"Daisy Lee Brooks!" Sylvia hollered and Daisy turned her gaze to her friend. "You get over here." Sylvia'svoice had always been bigger than the rest of her. It had made her an excellent cheerleader.
Daisy laughed and walked to the front. She moved to stand beside Jack, who was speaking with the groom. Shehugged her friend and Mr. and Mrs. Brewton. Sylvia introduced her to her husband, Chris, then said, "Youremember Jimmy Calhoun."
"Hello, Daisy." Jimmy grinned, his silver tooth gone, replaced by porcelain. "You look great."
"Thank you." She glanced up at Jack who was doing a good job of pretending she wasn't alive. Her gazelowered to his shoulders and the blue dress shirt between the lapels of his suit jacket. He wasn't wearing a tie.
She returned her attention to the groom. "You look good yourself, Jimmy. I can't believe you married little ShayBrewton. I remember when Sylvia and I tried to teach her to ride a bike and she ran into a tree."
Shay laughed and Jimmy said, "I bet you thought I'd he in prison by now."
In the seventh grade, Jimmy and his Calhoun brothers had piled into their daddy's Monte Carlo, pressed theirnaked behinds to the windows, and mooned the middle school. In the tenth, Jimmy had called in a bomb threatbecause he wanted to get out of school a few hours early. He got caught because he used the pay phone outsidethe principal's office. "The thought never entered my head."
Sylvia laughed because she knew better. Daisy felt herself relax. The flutter in her stomach calmed. Now wasn'tthe time nor place to tell Jack about Nathan. She didn't have to think about it. She could relax. Have fun withold friends. It had been a long time since she'd had a little fun.
"Jack, do you remember the time you and Steven and I got arrested for racing out on the old highway?" Jimmyasked.
"Sure." He pulled back his cuff and looked at his watch.
"Were you there that night, Daisy?"
"No." She once again glanced up at the man by her side. "I never liked it when Steven and Jack raced cars. Iwas always afraid someone would get hurt."
"I was always in control." Jack dropped his hand to his side and his fingers brushed her dress. He lowered hisgaze to her, and his eyes were without expression when he said, "I was always safe."
No, being with him had rarely been safe.
"I was real sorry to hear about Steven," Jimmy said and she returned her gaze to him. "He was a good guy."
Daisy never knew what to say to that, so she raised her glass to her lips.
"Shay told me he died of brain cancer."
"Yes." It had a name, glioblastoma. And it was horrible and always fatal.
"I've been fixin' to get a hold of your momma to ask how you're doing," Sylvia told her.
"I'm okay." Which was the truth. She was okay. "Goodness, when's this baby due?" she asked Sylvia, purposelychanging the subject.
"Next month." She rubbed her big belly. "And I am more than ready. Do you have children?"
"Yes." She was very aware of Jack, of the sleeve of his jacket so close to her arm that if she moved just afraction, she would feel the texture of it against her bare skin. "My son, Nathan," she said and purposely didn'treveal his age. "He's in Seattle with Steven's sister Junie and her husband Oliver." She glanced up at Jack andgone was his carefully blank expression. Surprise filled his green eyes and lifted a brow. "You remember Juniedon't you?"
"Of course," he said and looked away.
"I remember her," Sylvia elaborated. "She was a lot older than its. I remember Steven's parents were pretty oldtoo."
Steven had been a real surprise when his parents were in their mid forties. They were both sixty-three when hegraduated high school. His mother was gone now, and his father lived in a retirement community in Arizona.
"Shay and I are gonna get to work on making a baby tonight." Jimmy laughed. "Don't want to wait too late inlife to have a baby."
Jack reached inside his jacket and pulled a cigar from the breast pocket of his dress shirt. "Congratulations," hesaid and handed it to Jimmy.
Jimmy pulled the cigar through his fingers. "My favorite. Thanks."
"Don't I get one?" Shay protested with a smile.
"I didn't know you smoked cigars," Jack said as he reached for her hand. He took it from the folds of her dressand brought it to his mouth. "Congratulations, Shay. Jimmy is a very lucky man." He kissed her knuckles anddrawled just above a whisper, "If he doesn't treat you right, you let me know."
Shay smiled and touched her curls with her free hand. "Are you going to open a can of whoop ass on mybehalf?"
"For you, I'll open two." He dropped her hand, then he excused himself.
Daisy's gaze fell to his broad shoulders as he made his way to the bar set up in one corner.
"He could always charm the pants off anyone," Sylvia sighed. "Even in the fifth grade."
She turned her attention to Sylvia as the others around them talked about football. While they debated whetherthe Cowboys needed stronger defense or offense, Daisy leaned her head closer to Sylvia.
"What happened with you and Jack in the filth grade?" she asked her friend.
A wistful smile curved Sylvia's lips, and the two of them turned to watch Jack order a beer at the bar.
"Come on," Daisy wheedled.
"He talked me into showing him my bottom."
In the fifth grade? She and Jack and Steven had been playing NASCAR in the fifth grade. Not doctor. "How?"
"He told me he'd show me his if I showed him mine."
"That's all it took?"
"I don't have brothers, and he doesn't have sisters. We were curious and checked out each other's bottoms.
Nothing bad happened. He was real sweet about it."
She'd never known that while he was boring her with Richard Petty stats, he was running around checking outother girl's bottoms. She wondered what else she didn't know.
"Don't tell me you were friends with Jack Parrish all those years and never showed him yours."
"Not in the fifth grade."
"Honey, sooner or later, everyone showed Jack their bottom." She ran her hand over her big belly. "It was just amatter of time."
Daisy was seventeen and practically had to beg him to look at her bottom. If she remembered correctly, hiswords had been, "Stop, Daisy. I don't mess around with virgins." But he had, and they'd begun a wild sexualrelationship that they'd kept secret from everyone. Even Steven. Especially Steven. It had been crazy andthrilling and intense. A roller coaster ride of love and jealousy and sex. And it had ended very badly.
Long forgotten memories rushed at Daisy, as if suddenly set free. One here, another there. A tangled mess ofmemory and chaotic emotion, as if they'd been smashed together, thrown in a box, and hurriedly taped shut.
Waiting all these years for someone to rip the tape off and throw open the tabs.
She recalled her own wedding. She and Steven at the courthouse. Her mother and his parents standing withthem. Steven squeezing her hand to keep it from shaking. She'd loved Steven Monroe for years before shemarried him. Maybe not a hot burning kind of love. Maybe she didn't crave him like a drug, but that kind oflove didn't last. It burned out. The love she'd felt for Steven had always been warm and comfortable, likecoming home cold and tired, curling up in front of a fire. That kind of love lasted, and it would last long afterSteven's passing.
She remembered riding with Steven in his car, on their way to tell Jack about their marriage. Her pregnancy hadmade her sick to her stomach. What they were about to do made her chest tight. She'd started to cry even beforethey pulled onto Jack's street. Again, Steven had held her hand.
She and Steven had been through a lot together, and everything they'd faced had brought them closer. Their firstfew years of marriage while he was attending school had been rough financially. Then when Nathan turnedfour, Steven got a good job and they decided to add another child to their family only to find out that Steven hada low sperm count. They'd tried everything to conceive, but nothing worked. After five years, they decided togive up and were happy with their lives.