CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Daff and Spencer still spoke over the next day and a half—they had to—stilted conversations about party plans, travel arrangements, and accommodation. Last-minute snags and fixes.
Daff felt far removed from everyone and everything. She made the right noises, smiled when she had to, and even cracked a few jokes. And never once looked like her heart was dying in her chest. But it was, she could feel it. It hurt at first, sharp and intense and overwhelming, but soon a welcome numbness set in and she was able to function with relative normalcy.
She had no other choice; her sister was getting married and she had promised that her thing with Spencer wouldn’t affect the wedding or their family dynamic. It had been an easy promise to make, because never in her wildest imaginings had she understood how very much the reality of being excluded from Spencer’s life would hurt.
Two days later, they set off for Plettenberg Bay. Daff and Spencer had rented a couple of minibuses, deciding that it was the most convenient transportation option. Daff was in one van with the women, and Spencer in the other with the men.
“So here’s the deal, ladies,” she called to the group as they set off. “My baby sister’s getting married next week—” She paused and allowed a few moments of rowdy catcalling and howls from the peanut gallery. “We’re having a full-on hen at a separate venue from the guys, but we’re meeting up with the sausage party later at a nightclub for some dancing and partying deep into the night. Transportation back to the hotel has been arranged, and there are rooms reserved for all your drunken asses. So there’s no need to worry about anything. Just make sure you have an awesome time. And remember to take a shot when somebody says ‘wedding,’ ‘bride,’ ‘bridesmaid,’ ‘groom,’ ‘hung like a horse,’ ‘crazy married sex,’ or ‘Mason loves Daisy.’ Oops, that’s seven shots to start you off!”
More crazy cheers, and Daff passed shot glasses around but warned them, “Don’t give any to Daisy, not until later! We want her to be conscious for most of the evening!”
“Hey!” Daisy protested good-naturedly but happily passed on the first shots of the evening.
Daff sent a tacky veil and silk sash that read “Mason’s Bride” to the back of the bus, and a couple of the ladies decked Daisy out in her hen finery. She also handed out other specially commissioned party favors—hats, glasses, and T-shirts, all pink and sparkly, with “Daisy’s Hens” printed somewhere on them.
She smiled while everybody giggled and oohed and ahhed over the selection, but her eyes drifted to the minibus behind theirs. She hadn’t seen Spencer that day, but she knew he was back there. She wondered how he was doing. He wasn’t great at public speaking, and she knew hosting something like this was going to be hard for him. She was tempted to text him to find out how it was going. But she knew better.
She wanted to curl up into a ball and cry every time she thought about his words to her that last time. He loved her and she’d broken his heart, and it killed her to know that. He didn’t deserve to have his heart broken—he deserved to be loved back, completely and without reservation. But Daff didn’t know how to do that. All she knew was that not having him around, never having him around again, hurt more than anything she’d ever experienced before. She didn’t want to lose him, but she didn’t know how to give him what he wanted.
Everybody was starting to get into the swing of things and, job done for now, Daff sat down and faced forward, taking out her phone and blindly staring at the bright screen. Hoping everybody would think she was making last-minute arrangements. Someone sat down next to her, and she plastered a bright smile on her face and looked up to see Lia. Her sister was staring at her with grave eyes, so Daff widened her smile, even though her cheeks were aching.
“Hey, Lia, everything okay?”
“You tell me,” Lia said under her breath, her words barely audible above the rowdy group in the back.
“Everything is going according to plan and—”
“Daff,” her sister interrupted sharply, and Daff’s smile wavered. “Tell me what’s going on. You look so sad.”
“I do?”
“Sissy, you’re crying,” Lia said quietly and handed her a tissue. Daff lifted a hand to her cheek, horrified to find it wet.
“I’m going to ruin the party,” she lamented, and Lia shook her head.
“Nobody noticed, just keep your eyes front and pretend that we’re talking.”
“We are talking,” Daff pointed out, discreetly swiping at her face.
“What happened?”
“This isn’t the time or place.”
“Is it Spencer? Did you guys have a fight?”
“He bought a ring,” Daff said, more tears slipping down her cheek.
“But that’s wonderful, Daff.”
