3. Penn
Chapter 3
Penn
My seat belt is off, window down and playing a word game on my phone with my foot propped up on the dash, when I see her.
Legs for days in a dress that hits just above her knees. Blonde hair, curled and long and sweeping the middle of her back. She clutches a champagne bottle by the neck as she scurries across the grass, checking behind her as she darts.
Is there anywhere to really go from here? The olive orchards begin, and then stretch on and on. Beyond this grassy lawn, there is nothing to do. Nowhere to go.
She throws another look over her shoulder, prompting me to peer in the same direction. What is it she's checking for? Is somebody coming after her? My hackles are up, but nothing comes of it. No wild animals, or wild people. There is nobody out here except her and the insistent hum of the air conditioning units. And me.
I should probably look away, give her a modicum of privacy. I'll bet she thinks nobody's out here, and here I am sitting in my truck like a creep, watching her.
Yep, I should look away. It's just that, well, she's teetering around in those tall heels, each one sinking halfway into the soft earth as she goes. She's probably going to twist an ankle.
She stumbles slightly, her forward progression halted by a spike that has sunk all the way into the dirt. She makes tiny fists at her sides and pumps them angrily, just once. With one knee bent to make up for the height difference from her sunken shoe, she tips her face up at the sky. I'll bet what she really wants to do right now is let out a scream, but judging by the quiet around me, the most expressive sound she's making is a groan. Speculation, of course, but the way her shoulders are bunched, she resembles a string pulled taut.
She's ok, right ?
Is she pulled so taut that she might snap?
Fuck. I can't sit here and wait for her to lose it. I can't have that on my conscience. Well, you see, I saw a distressed woman, but did not offer help.
My mother may not be alive anymore, but something tells me she would come back from the dead and break a paddle on my ass the way she always threatened. Jokingly, I think, and back before the bad stuff started happening.
The woman bends to cup a hand around her heel, yanking at the trapped shoe. It comes away from the dirt without difficulty. She peels it off her foot, rears back, and fires it across the yard. She takes one more step, realizes she is now off-balance because of the other heel, and chucks that one, too. It lands near the second one, halfway between her and a set of Adirondack chairs.
Um, yeah. She's a brand of pissed I haven't seen in some time. And Lord only knows why. But here I am, tossing my phone in the passenger seat with a soft thud.
"Stay," I tell Slim Jim, who's been lying on his blanket in my back seat. I roll the windows down an inch and climb out, closing my door gently so I don't startle her. I walk closer, ignoring the reluctance spinning through me. I really shouldn't be doing this. So much for lying so low I was practically horizontal.
I slow as I approach. She's turned in such a way that I cannot see her full profile, but there's something familiar about the partial view. The graceful slope of the nose, the exquisite shape of the jaw. The closer I get, the more I make out her muttering.
"Of course," she sputters angrily, reaching the spot where her first shoe landed and swiping it from the ground. She snags the second shoe, saying, "This is what I get." She runs a finger over what is probably mud on the tall, pointy spike of her shoe.
I stop a handful of feet from her, careful not to crowd her. "Ma'am?" I say softly.
She whirls on me, shoe lifted. Great . She's making it into a weapon. I could disarm her in half a second, but I'd rather not have to. Her eyes flash up at me, surprised at my presence, but in those absolutely unbelievable toffee brown irises I see indignation.
That same feeling of familiarity washes over me, stronger this time.
"Do I look like a ma'am ?" She scrunches her nose on the word, as if it tastes like black licorice.
My stomach lurches, dropping somewhere around my knees. My heart? I don't know what that bastard has going on in my chest, but it's not doing its job. The beats are erratic, sucker punching my breast bone.
Run . Get away from her.
Ok, wait. No. I'm not a runner. I do not flee. I'm a Navy SEAL. The ability to control my emotions and my actions, regardless of circumstance, sets me apart from others.
A single line in an otherwise long creed, but a promise I've issued to myself and others. Even if I now have to talk about being a SEAL in past tense, using words like former , it remains deep in the center of my bones.
I will not run. I will face tough shit head-on, and right now, Daisy St. James is tough shit.
God Almighty, this girl is stunning. A showstopper.
She snaps her fingers in front my face, because yes, I'm openly staring at her. "Hello?"
I nearly groan in relief.
That sass, coming from that mouth, is tattooed on my heart. I could be blindfolded and wearing noise-canceling headphones, but still feel its tenor in my chest.
Daisy! My heart bellows and trips, misbehaving and beating against my sternum like a coked out squirrel. It takes every ounce of everything I have in me not to blurt out something astoundingly stupid, namely It's me, Penn.
