Chapter Seventeen
It was after nine the next evening when Daisy finally pulled down her street on her way home from work. She felt exhausted and drained of all emotion, probably caused in large part by the late-night crying session with her sister Benny, who’d been stunned when Daisy came home early last night. Sharing her grief had helped ease some of the pain, but the bulk of it clung to her.
But she’d gotten through it before. She could do it again.
Even if every minute at work under the censuring eye of her boss, the constraint of following every recipe to the letter, the lack of feeling like she had anything of real substance to offer, had nearly sent the tears falling again. But the thought of having Shannon see her break for even one moment was enough to pull her through the worst. At least until Monday, when another day started, another week of her feeling like she was going nowhere.
It was enough for her to go to bed and never want to get out again.
It took Daisy a moment to notice the other three cars parked in front of her house when she pulled up. Benny’s MINI, Payton’s new SUV, and Kate’s sedan. The lights inside the house were also on.
She wasn’t up for company. Not when all she wanted to do was grab the kids from her aunt’s, crawl into bed, and pull the covers up over her head and sleep through the next month.
Not when the only reason they all had to be here was to form a posse to try and cheer her up, thanks, undoubtedly, to her sister’s loose lips.
Benny was dead meat.
Not seeing much choice, Daisy climbed out of the van and slowly trudged up the driveway. Sure enough, all three women were seated on the couch, a box of donuts open on the coffee table in front of them.
“There you are,” Benny said when she walked in. “Just so you know, the kids are already upstairs and, despite their efforts to fight it, all sound asleep.”
That was something. She had barely managed to keep it together this morning before seeing them off next door, and the last thing they needed was to see their mother fall apart before their eyes. Again.
“That’s great. Thank you,” she said, hearing the weariness in her own voice. “And I know you’re probably all here to try and make me feel better, but the only thing that will help me right now is sleep.” Possibly mixed with a few more tears.
Payton jumped up—well, more like pushed herself up quickly, her burgeoning belly slowing her down as she bounded over to give Daisy a big hug. “We’re here because we wanted to show you our love and support. We’re here because we’ve all been where you are and know how much it hurts, and we don’t want you to think you’re alone.”
“She’s right,” Kate said. Her red hair bound in a knot on the top of her head, she looked as tired as Daisy felt, which wasn’t surprising with a one-month-old at home. “We love you and are here to show our support. And”—she glanced at the others—“to talk.”
Hmm. Talk?
She set her purse down and came to join them on the couch. “I’m not sure how much I feel like talking.”
“That’s fine. You can listen. We’ll do the talking,” Benny said.
“Benny told us about what happened between you and Jack,” Payton said, easing back down onto the couch. She rested her hand on her belly, absentmindedly rubbing it as she continued. “And although you know Jack and I go way back, I promise I’m not here to make excuses for him. I think I can understand the reasons why you didn’t want him interfering in the loan, getting himself more and more involved in your life. After what you went through with Leo, I get why you’d want to prove you can do this yourself. But…” She glanced at Kate.
“Well, letting someone help you, someone who cares about you and wants the best,” Kate continued. “Letting them help you doesn’t make you weak or dependent. It just makes you stronger with that support. Believe me, these past couple of months, taking maternity leave and having to rely solely on Dominic for our financial needs hasn’t been easy. I might have woken up in a near panic more than once. Or it was Marianne demanding to be fed,” she added, smiling.
“And maybe I haven’t had to rely on anyone in the financial sense,” Payton said, since she’d grown up knowing she had a massive trust fund to take care of her. “But I’ve had to learn to rely on other people these past few months to do things that I always did myself. Don’t even get me started on the pain I endured asking my mother to take over the planning of the Vaughn Foundation’s annual fall benefit that, with the baby coming and fall semester starting up, is now impossible.”
Daisy laughed. “What are you talking about, Payton? You hate doing that luncheon and have told us a million times how you’d love to find a way out of it.”
She grimaced. “Okay. Bad example.”
Benny interjected. “The point is that you have this amazing talent, Daisy. You’re a creative genius in the kitchen and, thanks to the seminars you’ve attended and tireless studying on the subject over the past few months, you have a solid grasp of what it takes to run a business. But starting up is hard for anyone and you shouldn’t think any less of yourself for having to ask for help. Whether it’s from Jack or from any of us who want to help you.”
Kate nodded. “We all want to help you do whatever we can to get your business off the ground. Your talents are wasted at that bakery. Believe me, as someone who’s left a well-paying junior partnership to jump to a more flexible job with a lot less money, taking that jump can be scary. But we’re here for you.”
