Chapter 1 #2
She rolled her gaze toward me. “You’re everyone’s boss, Duke.”
The slip of familiarity was a balm to my eardrums. “Perhaps, but I’m not a micromanager.” There were so many levels between us, it didn’t matter if I was in charge of my ex-wife. Silence fell. Was she planning to job hunt first thing in the morning? “Will it be an issue?”
Her brows drew together, and her jaw tightened. “It’s not like I hang out with the CEO. We don’t have lunch together. He doesn’t even know my name.”
She didn’t say no, it wouldn’t be an issue. “To be fair, he wasn’t married to you either. Will it be an issue, Daze?”
“We’re both adults,” she said with that familiar distance in her tone. “It’s been a long time.”
Yes, it had been. Sitting in the pickup cab with her, memories pushing at my mental doors, it felt like yesterday when we were parked in a field after she’d left a pasture party before it had even started. I’d seized my chance with her that night. So much had happened since then, since our divorce. Significant things. More for her than me. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
Her eyes instantly misted over, and she looked down. “Yeah,” she whispered.
“I, uh, would’ve come to the funeral, but I was in DC when I saw the obituary. I couldn’t make it back in time.”
“Mom got your card.”
I had wanted to send it to Daisy, but there were no manuals for how to handle sympathy cards when you weren’t sure the other party ever wanted to hear from you again. “Mind if I ask what happened?”
She sniffled quietly. “He kept getting sicker and sicker. Just unhealthy. You know how he lived.”
“Nothing improved?”
She blinked at me suddenly, her gaze earnest. “No, and that’s what we all missed.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she swiped at her face. My heart twisted for her. “He knew what he had to do to take care of himself, and he just couldn’t.”
I would’ve captured all her tears if I could, but she would shut down. Those moments between us were over. I grabbed a tissue from the console and handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. “I tried to help clean his place before he got kicked out and had to go to the shelter.”
“He was homeless?” I had missed a lot.
“It was the healthiest he’d been. Structure. Regular meals.” She let out a sad laugh. “He used to tell me how blah their food was all the time. It became a running joke whether I could smuggle seasonings to him.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Getting that medical discharge out of the Marines was the worst thing that could’ve happened to him. He needed to be told what to do and for someone to have authority over him.”
Her brother had been older than us, and I recalled those years after he had returned home right after training. He’d been so hyped to go, and then when he got back, he’d only gone through the motions of life. “Did he get fired again?”
“He didn’t have to. He would just get scheduled fewer and fewer hours. You know how his hygiene was. That got worse too. I’d clean his place and…” A shudder racked her body. “I’d try to talk to Jason about it, and he’d gag and tell me he didn’t want to hear it.”
“I’m sorry. That bad?”
She nodded. “There weren’t rodents, at least.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “But I learned it was never rice in his kitchen.”
“Not rice, then what would it be— Oh.” My stomach clenched. That was bad. “Shit.”
Her laugh was empty but needed. How had Jason dealt with that part of her? Daisy and her mom had a dark sense of humor, but it was how they coped. Others might think they were heartless or just plain clueless, but no. They felt things. Deeply. How they expressed them was different.
If Daisy was laughing about cleaning her brother’s place, it must’ve been awful. Horrific, even.
“Yep. Fruit flies so bad the walls were brown.” She swallowed hard. “Maggots and flies.” She pinned me with that bright gaze again. “You know, I called a help center. I told them about Lee and asked for help. I said we weren’t sure we could get conservatorship, and we especially couldn’t afford to try. And there was how Lee ghosted people who butted into his life.’’
Lee had ditched everyone but Daisy. Still, that didn’t mean he’d let her control him and his decisions. My fingers tingled to hold her hand, but she didn’t always like to be touched when she was unloading her feelings. Add in that it was me, and this night could end just as it was starting, and I wasn’t quitting before she was ready. We could have made superficial small talk, but Daisy dove all in. She only did that with people she felt close to. After all these years, I was honored she was telling me. I was also a sponge, soaking up every little detail about her that I had missed.
“The guy said ‘he sounds depressed.’” This time her laugh dripped with bitterness. “Depressed? It took me an hour to clean just his toilet . Yeah, he was probably depressed, but there was also something else. Something major. His brain did not work like it was supposed to. We just couldn’t find anyone to help us. The guy started talking appointments, and I wanted to cry. Make all the appointments you want—he won’t go. But then if we did get conservatorship, then what was I supposed to do? ‘Okay, Lee, go to the nursing home now.’ Like I could force him.” She dropped her chin. “It would’ve broken me and Mom, and dammit, that feels selfish to say.”
I nodded, trying to imagine how hard it’d been. “That sucks for both of you.”
