by Marie Force
“Where do you live?”
“In town,” Daisy said. “On Harbor Road.”
“How in the hell did she get all the way over there?” Alex asked.
“Judging by the condition of her bare feet,” Daisy said, “she walked.”
“God,” Alex said with a sigh. “She could’ve been hit by a car or a million other things.” He shook his head and blew out a deep breath. “I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t do it.” His voice broke on the last word, and he rushed out the door to the parking lot.
Paul dropped into a chair, exhaustion clinging to him.
Daisy didn’t know what she should do while she waited for David. She knew he probably wouldn’t be opposed to her waiting in his office, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave Paul sitting there alone and dejected, so she took a seat across from him. “I’m sorry you’re going through such a rough time.”
“Thanks. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever dealt with, that’s for sure. My brother and I, we’re trying to run the business and take care of her… It’s… It’s a lot.”
“What do you do for work?”
“We own a landscaping company. Martinez Lawn and Garden.”
“Oh sure. I see your trucks around. You guys take care of the McCarthys’ hotel. I work there.”
He nodded in agreement. “Up until a year ago, my mom was running everything. Hard to believe, right? She’s declined so rapidly.” Looking directly at her, he said, “I’m sorry you got dragged into this. Looks like you were going somewhere.”
“I was going to dinner with David Lawrence, so we’ll go later after we know your mom is okay.”
“I don’t know what we would’ve done without him. He’s been so amazing to Mom and a huge help to us.”
“He’s very good at what he does.”
“Yes.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help you and your brother, I hope you’ll call me. If you need someone to sit with her, I’d be happy to help. I could give you my number.”
“That’s very nice of you. Thank you.”
They exchanged numbers, programming them directly into cell phones.
Alex came back in, seeming more in control of his emotions. “Sorry to storm out like that.”
Paul waved his hand. “No worries.”
“Any word?”
“Not yet.”
“What’re we going to do, Paul?”
“I don’t know.”
Daisy suddenly felt like she was intruding on an intensely private moment between the brothers. “I’ll wait for David in his office. Please call me if I can help with your mom.”
“We will,” Paul said. “Thanks again for all you did for her.”
“I enjoyed being with her.” She left them and went through the double doors that led to the offices, hoping David wouldn’t mind if she waited for him there. Mindful of his privacy and that of his patients, she steered clear of his desk and sat on the small sofa, drawing her legs up under her.
Spending time with Marion made Daisy wonder about her own mother for the first time in years. She’d been out of touch with her family for a long time now, long enough that she rarely thought of them anymore. However, she would never forget the way her parents had turned their back on her because she’d wanted to marry a man they didn’t approve of. She’d been eighteen and in love for the first time in her life.
Thinking about that awful spring, now ten years ago, brought back feelings and memories she’d just as soon not relive. So she decided to think instead about David and the way his eyes had taken in the dress she’d worn for him and how he’d encouraged her to tell Marion she had a boyfriend.
When was the last time she’d had a “boyfriend”? With that question putting a smile on her face, Daisy tipped her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes.
David found her there an hour later, a smile clinging to her sweet lips. His first glimpse of her in the clingy black dress had wowed him after two days of thinking about her. He didn’t know if he should wake her or let her sleep. She was still getting over serious injuries and was working far too hard for his liking while she recovered.
“Whatcha staring at?” Victoria asked from behind him.
David turned to her. “Nothing.”
She looked around his shoulder and gave him a knowing smile. “Oh, I see. Your special friend is waiting for you.”
David stepped out of the office and closed the door. “Thanks for your help with Marion.”
“She’s going downhill fast.”
David sighed as he nodded. “Alex and Paul are in a tough spot, living on an island without a residential facility for her, and tied to the place because of their business. They’re going to need to make some tough decisions soon. They don’t want to put her in a facility on the mainland and then never get to see her because they’re here and she’s there.”
“Sometimes island life sucks.”
“Yes, it does. Anything else happen while I was gone?”
Victoria brought him up to speed on the status of several patients. “I should also mention that Janey Cantrell had her thirty-two-week visit, and her BP was slightly elevated. I’m going to bring her back weekly going forward to keep an eye on it.”
David hated the twinge of concern that struck him in the vicinity of his heart when he heard that news. Janey wasn’t his concern any longer, and he needed to remember that. “Good plan.”
“Even though you asked me to keep you out of that one as much as I can, you need to be aware. Just in case.”
“I know. Thanks for the update.”
“So what’s up with your special friend?”
“Nothing. She came in with Marion.”
“She’s all dressed up.”
“So?”
“So where ya taking her?”
“None of your business.”
“So you are taking her somewhere.” She nudged him with her elbow. “Come on. Be a pal. I’m living vicariously through you these days.”
“You need to get out more.”
“Ain’t that the truth? So you’re not going to give me anything?”
“Nope. Go away. Come back tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. See you then.”