“Of course you would think that, it’s your ultimate goal in life,” Daff said bitterly, then immediately felt like a bitch when Lia looked like she’d been slapped.
“Hey, at least I have goals,” Lia pointed out scathingly, recovering quickly. And it was almost enough to make Daff smile.
Way to go, Lia!
“So . . . you’re not happy about the ring?” Lia clarified, and Daff shook her head.
“Why would he do that? When I specifically told him that I wasn’t into traditional relationships and that I was happy with what we had.”
“Because he loves you and wants more?”
“So he says. But if he loves me, why can’t he accept me as I am? Wouldn’t he be happy to just be in my life?”
“And if you love him, why can’t you accept that he wants what he’s never had? He wants someone to love, someone to make a family with. I think he wants to belong, because he never has before.”
Daff stared at Lia, the words echoing in her mind. She felt like someone had ripped a veil from her eyes and she was only now seeing things clearly.
Of course he wanted a family. She just had to look at his house to see that. Of course he wanted to belong. No matter how awkward he seemed around her family or how he kept himself apart from them, he always looked at them with something close to yearning in his eyes. It was entirely possible that he wasn’t deliberately keeping himself separate, he just didn’t know how to fit in. Or where he fit in.
“I’m very fond of him, but I don’t love him,” she finally protested weakly as the rest of Lia’s words sank in. Her sister rolled her eyes exaggeratedly.
“Please. You look at the guy like he hung the sun,” Lia dismissed.
“That’s just lust,” Daff said, sounding completely unconvincing even to herself.
“I’ve never seen you look happier or more content than you are around Spencer. You adore him.”
Yes, she did. There really was no point in denying that fact.
“I’m not cut out for marriage, Lia.”
“Why not?”
Daff thought about it and shook her head in bewilderment. “Reasons.” And yet she couldn’t think of a single reason right at that moment.
“Do you think he’ll treat you badly?” She didn’t even bother answering that stupid question. Spencer was quite incapable of harming even a fly.
“Do you think he won’t support your decisions?”
Daff thought about his gentle, nonjudgmental encouragement when she’d quit her job and shook her head helplessly.
“Okay. Let me ask you this . . . do you want to be with other men?”
The thought was so repulsive that Daff was quite unable to hide her reaction from Lia.
“Is he boring? A bad conversationalist? I mean, I know he’s quiet, but you guys always seem to have something to talk about.”
“He’s not boring,” Daff defended with a glare. “Look, I just don’t like labels, Lia. Why do we have to give what we have a name?”
“Okay, so you’d be fine with nobody knowing the true nature of your relationship and chicks always hitting on him because you didn’t put a ring on that?”
“That’s such archaic thinking,” Daff protested, while at the same time feeling nauseated at the thought of Spencer with some other woman. A woman who wouldn’t understand him. Who wouldn’t appreciate his occasional lapses into silence. And who definitely wouldn’t know that there were about fifty possible interpretations for one mild “hmm.”
“How long would you expect this tenuous sexual thing without labels to last? A few months? A couple of years? How do you introduce him to people? As your friend with benefits? Your casual lover?”
“I don’t know, okay? I just don’t think marriage is the right fit for me!”
“Why not?”
“Because I—” Don’t deserve it!
I don’t deserve . . . him.
Daff stopped herself before she completed the sentence. Horrified to hear the silent words screaming loudly in her mind. Why would she think that? Why would she feel so inadequate?
She thought about Spencer’s words to her: Never let anyone make you feel like you’re less. Because you’re not. You’re everything.
And Daff finally recognized that she was her own worst enemy. She was the one who thought she was less. Who thought she didn’t deserve good things and happiness. She had allowed complete assholes to grind her self-worth to dust, and once they were out of her life, she’d taken over the job herself. And Spencer, unfailingly kind and loving Spencer, who had made her feel cherished and important, had been the one she’d inadvertently been punishing for everyone else’s sins.
She gulped down a sob, and Lia put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her close.
“You’re okay, Sissy. You’ll be fine.”
Daff nodded and plastered another smile on her face, trying to keep the cheerful façade in place for Daisy’s sake. But she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be fine again.
