CHAPTER TWO
“I’ve never been so grateful for a half day.” Daff sighed while she was locking up the shop. Saturday was Daff’s favorite day of the week—she closed the shop at one, with an entire day and a half of rest stretching seemingly endlessly ahead of her—and Lia had popped around for the last half hour to gossip about the previous night’s festivities.
She’d had a grand total of two customers that day and had been bored out of her mind for the most part. Lia showing up had been a godsend and had kept her from ruminating over her ride home with Spencer Carlisle. The dark interior of the car had created a disturbingly intimate setting, and she’d found herself revealing way too much about herself to Spencer—literally the last person to whom she wanted to expose her vulnerabilities.
“Grab some lunch?” Lia asked as Daff tugged down the security shutters, and Daff nodded.
“Yeah, I’m starving.” MJ’s was a minute down the road and they both picked up the pace, knowing that the place would be packed at lunchtime on a Saturday.
“Ugh, looks like the whole town came out today,” Lia observed as they stepped into the noisy interior of the restaurant. At first glimpse it seemed filled to capacity, and Daff knew they’d probably have to wait for a table to free up.
“It’s the weather,” Daff said. It was a rare sunny late-winter day. The whole town would start blooming over the next couple of weeks with the advent of spring, and before too long the tourists would start flocking back, turning their sleepy town into a tourism mecca. Business would pick up and Daff would hopefully get over her debilitating bout of boredom. She couldn’t remember it ever being this bad before.
“Hey, guys, join us?” Daisy called from halfway across the room. She, Mason, and Spencer were seated at one of the larger tables in the middle of the floor. Daff stifled a groan at the thought of having to keep company with Spencer again, but Lia was already making her way toward them, so Daff sighed before following reluctantly.
Spencer was sitting opposite Mason and Daisy, an empty chair on either side of him. He looked like he was about to slide over to the chair on the end, but of course, Lia—ever accommodating—sat down on his left before he could move. Daff fought back a glower and sat down gracelessly on his right. Immediately aware of the big, hulking presence beside her, she bit the bullet and offered him a perfectly insipid smile of greeting.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he returned with an equally bland smile.
“So I guess you closed up shop before I did?” Spencer’s sporting goods store—by far the biggest and most popular business in town—was across the road and just a few doors away from the boutique. It was always busy, even in the middle of winter, since people drove from miles around to shop there. She could see the store whenever she looked out the window. Something she had fought against doing today, especially since part of her knew she would only be looking outside in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Spencer.
“I delegate,” he informed her succinctly. “No need to be there for the close of business.”
“Nice to be the boss, I guess.”
“I trust my people to get the job done.” He shrugged. He was wearing his usual uniform, a gray sweat suit with the logo of his store—SC Sporting Solutions—discreetly embroidered in red on the breast of the jacket. He wore the clothes with the ease of an athlete. He looked magnificent as he leaned back, one arm hooked around the back of his chair, massive thighs spread and broad chest pushed out like the dominant male he was.
“How did you get home last night, Daff? Your car was still at the farm when we left,” Daisy asked suddenly, and Daff cast Spencer a circumspect look before replying.
“I was blocked in. Spencer was on his way home and offered me a ride.” His eyebrows, those straight, dark masculine slashes above deep-set emerald eyes, rose almost to his hairline, but he didn’t negate her story.
“Why’d you leave without saying goodbye, Spence?” Mason asked, and this time she watched him carefully for his response. He looked uncomfortable; his mouth—beautiful and bow shaped with just enough fullness in the lower lip to make it highly kissable—tightened for a second, emphasizing the deep, craggy grooves in his lean, tan cheeks.
“You were busy,” he muttered. Spencer always muttered or growled or grunted. It fostered the perception that he was a big, dumb jock, but Daff was beginning to doubt her long-held belief about him. A few of their more recent interactions were making her really question everything she thought she knew about him. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Don’t be silly,” Daisy dismissed. “We’re never too busy for you.”
“Hold up,” Mason said, tugging at one of Daisy’s curls. “There will be many, many occasions when we’ll be far too busy for him.”
Daisy blushed before elbowing Mason in the ribs.
“You know what I mean, Spencer,” she said, ignoring Mason’s chuckle.
“Thanks, honey,” he said with a grin, and the grooves in his cheeks turned into full-on dimples. The smile had a weird effect on Daff, and she touched a quick hand to her chest, not sure what to make of the suddenly off-kilter beat of her heart.
