Being with Daisy had been like having one long orgasm while on a roller coaster. Damn exciting, but not if youwanted some calm.
He popped the top off his beer and tossed it on the counter. Two weeks after he graduated from high school, hisparents had been killed in a car wreck. They'd been out driving in their '59 Bonneville when a drunk driver hitthem. That old Pontiac may have been built like a tank, but it hadn't been built with safety features. His fatherhad been killed instantly. His mother died on the way to the hospital. And at the age of eighteen, he'd suddenlybecome responsible not only from himself but for Billy too.
Jack raised the bottle to his mouth and took a drink. Whenever he thought back on that time in his life, he had ahard time remembering details. He'd been torn up and confused and scared. And just plain raw. His whole lifehad changed in an instant, and it had seemed that the more he wanted space to think, the more clinging Daisygot. The more he pushed her away so he could breathe, the tighter she'd held on to him. He remembered thenight he'd told her they needed time apart, that he needed time away from her to think. That he didn't want tosee her for a while. She became hysterical. Then the next time he saw her, she was Steven's wife.
He recalled exactly what she'd been wearing that night. A blue sun dress with little white flowers. She andSteven had stood in his front yard and asked him to come outside. He remembered walking toward her and herlooking so good to him that he'd wanted to grab her and hold her and tell her to stay with him forever.
Instead Steven told him that the two of them had married that afternoon. At first, he couldn't believe it. Daisydidn't love Steven. She loved him. But he'd taken one look at her guilty face and knew it was true. He grabbedher and told her she belonged to him, not Steven. He tried to kiss her and touch her and make her admit sheloved him. Steven got between them, and Jack smashed his fist into Steven's face. They proceeded to beat thehell out of each other, but Steven Monroe had never been a fighter. He'd ended up taking the bad end of thebeating.
Jack raised the beer to his mouth again and swallowed hard. The night he'd lost Daisy, he'd lost Steven too. He'dlost the girl he'd loved and craved and wanted to live with forever.
He'd lost his best friend. The boy who'd been by his side during every hair-brained adventure. Steven mighthave been a "you go first" kind of guy, but Jack had always known that Steven was right there behind him.
Backing him up. Ready to go next. Then in the course of one night, they were both gone and Jack was alone.
He'd learned a valuable lesson that night that he'd lost everything. He'd learned that no one could take from youwhat you didn't give them. No one could slice your insides up if you didn't hand them the knife. He didn't thinkthat made him bitter, just a man who learned from mistakes. And it didn't make him one of those commitment-phobic guys Rhonda was always accusing him of being.
Hell, he might get married one day. Marriage wasn't something he'd ever rule out, but it wasn't something hewas looking for either If it happened, it happened. He had a family. Billy and Rhonda and the girls were enoughfor him, but there was room in his life for someone else. He was only thirty-three. There was time.
Except Daisy. There would never be room for Daisy Monroe. Not only had she sliced up his insides, she'dstomped them into the ground. He would never allow Daisy into his life again.
No, he'd learned his lesson the first time.
Chapter Seven
Daisy shoved her tortoise-shell Vuarnet sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose and looked over at Lily, whoconcealed her eyes behind lavender Adrienne Vittadinis.
Like a cop on a stakeout, Lily backed her Ford Taurus in between a truck and a minivan and shoved the car intopark. The last strain of "Earl Had to Die" wound to a close, and the dying notes of an electric keyboard filled thespace between the two sisters. Normally, Daisy had nothing against the Dixie Chicks, in fact the had two oftheir CDs, but if Lily hit the back arrow on the car's stereo one more time, Daisy wasn't responsible for what themight do next.
"Do you see him anywhere?" Lily asked as the scanned the parking lot to a stucco apartment complex offEldorado Street. Her hand lowered from the steering wheel, hovered, then she hit the back button.
"Damn it!" Daisy swore, driven to near madness. "That's the fifth time in a row you've played that song."
Lily looked across the seat at Daisy. Her brows lowered, and frown lines creased her forehead. "You'recounting? That's warped."
"Me! I'm not the one wearing out 'Earl Had to Die' while parked outside my soon to be ex-husband'sapartment."
"It's not his apartment. He's renting a house over on Locust Grove near the hospital. It's her apartment. Kelly theskank," Lily said and returned her attention to the complex.
The Chicks started with the first verse again, and Daisy leaned over and hit the off button. The car wasblessedly silent. After leaving Showtime last night, Lily had taken a detour, passing Kelly's apartment. She'ddriven past three times like some crazed stalker before dropping Daisy off at their mother's house.
This morning she showed up bright and early to drop Pippen off so she could "find a job." Daisy took one lookat her sister's flat hair and wrinkled running sweats, and she knew something was up. She told Lily she wascoming along. She pulled on a pair of jean shorts, a black T-shirt, and shoved her feet into flip-flops as shetwisted her hair up onto the back of her head and secured it with a claw.
"How long have you been doing this?" she asked.
Lily's hands tightened on the gray steering wheel. "Awhile."
"Why?"
"I have to see them together."
"Why?" she asked again. "That's crazy."
Lily shrugged, but didn't take her gaze from the apartment complex.
"What are you going to do if you see them together? Run them down with your car?"
"Maybe."
She didn't think her sister would actually mow Ronnie down, but the fact that she was sitting here thinkingabout it was a bit worrisome. "Lily, you can't kill them."
"Maybe I'll just clip them with the bumper. Or ram Ronnie's balls so he'll be useless to his girlfriend."
"You can't ram Ronnie Darlington's balls. You'll go to jail."
"Maybe I won't get caught."
"You'll get caught The ex-wife always gets caught." She reached over and rubbed Lily's shoulder though her redjogging suit. "You have to stop doing this."
Lily shook her head as a tear slipped beneath her glasses and ran down her cheek. "Why does he get to behappy? Why does he just get to move on with his girlfriend and be happy while I feel like I have add eating ahole in my heart? He should have to feel what he's done to us, Daisy. He should suffer like Pippen and me."
"I know."
"No, you don't. No one has ever broken your heart. Steven died, he didn't run off with a woman and break yourheart."
Daisy dropped her hand to the seat. "You don't think watching Steven die broke my heart?"
Lily looked over at Daisy and brushed the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Yes, I guess. But it's different.
Steven didn't leave you because he wanted to." She sucked in a deep breath and added, "You're lucky."
"What? That's a horrible thing to say."
"I don't mean that you're lucky Steven died, just that you don't have to think about Steven having sex withanother woman. You don't have to wonder if he's kissing her and touching her and loving her."
"You're right. I have to think of him dead in the ground." She folded her arms beneath her breasts and stared ather sister. "I'm going to let that go because you're having a bad day." But she guessed she wasn't quite ready tolet it go because she couldn't keep from adding, "I know you don't mean to be an insensitive brat. That's just theway you are."
"And I'm sure you don't mean to be so selfish.
That's just the way you are."
Daisy's mouth fell open. She was sitting in her sister's car to keep Lily from doing something stupid, and shewas selfish. "Yeah right, and I want to sit here watching Ronnie's apartment because I have nothing better todo."