The hen party was a smashing success, and by the time they hooked up with the guys, everybody was well and truly sauced. Daisy was just loud and drunk enough to be hilarious. She launched herself at Mason when she saw him, for all the world like someone who hadn’t seen her man in months. Mason wasn’t much better; he wouldn’t stop snogging her.
The guys were all wearing “Mason’s Stag Bros” T-shirts, and Mason himself was topless. Someone had crudely painted “Daisy’s Man” on his back and “This belongs to Daisy” on his truly magnificent chest, with an arrow pointing down to his crotch. He had lipstick kisses all over his neck and shoulders, which would have been dodgy if not for the fact that all the guys had lipstick smeared over their mouths and halfway down their chins.
Clearly they’d been up to some crazy shit. Daff knew that Mason had invited their dad along, but she was kind of relieved that the older man had politely declined the invitation. He’d said he’d be fine staying home to play a few rousing games of Scrabble with Charlie and their mother. She didn’t think the party would have been quite as crazy if their father had been present.
Her eyes scanned the crowd until she spotted Spencer’s huge shoulders on the other end of the dance floor. He had a drink in each hand and was about to make his way back to the party when a couple of nearly naked skanks rubbed themselves up against him. One of them ran her hand up his chest, and Daff felt her brows slam together. When the other woman curled her hand around his bicep, she clenched her teeth and heard herself growling.
One of the little slags put her hand on his cheek, and he tilted his head enough for her to go up onto her toes and say something directly into his ear.
“Uh-uh,” Daff snapped, and before she knew it she was halfway across the dance floor, pushing her way through throngs of writhing people. She wasn’t sure what her endgame was—her only objective was to get their hands off Spencer!
“Spencer,” she barked when she reached the threesome, raising her voice so that he could hear her above the music. He was smiling at them. Why was he smiling at them? His head jerked up when he heard her voice, and his eyebrows rose clear to his hairline when he saw her folded arms and her scowl.
“What’s up, Daff?” he asked warily.
“Thought you might need a hand carrying those drinks,” she offered. And he lifted a powerful shoulder nonchalantly.
“I’m fine.”
Daff’s eyes tracked to the two women, one of whom still had a hand on Spencer’s arm. Her eyes lingered on that hand as she entertained dark thoughts of ripping each scarlet acrylic nail off those slender fingers. That would teach her to lay hands on Daff’s man.
Only he wasn’t her man. Was he? Not according to her own rules, and especially not after Spencer had ended things between them. He was a free agent—he could flirt with whomever he wanted, date anybody, sleep with every woman under the sun. Daff had no claim on him. She had revoked that right.
She ran a hand over her throbbing forehead. The tension and stress of the last few days, combined with the music and alcohol, had given her the worst headache.
“You okay?” Spencer shouted, shrugging off the woman’s hand to move closer to Daff. He completely ignored the other women, his attention wholly focused on Daff, and she choked back a sob as she recognized the look in his eyes as concern . . . for her.
His reaction was utterly instinctive, the behavior of a man who wanted to protect someone he cared about. This was the man Spencer was, the man he couldn’t help being, and Daff loved him for it.
She loved him!
She took a moment to process that thought. She examined the emotion from every angle and felt . . . relieved. Not panicked or terrified, but relieved. Because of course she loved him. How had she not seen that sooner? And how could she have tried to curb the very thing about Spencer that made him special? She had attempted to stifle his protective instinct by minimizing their relationship. By lying to herself and him and referring to what they had as a thing. In refusing to give it a name or any importance, she had basically communicated to him that he didn’t have the right to care about her, to worry about her, or to love her.
And Spencer wasn’t wired like that.
And seeing him with these women, Daff finally began to understand that perhaps she wasn’t wired like that, either. She wanted everybody to know that he was off-limits and belonged exclusively to her. Suddenly Daff found herself wanting those strings. She wanted this man so thoroughly bound to her that he would never get away again.
She gaped at him in slack-jawed bewilderment—the epiphany, so long in coming, sent her reeling—and it took a moment to register the alarm on his face or hear his words.
“—going to be sick?” he yelled, the music all but drowning the words.
