Wild in the Moment

Nine

Daisy had never spent much time thinking about Valentine’s Day, yet for the last week, she couldn’t get it off her mind. She wanted to give Teague a present. She didn’t have much money, but the present she wanted to give him wasn’t an issue of cost. She just had to prowl the market for exactly the right item, and Valentine’s Day was coming up in another week so it would give her an excuse to give it to him.

This morning she was standing in the café kitchen with a hot mug of coffee in one hand and a wooden spoon in another, when panic hit.

It was so natural, thinking of Teague as her lover. Thinking of giving her lover a gift. Thinking of the kind of gift that really, really mattered to him-even if he didn’t know it yet.

The feeling of panic lunged at her like a surprise nightmare. Holy cow. When had it happened? How could she have done such a damn fool thing as fall completely in love with him?

The oven buzzed, forcing her attention back to practical priorities. It was still ink-black outside, sleet coming down on a day doomed to be gray, as she swiftly took a cake from the oven and then hustled to the counter, where she was tossing together a blend of dried lavender buds, orange zest, and some beautiful baby white onions. Because she was working this afternoon with Teague, she’d come in the café before dawn, hoping to get a bunch of cooking and baking done.

She spun around and reached in the refrigerator for a weighty package of ground round, when her mind did it to her again. Whispered that love word.

Her heart started mainlining more panic. Okay, okay. Making love with Teague had been stupendous. More than stupendous. Maybe she found it crazily easy to be honest with him, to share things with him she told no one else. Maybe she loved working with him, pushing him, being with him.

But that was no excuse for starting to believe they could have a future. She knew better. He was as happy in White Hills as a cat in sunlight, when she couldn’t possibly stay here. Yet now she realized how long this ghastly problem had been going on. Every time she thought of him, she’d been doing goofy things. Singing out loud. Walking with a little rock and roll in her hips. Thinking of jokes to tell him. Thinking of giving him something important. Laughing for any excuse. Finding something gorgeous in a gray February day that no one could love.

She had to get a grip.

“Oh, God. What are you making now?” Harry always showed up at the café before sunrise, made coffee and then promptly disappeared into a booth with his paper-but he usually paid no attention to anything she was doing.

She grinned at his suspicious expression. “I’m making bitoque with the ground round, cher. I told you. I just put a couple new things on the lunch menu. I promise they’ll fly.”

“I know everybody loves the pastries. But nobody around here wants fancy food.”

“Now, Harry, how many people showed up here for lunch yesterday?” She didn’t waste time waiting for him to answer. “Jason thought it was a great idea.”

“He said so?” Harry asked, obviously taking his brother’s okay as reassurance.

“He sure did.” Actually, Jason had just said, “Whatever.” Neither of them had ever varied the lunch menu from brats in a decade, but then, Jason wasn’t the most inventive short-order cook on the planet. “I’ll tell you a secret, Harry. Bitoque is just hamburger, French style. Same old hamburger. Just with a little bit of sour cream, a little bit of consommé, a little bit of secrets. Just enough to make it special.”

“All right, but then what’s this other thing?” Harry pushed in his stomach so he could find the space to ease in next to her, still looking suspicious.

“Just chicken.”

“That isn’t just chicken. Chicken is a coupla legs, a coupla breasts, then throw it on the grill.”

“Jason is going to throw this on the grill. It’s just going to chill until lunch in this little marinade. Everyone will love it, I promise. Try not to worry.” She pulled out two long sheets of plastic wrap to seal the bowls, then impatiently motioned her boss aside so she could put them in the fridge. When she stood back up, he was standing in the narrow opening with that gruff, exasperated look that had everyone else fooled.

“I am worried. About you. You’re young. You’re beautiful. You’re dressed-” he motioned to her Versace silk blouse and navy slacks “-like a million dollars. Yet you’re cooking in my café. I don’t get what’s going on here.”

“But I told you what’s going on, Harry. I’ve been cooking for you because I love to. It’s always been a hobby, and I haven’t had a chance to do it in years, and what fun would it be to cook for myself?”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard all your malarkey.” A phone rang from the back office. Harry cocked his head toward the sound. “Go. I know it’s for you.”

The chance of the call being for her was one in a zillion, but Daisy swiftly wiped the flour off her hands with a linen towel and hustled. It’s not that Teague had never called her here, but he generally used her cell phone. Harry just liked her to answer the phone because she played bodyguard for his unwanted calls-particularly from his ex-wife.