After Victoria walked down the long hallway and through the double doors, David went into his office and closed the door. He sat next to Daisy, watching her sleep for a minute before he took a big chance and leaned in to kiss her awake.
Her eyes opened slowly and brightened at the sight of him. “Hey. How’s Marion?”
“Fine, other than her feet, which will be sore for a few days.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I saw Blaine when he was leaving, and he said you were really great with her. Thanks for that.”
“She’s a sweet lady. Her confusion and disorientation are so sad.”
He nodded in agreement but didn’t want to talk about Marion anymore. He wanted to talk about her, about them. For days now, he’d been rehearsing what he would say to her the next time they were together, but now that the moment was upon him, words escaped him.
She saved him by sliding her fingers lightly over his face. “I missed you.”
He turned his face into her hand, kissing her palm. “I missed you, too.”
“Kinda funny, huh?”
“What is?”
“That I missed you so much when I’ve only known you for a few weeks.”
“It’s not funny. It’s sweet. It’s nice to be missed.”
Their eyes met, and he couldn’t look away. The inner calm and serenity he always experienced in her presence soothed him as it usually did. But underneath that now was a hum of awareness and desire that had him leaning in for another kiss, this one more lingering.
“Did I mention how beautiful you look?”
“I don’t think you did,” she said with a smile that lit up her eyes.
He liked it when she smiled. He liked that he’d given her reason to, until he
remembered all the things he needed to tell her, which made him ache with regret over his past mistakes. “We need to talk.”
“So talk. Tell me what you think I need to know, and we’ll figure it out.”
He ached even more at the thought of never again seeing the special glimmer in her eyes that she seemed to save for him. But continuing to put it off wouldn’t change anything, so he took a deep breath and forced himself to meet her earnest gaze. “You know I was with Janey McCarthy for a long time. Thirteen years.”
She nodded.
“We were engaged for the last two years we were together while I was finishing my residency in Boston.” He looked away from her and out the window behind the sofa, focusing on the bushes that grew along the side of the building. He’d give everything he had, everything he’d ever have, not to have to say these next words. But knowing so much was riding on Daisy’s reaction to hearing them, he made himself look at her as he said them. “I cheated on her.”
She blinked once and then again. Otherwise her expression never changed. “Oh.”
“I made a very bad mistake during a particularly stressful time in my life that I’ve regretted every day since.” Over the hammering of his heart and the dryness in his mouth, he forced himself to continue. “The worst part… She… Janey… She came to Boston to surprise me on our anniversary and… and she saw me. In our bed with someone else.”
Daisy closed her eyes and exhaled.
“I’ll understand completely if, after hearing this, you decide that spending time with me isn’t something you want to do.” As he said the words, he wished with every fiber of his being that he was a better man, one who was worthy of her.
She kept her eyes closed and the fingers of her right hand pressed to her lips. He wondered if she was trying not to cry.
“Daisy?”
She opened eyes that were swimming with tears.
The tears slayed and shamed him.
She blinked them back and managed to contain them. “You said it was a particularly stressful time. Was that because of the residency?”
“Not entirely. I’d been feeling pretty crappy for a couple of months. I had a sore throat that wouldn’t quit and fatigue unlike anything I’d ever experienced. But I was a resident. We were all tired, so I blew it off for months. When I finally couldn’t ignore it anymore, I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Do you know what that is?”
“Cancer?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
He nodded. “It was the most shocking thing I’d ever heard. Here I was in my late twenties, healthy as a horse—or so I thought—and the doctor is telling me I have cancer. The news sent me straight off the cliff, to say the least.”
“What did Janey say?”
“I didn’t tell her.”
“You didn’t tell your fiancée that you had cancer?”
“Janey and I had been living apart for a really long time by then. After everything blew up, we were able to see with hindsight that our relationship had been over for a while, but neither of us had acknowledged it.”
“Is that why you cheated on her?”
“God, no. I never would’ve hurt her like that intentionally. No matter what, I still loved her. All I can say in my own defense is that I wasn’t at my best during the weeks that followed the diagnosis. I just kept thinking over and over and over again that I’d spent all these years in school and for what? I was going to die before I was thirty, and I hadn’t even lived yet. I did stupid, stupid things. I got drunk, I blew off work, I didn’t tell Janey about the diagnosis, which I absolutely should have, and I slept with one of my chemo nurses—in the bed Janey helped me buy for my apartment. I screwed up everything. By the time I emerged from the fog of shock, my engagement was over, my residency was in serious jeopardy and my nose was broken.”
“How did that happen?”
“After Janey caught me with the nurse, I guess she went running to Joe because he was on the mainland when everyone else was here. I didn’t know she’d come to Boston or that she’d seen me with someone else. I never even knew she was in the apartment that night.” The thought of what she’d witnessed still had the power to sicken him even after all this time. “I tried to call her for days, and she didn’t answer. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. When I finally came here to track her down, everyone else already knew what’d happened. I got off the ferry and made the mistake of saying hello to Joe. He punched me in the face.” David ran a finger over the bump in the bridge of his nose. “Busted my nose.”