“Uh, I-I’m fine,” she said, and he gave her another long, searching look.
“Great,” he said dismissively. “I’ve got to get these drinks back. See you later.”
And with that, he walked away. Without so much as a backward glance. Leaving Daff to feel completely abandoned. Despite knowing that this sense of loss she felt was entirely her own doing.
“So you’re Dahlia.” Lia trembled at the sound of the dark, silky voice murmuring directly into her ear. She immediately knew who the voice belonged to, of course—the man hadn’t taken his eyes off her since the stag party had collectively strutted into the nightclub an hour ago. She’d been expecting some kind of contact from him, and sure enough, here he was, standing so close she could smell his delicious aftershave and feel his breath stir her hair.
She shut her eyes, drew in a deep, fortitudinous breath, and turned to face him. Crumbs, he was much too close; if either of them inhaled too deeply, her chest would scrape against his. He was just four or so inches taller than her five foot seven, and—with her heels—their eyes were nearly level. He was smiling, and somehow that display of even white teeth did not make him seem approachable or friendly, but predatory.
It was disconcerting.
“Yes,” she replied. Not really wanting to talk with him. Thankfully the pulsing music and strobe lights made it almost impossible to have a decent conversation. So she gave him a wholly fake smile before dipping her head to take a sip of her drink. She drank too fast and then grimaced when the frozen margarita gave her brain freeze.
“Stick your tongue to the roof of my mouth,” Sam Brand shouted in her ear. Completely appalled by the lewd suggestion, she backed away and glared at him, one hand pressed to her chest. His smile transformed into a roguish grin and he, once again, breached the space between them to yell into her ear. “For the brain freeze. Stick your tongue to the roof of your mouth!”
She watched him in confusion, not sure if she’d imagined the “my” the first time or if he was messing with her. Brain freeze forgotten in her complete confusion, she waved him off.
“I’m fine,” she said, raising her voice to be heard. Then, remembering her manners, “Thank you.”
“It’s loud in here! Want to go someplace quiet to . . . talk?” Well, she certainly hadn’t imagined that suggestive pause and gave him her most quelling look. The one Daff often described as the “cock burn.” It wasn’t a term Lia would ever use, but the look was usually pretty effective.
It had no effect on Sam Brand. He continued to watch her expectantly. She sighed, recognizing that she would have to use her words on this one.
“No. I would not like to go anywhere with you—” Okay, that seemed a little rude, and being rude was completely out of character for Lia, so she added a polite disclaimer. “Right now.”
“Yeah, I get it, your sister’s hen party. I’m cool with that. Want to dance?”
“Uh. No.”
“No problem, we can stand here and yell at each other.”
“I see my, uh . . .” Lia scanned the area, but none of her friends were currently nearby. Daff was on the other side of the dance floor talking to Spencer—it didn’t seem to be going well—and Daisy and Mason were barely visible in their dark corner. They seemed to be having a fine time feeling each other up. Everybody else was scattered all over the place.
“So what do you do?” the gorgeous man next to her bellowed into her ear.
“Mr. Brand, I don’t think—”
“Sam.”
“Right. I have to go to—uh . . .”
“Dahlia—” Ugh, Lia didn’t much care for her name, but asking him to call her by the shortened version would be sending the wrong message, so she left it. “I think you’re incredibly sexy. I never imagined the whole librarian thing ever appealing to me, but fuck me, babe, on you it’s scorching hot. I just wanted to get to know you a little better.”
“Why?” she asked bluntly, and he laughed.
“I like a woman who can get straight to the point,” he said, and she started to fold her arms defensively, forgetting about the margarita and spilling some of the freezing liquid all over the front of her pretty new blouse. The thin material immediately soaked through, beading her nipples and bringing up every lacy little curl on her white B-cup bra in lurid detail beneath the black lights. The corner of his mouth lifted in very sincere appreciation. He plucked the margarita glass from her hand, and she immediately crossed her arms over her soaked and practically naked chest.
“You need to get out of those wet things,” he informed her, a gleam in his eye, and she frowned.
“Well, I think that’s my cue to call it a night,” she said, relieved for an excuse to get away from him.