The closest phone was in his office-which hadn’t seen a dust rag or vacuum in this century, possibly longer. She grabbed the receiver and started to say Marble Bridge Café, but her sister never waited to hear her voice.

“Oh, Daisy. It’s me. I was going to wait to call you until a reasonable hour, but I couldn’t sleep anyway and I had to tell you. I had an ultrasound. It’s a girl.”

“Oh, baby.” She’d talked to her mom and Camille over the past couple weeks, but she’d only been able to catch Violet when both of them were on the run. Just hearing her sister’s voice brought a smile. Clamping the receiver to her ear, she wandered back to the kitchen. She couldn’t cook one-handed, but there were always dishes to rinse, bowls to put away. “I’m so thrilled for you. Are you still feeling good?”

“Better than good. I’m fat as a slug, but I don’t care. I’m just so happy. It’s scary.”

“Don’t be scared. You deserve happiness.” She could hear Violet sniffing, and though it was crazy, she almost started sniffing herself. Margaux and Violet were the emotional ones in the family. She’d taken after Dad, could hide her feelings like a pro, but damn. For years Violet had believed she was infertile. She and Cameron talked about the coming baby as if it were a priceless treasure-which, of course, it was. “You’re taking good care of yourself?”

“Hey, this is me. You know I eat right. How’s the cooking going?”

“Fabulous. I’m having a ball. I’ve been using your lavender right and left. Made every recipe Mom ever taught us. Hey, you, we have to schedule a baby shower-”

“Oh, yeah, I’m all about it. But not quite yet. And in the meantime…” Violet cleared her throat. “Now Daisy-”

“Uh-oh. Nothing good ever follows ‘now, Daisy.’”

“I’m just saying. I haven’t always been rolling in it, but I am now. I know, I know, you told everyone you got out of the divorce okay, but just in case you need some help, just say. Mom and Dad will never know. No one will ever know, I promise-”

“I don’t need a thing, sweetie. But you’re a love to ask. What’s the baby’s name going to be?”

“Well, Cameron and I are still fighting about that. Because we three girls got stuck with Camille, Violet and Daisy, you’d better believe there isn’t a chance I’m naming this kid after a flower. But Cam, he’s got his heart set-he thinks-on Rose. In the meantime, hey, any men on the horizon?”

Daisy’s heart instantly leaped to Teague, and in a millisecond flat, her pulse wanted to sing arias. She dropped a dish towel. Then her favorite wooden spoon. “I’d have to be nuts to get involved with anyone until my life’s more settled, don’t you think?”

“Well, yeah. But I hate to think of you alone.”

“I’m not afraid to be alone.” At least that was the whole truth. “You can be lonelier with the wrong person than being by yourself.”

“You’ve sure got that right. Been there, done that, didn’t like it.”

“What I’ve been doing…” In the process of fumbling with the phone, she somehow knocked the napkin holder on the floor. “Is writing up a résumé. Getting going with my life. Figuring out something serious to do for a career.”

“That sounds good. So what kind of job are you thinking about?”

Daisy knelt down to pick up the scattered bunch of napkins. The truth was, she hadn’t thought about sending out résumés, hadn’t made any moves to leave White Hills. She hadn’t made a single plan since making love with Teague-except for stockpiling every dime she could. Now, though, her throat felt as thick as pea soup, not because she was telling her sister lies, but because they shouldn’t have been lies.

“I’ve been happy to be home for a while,” she admitted to Violet. “To be honest, I kind of felt crushed when I got here. It’s been good, being back in White Hills, getting back on my feet, but in the long run…you know how restless I am. I was thinking about a job in the travel industry. Cruise director, something like that. Maybe I could be a courier for a jeweler. Or work in insurance in the estates area. There has to be something that a woman who’s been spoiled rotten is uniquely qualified to do.”

Her sister laughed.

When Daisy hung up the phone, she found Harry still sitting in his favorite booth-on the same page of the newspaper he’d been before. He shook it, though, as if turning to the next page. “Sheesh,” he muttered with a short glance at her, “whoever you were talking to, don’t talk to them again.”

“Why?”

“Because you look like you lost your best friend.”

“No, no. In fact, the call was from my sister. Nothing but great news. She’s expecting a baby-” Daisy motioned to the newspaper. “When you’re done with that, would you mind saving me the classified section?”

“You don’t have enough work between me and these projects you’re doing with Larson?”

“I’m not looking for jobs, Harry! I just want the lost and found section.”

“What’d you lose?”

Her entire mind, she thought darkly. By one o’clock, though, as she drove Teague’s car to his current work site-a den he was paneling in tongue-and-groove redwood for some absentee owners-she’d pepped up.