I was rewarded with a small smile. “Sorry, I’m venting. We haven’t talked in years and I just unload on you. But not many people understand the situation. Jason didn’t. He was like Dad, thinking Lee was lazy or stubborn.”
Daisy would’ve never worked with someone like her dad. I had acted like her dad when we were first married, and she’d walked. “Could you lean on him when Lee died?” I didn’t want to be jealous of the guy, but I’d rather Daisy had a pillar of support in her corner. If Jason couldn’t listen to her cleaning trauma, then who had been there for her? For her mom?
She chewed on her cheek. “He kept trying to hug me after Lee died. Every time I cried, he’d wrap me up.”
“Oof.”
“Yeah.”
I would kill to hold her hand, but she wasn’t someone who needed a lot of physical affection. She was like a cat. I had to let her come to me. I couldn’t just grab her and force her to cuddle. She might hug me back, but she’d censor her emotions around me later. It was something I had learned when we were teens. Something I hadn’t forgotten. There wasn’t much I’d forget about Daisy.
“How are your parents?” I asked, relaxing into my seat and breathing in her sweet scent. She wasn’t running off. This was better than trying to kill a night by myself in Coal Haven.
“Mom finds something she likes online and orders ten. It’s escalated more since Lee died. Jason got five tie tacks made from onyx last year.”
I had once gotten five wallet clips from her mom. “Does Jason wear a lot of suits?”
“I’ve seen him in one once.” We exchanged a smile, and her gaze dropped down to my coat, then my slacks. “I see it’s become a norm for you.”
And did she like what she saw? I’d been more like Jason when we’d been together. My similarities with him might be upsetting, so I wouldn’t ask more. “Hazard of the trade.”
“From the wells to the C-suite?”
“I put that on my business card,” I joked.
She laughed. “Good for you.” Her smile faded. “I knew you could do it.”
After I was left single and working in the oil fields, it was either finish college or break my body by the time I was forty. “Helps to have a dad who’s the King Oil CEO. A little nepotism goes a long way.” Enough about me. My life had been a Daisy desert for too long. It couldn’t happen again. “And your dad?” Her parents had gotten divorced before she was in high school. Pretty much after her brother barely graduated with his class.
She pushed her hair back from her face. A strand immediately fell out. Her ears flared out slightly, and I’d always thought they were cute as hell. She’d never covered them when we were together. Good to see she hadn’t started. “I’ve met his newest girlfriend.”
“He has a lot?”
“Yep.” She popped the p, a small slip of emotion. The string of women had bothered her in high school, mostly because they had gotten her dad’s attention over her. “She’s nice enough. Stays out of my business. And hey, his third ex-wife made him get rid of all his family pictures.”
“She did what?”
Daisy nodded. “They moved in together, and she claimed that there wasn’t room. But when he was giving me the framed aerial picture of his parents’ farm, she grabbed it and said ‘Oh, you don’t want to get rid of that, do you?’ Yet they were off-loading all the photos of me, Lee, and Mom.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. He was clueless.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s easier to be mad at her. Whatdya do? He sees Laila once a year. Sometimes remembers her birthday.”
“Jesus.”
She lifted a shoulder again. “Family was never his priority. We were his obligation. He loves us, but he doesn’t want the responsibility. As long as I remember that, it hurts less. Now tell me about yours. How are Weston and Magnolia?”
Her self-awareness had always enamored me. I’d grown up in a chaotic house with four younger sisters and one brother. Daisy was calm. Mellow. She’d been my happy place. I hadn’t found one since her.
“Mom and Dad are Mom and Dad,” I said. “Acting like newlyweds and enjoying the grandkids.”
“Are you enjoying being an uncle? Teaching them how to fish and hunt and snowmobile?”
I ran my thumb and forefinger over my bottom lip. How much would she read into what I said next? “I haven’t done any of that in years.”
Nor did I see my niece and nephew very often.
Her wide eyes were on me, but she didn’t respond.
The memory of our last married words together rose in my head. I can’t keep doing everything while you do nothing. I hadn’t done nothing. I’d played. “Busy with work. You know how it is.”
She lifted a brow as if to say she absolutely did not when it came to me. Fair.
She stroked her gaze down my suit. “Things have changed.”
“Thanks to you.”
She puffed out a breath and looked at the passenger window. I didn’t want our conversation to end. I missed her. The emptiness that had yawned inside me for so long wasn’t so large when we were locked together into the cab of the pickup.
So I’d keep talking. “You already know Violet’s having a baby and getting married, and I’m ecstatic it’s not her douchenozzle of an ex.”
“He was that bad? She hasn’t said much about him.”