“You could just ditch the blouse and party in that pretty little thing you’re wearing beneath it. It’s quite modest by some other standards in here.”
Lia went bright red at the thought of parading around in her bra and tucked her hands beneath her armpits in an attempt to cover herself even more.
“Good night,” she said sternly and turned away.
“Whoa, sweetheart, you can’t go out reeking of tequila and unescorted in that see-through shirt. There are a lot of arseholes out there.”
And yet—despite his amiable grin—Lia felt like she was in the company of the biggest a-hole of them all.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, keeping her voice frigid, but his smile never faltered.
“I’ll accompany you back to the hotel. Maybe we can have a nightcap.”
“Mr. Brand, I really don’t think that’s necessary,” she negated primly.
“Sam . . . and maybe I don’t really have a nightcap in mind.”
“I know what you have in mind.”
“Yeah?” His face brightened. “Then we’re on the same page.”
“No. We’re not.”
“Come on, Dahlia, it’s just a bit of fun and fucking.”
She gasped and her eyes widened. No man had ever spoken to her so bluntly before, and it was . . . different. Not appealing, but not entirely repulsive, either. More like intriguing.
“You’re interested, I can see you are,” he said, latching on to her hesitation.
“You’re unbelievably crude, Mr. Brand, and I don’t believe we’ll get along. So why don’t we just part ways here? Before you say something to make me dislike you even more.”
“Aw, come on, sweetheart, you clearly need to loosen up a bit. I can help you with that.”
After the debacle of her failed wedding, everybody had been treating her with kid gloves. She had to admit it was really kind of refreshing to meet someone who didn’t walk on eggshells around her. Someone who didn’t treat her like some fragile little porcelain doll that would break at the first sign of rough handling.
She tilted her head and openly assessed him.
“My wedding was called off at the eleventh hour last year,” she told him, watching closely for his reaction. He did nothing more than raise a cocky brow.
“Yeah? Good to know you’re a free agent, sweetheart. Married women are off-limits. I don’t do messy or complicated.”
“There are plenty of other available women here,” Lia pointed out.
“None of them are you,” he yelled, raising his voice even more when an annoying electronic beat started thumping and the crowd cheered. People swarmed around them, but nobody touched them. It was as if Sam Brand created his own invisible force field and people automatically knew to go around it. He was standing so close to Lia that she was afforded the same protection that invisible shield offered him, and it felt like—despite the throngs of people around them—they were in their own private little oasis.
He was staring fixedly at her, his unnerving and unflinching scrutiny making her feel vulnerable and exposed, but she found herself quite unable to look away. Her eyes dropped to his beautiful mouth and then back up to his magnetic blue eyes.
“How’s that nightcap looking, Dahlia?” he asked, that irrepressibly wicked grin flirting with the corners of his mouth.
“My name’s Lia.”
Two days later, just barely recovered from Friday night’s colossal hangover, Daff sat curled up on her sofa, her hands wrapped around her coffee mug as she took in the collection of personal debris she had been sifting through over the course of the last few weeks in her ongoing quest toward self-improvement.
The jazz albums, Japanese cookbooks, art history books, sketchbook and oil paints, a drum kit, a guitar, a surfboard, a collection of noir film DVDs, most of them unwatched, binoculars from that time she’d taken up bird-watching, her dad’s old golf clubs—she’d have to return them—and so many other gadgets and doodads that she had collected over the years. Obtained, not out of any genuine interest in learning a new hobby or craft, but to impress her current man of the moment.
The pile on the floor was embarrassingly large and served as mute testament to what had gone wrong with all those relationships. None of those guys had shown the slightest interest in getting to know her and, worse, Daff hadn’t showed any of them her true self, either. She hadn’t trusted them enough to reveal her weaknesses and insecurities. Her pathological need to impress them by adopting their interests and hobbies had doomed each and every relationship from the start. It had started with Jake, of course, and despite the way that had turned out, she had continued on the same self-destructive path for years.
She took a sip of her coffee and thought about what she and Spencer had shared. She had gone out of her way to give it no labels. Had done her best to ensure that it meant nothing . . .