She found exactly the present she wanted for Teague in the newspaper-although she wouldn’t have the chance to see it in person for several days yet. Finding that, though, knowing how badly she wanted to give him this particular gift, forced her to soul search her feelings about Teague.

She was afraid of loving him. She was afraid to trust her own judgment. And she had reasons for those fears, considering her past history with falling for men who inspired her hormones but never had a chance of working out.

She was mighty afraid a relationship couldn’t work out with Teague, either. With reason. But as she found the address and pulled his sacred Golf into the driveway, Daisy told herself that she was armed with several fresh coats of caution. She’d been honest with herself this time. And more than that, so much more than that, Teague was different from any man she’d ever known. This feeling of love was too new, too different, too wonderful to run away from it. She couldn’t give it up. She just couldn’t. Surely it had a chance to work out if she were just more careful. More smart. More certain that she wasn’t repeating past mistakes.

Buoyed with resolve, she hiked up the snowy walk and rapped on the door. There was no decorating to do on this job. Teague just said he’d pay her for helping him finish the wood, because together they could get it done in half the time, and his work schedule was jammed.

Almost before she’d finished knocking on the door, she turned the knob and yelled out an exuberant “Yoo-hoo!” Teague bounded from a far room to greet her.

That fast, she forgot all her nettling fears. Forgot about being cautious. Forgot all the hard-won lessons she’d learned from picking men who weren’t for her.

His grin was more infectious than chicken pox. He galloped down the hall and pounced, taking a kiss as if she were breakfast and he’d been starving for weeks. Then lifted his head and grinned again at her dizzy-eyed response. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

“It’s ten to one. Didn’t you tell me to come at one?”

“Well, yeah. But I’ve been waiting for you since yesterday.” Another kiss, as he stripped off her coat and hat and started pulling her toward the den.

He let her up for air halfway down the hall, only to roll his eyes at her attire. “The slacks, the silky blouse-you call those varnishing clothes?”

“I know they’ll get ruined. But they’re old. They’re what I’ve got.”

“Nah. We’ll fix you up better than that.”

His theory of fixing her up was to strip her down to the buff, make love with her on the pale-pink carpet of the stranger’s hall, and then loan her his shirt to work in. An hour later, give or take, she had a chamois cloth in her hand.

“You need another rag?” he asked her.

“You! Don’t come near me! If I need another rag, I’ll get it.”

“Hey.”

“Don’t you hey me, cher. Every time you come near me, we get diverted for another long while. At this rate, we’ll be done with this by February l0 of 2020.”

“And this is a problem…how?” He managed to look bewildered at the question she raised, which obviously required her stalking over to his side of the room. She kissed him good. On the navel. The shoulder. Under the chin. And once, swiftly, below the waist.

Then scurried back to her side of the room. “I love making your eyes cross,” she mentioned.

“That’s because you’re an evil, evil woman.”

“Don’t try complimenting me. You can’t get out of making me dinner.”

“Somehow I ended up with a really raw deal there. It’s your payday but I’m the one doing dinner. How does that work?”

“It works fine in a woman’s head, cher.”

“Yeah. I get that. What I can’t get is how I got bamboozled into the deal to begin with.”

It was such nonsense talk. Silliness. She had no idea how three hours passed so fast. He explained the process of finishing the wood. The redwood was all naked and sanded. All she had to do was dip her cloth in the bowl of gunk and “love it in” as he called it.

They’d ambled through conversations. His political views were misguided, but she educated him. She told him stories about growing up in Vermont, the winters, tobogganing and skating with the MacDougal boys next door, her dad leading a Percheron-driven sleigh in the fields with the three sisters trundled up in fifty layers of clothing.

He told her about his mom and dad-how his mom was the blockhead of the family, the one whose genes he’d inherited. “Dad had the patience of a saint, put up with her, put up with me. My sister-Riley-she was the perfect kid. I was the snot.”

“You?” Daisy asked in teasing disbelief.

“I know, I know. It’s hard to believe. But it seemed like I was always getting suspended for opening my mouth to a teacher. The thing is, when they were wrong, I liked to correct them.”

“And you always knew what was right?”

“Yup. I did. And my mom did. Sometimes we butted heads.” He thought. “Sometimes we still do, I guess. When she and I go at it, we can generally clear the room faster than a skunk.”

“You yell? At your mother?”

“She yells at me. The louder the argument, the more she likes it. My dad used to say, let’s hope and pray they broke the mold with you two.”

