24. Beau
twenty-four
Beau
We get off on the wrong foot right away.
Chord holds a fan of cards and glares across the table. Finn is a hulking menace on my right. Dylan’s a little less intimidating but no less angry sitting across the way.
“You’ve got some fucking nerve showing your face around here,” says Daisy’s hockey-player brother.
He’s a legend, and I’ve seen the guy slam players his size and bigger into the glass, into the ice, into other teammates. He’s got a scar slicing through his eyebrow, old cuts marking his hands, and cold fury in his eyes.
And his attitude pisses me right off.
I glance at Daisy. She’s staring, and she startles when Izzy taps her shoulder and points out that they’re mid-game.
Charlie and Ollie round out their table.
Mona and Luke play with Poppy and Violet, who can’t keep their eyes off us.
Rosie is on the sofa, feet curled up underneath her, supposedly picking at a plate of food resting on her growing belly, but her eyes keep straying this way.
The fact that I care what anyone thinks of me is new, and the desire to fit in doesn’t fit me well.
“It’s not like I planned it this way,” I say mildly. “Got any queens?”
Chord narrows his eyes and hands me a card.
“You should’ve left the minute you realized this ranch was hers,” Finn says. “Instead, you stuck around, wore her down, and wormed your way into family game night.” He scans his cards, then looks at Dylan. “Sevens?”
“Go fish.”
“I’ve got a kid to raise,” I say. “I didn’t know Silver Leaf belonged to Daisy when I took the job, but when I found out, I still had to put Ollie first.”
They exchange looks, sharing an entire conversation I can’t follow.
“Did you make an effort to go somewhere else?” Chord asks.
He keeps his voice low, so anyone might mistake our interaction for casual conversation.
Even his posture is carefully at ease, which only tells me he’s ready to jump.
“Or did you take one look at this place and decide to take advantage of the situation—and her?”
I flex my jaw. I don’t owe these guys any explanations. Those are for Daisy, and she’s the only one who understands them anyway. But the more these three jab at me, the more I dig in my heels. I have a lot to be sorry for, but they don’t know me. They don’t want to know me.
“You going to say something?” Dylan asks.
“It sounds like you’ve already made your minds up about me,” I say, plucking a pair from my hand and setting it aside. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to change that.”
Finn snorts. “Spoken like a true asshole.”
Heat burns the back of my neck, and I glance at Ollie, who’s having the time of his life.
“You guys want to hate me?” I say quietly. “Fine. I get it. But don’t sit here acting like I’m the only person who ever let Daisy down.”
Finn’s chair creaks as he shifts, and I ignore it.
“You know, the reason things ended badly with Daisy and me was partly to do with the grief and guilt she felt—still feels—about losing her parents.” I look at each of them in turn.
“Never occurred to any of you to check in with her more often? Take care of her when she was all alone? Make sure she was okay?”
Dylan grows still, and Chord’s jaw cracks. They look like they’re going to flip the table to get to me. I don’t care.
“Got any kings?” I ask Chord.
“Go fish,” he grinds out between his teeth.
“So the way I see it,” I say, voice low enough to be heard around the table and still disguised by the music, “Daisy took off because what was left for her here broke her heart, and when I found her, the only thing holding her together was that she never stopped running long enough to fall apart.” I look up from my cards. “You think I got that right so far?”
Now’s probably a good time to pull back, but the fact these jerks are still pissed when they should be hanging their heads in fucking shame is the motivation I need to keep punching.
“Did you ever wonder if there was a reason she was out there alone instead of here with you, trying to heal the thing that almost broke her?”
“You don’t know shit about our family,” Chord grits out.
“Maybe not,” I admit, “but I know Daisy.”
Dylan blinks at me, and I quirk an eyebrow at Chord. “You need a card?”
He scowls harder. “Got any tens?”
“Go fish.” Anger twirls into a tornado. “Yes, I let her down. I made mistakes that I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make right again.
But by the time I met her, Daisy had already been disappointed by the three men who should’ve been the safest people in her life.
Don’t sit here and judge me, playing the role of protectors now when she could’ve used that ten years ago. ”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Chord pushes past his clenched jaw, but Finn and Dylan swap a look I wasn’t meant to see, and this time, I read it perfectly.
“Maybe not,” I agree. “I don’t have what y’all have.