And yet it had been her healthiest relationship with a man ever. They had talked, laughed, made love, and talked some more. He’d been genuinely interested in her likes and she in his. Spencer Carlisle was a man any woman would be lucky to have, and he’d wanted her. Not because of some bullshit, fake mutual interest she had cultivated, but because he had seen the real, cranky bitch Daff, with her many, many insecurities, and yet somehow still loved her. He did not want to change her, or improve her, or educate her, he just wanted them to belong to each other.
Why was that so hard for her to accept?
She set aside the mug and got up to pad to her bedroom. She went straight to her closet and retrieved the shoebox she had stowed on the top shelf. She took it back to the living room and sat down on the nearest armchair, holding the box in her lap. She took a deep breath, removed the lid, and smiled fondly at the slips of yellowing notepaper. There were more than she remembered. She lifted the top one and unfolded it. Spencer’s handwriting, bold and masculine even when he was a teenager, was scrawled across the lined paper.
Daff, your eyes
Are like stars in the skies
And for all your smiles
I would walk a thousand miles
She raised a hand to her mouth and stifled a half laugh and half sob. His poetry was kind of atrocious, but it must have taken phenomenal courage for the shy, reticent boy Spencer had been to write and then present this to the more popular Daff. She refolded the page along the well-worn crease and picked up another.
She unfolded and recognized it with a sad pang. The last note he’d ever sent her. She’d never shown it to anyone. Even though she’d cruelly taunted him by sharing his sweet little love rhymes with Shar Bridges and her ilk, this letter had felt too personal, and she’d experienced an instinctive need to protect his privacy along with his dignity.
Daff,
I know my letters and poems have embarrassed you, and I’m so sorry I put you through that. I wanted you to know that I like you and I didn’t know how else to show you. I love coming to school every day and seeing your beautiful smile. I wish you would have shared one with me . . . just once. It would have meant the world to me.
I won’t bother you again.
Yours,
Spencer
Daff wiped a tear from her cheek as she reread the letter. He had been about seventeen at the time, and her fifteen-year-old self—the selfish, vain girl she had been—hadn’t truly understood what she had meant to the quiet boy who rarely spoke with anyone other than his brother. Even after becoming something of a sensation on the rugby team in his senior year, he had still remained quiet and removed from his peers.
Daff read each slip of paper, bittersweet tears sliding down her cheeks as she thought of the boy he had been, of the man he was. She was a fool for letting him go. She knew it.
She regretted it.
But she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to fix it.
“I don’t know why I can’t have a TV in my room, all the other kids at school do,” Charlie whined, and Spencer hid a grin at the unfamiliar high pitch in her voice. She was starting to behave like a typical young girl, concerned about the way she looked, her hair, what the other kids at her school had. She had started attending the local high school just three weeks ago and seemed to be settling in nicely. She even had a couple of friends.
She would be moving in with Spencer next week, and her room was nearly complete. She’d surprised him by going pink and girly. Somehow he’d expected something darker, more Goth. But now that she didn’t have to hide her femininity, she was embracing it. It was odd to see her in skirts and dresses. With her short hair and skinny frame, they didn’t quite suit her, but she was starting to gain weight and looking healthier by the day. Spencer loved that she felt safe enough to behave and look like a girl again. And—while frustrating—he enjoyed her displays of temper and adolescent sulks, which meant that she felt secure enough in her position here not to tiptoe around on her absolute best behavior.
“You don’t need a television when we have a perfectly good one in the living room,” he said, addressing her latest grievance.
“Yeah, but I probably won’t want to watch the same crap you watch.”
“Hey, watch the language,” he warned her, and she rolled her eyes.
“Crap is so not a swear word.”
“Yeah, well, I say it is.”
“Oh my God. Your rules are so arbitrary. Why do you have to be such an old man sometimes?” He merely raised a brow to that, and she huffed dramatically.
They were at Spencer’s place having some lunch after an “epic” shopping trip, for some “absolute, must-have” last-minute finishing touches to Charlie’s room. Spencer didn’t see what was so essential about a pod chair, or a weird pink fur rug, or whoever the hell that sulky teen boy in the ridiculously expensive framed poster was, but he’d had a blast getting the items for her. And the tasks took his mind off Daff—and the huge gaping hole she had left in his life and his heart.