“Did he try giving you two time-outs?”

“Nah. Both my parents were hard-core softies. No discipline. Encouraged Riley and me to explore any damn thing we wanted. Dad even encouraged the arguments, because he said they taught me to think. And Mom-she really screwed me up.”

“Yeah?”

“She was the one who pushed the major independence. If I got kicked out of class for speaking my mind, she just laughed. When I fought with Dad to travel around the country my senior summer alone, he thought I was too young. She pushed me to do it. Every damn thing I did wrong, Mom was there to egg me on.”

“You’re blaming her for the times you got in trouble?”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. She just likes to take credit, when sometimes I think I should get some credit myself. But what can you do? She’s my mom. I have to let her have her way.”

She loved listening. It was so nice, hearing someone talk up their parents. How good they were. That he enjoyed being with them. He told her about Christmases. About hiking the Appalachian Trail. About his history skiing-which involved a lot of drinking at a ski lodge and very little skiing.

He had endless stories to tell-in most of which, he was the villain, or so he claimed. He kept her laughing and talking so much that it only occurred to her later that he’d failed to mention any of the girlfriends in his life. She was about to call him on that when he suddenly walked over, hooked his hands on his hips and shook his head.

“Holy cow, are you filthy.”

He said it in such an admiring tone that she blinked, then glanced down. The shirt he’d loaned her was an old blue chambray with a few spots on it. Now it was thoroughly polka dotted with the finishing product and smelled like something that needed fumigating.

She couldn’t help it. There was something about working with the wood. Rubbing in the finish. Bringing out the beauty and grain of each board. Loving it in. She’d had no choice about putting her whole self-and his shirt-into it.

Teague shook his head. “Did you play in mud puddles when you were a kid?”

“Are you kidding? I aced the class in sissiness. I got in lots of trouble, but I was always dressed for it.”

“You’d never know it now. Come on.”

“Come on where? We can’t leave. I’m not done.” Although, when she glanced out the window, the sun was gone. In fact, the entire day was gone. It was wicked-dark and snowing like a banshee.

“We’ve been at it nonstop. It’s after six. This is nuts. I know you said you didn’t have to close up the café tonight. But we both need showers. I need to start dinner, and first off-before the stores close-we have to go buy you some decent clothes.”

“Um, Teague.” She waved a hand in front of his face to get his attention. “In case you haven’t noticed, the one thing in this life I very definitely have is decent clothes. The last thing I need is more.”

“You don’t have the kind of fancy label stuff I’d buy for you,” he insisted.

Oh, God. He dragged her into the General Store on Main Street. It was one of those truly old-fashioned places where you could buy a wedding ring, a hoe, dry powders for headaches and stamps at the same time. The back of the store housed clothes-all on shelves, nothing hung up. The denim was so stiff it could walk by itself. The shirts were so sturdy they were heavier than she was.

“You think these overalls work like a chastity belt?” she asked him. “I don’t see how anyone could get in or out of them.”

“I hadn’t thought about that advantage,” he said thoughtfully.

She slugged him. But she couldn’t stop him from buying her a new wardrobe of jeans, flannel shirts, gloves, wool socks. “You’re sure you can bend your knees in these pants?” she worried.

“You don’t wear them yet, you silly. First we have to roll up the jeans in dirt and stones, then wash them in bleach. Even then, the fabric will be tougher than the denim you’re used to-but the point is, you can spill some paint and varnish and what-all without anything going through the cloth to your skin. And you can wear them over and over, not ruin your pretty stuff.”

She gasped when she saw the total. “For Pete’s sake, Teague, I can get real clothes for that amount of money.”

“Yeah, but would you look this cute? Now. For dinner.”

She wasn’t aware of being tired, but she’d been up before dawn, cooking and baking, and then really poured on the coals through the hours with Teague. At his house, he started a roaring fire, then parked her on pillows in front of it. “We’re going to picnic in here,” he told her. “No peeking in the kitchen.”

By the time she sank on those pillows, her muscles were creaking, her whole body begging to be let down. It was so different from stress tired, though. She’d loved every minute of the day, loved every minute of being with him.

“Aha,” he said finally from the doorway, and came bearing a tray with a lit candle on it.

She twisted into a sitting position and then had to laugh. The candle was set in a crystal holder, very fancy, very nice. The two blue plates matched. The napkins were neatly creased. The wine was served in serious stemware.