She was always beautiful, even running around with me when we were kids. Daisy St. James never met an awkward phase like us other mere mortals. But now? This? I have to assume other women secretly hate her, because she's a one hundred on a scale of one to ten. Cheeks flushed, mouth pink like a rose and budded like one, too.
Daisy! Her name balances on the tip of my tongue. I came to town with the intention to hide my identity, accomplish what I came here for, then get the hell out of Dodge. But running into Daisy on day one, hour one must mean something, right? The exceptions and caveats and excuses trip through me, accompanied by the sting of adrenaline. What if I?—
Dumb. Ass. Listen to me, talking foolish.
The only person who is supposed to know I'm here is Hugo. And there are good reasons for that. Reasons I can't forget just because fate pulled a cunty little move and made Daisy the first person I saw upon my return to Olive Township.
Setting aside the pain from having just died a little inside, I clasp my hands behind my back, rocking on my heels. "My apologies, miss ."
Daisy takes me in for a long moment, and a heat steals up my neck. Does she recognize me? Feel an inexplicable but immediate connection?
Do I want her to? My ego screams yes, but the rational part of my brain bitchslaps my ego, putting it in check.
It would be nice though, if that were to happen. If Daisy knew it was me, said my name, identified me as that boy who left town fifteen years ago, I wouldn't have to lie, wouldn't even get the chance to. I can't deny there is a part of me that wishes she would, saving me from going down a road I know is fraught with peril, but feels like my only choice.
Of all the emotion swimming in Daisy's beautiful brown eyes, none of them consist of recognition.
She squares her shoulders, pulling herself up as if there is a string inside her leading out through the top of her head, and someone has plucked at it. The indignation in her expression recedes, replaced with careful patience.
Um. What? That's...bizarre. And off-putting, if I'm being honest. And not AT ALL how I remember her.
The carnation pink sequined dress she wears catches rays of the darkening sunshine. She curls a strand of hair behind one ear, revealing a small gold hoop studded with diamonds.
Heels hooked on two fingers from the same hand, she says in this detached and nauseatingly polite tone, "Please excuse my outburst. Events, such as these"—she pauses to motion smoothly behind her, I'm assuming to whatever it is people are gathered for—"can be very emotional, and sometimes get the better of people. You caught me in a rare low moment."
Honestly, I'm proud to be reining in my upper lip muscle that is fighting to curl. Why is Daisy talking like this? Who the hell cares if she has an outburst?
Two totally different emotions are at war inside me. Part of me is in shock. Daisy is standing in front of me in this very moment. It's her! It's really her! Another part of me is confounded that this is the same girl I once knew. A smaller part of me is angry this woman is standing in front of me explaining and apologizing for having typical human emotions. Who made her feel like she needs to do that?
"You don't have to worry about me," I tell her, slipping my hands in my back pocket and rocking up onto the balls of my feet. "I'm an old friend of Hugo's. You can take that rare low moment you're having and sink into it a little deeper if you want. Kick, cry, scream, curse the world. Won't bother me."
She lets out a little breath, her shoulders lowering an inch. She nods, the tip of her tongue slipping out to dab at the center of her top lip like she's considering. I'm doing some considering myself, and it mostly consists of trying to reconcile this woman with the girl who would regularly stand up for me in the classroom when math didn't make sense to me. It's not the prim and proper behavior that's rankling me. More like the way she swallows down how she feels. I'm not saying we have to give in to every emotion we have, but is it a good idea to bury them?
"Well, friend of Hugo," she turns, walking in the direction she was going before her shoes slid into the earth. She's a few inches shorter now, thanks to the loss of those shoes.
I follow after her. It's clear that's what she expects of me. Daisy St. James was used to being watched, and followed. It appears she still is. She reaches the end of the small yard, stopping just before the beginning of the grove, where two Adirondack chairs have been placed on the far side of an electric fire pit. She settles into one, her pink dress inching up her smooth thighs, and looks up at me.
Butterscotch sunlight glances off the bottle of champagne as she offers it out to me. "Join me?"
I absolutely, totally, and unequivocally should not agree.
"Yes," I hear myself say, beating back that mouthy asshole inside me who is bitching about how far off course I already am when I've only just arrived.
I'll have this one drink with Daisy, this one time, because denying myself feels unimaginable. I’ll sit, if only for a few moments, basking in Daisy’s inherent warmth, taking the opportunity I can’t quite believe has been tossed in my lap. After this, I will double down on my resolve to accomplish what I came here to do, and then leave without a backwards glance.