Daisy was speechless, staring around at the faces of the women who were smiling encouragingly at her. It was a good reminder that even though just two years before, when Leo took off, leaving her and three young kids alone with no money, no house, nothing to their name, she would never feel that alone and scared again.
This was her family. They would be there to support her.
She remembered how she’d felt just that afternoon at work as she’d started making the Friday special, banana bread with walnuts, using the bakery’s most basic recipe. As she’d sifted the ingredients together, Daisy had been thinking about how a few ounces of melted Mexican chocolate and a scoop of sour cream might make it outstanding.
Not that her manager would want to hear it.
She never wanted to hear any of Daisy’s ideas. Something Daisy couldn’t understand. If she ran her own place, she’d welcome ideas from her employees. Love to brainstorm with them to find the right flavors and explore new twists on old standbys.
It had been so close. This dream of hers, and then yesterday she’d seen it—seen everything—slip away.
But these women were here and telling her that it was still attainable. She just had to ask for help and accept it.
Her eyes pooled with tears. “You’ve given me a lot to think about. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your love and support. You’re right. I have put too much time into this dream to let it slip away. I won’t let it. I might not be able to open a bakery as soon as I might have hoped, but I’m willing to keep trying.”
“And you’ll ask us for help when you need it, right?” Benny asked.
“I’m going to try,” she said honestly, still not sure if when push came to shove she’d actually be able to take that step. Yet.
“And Jack?” Payton asked more softly.
“We’ll have to see,” she said, feeling weary again, but with a glimmer of hope that maybe she hadn’t lost everything.
As the women got up to leave almost an hour later, Payton pulled her aside at the front door. “I know I said I wouldn’t make excuses for Jack, but…as someone who knows him, who knows how much he loved Lara and how devastated he was when he lost her, he really is one of the good guys. I saw the two of you together. He loves you, I have no doubt. You made him laugh like I haven’t heard in years. With or without the campaign pressure, he would have proposed to you. He knows a good thing when he sees it.”
Daisy knew Payton meant well, and rather than go into all the reasons why she was still too angry and hurt to talk about forgiveness—if that were even possible—she found it easier just to accept her sister-in-law’s hug—baby belly and all. “Thanks, Payton.”
Payton’s smile faltered a little, obviously hoping to have had more of an impact on Daisy, who stood in the doorway.
Benny rolled her car window down. “Call me tomorrow?”
Daisy nodded, waiting until the last car drove away to shut the door.
Instantly, her thoughts returned to Jack. She wondered whether he’d heard about her call to the bank this morning, that, true to her word, she’d asked them to hold off on processing the loan. Because as much as she wanted the money to enable her to lease a store front, to buy the equipment and supplies she would need to open her bakery successfully, it would have complicated things with Jack.
In time, when their tempers cooled off, their emotions weren’t quite so high, when—and if—they decided they wanted to try to work things out, it should only be about them.
She wanted to be sure it was because they only wanted each other.
…
When the doorbell rang early Sunday evening, for one quick but thrilling moment, Jack thought it might be Daisy who’d come to talk things over. That she was willing to give them another chance even as he knew she would probably be at her family’s house for their usual Sunday dinner.
But the voice that greeted them when Lily opened the door was definitely not feminine.
“Grandpa,” Lily cried and threw herself into the older man’s arms. Ollie barked and tried to jump up on them as Jack hurried over and tugged him back down.
“Lily bug, how are you doing?” his dad asked, setting her down. In his early sixties, he still was an impressive figure. His hair was thick but had turned to gray around the temples, and his face more weathered, the lines around his eyes more pronounced, but they only served to add another level of maturity and strength to a man already well respected and admired.
“Dad, I didn’t know you were back in town,” Jack said, unable to keep his surprise from his voice as he hugged him briefly. “I thought you were in Texas until next month?”
“Are you kidding? Would I miss the biggest day of my son’s life? Of our family’s? Of course I’m here. So. Is she here? I would love to meet her,” he said, his blue eyes looking past him as if Jack had Daisy hidden away in the corner.
Jack glanced down at Lily, whose joy at seeing her grandpa seemed to disappear. He’d finally broken the news to her last night. Without going into too many details, he’d let her know that he’d done something stupid—no need to go into any details or to lay blame anywhere than his own shoulders. When she asked him if she was going to still see her and the kids, it had caused him even more pain that he hadn’t been able to tell her with any level of confidence that she would.