My parents never cared for me much, and my sister left her ten-year-old son to chase a man halfway across the country.
I never had money. Never had stability or security or a safe place to call home.
Daisy and I couldn’t be any more different.
It was the main reason I walked away in the first place—because I was so damn convinced she’d be better off with someone a hell of a lot better than me. ”
I lean my elbows on the table. “I may not have all the answers, and I won’t pretend I do.
I’m not perfect, and I won’t sit here and try to tell you I am.
What I will do is work hard every damn day of my life to provide the kind of future Daisy deserves.
I’ll start every day with no other goal than to be a good husband and a good father.
To keep her heart safe from ever again feeling the hurt I caused her, and to create a family that never makes her want to run. ”
Suddenly needing fresh air, I drop my cards on the table. “You can have this one,” I tell Chord. “I need a breather.”
I walk out of the room and straight out to the porch, not looking back but feeling everyone’s eyes pressing on me. Outside, the sky is dark, and the air is cool, which is a welcome counterpoint to the heat boiling under my skin.
I fucked up one of the most important nights of my life, and I don’t know how to explain to Daisy why I did it.
I wander down into the yard, needing the breeze on my skin and distance between me and Daisy’s brothers. And soon, like I knew she would, Daisy follows. She creeps up behind me and sets a soft hand on my back.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” I laugh without any humor in it. “But if things were bad before, then I just made them much worse.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Really? Don’t you know me at all by now?”
Her pretty face glows in the moonlight, and when her head falls to one side the way it does now, I know she’s loving me and exasperated by me at the same time.
“I know you better,” she says. “And if things were a little tense tonight, it was probably unavoidable. I’ve made a point of telling everyone you’re a horrible person. I can’t undo all that bad press in twenty-four hours.”
I grunt and pull her against me, nuzzling into her hair as she snuggles against my chest.
“Introducing me to your family when we’ve still got so much to work through together… it’s a lot for both of us.” I pull back to look her in the eye. “I don’t have any experience with family politics. If I keep screwing up like this, they’ll never give me a chance.”
She presses her full lips together, then shakes her head and presses against me again. “We don’t need their forgiveness if we can find a way to forgive each other.”
I release a breath and tighten my hold on her. “Are you scared?”
“Of what?”
“That we might make the same mistakes we made the first time around.”
She takes a beat. “I’m terrified.”
I close my eyes and inhale her. “Me too.”
Right now, just the two of us like this, I can almost believe the last year never happened. She’s so familiar and feels so right in my embrace. Our time apart hasn’t changed that at all.
But it’s been a long time since I touched her. Put my mouth on her. Watched with wonder as she unraveled beneath me. It makes the year without her feel like forever.
I thread my fingers into her hair and rest my forehead on hers. “Fuck it if I’m not supposed to say this, but I really need to be alone with you, Darlin’.”
Daisy’s eyes float closed, and she sighs. “You can say it. I want that too.” Her voice turns breathy. “I missed you.”
I laugh a little, low and dry. “I missed you more.”
I kiss her slowly. Tasting her, remembering her, yearning for her, and she melts against me.
“Maybe tomorrow between shifts,” she says breathlessly, “you can come to the house for an hour or two. We can have lunch and… talk.”
My mouth pulls up into a knowing smile. “I’ve got Ollie.”
“What if I asked Poppy to take him? She’s got plans to take Izzy into town for a milkshake. Ollie might like that.”
“He’d love it,” I say. “And so would I.”
Her mouth finds mine again, and I lose myself in the feel of her. This ordinary moment made new again by time and pain.
A sudden laugh floats on the air between us and the house, then a rise of music recalls me to reality.
“I should go,” I say. “I’ve made things awkward with your brothers, and I don’t want to ruin the party for everyone else.” I glance at the house. “Ollie will be disappointed.”
“I’ll get him, and we’ll leave together.”
I shake my head. “You can’t leave. I don’t want to give everyone another reason to hate me.”
“Beau.” She sets both hands on my chest. “I’m not letting anything come between us now. Not your insecurities and not my fears. This is what I want, so I’ll get Ollie and we’ll go.”
I frown. “You should be with your family tonight, Darlin’.”
“You are my family,” she replies. “So let me get Ollie, and then you can walk me home.”