Chapter 5 #2
“Still no word?” I asked because nothing else I had to say about her real fiancé would’ve helped the situation.
She checked her phone, and what killed me wasn’t the blank screen but how she desperately tried to hide the ripple of pain it sent through her. Like every time she checked, it ripped the wound back open.
Goddammit, Todd. Where are you? What the hell are you doing?
“I’m going to fix this, Daze.”
“It’s not yours to fix,” she said. “You’re not responsible for him, Max.”
But I was. I was responsible when it came to her. I should’ve seen the signs. I never should’ve left him alone in the hotel this morning.
If you hadn’t, you would’ve resigned Daisy to marrying a man who wanted to abandon her, a small voice in the darkest corner of my mind whispered.
I shifted in my seat, torn between two equally unwelcome outcomes: Daisy, alone and heartbroken, or Daisy, tied to a man who didn’t deserve her.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.
My hand braced on the steering wheel. “Anything.”
“I promise I’m not crazy, but when I woke up this morning, I just…knew I wasn’t getting married today.” She stared out the window as she spoke. “I don’t know what it was, but I woke up, pulled open the curtains, saw the bright red sunrise on the horizon, and I just knew.”
The poignant calm in her voice gutted me, like deep down, she wasn’t fucking shocked at all to have been abandoned.
It made me want to rip out my own beating but arguably broken heart and give it to her.
It made me want to confess with every fiber of my being that I was in love with her.
That I’d been in love with her for years.
That I thought she was smart and incredible and most beautiful, and deserving of someone so much better than Todd.
I didn’t even care if that man wasn’t me.
I just cared that whoever he was realized just how fucking lucky he was to have the opportunity to make her happy. To make her smile.
“Daze…”
“It reminded me of that saying your sister mentioned at one of Todd’s parents’ garden parties. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning,” she repeated the phrase Harper picked up from Kit, who lived—who used to live—in the keep of the Friendship lighthouse.
My teeth clenched, locking my foolish confession behind my lips and leaving me with, “You’re not crazy.”
“No, just hormonal,” she returned with a sigh. “Where to next?”
“I thought you were my navigation?” I nodded to my phone. “Erica texted me a list of the delivery addresses.”
Eager to return to her task, she grabbed my cell from the cupholder. “Got it.” A few taps on the screen and she had the directions up. “Looks like the next address is closer to Portland, so at the end of the driveway, turn right.”
When we reached the road, I caught Daisy slipping her feet out of her sandals and pulling her legs up onto the seat. Her dress bunched up her legs, but before I could look away, I saw her shiver.
“Sorry. We can turn the AC down.” Her hand on mine stopped me from adjusting the thermostat. Unfortunately, the delivery van wasn’t as electronically sophisticated as my truck, which allowed for dual temperature settings.
“No, I’m fine. You’re the one getting a workout in today,” she insisted, and I had to be imagining the slide of her gaze along my forearm. “Where did you put your jacket?”
“In…” My voice splintered. What if I hadn’t been imagining it? “In the back.”
She looked over her shoulder and found my discarded suit jacket a moment later. Even pregnant, when she wrapped it around her shoulders, it swallowed her whole. And the sight undid me.
The thing with fantasies was that as soon as you gave them an inch, they took a mile. I saw Daisy wearing my jacket, but I imagined her covered with me. My fingerprints. My mouth. My tongue. My cum.
“There. All better.”
Maybe for her. My cock, on the other hand, couldn’t be any more uncomfortable than if she’d stripped naked rather than covered herself with another layer.
I moved in my seat, adjusting myself twice before the pressure on my dick was bearable.
“How long?” I croaked.
“You’re on this for about thirteen miles,” she confirmed and then clicked off my phone, replacing it in the cupholder and reaching for the bag of pastries.
“We can stop and pick up some lunch in Portland,” I suggested, watching her pull out one of Ella’s famous nazooks from the depths of the bag Lou had sent with us. Nazooks were a rolled Armenian pastry and a customer favorite at Ella’s pastry shop in Stonebar Harbor, The Pastry Queen.
