4. Daisy
Chapter 4
Daisy
I cannot shake the feeling I already know the man standing in front of me.
He claims he's a friend of Hugo's, but there's something about him that puts me at ease immediately. And that never happens to me. I can't think of the last time I felt at ease in my own skin. I love it here in Olive Township, this little hamlet I grew up in, but the sad truth is that the inhabitants of Olive Township don't really love me. They love an idea of me. An image. A mirage. If I let just one of them get close enough, everything they think they knew about me would disappear. So when I come across somebody who looks at me like I'm crazy for apologizing for something most people wouldn't label an outburst, and then in the next breath tells me to feel free to have whatever response I feel like having, I can't help but feel uneasy about the feeling of ease.
A mindfuck, I believe it's called. Not to mention the guy is physically attractive in a distracting way. Buttery blond hair slipping over his forehead, unruly and stubborn. Blue-gray eyes the color of the sky before a summer monsoon rolls in. A scar, maybe two or three inches long, grips the left side of his face, from forehead to the top of his ear. It doesn’t look too new, but it doesn’t look old either. However he got it, it must have been painful.
It’s almost enough to distract from the rest of him, except who am I kidding no it’s not . The way that faded black T-shirt hugs those biceps is enough to kick a girl's salivary glands into hyperdrive. And those thighs. I mean, really. Is it necessary to be that muscular? Even the black canvas cargo pants, made more for utility than fashion, don't detract from the delightful muscle tone beneath.
Get yourself together, Daisy. You're engaged.
I clear my throat, remembering my manners. "You haven't told me your name," I say. His fingers brush mine just a touch too slowly as he takes the half-full bottle of champagne from my grasp. A ripple of gooseflesh rises on my arms, and there's something else, too, a pinch low in my belly. Too low to be my belly, if I'm being honest with myself.
I'm pathetic. Imagine being so starved for a man's touch that the brush of fingertips could elicit such a response from me. I have got to get myself together.
He sinks down in the Adirondack chair beside mine, stretching one long leg out while the other stays bent.
Bottle lifted to his mouth, lips poised a quarter inch from the rim, he replies, "Nor have you told me your name." He takes a drink, his gaze remaining on mine. It's only a drink from a bottle, but his lips are in the same place mine were a moment ago, and something about that feels intimate.
"I guess I forgot." A lie. More like I assumed he already knew who I was. An uncomfortable feeling flips through me. I don't like that about myself, how I assume someone knows me. The truth is, outside of this small town, I am simply just another girl. Maybe that's why I returned after college. Out there, I'm a nobody. Here, in this town that raised me but doesn't know me, I'm somebody.
Shifting the champagne bottle to his left hand, he offers his right. "Peter."
It's not at all the name I expected him to say. He looks too loose cannon to have a straight-laced name. There's some kind of ink on his left forearm, but it's almost too dark now to make out the details and I'm not bold enough to ask to see.
"You don't look like a Peter." My hand slides into his waiting palm.
"No?" He squeezes, not afraid to grip me tightly. Almost roughly. There's something about it that I love. Something I'm thirsty for. "What do I look like?"
My hand stays captured in his as he awaits my response. "I don't know." I shrug, squinting and making a show of looking over his face, but I stop quickly because he's too handsome. "Gage," I answer, deciding on the first ultra-manly name that comes to mind.
"Hah," he laughs once, loudly. "Gage," he repeats, quieter, shaking his head. "Out with it, princess. Give up that name of yours."
"Daisy St. James," I say, practically purring because I'm way too damned proud to have made him laugh. It doesn't look like something he does often.
I drop his hand and replace it demurely in my lap, waiting for him to tease me for adding my last name to the introduction, or maybe offering his so we're even.
But he doesn't. Instead, he shifts forward, extending the bottle to me.
"Champagne?" he asks when I take it, but the question is more why is this your drink of choice?
"It's a celebration," I explain, nodding back at the event room.
