Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Alder
I’d had worse Christmas days. I was in Laila’s room ripping out carpet when I sensed Daisy at the door. Laila’s bed was propped in the hallway, and her dresser was in the living room along with all her toys.
I sat back on my heels and arched my aching back. I hadn’t minded the last few weeks of physical labor. It was like the old days, only I was getting paid a shitload more from my unused leave than I had made then, and as a single guy working in the oil fields, I’d been raking it in.
Daisy had her arms crossed over her chest, her thumbs through the holes at the end of her sleeves. She’d asked to help earlier, but I had shooed her out. It was her holiday vacation time. Instead, she’d called her mom and cross-stitched a butterfly.
I brushed my forearm across my brow. “What’s up?”
“You don’t have to work all through Christmas.”
I shrugged. “It won’t take long. I can wait until tomorrow to move your stuff.” The carpet layers would be here the day after tomorrow. “So you can sleep in your own bed on Christmas.”
“It’s fine. I’ve moved some stuff.”
I frowned. She didn’t need to be moving her furniture. “I can get it.”
She cocked a brow. “So can I. I can probably even get the mattress and box spring by myself since they’re only a full.”
This was the perfect opening. She wouldn’t like what I had to suggest, and a shot of adrenaline spiked in my veins at the thrill of using Daisy’s practicality against her. Her bed was cheap and lumpy. I’d seen it when the movers hauled it in, nearly folded in half like a sandwich.
“Speaking of the mattress, with Mom and Dad coming next week, and since we’re moving beds around, we should put the king in your room.”
Her lips parted and her eyes flared. “No. It’s…” She snapped her mouth shut. She couldn’t refute the logic. My parents would wonder why the biggest, more luxurious bed was upstairs when I would be sharing a room with her. “I can’t take your bed.”
“I don’t mind. I can swap them again after they’re gone.” I held in my smile. My logical argument was next.
A crease lined her brow. “That would be a lot of work for you.”
Yes. She was buying it. The way she shuffled each morning like she’d slept on a wood plank with only a sheet for comfort would be over. That dollar-store mattress would be my problem. I’d buy a pad or something for it. Hell, sleeping on the floor might be better. “It’s fine. I could actually have some room upstairs with a smaller bed.”
She hugged her arms tighter. “I can’t take your bed,” she repeated.
“Take it. You’ll be doing me a favor.”
The furrow deepened. “I don’t see how trading me for a shitty mattress is a favor.”
“I almost broke my neck going to the bathroom in the middle of the night when I got stuck between the wall and the bed.”
She narrowed her eyes, trying to sense my BS. I knew that look. I’d seen it a lot in the last year before she asked for a divorce. “Okay, but if we need to switch, I mean, Laila and I can move upstairs.”
No fucking way. They got the biggest rooms and the best beds. “I doubt there’ll be a need. I’m not as accustomed to the lap of luxury like you think.”
Doubt darkened her eyes. “Your expensive suits say differently, Duke.”
“Been checking out my wardrobe?”
She put her hand on her chest. “Did you witness the reverence with which the movers hauled them in?”
“I told the college kid I’d tip them as much as the whole move cost if they didn’t wrinkle the suits. I hate dry cleaning.”
She laughed. “Coal Haven doesn’t have a dry cleaner.”
I adjusted how I was sitting, putting my ass on the floor. I would not groan from stiff knees in front of her. “The motel has a special arrangement for when they get VIPs in, and they’ll act as the go-between for a nice fee. It keeps their doors open.”
“VIPs stay at the motel? The one with the fish-gutting station in the back?”
“VIPs like to fish too.”
She chuckled. “It all works out for you, doesn’t it?”
There was no heat behind her words but just a tinge of bitterness. She’d worked hard and had ended up worrying about a roof over her head. The quality of my life had skyrocketed after we split, but not right away. I’d had to wallow in rock bottom for a while.
“No, Daisy,” I said quietly. “Not always or we wouldn’t be pretending right now.”
Emotions trickled over her face. Surprise, remorse, then discomfort. She shuttered the rest when we treaded close to an emotional topic she wanted to play keep-away with. “I think we glorified the idea of marriage.”
“How do you mean?”
