28. Beau #2
Daisy dusts off her hands, then removes her hat and wraps her long hair into a messy knot. “The fire’s dying down, so the stars will look brighter soon. Why don’t we get our pillows and blankets, and I’ll tell you stories about the sky?”
“Yes!” he shouts before he bolts into the tent.
“Heads up,” Daisy says, spinning around to face me while my nephew drags our bedding from the tent. “He put his sleeping bag between us, so we’ll be a cozy little trio tonight.”
I swing my leg over the log, letting my knees brush hers as I lean closer. The glow of the fire makes her eyes shine with colors I can’t see in the daylight, and her skin shimmers in the low light. Damn, she’s beautiful.
“You know what?” I murmur. “That’s all right by me.”
We let the fire collapse into embers, and the great blackness above twinkles like magic in the dark.
And after Daisy sends my boy drifting into sleep on the back of legends about the Hunter and the Scorpion, and Hercules defeating the lion, and seven sisters saved from danger by transforming into lights in the sky, I carry him into the tent and tuck him into his sheets.
I turn on a small night light and stuff it into a corner, then drop a kiss on his head and carefully crawl back out.
Outside, Daisy is on the ground, leaning against the log and poking at the last bits of wood as she stares into the dying fire. I lower myself next to her and settle my arm around her shoulders. She sinks into my embrace.
“He had a great time tonight,” I tell her. “And so did I.”
Daisy hums and turns her face into my chest. “This is my happy place.”
“This clearing?”
I feel rather than see her smile. “No. Under the stars with you.”
My fingers brush up and down her arm as I breathe in her hair to give me strength. “I have to tell you something.”
“Hmm?” she says, almost sleepily.
“Duke Montgomery from Emberfield called.”
Her stupor falls away and she sits up straight. “He did? Why?”
I fidget a little, and she takes my hand to still it. I release a nervous exhale.
“He wanted to tell me there’s a better job available if I want it. More responsibility. More stability. More money.”
“Oh.” She worries at her bottom lip. “And what did you say?”
“Nothing. I mean, he asked me to think about it, and I said I would.”
She nods slowly, eyes drifting toward the fire. “I understand. It sounds like a great opportunity.”
I turn her head with a bent finger under her chin.
“I don’t want a life without you in it, Darlin’.
I’ve done it once, and I’ve got no plans to do it again.
But we’ve got to be realistic. I can’t stay at Silver Leaf if your brothers don’t want me here, and I can’t jeopardize my guardianship of Ollie. ”
Daisy lowers her head to my shoulder. “I know. I’d never ask you to do that.”
She sighs, and I snuggle her against me as we stare up at the stars. “Any stories up there about lovers overcoming all odds?”
She gazes upward, eyes tracing the shapes in the sky, but she doesn’t answer my question, and something about the tension in her body feels important.
“Darlin’? Is there something else?”
She shakes her head. “Just promise me you won’t accept Duke’s offer until after Chord’s party. Give me a little more time to come up with a solution.”
So that’s it. I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s so sure she can make this work, even when all the signs point to disaster.
I rest my cheek on her head. “All right, but I don’t see what difference a week is going to make.”
“It might make all the difference.”
A small surge of hope catches me off guard, and I quickly quash it. “And if it doesn’t?”
Daisy is quiet for a beat, and then, “I’m not losing you again. I won’t survive it.”
I gather her even closer, unable to stand the whisper of space between us.
“Don’t worry about that, Darlin’, because I’m never going to let you go.”
We watch the sky in silence for what feels like forever, Daisy’s chest rising and falling against me in steady, even breaths.
If I could stop the world right now, stay frozen in this exact moment, where everything still might work out, I would.
Because as much as I want to believe that things could be different, experience tells me things never end the way I want them to.
At some point, my eyes drift closed, and I open them again when she tugs on my hand.
“Come on,” she says. “Time for bed.”
I let her lead me into the tent and then crawl into the bedding after her.
Daisy stretches out on Ollie’s other side while I fall into my pillow.
I’m filled with so much gratitude as I lie here wrapped in a sleeping bag and bone-deep contentment, and a wish on the millions of stars above us that our lives will be defined by this kind of perfection.
“Thank you for doing this with us,” I whisper across my sleeping nephew.
Daisy tucks her hands under her cheek, her eyes shining in the near darkness. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“He loves you,” I murmur, with a glance at Ollie’s peaceful face.
“And that scares you,” Daisy guesses.
“A little,” I admit. “It’s a lot, this parenting thing. Even the little things feel big.”
“Love is no little thing,” she replies.
“No.” I lift my eyes to hers. “It’s not.”
She gives me a one-sided smile. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
“Goodnight, Darlin’.”
I wait until her eyes close, then I burrow into the covers and let sleep take me too.
When I wake, Ollie’s curled against Daisy and her arm is wrapped around him protectively. I lie there as the sun rises, watching them sleep and wondering how I’ll ever be able to take him away from Silver Leaf now.