He doesn't say anything, just stares at me intensely. His lower lip is fuller than his top, giving him a perpetual pout. It's boyish, and somehow endearing, on this man who otherwise oozes masculinity.
Finally, he asks, "What are you celebrating?"
"An engagement."
He nods, just once, but doesn't ask a follow up question. There's no reason for me to keep talking, except that his apparent disinterest spurs my desire to speak.
"It's for me."
The lack of excitement in my tone should be embarrassing. It should be something I cover up, replace with forced elation. I should, but I don't, because this man makes me feel like I don't have to. Like I don't need to.
His eyebrows lift, eyes widening, silently asking a question.
"The party," I add. "It's to celebrate my engagement." My left hand dangles in the air between us, an ostentatious diamond ring parked on my finger. If it were broad daylight, the rock would sparkle like the surface of the ocean at midday.
The muscles in his jaw flex. He works a palm over the popped muscles, rubbing at them. "Congratulations." Any warmth in his voice before is gone now. He almost sounds defeated, but of course such a thing is not possible. My ability to read emotions is way, way off tonight. Maybe it's the champagne. Maybe it's me.
In the distance, someone yells my name. A man's voice. My jaw clenches, the corners of my mouth climbing, a conditioned response from all the automatic smiles I plaster on my face.
I don't turn to the sound, but Peter does, his eyes tracking, looking for the source.
"That's Duke," I explain. "My fiancé."
Peter rises up from his chair like a red hot poker was pressed to his backside. He whirls to face me.
Ok. Wow. Maybe I'm not so bad at reading emotions tonight. His face looks not only defeated, but stricken.
"What did you say?" he asks tightly.
"My fi?—"
"Never mind," he snaps.
The guy is clearly upset, but there is no way it could be directed at me. Something else has his panties in a cherry-stem-in-the-mouth level knot. Belatedly it occurs to me this guy might've been lying to me. What if Hugo doesn't know him? What if this guy isn't who he says he is? Could he be an intruder? At an olive mill? Who does that? Is an olive thief a thing?
My imagination snowballs.
Dammit. There I go, being too trusting. This guy is going to shank me and hide me in the olives. Which would actually be pretty tough to do because olive trees don't exactly have enough surface area for hiding something. Which means he'd have to cut me up.
Oh shit. I should make a run for it. Except, I don't, because not only have I decided this guy won't actually make me into a kebab, but also, my curiosity about him is insatiable at this point.
He's Hugo's friend, but who is he really? Why does he feel familiar?
I'm dying to get a read on him, but it's impossible because his back is facing me. I watch his shoulders lift, then slowly lower like he's taking a deep breath before he turns around.
The sun sinks fully below the horizon, leaving the sky bruised in deep cantaloupe and aubergine. He turns his head, back lit by the color, his face in partial shadow. "It was nice meeting you, Daisy St. James. I think I'll be on my way now."
Irritation spreads through me. I don't understand what just happened, but my head is spinning, and there is a part of me that wants to keep him here just a little bit longer. I don't understand that part of myself, but I give in to her.
"What?" I challenge his retreating form. "Let me guess, you've been jilted? Left at the altar? Cheated on by your fiancée? And now you want to get the hell out of here before you get on your high horse and tell me you don't believe in the institution of marriage. Are you saving me from your negative opinion?"
Halfway through my barrage of questions he turned, and now he stares back at me. His arms cross in front of him, biceps popping. His tone is so even, so practiced. "I didn't say that."
"You don't have to." I take a drink from the bottle. "Your body language says it for you."
He moves forward quickly, long legs eating up the space in three strides. A gasp steals up my throat when he leans down, eyes on mine as he swipes the bottle from me. He overturns it, what’s left of the bottle splashing to the ground.
A sound slips from my lips, something between a gasp and a disbelieving grunt. “What the hell?” I watch him closely, unsure of what he might do next.
Instead of standing, he holds some of his weight on the armrest of my chair, leaning closer until his face is a foot away from mine. He could put both his hands on the armrest, caging me in, but he doesn't. His eyes are intense, and he smells of cedar and citrus. So unlike Duke, who wears a ridiculously expensive cologne made by one of the oldest perfumers in London.