“Your parents are, like, a winning lotto number. I mean, look at the odds. Fifty-fifty, isn’t it? They succeeded. My parents didn’t. You and I failed. Just in that little pool, the odds aren’t good.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Is that why you didn’t marry Jason?” Or the guy before him? And the boyfriend before that? For years, a hammer had been hanging over my head, just waiting to hear she’d fully moved on. Each update on her profile, each little tidbit of gossip I got, I had dreaded when I’d hear she’d gotten married and was no longer Daisy Duke. As long as she wasn’t married, it felt like there was hope, yet I had kept my distance, not knowing when or if she’d ever want to hear from me.
I had added a goddamn hour to my workout each day after I’d heard she was pregnant. She was supposed to be having my kids and now some other man got to experience that with her. Fucking Jason. He had to be a decent dad too, so I couldn’t hate him for that.
She skimmed her teeth over her lower lip for a few moments. “I was very aware that putting a ring on it was just the next expected step, and ultimately, I couldn’t justify taking that step when I knew…” She took a step back. “When I knew that ending it all can be easier—and cheaper—than the wedding. Either of us could walk away at any moment, just as quickly as we walked down the aisle.”
Acid flared like lava in my gut. “Jesus, Daisy. Did I make you that jaded?”
“A reality check is a reality check. Only this time, a kid would be involved.”
And it’d be more complicated. “You wanted to be able to make a clean break—when he inevitably let you down?”
She gnawed on that poor lower lip. “Jason didn’t let me down. He kept trying, and god, I wanted that to be enough.” She hugged herself again. “We were just too different.”
He kept trying. Jason had done more than me, and it hadn’t been enough for him. If I had pulled myself together, stayed home more, done a few dishes, and quit treating Daisy like she was a live-in maid, then she’d have never had to keep trying with him.
“Anyway,” she said in a tone that said she was done with that line of conversation, “I’m heating up some leftovers Eliot sent home with us. Want some?”
There’d been a ton of food yesterday, and we’d come home with ham and all the fixings and half a pie. “You’re going to cook for me?”
“I can reheat like a boss.”
I checked the time. It was that late. The afternoon was gone and now it was early evening. My stomach clenched and growled like it was afraid I’d pass on her offer. “Sure. I’ll clean up and be right out.”
I piled the remnants I had ripped up since the last load I’d carried to the back of my pickup in the corner. Next, I tossed my tools in the toolbox and ran a quick broom over the subfloor. After washing my hands, I found Daisy in the kitchen just as the microwave dinged.
She pulled out a large plate piled with food and stirred various parts around. Then she divided the contents onto two other plates, leaving some behind. She took a pot from the stove and poured gravy over my plate.
She might’ve remembered I liked a gravy-smothered holiday meal, but she’d also paid attention yesterday when I’d done it again.
She stuck a fork in the smothered potatoes and slid it toward me. “Bon appétit.”
“Thank you. Are you taking the table or the couch?”
“The table. Why?” She carried her plate around the island to her chair.
“I can take the couch.” I wanted to sit at the damn table and have a little holiday-fueled hope that I could get back the only girl I had ever wanted, but sitting my ass on the couch while she was at the table was still better than every Christmas I’d had without her.
She paused with her hand on the back of the chair. “You can join me. I promise I won’t freak out.”
“You won’t get upset that you’re eating at the table with me on Christmas Day?”
Our gazes met for a charged second. “It’s better than being alone.”
I knew what that was like. I took my food to my chair. “To be fair, we’d be under the same roof.”
She smiled at me. Her gaze flickered from me to the chair opposite me, the one next to her. I’d been ousted from there by Laila.
Would she invite me over? I held my breath, but she tucked her chin down and grabbed her fork. My disappointment faded quickly. I was still a step closer to her.
“What was Fargo like?” I asked to make conversation as we ate, hungry to learn more about those years I’d missed.
She finished chewing. Took a drink. Let out a sigh. “I’m going to sound like a complainer again.”
“Being critical isn’t the same as a complainer.”
Her mouth twisted. “I get told I’m bitching.”
“I hope you junk-punched whoever said that.”
She laughed. “We did break up not long after. And the whole time I was complaining, he was—” She snapped her mouth shut. “He was a lying jerk.”
It was easy enough to guess what the asshole had done. “He cheated on you,” I growled.
She snorted. “If only.”
When she stuffed a forkful of ham into her mouth, I got the sign. She was done talking about that ex. “Fargo?”
“Oh.” She dabbed her napkin at her mouth. “It was fun, in a way. You know, I was young and hungry and the lab was so busy, especially in the morning. It was go-go-go.”