Their beleaguered waitress eventually made her way to the table and everybody paused for a moment to place their orders, nobody bothering to check the menu they all knew by heart.
“Thanks, Thandiwe.” Daisy smiled at the young waitress, who also happened to be an intern at the veterinary practice where Daisy partnered with their father.
“So while you’re all here, Daisy and I have some news,” Mason said, toying with Daisy’s fingers. Daff’s eyes flew to her youngest sister’s face, and she was alarmed to note that Daisy looked . . . subdued. “After the wedding, we’ll be moving to Grahamstown while I complete my studies.”
Mason would be studying architecture, they all knew that, but until he just spoke the words aloud, Daff hadn’t thought any of them had considered that the only way he could do so would be for him to leave Riversend.
“We picked it because it’s closer than Cape Town, so we can still make the drive back to Riversend on some weekends and for the holidays.”
“What about the practice?” Lia asked Daisy, her voice shaking slightly.
“We considered me staying here and Mason commuting back every weekend, but in the end decided that we didn’t want to be apart for such long stretches at a time. I’ve spoken to Daddy about it, and he says he’ll hire someone to help out and when Mason and I return I’ll take over the practice.”
“That sucks,” Daff said, more devastated by the news than she allowed them to see. She leveled an accusatory glare on Mason. “You just had to take her away from us, didn’t you, asshole?”
“I’ll bring her back,” he said with a somber smile. “This is our home. We want to raise our kids here.”
“The five years will fly by, and we’ll visit so often it’ll be like we’ve never left,” Daisy added.
“Five years?” The dismay was evident in Lia’s voice, and her eyes shone with tears. She lowered her head quickly to hide them, but everybody had already seen them. Not that Daff blamed her—she felt like howling, too. She sneaked a peek at Spencer, but his face was downcast and unreadable. Only the slight tightening of his lips betrayed how he might be feeling, but other than that he was a closed book.
“When will you move?” Daff asked.
“Probably late January, so we’ll have time enough to get settled and find a place before the semester starts.”
“That’s less than five months away,” Lia stated unnecessarily. “And you haven’t even set a date for the wedding yet.”
“We thought the first Saturday in November,” Mason said, and Lia gasped.
“Does our mom know? I can’t imagine she’s too thrilled about that!”
“She’s not. But because it’s a backyard wedding, I’m not anticipating too much work,” Mason said, and all three women shot him identical incredulous looks, which he returned with a blank, confused stare.
“What? What did I say?” Mason asked, and Spencer chuckled softly. The unfamiliar sound startled Daff into looking at him. His handsome, rugged face was alight with laughter as he grinned at his brother.
“I’m thinking they don’t agree with you.”
“But it won’t be a huge production like Lia’s wedding was,” he retorted. “No fancy hotels and gift bags and froufrou crap like that. I imagine it’ll be more like a braai or something . . . won’t it?” The last two words sounded uncertain when Daisy shot him a lethal glare.
“Mason, our wedding isn’t going to be some common braai, where people show up in shorts and drink beers with their barbecued steaks!”
“I mean, I know we’ll put a fancier spin on it, but . . .”
“No! We’re hiring caterers for the three- to four-course dinner. There will be proper tableware and silverware, no paper plates, no paper napkins, and no plastic forks.” Daisy’s face was going an unbecoming shade of red and Daff, her earlier sadness shelved for the moment, sat back and enjoyed her youngest sister’s rare display of temper.
“I’m sorry, angel. Of course it will be beautiful and romantic and everything you want it to be,” Mason asserted hastily, and Daff snorted. The guy was thoroughly whipped and it was glorious to see. Daisy’s bottom lip quivered ever so slightly and Mason swore beneath his breath before dropping an arm around her shoulders and dragging her close to whisper in her ear. He followed up whatever he said with a kiss to her neck, and a reluctant smile softened her lips.
The show of intimacy made Daff uncomfortable and she shifted her eyes, only to meet Spencer’s hooded green gaze. He looked grim, and again she wondered how he felt about the news that Daisy and Mason would be leaving soon.
She wasn’t sure how to break eye contact and was grateful when their food arrived to distract everyone. The rest of the conversation centered around wedding plans, and Mason wisely kept his mouth shut this time and offered input only when asked.
