The One Who Changed Everything. Lilian Darcy
But she never had gotten to know him. Lee and Tucker had announced their decision to call off their wedding just a few days before the scheduled event, both of them looking a little wrung out and sad, but with some relief in the mix at the same time.
For a moment during the announcement, they’d held hands, but then they’d dropped the contact with two awkward movements that somehow hadn’t matched—a sign that the right connection wasn’t there, it seemed.
Less than a week later, Daisy had flown out to California, lured by the sudden chance of a three-month internship with an internationally known pastry chef. From then on, far too busy with her fifteen-hour days in a hectic professional kitchen, she’d taken the whole thing at face value whenever she thought back on it.
A mutual decision, announced while standing side by side.
The strong silent type wasn’t what Lee wanted, after all.
Now, after what Mary Jane had said this morning, Daisy wondered how much more there’d been to the situation that she hadn’t seen at the time.
It was an uncomfortable feeling, like a nagging itch in a place she couldn’t reach to scratch. Her phone began to ring. She grabbed it quickly and found it was Lee. “Sorry I missed you. What’s up?”
“You sound breathless,” Daisy said, relieved to hear her sister’s voice. It would be good to get this settled before she talked to Tucker himself.
“Just got back from a five-mile run,” Lee said.
“You didn’t have to call me back before you’ve even got your breathing back to normal.” Except that already it almost was. Lee was incredibly fit.
And although convenient, the timing of her call was a little awkward. “I’m good,” she said. “Now, shoot, Daze.”
Daisy picked her words carefully. “Look, I’m here at Reid Landscaping...”
“Oh. Wow. You mean Tucker’s company?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re thinking of contracting him for the work at Spruce Bay?”
“Yes, only Mary Jane...has doubts.”
“Because of me?” Lee had a habit of getting right to the point.
“That’s right,” she said again, aware that Jackie could overhear.
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Well, yes, I thought so, but I wanted to check with you.”
“And you’ve checked, and I’m good, so go ahead.”
Daisy laughed. “You are the most efficient conversationalist I know, Lee.”
“Only when I’m busting to get into the shower. Seriously, it seems like half a lifetime ago that he and I were planning a big wedding, and I am sooo not that kind of girl anymore. If I ever was. Mary Jane is projecting her own stuff.”
“Well, yeah, I did wonder about that.”
“I was hurt at the time. I mean, I was.”
“I don’t think I knew that...”
“You were hardly around. But now I know it’s the best thing that could have happened, us calling that wedding off. Are we done?”
“We’re done. Go take your shower.”
They ended the conversation seconds later, just as the phone vibrated on the Reid Landscaping office manager’s desk. Jackie checked it quickly and said, “Okay, you’re in luck, Ms. Cherry.”
“Please call me Daisy.”
“Daisy. Such a pretty name!”
“Thanks.”
“Tucker can see you now. He’ll be coming in from the display area in a moment or two.”
“Can I meet him out there?” Daisy jumped up. “I don’t want to create too much of an interruption.” She felt a little claustrophobic in here for some reason, and suddenly craved the open air with its October crispness and bite.
“Sure, go through the door here,” the office manager said. “You’ll see him coming across in a minute or two.” Once more, there was that flicker of curiosity in Jackie’s manner, and Daisy wondered what it meant.
Probably nothing. Curiosity was a natural response. She was feeling it, too. If she’d never gotten to know Tucker Reid ten years ago when he was about to marry her sister, what would she feel about him now?
Would he still be that granite-faced, uncomfortable presence she’d been able to call to memory so clearly a few minutes ago? Would he be someone that carefree Lee would still be happy to think of as a friend? Would he be the man Mary Jane thought he was—cold and superficial enough to dump his fiancée because she had some burn scarring on one side of her lower jaw and neck and shoulder?
Or was there another truth to the man that none of the Cherry sisters had understood?
* * *
The paving stones were a delaying tactic. Tucker knew it even as he placed another one in position, rocking it back and forth on its sand foundation to make sure it was steady.
It wasn’t.
Or level.
He didn’t have the spirit level with him to enable a final adjustment, so he was not just delaying his meeting with Daisy Cherry here, he was actively wasting his own time, because he would probably end up lifting all the pavers and laying them down again from scratch in order to get them right.
He sighed between his teeth, irritated at himself.
And then picked up another paving stone. There was something about physical labor that settled his head. He’d always been that way, through his father’s illness, through all the anger and mess, through the years he’d spent filling his dad’s shoes too young. When he had something on his mind, he worked through it, literally. Raking leaves in his parents’ yard at thirteen. Unloading deliveries at the garden center at twenty.
Or fiddling uselessly with pavers right now.
He didn’t like thinking back on his relationship with Lee, that was the problem. And he definitely didn’t like thinking about Daisy’s part in the whole thing.
No, that wasn’t fair.
As far as Daisy herself knew, she hadn’t been involved at all.
It was all me.
It had so nearly been a disaster—so very, very nearly—and he couldn’t give himself any credit for averting that disaster. He’d seen it coming, but he hadn’t been the one to act. He’d let Lee and fate do that. He’d been paralyzed by his intense need to do the right thing, without knowing what the right thing was.
There were reasons for the paralysis, but he found it hard to forgive himself for it all the same.
He sometimes still thought about getting in touch with Lee to see how she was doing. Thought about calling or emailing, but how did you do that? How did you revive something that had started as a friendship and should never have turned into anything else? How did you just ask someone out of the blue, “Hey...are you happy?”
You can ask Lee’s sister if Lee is happy. You can ask her today. She would know the answer to that.
But he wasn’t convinced that he would manage to frame the question. He could end up holding back and holding back until someone else took the matter into their own hands, the way he had held back ten years ago.
Yeah, he definitely hadn’t forgiven himself for that.
Ten years earlier
Something’s not right.
The thought was nagging and insistent, prodding at Tucker