“But?”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “It’s the competition. So, at the lab with the doctor , it was the competition between coworkers. We were colleagues, but it felt like a ‘kill or be killed’ environment sometimes. Who gets the recognition for an idea or a successful procedure? Who gets trained on the new, shiny technology? Because that means they’re the smartest, and a lot of that was done by ass-kissing and backstabbing. Like, I’m sorry I don’t play on your bar’s volleyball league, but that new analyzer is for my department, for work that I do. So why am I not the first one learning to use it? But in a hospital setting, it was departments pitted against each other.”
“But your colleagues?”
“They were amazing. A lot at the other lab were too. I’m still friends with many. Just, you know, not Doctor Simmons or the ones still attached to her backside.”
I chuckled. I wanted to keep her talking. Did she realize we used to do this in school? She’d rant about unfair teachers, and I’d realize she was right. “How are departments against each other? Aren’t they all working to help the patient?”
She nodded and that light lit her eyes. The fire inside of her. Fairness and justice. The ember was like a tiny jewel that needed to be locked up safe in this unfair world. “We’re all under such tight deadlines, so it becomes the atmosphere. Pressure. It felt like nurses against the lab. Or the doctors against the lab. Or racing radiology to the patient so we’re not blamed for delays, which doesn’t matter. The lab is always blamed for delays. Some days, I’d almost get a panic attack when I had to call a critical value.”
She hadn’t been finished with school when we divorced. She had a whole career under her belt. One I was only just learning about. “Which is?”
“A test result that could be life or death. Not always that extreme, but we have to notify the doctor for each critical value or if there are any issues with the samples. But the staff is busy, and some people just plain have egos and they’ll put them before patient care.”
“How?”
“Jake from ER.” The fire raged in her eyes. Whoever Jake was, he’d been a dick to Daisy, and I didn’t like him.
“Isn’t he from State Farm?”
“No.” She inhaled and slowly let out her breath. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Absolutely. I’ve always been interested in your stories.” Getting a glimpse into her brain had turned me on since our first study hall together.
She paused for a moment but then the flame licked to life in her blue irises. “So this wasn’t in Fargo, but in Bismarck. I had this critically high blood sugar on an ER patient, but the sample was hemolyzed, meaning blood cells burst from improper collection techniques—sometimes it’s a condition in the patient—anyway, the hemoglobin discolors the plasma and some tests are read by how it looks, right? Or extra things are released into the plasma from the cell destruction, so the result is incorrect. Ultimately, we can’t get an accurate read. Glucose isn’t one of them, so I called to tell the patient’s nurse the sample needed to be recollected, but I told them that the blood sugar was critically high. Since a phlebotomist collected the sample, he basically brushed it off as the lab’s fault. He yelled at me to do my job and then maybe he could do his about the high blood sugar.”
“He didn’t let you explain?” I had no idea what the issue was, but the indignation in her expression said it was important.
She shook her head. “He hung up when he should’ve told the doctor. They could do a finger-poke blood glucose and get that specific result in a fraction of the time, and the doctor could add on more labs in case we needed to collect another tube. I mean, the patient was in the ER for a reason, and that almost five hundred blood sugar reading might’ve had something to do with it. The patient’s treatment was delayed because Jake wanted an ego boost. You can claim it’s because nurses are busy or they’re stressed, but I can talk to a nurse who just finished a code where they lost someone and she’ll be as professional as ever. Can you imagine if you were a loved one of the patient? They probably thought Jake was a good nurse and they were lucky to have him. I’m sure since all the phlebs and techs that draw blood gush over what a hottie he is, he’s boosted himself even higher in his own mind.”
“Did you think he was hot?” I fucking hated Jake from the ER.
“I think he would’ve been more attractive if he took care of the patient properly.” She pushed her stuffing around and the energy drained out of her. “It just got exhausting. I’d get yelled at because nurses thought I let the sample sit too long in the lab and it hemolyzed or clotted. That’s literally not how hemolysis works. It’s not how the additives in the tubes work. But then we’d have plenty of lab staff who acted like assholes and screwed up. I had a coworker who mixed up an order for red blood cells with platelets. They’re different colors , Alder. It was alarming—and real fucking embarrassing to fix when it wasn’t my appalling error.”
Her breathing was speeding up, like she was reliving the stress. I was her safe space again, or she would’ve told me Fargo was fine and left it at that. “I hated showing up every day to do the best job I could do, a job I’d gone to school for, that I interned for, and got treated like I was jacking around when people’s lives were on the line.” Her mouth quirked. “I have my own pride too. Then I went to work for the doctor and there it felt personal. So yeah, I guess I did come home and bitch all the time. Now I’m saving the world by testing fuel.” She gave me a furtive look. “I love my job, by the way. I probably shouldn’t have said that around my boss.”