God, he missed her. He felt so lost and lonely without her. Being with her on her terms didn’t seem so bad compared to the constant, dull ache he now carried with him. With Daff he’d felt a sense of belonging, and not having her in his life made him question whether the traditional bonds he sought were as important as he’d once believed they were.
“So are you and Daff not, like, together anymore?” Charlie’s subdued question completely threw him, and he blinked at her dumbly.
“I—uh . . . well, we weren’t really together,” he explained awkwardly, and she took a sip from her soda before daintily picking up a french fry and biting it in half.
“You seemed like you were.”
“It wasn’t serious.”
Charlie dragged the other half of her french fry through some mustard, drawing patterns on the plate, and shrugged.
“You guys looked at each other the way Daisy and Mason do, and they’re getting married. And you look sad lately.” The last bit was mumbled self-consciously, and her eyes dropped to her plate. She was clearly uncomfortable making such a personal observation about him, while Spencer was more than a little shaken up that his overwhelming grief had been so evident to this young girl who barely knew him.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I am. I miss her. A lot.”
He blinked rapidly, horrified when his vision blurred.
“Uh, so how do you like your dress for the wedding?” He changed the subject and left the table abruptly, ostensibly to get a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He took a moment to compose himself while his back was to her.
“It’s pretty. Daisy says it’s exactly like the other bridesmaid dresses, only theirs are knee-length and mine is long. I’ve always wanted a long dress. And I’ve never been a bridesmaid before.”
Shortly after Charlie had moved in with the McGregors, Daisy had insisted that her new sister be included in the bridal party. Charlie had initially played it cool, but it was clear to see that she was very excited about it. Spencer didn’t know how complicated these things were, but evidently it had taken some doing getting a dress organized for Charlie on such short notice. But somehow, apparently against all odds, they had managed to pull it off. Spencer turned to face the smiling teen and felt his own mouth quirk in response to her sheer happiness. He really didn’t care about the particulars—what mattered was the end result. And—if Charlie’s bright and excited face was anything to go by—the result was pretty damned great.
He was so damned grateful for Charlie. So happy to have the opportunity to provide a stable home for her. He had no real idea how to raise a girl, but he knew where she came from and he would make damned sure that nothing in her life from here on out was anything like she had experienced in the past.
“I’m glad you’re here, Charlie,” he said, that gruffness creeping back into his voice, and this time Charlie was the one blinking rapidly.
“I guess I am, too,” she finally admitted, then added with that usual air of teenage insouciance, “I mean, you’re not that bad for a boring old fart. And you are letting me have a dog.”
It was an ambush, plain and simple. Daff knew Shar Bridges would be at the only salon in Riversend for her bimonthly dye job and caught her as she exited the salon.
“Why the hell did you tell all of my boyfriends that I was into BDSM?” Daff launched at the other woman without preamble. Firing on all cylinders was the only way to get results with Shar, and Daff knew that stating her suspicion as fact would get the most honest reaction from the other woman.
“Daff. I hear you’ve been spending time with that mouth breather Spencer Carlisle. Slumming, are we?”
Daff inhaled deeply. Oh man, the bitch was courting a slap, and it would be Daff’s greatest pleasure to lay one on her.
Don’t lose focus, Daff! Keep it together.
“Answer the question, Shar.”
“Why should I?” Shar asked laconically, showing her disinterest in Daff and anything she might have to say by keeping her focus on her phone and lazily scrolling through her texts and e-mails.
“Oh, I don’t know . . .” Daff mused. “Maybe because of Ryan Casey? Or Dirk Pieterse? And let’s not forget Bryan Pienaar.”
Shar’s head shot up, and she went paler with each name Daff itemized.
“You wouldn’t!” Shar gasped, and Daff’s lips quirked.
“I so would. And those are just the names off the top of my head. If I really put my mind to it, I’m sure I could come up with many more. Now you tell me what I want to know, or your husband and I are going to have a very interesting conversation.” Shar was married to an extremely wealthy man, old enough to be her father. She loved the lifestyle that went hand in hand with being his wife but cheated on him quite indiscriminately. The older man cheated on her, too, but they both enjoyed pretending nothing was amiss with their marriage.
