dnoticed more than his usual good looks. More than his lashes that were longer than hers. More than the slightstubble on his jaw. More than his arms folded across his chest and the defined balls of his biceps and the hardcord of muscle of his forearms. Jack did not lift weights. He lifted car engines.

"Hey there," He said, and patted the tailgate next to him.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she sat. She placed her school books in her lap and looked out over the fieldas the Lovett Mustangs broke practice and the players jogged toward the locker room.

"Waiting for Steven."

"Do you miss playing, Jack?"

"Nah, but I miss the pretty girls." It was of course true that the football players did get the prettiest girls. But itwasn't true that just because he no longer played, he didn't get his share.

"Now you have to settle for the ugly ones," she teased and looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Daisy, don't you know there aren't any truly ugly girls in Texas?"

He was so full of it. "Where'd you hear that?"

He shrugged. "It's just a fact. Like the Alamo and the Rio Grande, is all." He took her hand and brushed histhumb over her knuckles as he studied her fingers. "You'll still be seen with me, though, won't you?"

She turned her head and gazed more fully at him, all prepared with a flip answer, but he glanced up andsomething in his green eyes stopped her. For about half a second, she saw something, something in the way helooked back at her, something that made her think the answer was important to him. As if he wasn't sure. Shegot a surprising glimpse inside of Jack that she'd never seen before. Maybe things didn't bounce off him like hewas superman. Maybe he felt things like everybody else. Maybe more.

Then he flashed her a smile and it was gone.

"Of course, Jack," she said. "I'll always be seen with you."

"I knew I could count on you, buttercup." For the first time, his voice slid inside her chest and warmed her upwith hot tingles. It was all so incredible and fantastic and left her stunned. And it absolutely could not happen.

She couldn't fall in love with Jack. He was a friend, and she didn't want to lose him. But even if he wasn't herfriend, she'd be an idiot to let it happen.

He squeezed her hand and stood. "Do you need a ride home?"

She looked up at him, standing in front of her with his hands shoved in the front pockets of his Levi's, andnodded. Jack Parrish had many wonderful qualities. Being faithful to one girl wasn't one of them. He'd shatterher heart like glass. If that happened, they couldn't he friends anymore. And she'd miss him terribly.

By the time Steven walked out of the boy's locker with his wet hair slicked hack, she'd convinced herself thatshe wasn't falling in love with Jack. He'd made her momentarily confused. Like when they'd been kids andwould ride the merry-go-round too long. Jack used to spin it so fast that for a while after she couldn't think orsee straight.

But she was over it now. Thinking straight once again. Thank God. "Are y'all going somewhere?" she asked.

"We're driving over to Chandler," Jack answered, referring to a town the size of Lovett and about fifty miles tothe west.

"Why?"

"There's a '69 Camaro Z-28 I want to look at."

"A '69?" She'd never understood Jack's fascination with old cars. Or as he called them, "classics." She preferrednew cars with upholstery that didn't snag her nylons. With Jack, it was more than just a case of not havingmoney for a new car. Although he certainly didn't. In that respect, she and Jack had a lot more in common thaneither did with Steven. Steven's father was a lawyer and his family had money. His biggest responsibility was tomaintain his grades. By contrast, her mother was a waitress who depended on survivor benefits from thegovernment, and Jack's family had a garage that never seemed to bring in a lot of money. She and Lily wereresponsible for keeping the house clean and starting supper, white Jack helped out in the family business. "Doesthe car run?" she asked.

"Not yet."

Exactly.

"Hey, Daisy," Steven said as he approached. "What are you doing at school so late?"

"Making homecoming posters. Are you going to the homecoming dance."

"Yeah, I'm thinking about asking Marilee Donahue. Do you think she'll go with me?" Steven smiled and therewasn't a doubt that Marilee would say yes.

She shrugged. "Are you going, Jack?" she asked, although she was fairly sure she knew the answer.

"Nope. You know I only put on a suit when my mom forces me to for Sunday School and funerals." He shut thetailgate and walked to the driver's side. "And I hate to dance."

Daisy suspected that it wasn't so much that Jack hated to dance as much as he just didn't know how to dance.

And he'd always been the kind of person that if he didn't do something well, he didn't do it at all. "You couldjust wear a nice shirt and tie," she told him, but for some reason, the fact that Jack wasn't taking a girl to theschool dance warmed her heart more than it should have, given that she was over her earlier confusion.

"Not a chance." The three of them got into the old truck and Jack fired it up.

'Have you been asked yet?" Jack asked her as he drove from the parking lot with her sitting between them likealways.

"Yes." They were so weird about who she dated she didn't want to say.

"Who?" Steven asked.

She looked straight ahead at the dashboard and the mad beyond.

Steven hit her with his elbow. "Come on, Daisy Lee. Who asked you?"

"Man Flegel."

"You're going with Bug?"

"He doesn't like to be called that anymore."

Jack looked at Steven over the top of her head.

"What's wrong with Bug... I mean Mali?" She held up a hand before either could answer. "Forget I asked. Idon't care what y'all think. I like Man."

"He gets around a lot."

"He's the wrong kind of boy for you," Jack added.

She folded her arms and was silent the rest of the way home. The pair of them were serial daters, and that wasputting it nicely. She wasn't about to listen to their opinion, and if there ever was a "wrong kind of boy" for heror any girl, it was Jack. Which made her doubly glad she wasn't really falling in love with him.

She spent the rest of her sophomore year dating boys that neither Steven nor Jack approved of, but she didn'tcare. Like most girls her age, she learned how to make out and drive boys crazy. And more important, shelearned where to stop before things went too far. As a result, she developed a reputation for being a tease.