“I’m not technically in charge of you yet.” As if I ever could be. Daisy had a mind of her own, and it pissed people off. I wouldn’t have made her feel like she was nothing but a complainer. “I’m a better boss because of your stories.”
Her brows lifted. “I’m sure there’s a lot more that went into your leadership.”
Being single and living in an empty house without her. “You pull the curtain back. Poor leaders will resent you for it. Strong leaders evaluate the observations and criticisms as objectively as possible. That’s what I strive to do, and I look for people who pull the curtain because there are a ton out there who are happy to sew it shut. Then they can’t see the ship sinking. They can’t look in the mirror and admit that they have some responsibility. I even used that analogy in my interview, and I think it helped me get the job.” After I’d had a good hard look in the mirror at myself when I’d been on the brink of losing my job in the oil fields for being an idiot.
She blinked at me. “Oh.”
“Either that or it’s because I’m Weston Duke’s son,” I said with a tight smile. I couldn’t deny that being his kid was a major secret to my success.
“Alder Duke is his own man.” Her words were supportive, like she saw right through to that part of me that had to prove I deserved what I had. Daisy was the first one to show me that relying on superficial shit wasn’t enough. I had to put the work in.
I’d grown up the oldest of six. Automatic authority. My siblings had looked up to me. My parents had trusted me. I’d gotten the girl. Life had been easy. Then I’d woken face down in cow manure after jumping a fence in the middle of the night with an angry bull on the other side. My buddies had been laughing their asses off, and police sirens wailed in the air.
If I had stayed in that moment, I’d have lost everything else. My job. The final shreds of respect of my siblings. My parents’ patience with my wildness. There’d be nothing but more of the same, only I’d have a trespassing record at the minimum. “Now I am my own man, yes.”
We shared a smile, and she pushed her chair back. “I’m having my pie right away. Do you want a slice?”
“It’s my turn to get it.”
“You’ve been making meals all week, Alder. I can get us slices of pie someone else made.” She went to the fridge and dug out the pumpkin and whipped cream. Again, she didn’t have to ask. She either remembered or paid attention yesterday.
Those were the parts of Daisy people couldn’t handle. Growing up, I’d had the last name of a family in the community synonymous with money and power. Not to the level of Evander’s family, the Barrons, but the Dukes hadn’t been slouches. I’d been self-aware enough to know I had Dad’s charisma, my mom’s friendliness, and both of their looks.
Daisy had fascinated me since the first day of high school. Her first day in Coal Haven. She’d done her own thing, and when we’d had to work together in class, she’d treated me as competent, nothing more. During study hall, she’d helped me with algebra. The small country school she’d gone to had been light years ahead of the math I’d taken.
Then one day during our sophomore year, she’d brought me a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie from the coffee shop and a special jig for walleye fishing that one of her neighbors had made by hand.
Mom had always made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and I’d have some for a snack some days during study hall. When we’d chatted about our weekends, I’d tell her about fishing with Dad and that I lived for catching walleye. Two details of my life that were inconsequential while at the same time specific to Alder Duke. She’d paid attention to me. Without fanfare. Without wanting any recognition. She’d just handed the two items to me and said, “Is it graph day?”
I’d fallen for her then. Compared to her, everyone had seemed superficial. Too shallow. Nothing had changed after our divorce either. Dating had been as exhausting to me as her former jobs. I’d been left feeling used and sometimes betrayed. All because I’d been chasing that feeling Daisy had given me. Of being seen for nothing more than being me.
She brought me a slice of pumpkin pie and sat to eat hers. The silence was easy. We’d done a lot of talking and now we were enjoying a treat together. She’d always get quiet after a good rant and soak in the feeling of not holding it in.
When I was finished, I took my plate to the dishwasher. There was one more thing I wanted to do tonight, and that just might push everything too far, but I had to move the needle. I had to know if she was open to one day fixing what I had broken. “I’ve got something for you. Let me clean up and I’ll grab it.”
“Oh?”
“I just need a minute.” I rushed through loading the dishwasher. I couldn’t chicken out now.
Daisy usually cleaned up after herself while she was cooking, so the counters were already wiped. She stole the dishcloth to swipe over our spots at the table. Once I was done, I ran upstairs. I had hidden the package in my room. I studied the box for a minute. It wasn’t too late to back out.