“I can’t believe he just hit you like that!”
“It was the least of what I had coming, Daisy. Please don’t turn this around on him. He was looking out for her, which I’d had my chance to do and blew it big-time. I don’t blame him. It took me a long, long time to be able to say those words. I made everything worse by blaming everyone but myself for the mess my life had become for many months after it happened.”
“The lymphoma… You had chemo?”
“Yes, and I’m in remission. That’s why I was in Boston this week. I get checked every six months. Everything’s fine.” He stretched out his arm to display the bruises in the crook of his elbow from the endless rounds of blood work he’d been subjected to the last couple of days.
Daisy ran her fingers gently over the bruises on his arm. “That’s a relief.”
“Very much so.”
“You didn’t tell me why you went to Boston.”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“I would’ve liked to have known.”
“All of this, between us, it’s so new. I wasn’t sure we were ready for the lymphoma conversation.”
“That’s fair enough, I suppose.”
“I’ve given you a lot to think about. I’ll understand if it’s too much for you and you decide you’d rather not see me anymore.”
She didn’t say anything for the longest time, during which David had no idea what she was thinking. “My father cheated on my mother when I was in high school,” she finally said, sounding like she was a million miles away rather than right next to him on the small sofa. “It was absolutely devastating to our entire family, especially because he cheated with my friend’s mother.”
“Shit.” David shook his head, furious with himself all over again for the mistakes he’d made and the people he’d hurt. Janey, in particular, who’d done absolutely nothing to deserve what she got from him. He rubbed his hand over the whiskers on his jaw, feeling powerless to rewrite the past.
“I want you to know I appreciate that you told me yourself when it would’ve been easier to let me hear it through the grapevine—and believe me, the grapevine tried to tell me.”
“I’m sure there were plenty of people trying to warn you away from me,” he said bitterly, even though he knew he deserved nothing less.
“I wouldn’t let them warn me away from you, and I won’t let you warn me away either.”
“You won’t?” David asked, floored.
She shook her head. “What you told me is upsetting. I won’t deny that. I can’t even think about how it must’ve been for Janey.”
“I don’t like to think about that either. I’m deeply ashamed of that. More than you can ever believe.”
“What if…”
“What, Daisy? Just say it. Whatever you want to ask. It’s fine.”
“What if something difficult or stressful happens again? Is that how you’re going to deal with it?”
“I can’t promise you that I’ll always do exactly the right thing, but I can promise I’d never be unfaithful to a partner again. It was an awful thing to do to her. I was extremely disrespectful of all the years we’d spent together, and I hurt her so badly. That’s the part I most regret.”
“It matters to me, greatly, that you’re ashamed and regretful and contrite about it. My father was never any of those things. He was belligerent about his right to be happy, to hell with who got hurt in the process.
He never once apologized to my mother or any of us for what he did. And then he had the nerve to turn his back on me when I chose to be with someone he didn't approve of. Ironic, huh?”
“I’d say so.”
She looked at him with those big, doe-like eyes that had touched him from the first time Truck Henry’s fists landed her in the clinic. “We all have things in our past we’re not proud of, David. Even me.” Her lashes fell over her cheeks as she seemed to summon the fortitude to say what was on her mind. “I was married, briefly, when I was eighteen. That was the first in a string of bad choices I made where men are concerned.”
“Tell me,” he said. “I want to know you, Daisy.”
Although this was the last thing in the world she wanted to talk about—ever—he’d shared his past with her, so how could she do less than the same? “His name was Curt, and he was everything I wasn’t—brave and fearless and brazen. A typical bad boy, right down to the motorcycle with no muffler, the piercings, the tattoos, the torn leather and the long greasy hair. I lost my mind, among other things, over him my senior year of high school. My parents were divorced by then, but they came together in their mutual hatred of him.”
“Sounds like it got pretty rough for you.”
“It was horrible. The more they hated him, the more I dug in. Looking back at it now, I’m not sure if I married him because of him or because of them and wanting to defy them.”
“How did you end up married?”
“I refused to stop seeing him, so they kicked me out of the house where I grew up and told me I was on my own. I went to his place, if you could call a stall in his grandmother’s garage a ‘place.’ We stayed there until his grandmother decided she’d had enough of us, too, and then we hit the road on his bike. We were dead broke, but somehow we managed to survive for an entire summer by picking up odd jobs here and there. It was ridiculous when I think about it now. One night we got drunk with some guys we worked with, and they got the big idea that we ought to get married. I was so bombed that I have no memory of the so-called ceremony, but he had the marriage license to prove it was done.”
David noticed that her hands had begun to tremble, so he took hold of them.