“I’ll take you to the farm to pick up your car, Daff,” Lia offered between bites of her lasagna, and Daff smiled gratefully. She hadn’t exactly been relishing the thought of walking back to the farm in the cold. Spencer barely said a word as the meal continued, which was kind of unnerving when one considered how he had once seized every opportunity to talk to her in the past. His bumbling conversational attempts hadn’t been very sophisticated or remotely successful, but Daff was honest enough to admit to herself that she hadn’t made it very easy on him. Depending on her mood, she would half-heartedly encourage him or completely ignore him. It had taken him long enough to get fed up with her mixed signals, and part of her mourned the loss of his earnest attempts at conversation. Another—much smaller—part of her was happy he no longer seemed interested in her.
She considered his strong, masculine profile again while he spoke with his brother, and she sighed. Yes, only the very smallest part of her was happy about the loss of his attention.
He turned his head unexpectedly and nailed her again with his penetrating stare. Her throat went horribly dry at the latent heat she saw in that burning regard. Why had she never noticed that before? Never seen all that intensity beneath the formidable brow and the flop of shaggy hair? It made her knees feel so shaky she was happy to be sitting down.
She broke eye contact and focused on her salad. She tensed when she felt him lean toward her. He smelled absolutely wonderful, and she bit back a moan as her awareness of him seemed to heighten even further.
“You should eat real food. Meat, potatoes, corn. I don’t know what that is, but it wouldn’t even satisfy a rabbit.” Startled by his observation, Daff’s envious eyes fell to his sirloin steak and baked potato. A man-size meal for a formidably sized man.
“Spoken like a guy who’s never had to worry about the size of his ass.”
“Hmm,” he rumbled. “I do, however, worry about the size of yours. You continue to eat like this and the nice handful you have there will fade to nothing.”
Her jaw dropped—that was so much more brazen than she was used to from him, and judging by the way his eyes shuttered, he immediately regretted his words.
His body moved subtly so that he was practically leaning away from her, physically putting as much distance between them as he could without alerting anyone else around the table.
“That was uncalled for,” he said, his voice pitched low. “I’m sorry.”
“Uh . . .” Daff wasn’t sure how exactly to respond to his initial observation and subsequent apology and knew she should simply let it go. Accept the apology and pretend it had never happened.
“I’m on a diet,” she confessed and then wondered at the admission as well as the complete lack of artifice in her voice. The prospect of dieting made her miserable, and her voice conveyed that very sentiment.
“That’s bullshit,” he growled, his own voice surprisingly angry. “You’re perfect the way you are. What is it with women and this quest for imagined perfection when there’s nothing wrong with you in the first place?”
His voice rose, and the rest of the table fell silent.
“What’s going on?” Daisy asked warily, and Spencer gestured toward Daff.
“Your sister’s on a diet.” Daff cringed when every eye turned to her, all expressions conveying various degrees of disbelief.
“You are? Why?” Daisy asked, her eyes wide in surprise. “You’ve never dieted before.” Daff knew Daisy often lamented the fact that neither Lia nor Daff ever found it necessary to diet, while she constantly battled with her weight.
“I just . . .” Daff shrugged uncomfortably. “I think it’s best to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It’s a lot harder to keep the weight off after thirty—best not to let it creep up on me.”
“Let what creep up on you?” Lia asked blankly. “You still fit into your high school uniform. Your weight has remained constant since your late teens.”
“Does this have anything to do with the stuff the aunties were saying last night?” Daisy asked, and Daff laughed.
“They’ve had a lot to say over the years and I haven’t let it bother me yet,” she dismissed and refused to meet their skeptical eyes, digging into her horrible Caesar salad without dressing—eww—with pretend relish.
“But you were eating those canapés last night,” Lia reminded her, her sweet face screwed up in confusion.
“I started the diet this morning,” Daff informed her around a mouthful of lettuce. “Look, can we stop talking about this? I’m not the first woman in the world to eat a salad, for God’s sake.”
“But . . .” Daisy began, but her voice trailed off when Mason’s hand dropped over hers and gave it a quelling squeeze, obvious to everyone at the table. Daisy bit her lip and focused her frown on her glass of wine instead.
Happy that the subject had been dropped, Daff crunched another mouthful of crisp, bland, water-flavored lettuce and tried her best to look like she was enjoying it.
“So last night’s party was—”
“Wait, that’s it? No well-meaning intervention for your clearly delusional sister?” Spencer’s incredulous voice spoke over Lia’s, and Daff bit her lip before leveling a glare at him.
“Back off, Carlisle, this is none of your business,” she gritted, and he met her glare unflinchingly.