Which she didn't think was fair at all. Boys kissed her. She kissed them back. As far as she could tell, a girl waseither a prude, which meant she didn't kiss at all. A tease, meaning she kissed and perhaps a bit more, or was aslut. And everyone knew what that meant.

That summer, she'd let Erik Marks touch her breast on the outside of her T-shirt. Jack and Steven heard about itand made a special trip over to her house to talk to her. She'd gotten mad and slammed the front door in theftfaces.

The hypocrites.

She made varsity cheerleader her junior year. Her hair had grown out to her shoulders and she got a spiral perm.

Steven was still in football and basketball, and of course, student government. Jack was racing his Camaro onthe flat Texas roads, and she was still telling herself that she wasn't attracted to him. She told herself that sheloved him but she wasn't in love with him, and that her heart didn't pinch when he drove by with his arm aroundsome girl. He was her friend, just as he'd always been. Nothing more. And she wouldn't allow herself to feelanything more either.

All that changed a few weeks before Christmas her senior year when she got asked to the Christmas prom by J.

T. Sanders. J. T. was gorgeous and drove a new Jeep Wrangler. Black. Daisy worked nights at the Wild CoyoteDiner, and she'd managed to save enough money to buy the prefect dress. White satin. Sleeveless with tinyrhinestones on the tight fitting bodice and tulle skirt. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever owned. The nightbefore the dance, she picked up J.t's boutonniere on her dinner break. When she got home, he called andcanceled. He said his grandmother died and that he had to go to her funeral in Amarillo. Everyone knew thathe'd actually started dating another girl the week before. Daisy had been dumped. Flat.

And everyone knew it.

The Saturday of the prom, Daisy worked the lunch shift at the Wild Coyote. She kept it together and acted likeshe wasn't humiliated. She pretended she wasn't sad or hurt. She joked with her coworkers about J. t being aloser anyway.

No one bought it. Getting dumped the night before the prom with some lame-o excuse was the worst thing thatcould ever happen to any girl.

And everyone knew it.

After her shift, she went home and locked herself in her room. With her dress hanging on her closet door, shethrew herself on her bed and had a nice long cry. At four, her mother stuck her head in the room and asked ifshe wanted some mint chocolate chip ice cream. She didn't. Lily made her a cowboy pie sandwich, but shecouldn't eat it.

At five-thirty Jack knocked on her bedroom door, but she wouldn't let him in. Her face was splotchy and hereyes puffy, and the didn't want him to see her that way.

"Daisy Lee," he called through the door. "Come out of there."

She sat up on her bed and pulled a Kleenex from the box. "Go away, Jack."

"Open up."

"No." She blew her nose.

"I have something for you."

She stared at the door. "What?"

"I can't tell you. I have to show you."

"I look really bad?

"I don't care."

Well the did. She slipped from the bed and opened the door a crack. She stuck her hand out.

"What is it?" He didn't answer and she was forced to peer out the crack Jack stood in the hail, the light from hersister's bedroom shining on him like a dark angel or at the very least a choirboy. He wore his navy blue Sundaysuit, and a cream-colored shirt. A red tie hung loose around his neck. "What's going on, Jack? Did you go to afuneral?"

He laughed and brought his hand out from behind his back He laid a wrist corsage of white and pink roses inher palm. "Will you go to the prom with me?"

"You hate school dances," she said through the crack"I know."

She brought the corsage to her nose and breathed deep. Her nose was clogged so it wasn't that deep. She bit herbottom lip to keep it from trembling. And as she looked at him, standing in the hail of her house, wearing a suithe hated and asking her to a dance he loathed, she fell helplessly in love with Jack Parrish. It expanded her heartand flooded her chest and scared her to death. All those years of fighting it faded away to nothing.

She'd fallen in love with Jack and there hadn't been anything she could do about it.

That night Jack kissed her for the first time. Or rather, she'd kissed him. During the dance, while she'd beenfailing in love for the first time in her life, he treated her as he always had, as a friend. While he made her wholebody feel hot and alive, he'd stayed cool. It had all been wonderful and awful, and after the prom, when hewalked her to her front door, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

At first he stood with his hands to his side. Then he grasped her shoulders through her coat and pushed heraway, angry.

"What are you doing?"

"Kiss me, Jack." if he rejected her, she was sure she'd just die right there. On the porch.

His grip tightened and he brought her forward and pressed his warm lips to her forehead.

"No, don't treat me like a friend." She swallowed hard past the ache in her chest. 'Please," she whispered as shelooked up at him. "I want you to kiss me like you do other girls. I want you to touch me like you do other girls,too."

He pulled back and his green gaze slid to her mouth. "Don't tease me, Daisy. I don't like it."

"I'm not teasing you." She ran her hand across the shoulder of his jacket to the side of his neck. "Please, Jack."

Then as if he didn't want to kiss her, but he couldn't fight it any longer, he slowly lowered his mouth to her. Thistime the touch of his lips stole her breath. She tilted her head back and sank into his chest. Until that moment,she'd thought she knew what it was like to kiss a boy. Jack showed her she hadn't a clue. The kiss was hot andwet and filled with so much hunger that it changed her forever.

Even now, after all these years, Daisy remembered standing on her mother's porch as Jack turned her worldinside out. She'd clung to him as he'd fed her those liquid kisses that had made her breasts ache and her bodytremble. His hands had never moved from her shoulders, but he'd made her crave his touch. She'd wanted himto touch her all over. Instead he'd walked away, leaving her stunned and wanting more.