“No, I’d rather just eat these.” Daisy licked her lips, and my dick jolted.
“Are you sure?” I ground out. She shouldn’t survive all afternoon on sweets.
“They’re good for the soul.”
Well, the noises she made eating them while wearing my jacket were definitely very bad for mine. At this rate, the flowers left in the back of the van could be laid on my grave because the chance of my surviving a whole day like this with her was less than the chance of her runaway groom returning.
It wasn’t until almost seven by the time I pulled the van back into the warehouse.
We’d finished the remaining dozen deliveries with no further confusion or conversation about who Daisy was getting married to—or who she should’ve been getting married to today.
Instead, I let Daisy guide any conversation, which invariably ended on MaineStems and me and my family—anything that wasn’t about Todd—and it seemed to help. Or had until now.
We were back in my truck, and I’d glanced over to confirm her seatbelt was on before driving away, and I watched her whole demeanor change. She looked just like she had on the way to the hotel this morning, an expression of quiet panic paling her face.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” She tried to smile, and that made the lie even worse.
For the last six hours, Daisy had been able to avoid the reality I was returning her to.
And as I drove toward the inn, I couldn’t help but feel like I was bringing her back to the scene of a crime.
One still covered in blood and laced up with caution tape.
One where she was supposed to get married, but instead had been betrayed by the man she planned on spending forever with.
But what choice did I have? Take her home with me?
No. I almost laughed out loud at the stupidity of that thought. Not a chance.
Not a fucking option.
We rode in silence for the next fifteen minutes.
Even though we were squarely in the beginning of the fall months, the longer daylight of summer still clung to the edges of the sky, dipping them in a bright orange-red.
Red sky at night is a sailor’s delight. I glanced at Daisy, wondering if she was thinking how wrong the proverb was this time.
“What happens tomorrow?” she asked, her voice sounding just as she looked—impossibly small in a shroud of darkness.
Tomorrow, I would upturn every stone looking for Todd.
“I mean for the deliveries,” she clarified, and my sudden anger drained.
“Not sure yet,” I answered honestly. “I’m going to touch base with Erica after I drop you off and see what we can figure out.”
It might involve me driving another day or two until we could split up the deliveries to other routes or until we found a replacement, but if that’s what it took, then I’d do it. My business was my baby. There was no position or job in it that I hadn’t done myself and wouldn’t do again if needed.
“Todd’s not coming back,” she said softly when we crossed into Friendship, the old-world lampposts welcoming with their nostalgic glow.
She was so sure when she said it, my knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “He will, Daisy. He’d never…completely leave you. The both of you,” I said, like I could make it true, like I would make it true.
He would come back. Eventually. And when he did, I would make sure he made this right, no matter what it cost—no matter what bridges it burned.
Daisy’s head dipped, and then her eyes closed, and she yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand bundled in my sleeve.
“I just want to go to sleep and forget this day ever happened.”
I pressed gently on the brake, wanting to slow these last moments until I could find the right words to say.
“Let’s just give it a few days. You know how he is. Sometimes, he just needs a little time to get his head right,” I said hoarsely. “I already talked to Lou. The room at the inn is still yours for the week.”
Whether she agreed or was too drained to argue, I couldn’t tell, but she curled deeper into the seat, almost disappearing underneath my jacket.
The candles in the front windows of the inn flickered as I parked out front, and Daisy was half asleep by the time I opened the passenger door. Still, as soon as she got out, she surprised me by starting to take off my jacket.
“Keep it,” I ordered roughly. To have it back…to have the memory of her in it…No, it was hers now.
Inside, the inn was quiet. Lou had blocked off all the rooms for the wedding. Now, the privacy felt more like the solitude of a grave.
Hearing us enter, Lou appeared from the kitchen in the back, her smile tentative and her eyes luminous with empathy.
Harper trailed behind her, probably covering the overnight shift at the reception desk.
Before opening her apiary, Harper worked odd jobs for our whole family.