“You’re hating every bite of that salad,” he stated, so much arrogant masculine certainty in his voice.
“Still none of your business,” she reminded him, and he shook his head, looking genuinely pissed off. She had no idea why he was so offended by her salad. His reaction seemed unnecessarily extreme. She speared a slice of cucumber with her fork, bloodthirstily wishing it was his thickly muscled thigh. Like she needed his stupid opinion. Like she didn’t have enough people telling her what she should be, how she should look, talk, act, and feel. She didn’t need another voice to add into the crazy mix.
Daisy eyed Spencer and Daff apprehensively.
“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” she asked bluntly, and both Daff and Spencer blinked at her in confusion until she elaborated. “The best man/maid of honor thing? I won’t have to be refereeing you guys at every turn, will I? Because that would be exhausting.”
“They’re both adults, Daisy,” Mason said with an affable smile, while his cold eyes promised instant retribution to the next person who upset his fiancée. Whoa. It was the first glimpse Daff had had of lethal Special Ops Mason, and she gulped a bit. “I’m sure they’ll be able to work through their differences.” The silent or else tacked on to the end of that sentence was clear as a bell.
“No problem here,” Spencer said with an easy shrug, his unfathomable scrutiny raking over Daff with frigid indifference. And she struggled to achieve a similar expression on her face.
“Yeah, none whatsoever.” Daff hoped her smile looked sincere, even though it felt unnatural. She ducked her head and went back to her salad, signaling an end to the discussion. The rest went back to discussing the previous night’s party, while both Spencer and Daff remained silent.
Daff continued to poke at her salad, not even pretending to eat it now, and when she caught Spencer’s critical gaze on her again, she exhaled sharply and, heartily fed up with his judgmental crap, excused herself before escaping to the bathroom.
It was a unisex bathroom, nothing fancy, just a single room with four stalls. And it was blessedly empty now that the lunchtime crowd was thinning. She rinsed her face with cool water and swore softly when she reached for the paper towel dispenser, only to find it empty.
“Typical,” she muttered beneath her breath before slamming into one of the cubicles and dragging some toilet paper off the roll. It was the horribly cheap, soft paper that broke when you so much as folded it. She crumpled a handful and dabbed her face with it, cringing when she felt bits sticking to her damp skin.
The door opened, letting in the noise from the restaurant, and light footsteps came all the way to her cubicle. Daff looked up, a resigned sigh escaping when she saw Lia leaning against the cubicle door, arms folded over her chest.
“So, seriously, what’s up with you and Spencer?” Lia asked without preamble, and Daff sucked in an irritated breath.
“Absolutely nothing. You know Spencer and I have been amicable enemies for years now.”
“I know no such thing.” Daff was so focused on her sister that she only dimly registered the noise level increasing when the restroom door opened again. “You never seemed to actively dislike the guy, and he definitely didn’t dislike you. Whatever is going on now seems different.”
“It’s not. I’m just not used to seeing so much of him. He’s better in small doses, right?”
“Spencer’s a nice guy.”
“He’s okay. Just not very interesting. I mean, the guy is good-looking, if you go for the big, hulking types, but that’s about it. He has the personality of a mushroom. Bland, boring, insipid. And yes, I know those words all mean the same thing, but, I mean, can you say boring? How can so much hotness house so much blahness?” Daff felt nasty saying the words, but it was better than letting on how she really felt. Or how uncomfortable she felt around him lately and how much she wished she had cultivated a different relationship with him. One that didn’t make her always seem like a rampant bitch. She hadn’t been kind or fair to Spencer Carlisle, she knew that, and the childish interactions of her youth had somehow bled into her adult relationship with him. Well, if it could be called a relationship.
She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she barely noticed Lia’s gasp and horrified step back. It was only when Lia swore—something the younger woman never, ever did—that she tuned back in to the present and to the unpleasant reality that Spencer Carlisle was standing behind Lia. He was glaring down at Daff with an expression on his face that was shocked, pissed off, and hurt all at the same time. It was the latter—quickly disguised—that hit her right in the gut, and she lifted a shaking hand to her mouth as she tried to formulate the apology that he deserved.
She didn’t get so much as a squeak out before his lips compressed and he swiveled on his heel to leave the restroom.
“Shit,” Daff whispered, and Lia was staring at her with eyes so huge they practically swallowed her face.
“How could you say all those terrible things about him?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“Look there’s no need for you to get all uptight about it, okay? I’ll apologize to him and fix it. He’s a guy, he’s probably shrugged it off already. Water off a duck’s back and all that.”