Peter levels me with a heavy gaze, eyebrows pinching in the center, eyes squinting with whatever he is about to say. "You don't know me, Daisy St. James, so don't go assuming you can read my body language."
His voice is deep, his chide curling into me, leaving me with the childlike embarrassment that follows an admonishment. He pushes off the chair and strides away. Indignation darts through me.
Oh, I am definitely going after him. I am going to tell him just where he can take his admonishment. If only I were wearing sensible shoes that wouldn't stab the ground, I would… What am I even talking about ? I'll do nothing of the sort. I’ll swallow my anger and say not a word. I've already snapped at him once, and quite nearly a second time, saying precisely what I was thinking in the moment without caring what he thought. Something about this man, and my reaction to him, unsettles me.
"There are universal messages received through body language, you know," I yell after him. "Frowns are sad. Smiles are happy."
He doesn't turn around, not even to argue with me. This annoys me, because I know what I just said is flat out wrong. Frowns can mean a hell of a lot more than sadness. The same is true for smiles. How many times have I smiled, but felt everything except happy?
I watch Peter cross the yard, his walk confident, his strides long. He arrives at his truck, hopping in, and a dog leans into the front seat and nuzzles his face.
The guy is too handsome for mere words, and he has a dog. Why am I jealous of whoever dates him next?
Without a glance my way he starts the engine and spins the wheel. A moment after he's gone from sight, my fiancé rounds the building and spots me sitting in the near-dark.
"What are you doing?" Duke yells, waving me toward him. "Come on."
Sighing, I pick up the almost empty bottle and wince as I roughly bump my ankle against the chair, hitting the exact spot where an ugly bruise colors my leg. I'd been careless with a pry bar a few days ago, losing my grip on it when I tried to wedge it behind my kitchen cabinets. I suppose that's what I get for attempting to remodel with zero personal experience. And without knowledge. And also, without a plan.
Ignoring the dull throb, I slip my heels on, choosing to walk the perimeter of the yard where the ground is harder packed.
Duke takes the bottle from me when I reach him, tossing it into the first trash can we see. He frowns at me, his hair perfectly coiffed. This man never, and I mean never, has a hair out of place. "I almost made a speech without you in attendance. That would've been embarrassing."
"Seriously," I mutter, brushing my hands through my hair and swiping under my eyes in case any makeup has accumulated there.
Duke halts outside the door to the event room. Turning to face me, he chucks my chin. "Big smiles, future Mrs. Hampton."
He waits patiently, watching me, and I spread my lips wide, revealing my pearly whites. A blankness settles over me, maybe it’s the same way an actress feels when they occupy a role. I’m stepping into this version of myself, slipping her back on.
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.
The opposite of what I’m doing now. I’m Daisy St. James soon-to-be Hampton, and my moments are nothing but high. I’m gracious and grateful, and I smile.
The stab of restlessness I’ve been squashing? It doesn’t exist.
Appeased, he takes my hand, pulls open the door, and leads me into a room filled with people thrilled to be celebrating our impending nuptials.
Duke's dad stands at the bar, drink raised while he says something to my dad. My dad catches my eye, smiles and waves. Duke's dad glances over at us, shows no indication he's clocked who we are, and turns back to my dad. It's not surprising. Glenn Hampton is the kind of man who pretends you don't exist until he needs something from you. Duke's mom sits at a table with two of her friends, hawkish and quiet. There's a reason why Duke's two younger sisters never moved back home after they left for college.
My mom holds court at a table filled with loving, chatty, and slightly inebriated women. It seems as though most of Olive Township has shown up, though that's wrong. Our small town has grown steadily over the years, bursting at the seams with newcomers. Those in attendance tonight are part of the old guard, the people who have lived here for decades, or generations.
They have all gathered to take part in the festivities, culminating in the wedding of a St. James to a Hampton.
It's been a long time coming, and everyone is counting on it.