“What? Did something happen?” his dad asked, looking back and forth between Jack and Lily.
“Dad did something stupid and now they’re not together anymore.”
His dad turned his inquisitive gaze to him, studying him for a long moment. “I see. Well, then it looks like it will be just the three of us for supper. I made reservations at your favorite Italian place,” he said to Lily.
Truthfully, the last thing that Jack felt like was a night out under the glare of photographers or the curious onlookers at the other tables in the restaurant, but he also knew that Lily shouldn’t be stuck here just because Jack’s heart was a little beat up—okay, blown to smithereens. A regular night out with her dad and her grandpa would be something maybe they all needed.
It wasn’t until they were home a couple of hours later that he and his dad holed up in his study that the old man broached the topic of the split.
“Sorry, Dad, but I’m not quite ready to talk about it.” Not to mention that the last thing Jack needed was another lecture on why asking a woman he barely knew to marry him was impulsive and shortsighted, and bound to be a monumental mistake.
“That’s too bad. Because even though I hadn’t met her yet, everything I’ve heard about the woman told me I would have liked her.”
“Oh? And what exactly do you think you know about her that appealed to you?”
His dad sat back, crossing his fingers in his lap. “Single mom, working and raising three kids on her own. She’s bound to be a strong-minded and independent lady to be where she is. Not someone that you’re particularly used to dealing with.”
Jack took a second glance at his dad, not liking how close he’d gotten to the truth in such a short time. “I don’t know if I understand what you mean. I know a lot of strong, independent women and we get along just fine.”
“Yeah, but how many of them have you dated?” his dad asked, still smiling.
Jack ran his hand over his face. “I’ll concede that some of the issues Daisy and I were dealing with was her resistance to accepting any help from me. But why should that be such a big deal? I have the ability to make her life easier, less stressful. Why is wanting to help her such a bad thing?”
“What exactly were you trying to do for her?”
Jack threw out a short list of things he’d done, not liking the look of surprise and disbelief on his dad’s face at hearing a couple of them.
“A brand-new car?” His dad grinned. “You don’t think that might have been a little over the top?”
“She needed it, even if she wouldn’t recognize it herself,” he said defensively. “She’s starting a new business. It makes sense that she should have something reliable to not just transport her and the kids, but also any bakery orders and supplies.”
“Maybe, but Jack, you barely know this woman. How long was it after you two first met that you bought that for her? Three weeks? Don’t you think a new car could have been something you gave her a little down the road? Maybe at your one-year anniversary?” Jack didn’t say anything, but he could recognize that to some people, it might have been a little…sudden. “Look, son. I know your motives here are pure, but you have to ask yourself why you have this urgent need to be her knight in shining armor. When from what I can tell, she’s not looking for someone to rescue her.”
“Because I love this woman. Because I want to share my life with her. And I told her as much when I proposed to her—really proposed to her—last Friday and she threw it back in my face.”
His dad was quiet, ruminating another moment.
“I can’t say I’m exactly surprised to hear that you were ready to take that leap,” his dad said slowly. “Even though you do have a thirteen-year-old daughter that you might have taken a little more consideration of for how it would affect her.”
Ah, there it was. The disapproval that—
“But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that you only take such decisive steps when you know what’s right, what’s in your heart. So I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt this time around and assume that this woman is the right one for you.”
That was definitely not expected, and Jack was surprised how even after all these years, he still liked to have his dad’s approval and understanding.
“Thanks, dad. That means a lot to hear you—”
“Hold up. I’m not quite finished. I’m saying I understand where you’re coming from. But did you ever take into account that not everyone lives with such certainty and confidence in everything they do? This Daisy, I’m betting she’s been through a lot, and she’s going to take a lot longer getting to the same place you are. Getting used to having someone next to her, someone who wants to help her with no other motive than because you care. And you are going to need to back off. If she says no, accept that decision. With time, she’ll come around and see your motives are pure. This time around, time is one thing you do have, son.”
Jack flinched, realizing he was talking about Lara now. “It was different with Lara. She had cancer. There wasn’t anything I could do, as much as I wanted.”
“I know that. But are you sure you’ve accepted that?”
“Dad! You’re on TV,” Lily yelled from the other room.
Jack didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “Let me come and see,” he said, rising to his feet. “Thanks for trying to help, Dad. It’s just not that simple.”
His dad sighed, putting his hands on his knees before pushing off on them to stand up. “Whatever you do, don’t wait too long. If you love her, don’t let her get away.”