Lia didn’t look very convinced, and, truthfully, Daff felt like a complete jerk, but for God’s sake, why the hell did he feel the need to eavesdrop on them in the first place? Didn’t he know that eavesdroppers never heard good things about themselves? Okay, so maybe he’d been coming to use the bathroom, but couldn’t he have waited until they had returned to the table? He knew it was a unisex bathroom; it was super awkward—and a little creepy—to come in while she and Lia were using it.
She scrubbed her hands over her face and winced when she felt damp bits of toilet paper rolling beneath her palms. She wiped her cheeks on her shoulders, hoping she got most of the paper off, and gestured for Lia to follow her.
When they rejoined the table, everything seemed normal. Spencer and Mason both got to their feet and held out Lia’s and Daff’s chairs. It was something she had found corny about them in high school. They had always done cringey stuff like that. Held doors, helped girls into their coats . . . smarmy, nerdy stuff that seemed to come straight out of old movies. Like they had learned their manners and mannerisms from old-school, long-dead actors in musicals. Recently, watching Mason’s interactions with Daisy, Daff had started to find it charming and sweet. And with the insight that she had lacked as a teenager, she wondered if indeed the brothers hadn’t learned their old-world chivalry from movies. They’d certainly had no other role models around to teach them.
Once they were all seated again, she lifted her eyes to Spencer’s face, but his expression was carefully neutral and he kept his eyes averted. He didn’t seem particularly disturbed by anything she had said earlier, and she wondered if maybe she had imagined the hurt she’d seen in his eyes.
Lia was completely unsettled and upset and kept trying to do things for Spencer. When he reached for a napkin, she grabbed it before he could and handed it to him; if he wanted salt, she passed it to him before he could fully formulate the question. She still looked on the verge of tears, and when she took the saltshaker from him before he could place it on the table, he smiled and took her shaking hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss.
He leaned over and whispered something into her ear, and whatever he said seemed to release Lia’s tension. She practically melted and favored him with a lovely smile, which he returned warmly.
He released her hand before glancing around the table and then levering his bulk out of the chair with more grace than such a big man should ever possess.
“I’m off. Got plans.” Concise. The man didn’t believe in wasting words.
“Yeah? Do I know her?” Mason grinned and Spencer slanted him an unfathomable look.
“I’ll talk with you tomorrow. This should cover my bill,” he said without inflection, dropping some money on the table before nodding at the rest of the group in general. He left without any further comment.
“Okay, what’s up with him?” Daisy asked Mason as soon as Spencer was out of earshot. Mason was staring at his brother’s retreating back with a slight frown on his face.
“Not sure. He’s been a bit distant recently.”
“How do you think he took the news about us moving?” Daisy asked, and Mason shook his head.
“Not good.”
“How can you tell? The man’s expression barely changed,” Daff said, and Mason looked at her with speculatively raised brows.
“Watching closely, were you?”
“I’m just observant,” Daff muttered defensively, and Mason snorted.
“Not observant enough. His body language immediately changed. He shut himself in. He does that when he’s trying to shield his emotions—he battens down the hatches, so to speak. I think he feels . . . left out. Lonely, maybe.”
He looked disturbed by the notion, and Daisy leaned in to him and lifted a hand to his cheek.
“We’ll talk to him. Make sure he knows he’s important and welcome and included.” Mason lifted his hand to cover hers and turned his head to plant a kiss in her palm. Daff peered over at Lia and found her sister staring at Daisy and Mason with a kind of wistful envy on her face. Daff sighed; Lia really needed to get over this whole marriage and happily ever after thing. It helped to lower one’s expectations. Daisy was lucky and the exception. That kind of lightning-bolt, romantic shit didn’t happen every day.
“Lia, you ready to go?” Her question startled Lia out of her dreamy funk, and she stared at Daff blankly.
“What?”
“I need to get home,” Daff said. “Got some housecleaning to do.”
“Ah, your semiannual cleaning spree?” Daisy teased her. Daff was the slob of the three sisters and the victim of many hours of ribbing because of it.
“You’re going to need a shovel and a wheelbarrow,” Lia said. “Should I ask Daddy to drop them off for you?”
Mason was laughing his ass off by now, and Daff glared at the three of them.
“Why don’t you just hire someone to do your cleaning?” Mason asked between chuckles.