“I remember you once telling us that Frank’s an old-fashioned man . . . cheating’s all well and good as long as you’re discreet about it, right? He won’t like learning that half of the town knows that you’re sleeping around on him.”
“You and your fucking sisters,” Shar hissed suddenly. “With your perfect parents and your perfect lives and your perfect bond. You were always so perfectly fucking insufferable.”
“Why did you tell those lies about me?” Daff pressed, ignoring the bitter diatribe.
“It wasn’t a lie, though, was it? You stayed with Jake for three years, and he was heavily into that shit.”
“Wait, you didn’t tell Jake I was into bondage?”
“No. You saw Jake and decided you wanted him. And perfect Daffodil McGregor always got exactly what she wanted. Jake and I were . . . I liked him.” Daff blinked in surprise.
“But you introduced us,” she reminded her, a little blindsided by the revelation that Shar had liked Jake.
“Because he took one look at you and forgot all about me, didn’t he? He demanded an introduction, and that was it. Daff got the guy. Of course, I knew about his little bondage games—I quite enjoyed them.”
“You and Jake were sleeping together when I met him? Why didn’t you say something?” Why was she only hearing this now?
“Right. Like I’d let you know that you managed to steal the guy I wanted. How smug that would have made you.”
“You were my friend. I would have backed off,” Daff said incredulously. How had Shar developed such a skewed view of Daff and her sisters? Her unfounded jealousy had made her irrationally competitive.
“Whatever.” Shar shrugged, flipping her artificially blonde locks nonchalantly. “It’s ancient history now. The fact is you stayed with Jake for three years, so you must have been into the BDSM stuff. After you broke up, I thought it would freak out a few of your potential boyfriends if they knew about your particular kinks, but they never seemed particularly fussed by it. So no harm, no foul.”
Daff stared at the other woman for a long moment and then smiled. She was relieved to now know why men had behaved the way they had with her. And simultaneously surprised by how little it actually mattered to her now that she did know. She wasn’t even angry with Shar. Just sad for her. She had allowed petty jealousy and vanity to ruin her perception of the women she had called her friends. She was a sad, pathetic, desperately vain woman who deserved pity more than hatred.
But right at this moment, Daff felt neither emotion toward her. She felt curiously apathetic and keen to get away from the woman and the messed-up past she represented.
“Jake Kincaid?” Daff said, leaning toward Shar confidentially as she spoke. “You could have had him. All you had to do was tell me you liked him. Because that’s what friends do. But you wouldn’t know that, would you? Because you’ve never been a true friend to anyone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go slumming with my man. You know the one? Big, gorgeous, sexy Spencer Carlisle.”
With that, Daff turned away from Shar and the past. More than ready to fight for the man and the future she deserved.
Monday seemed endless. The expansion that Spencer had been so excited about just last month now couldn’t ignite a flicker of interest in him, and he passed just about every nonessential task to Claude.
The day dragged on, and all he could do was stare at Nelly. Mason was out fishing with his buddy Sam and kept sending selfies of them posing with huge fish. Apparently the fishing at the river mouth—Kleinbekkie—was “epic as fuck” today. Spencer seriously considered ditching work to join them, but in the end he couldn’t even summon up enough interest to play hooky.
After eight hours of doing absolutely nothing, he left the store right at the stroke of 5:00 p.m. and went straight home for an evening of much the same. He was contemplating dinner and his lack of appetite when he saw her. Just sitting on his porch swing and watching the car come up the drive.
She didn’t move when he got out and watched him somberly as he climbed the three steps up to his large porch. There were three midsize cardboard boxes at her feet and he kept his attention on those, because it hurt less than looking at her.
“What are you doing here, Daff?” he asked her feet.
“These are for you,” she said, getting up. The movement automatically drew his scrutiny to her face, and he locked eyes with her and found himself quite unable to look away. Was it his imagination, or was she as miserable as he was?
“What are they?”
“This”—she gestured to the boxes as a whole—“is not who I am.”
What the fuck was that supposed to mean?