No. All that was inside was a little gift. At minimum, we were friends.
Downstairs, Daisy was tucked into the corner of the couch. The screen was dark and she scrolled through her phone. I closed in, the knot inside my stomach growing bulkier.
“Promise not to overthink it?” I held the package behind my back.
Her gaze grew wary. “Why?”
This would go fine. Just fine. I brandished the small, wrapped box.
Her eyes flew wide. “Alder!”
My heartbeat sounded between my ears. “Just open it.”
Dismay darkened her blue eyes. “You bought me something?”
“No.” Even I knew that would be going too far too soon.
Indecision tightened her mouth. “Okay.”
Yes .
She lifted her hand, paused, then reached the rest of the way, her slim fingers closing around the box.
I sat on the opposite end of the couch, half turned toward her. I hadn’t even been this nervous when I’d first asked her out.
She stared at the dancing candy canes. “I didn’t get you anything.”
“I know. I didn’t expect you to.”
Present buying stressed Daisy out. She always wanted to get the perfect thing. She used all her knowledge of the person to consider a gift, which was also what made it so hard for her to decide. This was my oatmeal chocolate chip cookie and fishing lure.
Tentatively, she peeled away the paper and leaned back, as if I’d wired it to blow confetti in her face. Under the green Christmas wrap full of dancing candy canes was a plain box. Her mouth set in a consternated line, she glanced at me before opening the box.
All my muscles went taut, waiting for her reaction.
Her pink lips parted and wonder filled her eyes. Then a slow smile spread across her face, and it was like the sun coming out. Out of the one piece of tissue paper, she withdrew a small wooden figure of a horse. Her reaction was exactly what I wanted.
“Did Jasper make this?” Wonder filled her voice, and she held it up to the weak light from the lamp.
“Yes. Out of alder wood.” Before that tidbit could make her uncomfortable, I rushed on. “So don’t lose it around the new cabinets after they’re installed.”
She laughed, the sound light and airy. A happy laugh. No discomfort or nervousness.
I might still toe the line too far. “I asked him to stain it the same color as Trixie.”
She lowered the figurine to her lap and cradled it in her hands. “Trixie? That old girl?”
“She was old when you used to ride her.”
“I think she was born old. Remember when she wouldn’t cross that little creek that was three inches wide?”
“I had to get off and lead her across.”
We exchanged grins, just like we would’ve done years ago. She bit her lip as she studied the little horse.
She held it up again. “I guess it has a name already. Trixie.” She narrowed her eyes at the back hindquarter. “He added her scar.”
“Dad couldn’t believe she could still walk after that.”
She ran a finger lightly over the ragged ridge Jasper had incorporated. “She got spooked, right? Flipped over a fence post?”
“Some teens partying in a field and they started a fire.” It had been before I was born, but Dad had recounted the story often enough. A group of kids had thought the field was empty and started a small fire. It spread, and in the ruckus of the emergency response, the horses had bolted. Only Trixie had been severely hurt.
I should’ve carried that story closer to my heart. Those kids had been younger than me when I’d been an idiot in other people’s pastures. Old enough to know better, too privileged to care.
“She was such a good horse,” Daisy murmured, yanking me out of the past. “I adored her.”
“She was fond of you.”
“I didn’t make her work hard.” She grinned and closed her fingers around the figure. “Thank you. When did you see Jasper?”
I shrugged, fighting off a lump in my throat. “Eliot ran out there a few days ago for me.”
“Right. Jasper manages Eliot’s family ranch.” She continued to cradle her present. She hadn’t gotten upset. How much did I read into that? We’d been friends once before. We were becoming friends again.
We’d been married once before. We were married again.
She’d been in love with me once before. Could she be in love with me once again?
I’d bow out before she got uncomfortable with how comfortable she was getting around me. I’d also leave her a little disconcerted. Maybe she’d entertain the idea of how cozy she wouldn’t mind getting with me. “Mom said they’d be here on Thursday. Five days. They’ll leave on the first.”
She clasped the horse to her chest. “Yes, of course.”
“I’ll have the beds swapped by then. That way, maybe you won’t make me sleep on the floor when we have to share a room.”
“Oh…” Two pink blooms spread across her cheeks.
There it was. Just the right amount of uncomfortable. “Night, Daisy.”
Now, she’d go to bed thinking about me. And I’d go to sleep content that after fifteen Christmases, today I didn’t have to wish I was spending it with her.