Now, she helped out at the inn every once in a while for some extra money and just on the overnight shift, so she didn’t lose any time on her farm during the day.
“Lou…” Daisy stopped and slowly looked around.
All the flowers and decor were taken down, leaving no trace of the wedding that was supposed to happen earlier today. Just like I’d asked her to do earlier.
“Hi, Daisy,” Harper greeted Daisy with a hug.
“Hey, Harp.”
My sister didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to. There were no words for this kind of situation, especially something as insufficient as I’m sorry.
“Lou…all the flowers…” Daisy looked to the living room where the ceremony was planned to be, now bearing no trace of the wedding that should’ve happened there.
“I didn’t want you to come back to that,” my cousin replied softly, taking Daisy’s hand and squeezing it. “Don’t worry. We spent the day repurposing them all over the inn, so they weren’t…wasted.”
Daisy’s head bobbed, her throat taking a few tries before it worked out the word, “Good.”
“Are you hungry? I have some pot pie warmed that I can bring up to your room if you want,” Lou offered and glanced to me. “You too, Max.”
“I’m fine. I should get going, but we didn’t stop for food on the way back, so Daisy should probably eat something.”
Daisy’s shoulders slumped, but she nodded. “Thank you.”
Lou went to get the food, and Harper lingered for an extra minute, looking at me strangely before following her out.
“I’ll check in with you tomorrow,” I said once they were out of earshot.
“Can I come with you?” Daisy blurted. “If you’re going on deliveries again, I mean.”
My jaw went slack. No. Not a good idea.
But the words wouldn’t come out.
My mouth opened and then shut. It wouldn’t refuse her. I couldn’t refuse her. Not when the same panic from earlier fringed her stare. Not when I felt my own guilt like acid in my lungs.
Todd was Todd. He’d always been shit at responsibility and reckless with his selfishness, but I’d been the one to prop him up like some kind of straw man for years because I’d wanted him to be better for Daisy.
If I’d just let him crash and burn that first night…
if I hadn’t sobered him up and told him what to say and how to apologize and make it right.
If I hadn’t helped him so fucking much, Daisy wouldn’t be living this nightmare right now.
If I hadn’t tried to make him better, it wouldn’t have made his betrayal so much worse.
“Okay,” I heard my guilt agree. My dark, selfish desire to be around her, cheering me on.
“The driving, it…” she trailed off, her brow knotting.
“Calms the mind,” I finished, because she’d told me a dozen times how it settled her, helped her think straight.
Daisy nodded and hugged herself, panic subsiding from her profile. I should’ve left then, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. So much so, it felt like time stopped for a second just to let me stare.
My best friend’s fiancée stood in her wedding dress, pregnant with his baby, but wearing my suit jacket. A sign that I would take care of her no matter who she thought she belonged to.
And I would take care of her. Whether Todd came back or not, Daisy would know there was one man who would never turn his back on her, even if her heart belonged to another.
“I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Max.” Daisy reached for my arm, her touch a thousand times worse now that her hand was warm on my bare skin.
My eyes settled on her face, and just for a second, I let them linger.
The waves of her hair had softened over the course of the day, wisping gently against her skin.
Her makeup was all but scrubbed off, leaving only her natural flush to her cheeks.
Even after everything that happened, even in the middle of heartbreak, she still looked heart-stoppingly beautiful. She always would to me.
“Thank you. For everything today,” she said, and the blade of guilt shoved deeper in my chest.
“Don’t thank me, Daze,” I said roughly, and before I could stop it, a fragment of the truth slipped out. “You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” A truth she already knew.
Something dark pooled in the depths of her pupils. Something I was tempted to describe as longing, though that couldn’t be right.
No, I was losing it. All day with her—wanting to take care of her, to treat her how she deserved, wanting her—I needed some fucking distance.
With a muttered good night, I turned and left before I did something even more awkward. More foolish. More unrequited.
She might know what I’d do for her as a friend, as Todd’s best friend. What she didn’t know was just how deep that promise went…and how much pain I’d cause my own heart to keep it.