The dinner fare was simply peanut butter and bacon sandwiches with chips. “And ice cream bars for dessert-if you finish everything on your plate.” He waggled his finger at her. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m aware that I’m not exactly a chef at your level.”

“Are you kidding? I haven’t had this in years.”

“It’s got all the food groups, right? Or it will as soon as we have the ice cream bars.”

“Especially if there’s chocolate on the ice cream. You do know that chocolate’s one of the critical food groups?”

He looked affronted at the question. “What, you think I was born in a cabbage patch? I never leave chocolate out of a serious meal.” He added, “I was missing fruit, but then I figured, there are grapes in the wine.”

“Right.”

“I guess there’s no vitamin D. But tomorrow I could throw you out in the sunshine to take care of that.”

“Assuming there is sunshine.”

“That is a problem in winter,” he conceded. “But assuming we can steal some sunshine, we could have a snowball fight to get our vitamin D.”

“I’m amazed how far you’re willing to go for the cause of nutrition.”

“Hey, there are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

They’d been talking and teasing each other all day, yet somehow both of them suddenly stopped talking. The fire snapped and sizzled. Shadows danced on the far walls. Silence seeped between them.

She’d looked at him all day…but not looked. He made it so easy to be with him. If he wanted something more from her than time, company, someone to work with-someone to make love with-he never let on. After their exuberant coming together earlier, he hadn’t touched her, not in any come-on way, yet desire was like a third heartbeat between them. Just…there. Beating, beating, beating. The sound in her ears. The sound in her heart.

Slowly he pushed aside the dinner tray and held out a hand. She took it, her eyes still on his. She knew the question, although he didn’t ask. She gave him the answer, by sweeping her arms around his neck and offering a slow, long, openmouthed kiss.

It seemed like a zillion times that day she’d peeled off her slacks and blouse. This time, though, was different. This time he pushed her blouse up, silky inch by silky inch, his strong callused hands cherishing every touch, every sensation. Yearning, licking hot, sang through her bloodstream. All her life she’d been restless. All her life she’d craved excitement. For the first time she had the crazy idea that he’d been the one she was searching for. Not an event or a place or an activity that was exciting-but him.

Only him.

The thought surfaced, then dissolved. He’d made her clothes disappear, so she concentrated on doing the same magic trick with his. Then they were together again, on their knees, breasts, tummies, pelvises rocking to the same music, creating the same friction, dancing to the same primitive beat.

He lifted his head long enough to smile-one of those all-male disgusting smiles of complete possession. I own you, babe.

Well, yeah. He did at that moment. But she owned him right back. Which she showed him at great length and detail.

She woke up past midnight to find him raining kisses all over her face and throat. “Are we waking up for a reason?” she murmured sleepily.

“I wasn’t sure if you could sleep here or had to go back to your place. I want you to stay. But you could have to get up awfully early in the morning for the café.”

“I do. Five-thirty.”

“Well…” More kisses. Concentrating on her cheekbones. Then her jaw. “I can either get up and drive you home at five in the morning. Or now. Whatever works easiest for you.”

She hadn’t thought about it, but now that he’d raised the question-and she was awake-she put in a vote. “I don’t want to leave you, but it really would be easier to be at my place. Then I just have to walk downstairs to open up. And you don’t have to get up at that ungodly hour.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do. It’s not like we can’t spend the whole night together another time.” She answered his sleepy kisses with more of her own, yet suddenly remembered. “Teague, you don’t have to drive me at all. I have your car.”

“I know you do. But we’re not making love and then you drive yourself home.”

He insisted, the silly man. So they dressed and bundled up-she took her new work clothes-and he saw her to the door. Main Street showed no signs of life by then. Occasional crystal snowflakes drifted around the traffic lights. Gossamer-thin clouds whisked around the full moon. The street was theirs, no one else anywhere in sight. A good-night kiss turned into two, then four.

She let him go finally, feeling warm inside all the way to the bones. That love word was humming in her pulse again as she unlocked the door and zoomed up the stairs on happy wings. At the top she kicked off her boots, plopped down her packages and bent down to switch on a lamp for light.

Her crazy, giddy smile suddenly faltered.

In the middle of the attic floor-heaven knew how it had gotten there-was a huge, four-foot chocolate heart wrapped in red crinkly paper.

“An early Valentine’s Day,” the card read. “Four more days until the real thing. This is just the beginning.”

The heart was extravagant. Thoughtful. Romantic. Unique. And God knew she loved chocolate.

Yet a shiver chased up her spine.

The present was wonderful, but it was the kind of thing Jean-Luc would have done.

And suddenly she was scared.