“Willis was, in fact, that bad.” I scratched the side of my face. “Lily is happily married with kids, and it’s not with the douchecanoe Carter.”
She laughed, the sound as delightful as I remembered. “Violet did tell me Lily’s ex was, in fact, that bad.”
“Worse, actually. He cheated on her and kicked her out when she was pregnant.”
“What a bastard. But the new guys? Evander and…Eliot, is it?”
“Good guys.” My sisters were happy. That was all I cared about. “Did Violet tell you how it all came about?”
Daisy frowned. “How they met their husbands?”
I nodded. “Grandma left a trust behind. We all get property, but there’s a hell of a catch.” I clenched my jaw. I hadn’t talked about this to anyone. So why bring it up to my ex-wife? “We have to get married first.”
Shock played over her delicate features. “That’s why Violet and Lily are with?—”
“No. Well, sort of. Eliot helped Lily out because she was already living in Grandma’s house and would’ve had to move. The crux of the whole trust issue is that Dad and Aunt Linda have to sign off that the marriage is valid. Eliot and Lily fell in love for real. Violet met Evander before she knew he was renting her place, but she was ready to let the house go. They fell for each other anyway.”
A faint smile graced her face. “How many houses did Grandma Annie have?”
A warm ball centered in my chest. She still called my grandmother Grandma Annie. “One for each of us.”
“And what do you get?”
A dark cloud passed over my mood. “The house I grew up in.”
Her expression turned impassive. “Oh. Are you…are you married?”
I barked out a bitter laugh. “No. God, no.” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I locked up my annoyance with my grandma. If I was married, the whole house trust issue wouldn’t be a problem. “She was renting it out. Just so happens it’s open. Aunt Linda told me she’d just had it cleaned after the last renters moved. I can’t live there because I’m single, so someone else will.” And I’d have to find a place to live.
“I’m sure you’ll get another tenant in soon.”
“Probably.” I hated the thought of yet another stranger living there. No one cared for the place like my family had. The house, the acreage it was on, had fallen into disrepair. Grandma hadn’t updated it in the last decade, and Aunt Linda wouldn’t put in extra work if it was just going to get sold off at the end of the trust term. That was, if I wasn’t married. “I hate for Linda to rent it again. Nothing gets improved; it just keeps getting used.”
“Oh, come on. I’m sure there are single moms who just broke off a long-term engagement who will take care of it.”
That was specific. “You need a place?”
Having someone who had a history with it eased the conflict I had with renting it, which wasn’t my decision. Aunt Linda could lease it to whoever she wanted. I didn’t have a say. Until I was married.
She nodded but waved a hand. “I can’t afford a space like that. With the land? I bet rent is half my paycheck.”
“Being a chemist doesn’t make bank?” I was half joking. Her work wouldn’t pay nearly as much as mine.
She rolled her lips in and looked away. “I have other expenses. And Laila.”
“Doesn’t Jason help?” It wasn’t my business, but I asked anyway.
Her features tightened. “He would worry and then he’d hope that meant we were getting back together.”
He wasn’t right for her. From what little I saw, he seemed like a heartbroken guy. His face had hung like someone had called his puppy ugly, but otherwise, he’d only been guilty of not letting go.
I could empathize. “Are there some good rentals in Coal Haven?”
She slid her gaze toward me. “Maybe an apartment.”
Maybe? “A good one?”
She rolled a shoulder. “You’ll have better luck than me. When I looked last time, both the houses and apartments in my price range were small or old. I’m just tired of moving, you know?”
I mulled over what she said. There was something she wasn’t telling me about her living situation. Were her options really that dismal?
Regardless, she needed a place to live. I needed a place to live. I didn’t want just any renter in the house that could be mine. And I needed a wife in order to claim said house.
To sum it up, she needed a place to live, and I needed a wife.
No .
It was a ridiculous idea. I shouldn’t even think of it.
She’d never go for it.
But logically, I had to offer… Two birds with one I do .
“Shit.” The curse slipped out, and she turned those big blue eyes on me.
My pulse sped up. I couldn’t ask her. Too damn long ago, I had asked the same question. I had taken her horseback riding for the afternoon. We’d had sex in the shadow of a chokecherry bush, then I had proposed.
Simple. Just what she had wanted. Everything I had envisioned for my future.
But that was then. This would be more of a business deal. Unless it went from fake to real.
I pushed that hope in the far back of my mind. I would not use her disadvantage to my advantage. Besides, I had to ask first.
Or I could keep my mouth shut instead of ruining this night.
Except I hadn’t said a thing before and it had been fifteen years before I talked to her again. I couldn’t have that happen. If there was a way… I had to try. “I have an idea.”