“I can do my own cleaning,” Daff grated, a little fed up with this by now.
“No, you can’t,” Daisy said, shaking her head. “Mason is right; you should get some help. It’s really nice to see the floor and be able to find your shoes—”
“Or your feet, for that matter,” Lia interrupted her.
“Jesus, it’s not that bad,” Daff growled, embarrassed. “You make me sound like one of those hoarders.”
“If the shoe fits,” Daisy said.
“She wouldn’t know if it fits, she can’t find it beneath the rubble,” Lia retorted, and the other three screamed with laughter.
“Oh, for God’s sake. Lia, are you taking me to my car or should I walk?”
Lia wiped her eyes, her shoulders still heaving with her silent chuckles.
“Yes, okay. Get your panties out of that twist.”
“This is what happens when she doesn’t eat. She gets mean and feral,” Daisy observed, and Daff glared at her.
“Watch it, Deedee,” she warned. “I know where you keep your girl porn.”
Mason sat up, immediately on high alert.
“Her what?” he asked eagerly.
“Nothing. Ignore her, hunger has made her delusional,” Daisy said, and Daff smirked, knowing that her sister’s fiancé would keep hounding Daisy until he found out exactly what Daff had meant by that comment. It wasn’t exactly porn, just a small stash of erotica that Daisy had been meaning to give away for years. She was too embarrassed to donate the books to the local library or clinic, because everybody would know it was from her. Daff had once suggested Daisy make anonymous donations, and her sister had confessed that she still had the childish habit of writing “this book belongs to Daisy McGregor” on the inside cover of every book she bought. Now Daisy’s eyes promised painful retribution as Mason immediately leaned toward her and started badgering her.
“What girl porn, Daisy? C’mon, I know you’re keeping something from me.”
“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Daisy maintained, not meeting his eyes.
“Aw, angel, why you gotta be like this? If you have girlie porn, maybe we could have a read through together, see if there’s anything interesting to try.” Daisy’s chest hitched and her breathing increased as she lifted her eyes to meet his. The expression in them was shockingly sultry.
“You’re not exactly lacking in imagination,” Daisy said, a husky note entering her voice.
“Okay.” Daff surged to her feet and added a couple of bills to the money Spencer had left in the middle of the table. “I’m out of here. Coming, Lia?”
“Oh my God, yes, please.” Lia was on her feet in seconds, tossing her own money onto the growing pile, while Daff threw a disgusted look at the couple who barely seemed aware of their surroundings anymore.
“Ugh, sometimes you guys are a bit much,” Daff complained, and Lia made a strangled sound of agreement. They left the overly affectionate couple who acknowledged their departure with half-hearted waves before going back to their intimate whispering.
“Thanks, Lia,” Daff said after Lia parked beside her tiny hatchback VW at the farmhouse.
“You coming in to say hi?” her sister asked, unbuckling her seat belt.
“Nah, I just want to get home,” Daff responded, reaching for the door handle. Truth be told, she needed to figure out what she was going to do about the Spencer thing. Until she apologized to him, she wouldn’t feel right. She had said some truly awful and unfair things and now felt like the bitch everybody already thought she was.
“What did he say to you?” Daff asked, pausing with her fingers wrapped around the handle, and Lia frowned in confusion.
“What?”
“Spencer,” Daff clarified. “You were all eaten up with guilt about our conversation earlier until he whispered something in your ear. So what did he say?”
“Oh.” Lia hesitated, as if contemplating whether to divulge the information. “He said words don’t hurt, only actions do, and then he said that my actions have only ever shown me to be a kind and caring person.”
“He really said that?”
“Yes? Why? Surprised that a bland, insipid, boring guy like Spencer Carlisle would have insightful gems like that to offer?” Ouch! Turned out words did hurt, especially when they were thorny zingers laid on you by the sweetest person on earth.
“He’s full of shit,” Daff dismissed, and Lia surprised her by nodding.
“He is. Because words do hurt. You said terrible things and they hurt him, but he was sweet enough, kind enough to let me know that he didn’t hold me accountable for your words. So I will do him the courtesy of pretending that he meant what he said. In order to preserve his dignity and pride.”
Daff chewed on her lower lip, feeling justifiably put in her place.
“He wasn’t meant to hear what I said.”
“And yet he did.”
“Yes.”
Lia sighed. “Let me know if you need help with the cleanup.”
Somehow Daff didn’t think she meant the cleanup of the house, and that made her feel small and petty. Despite clearly being pissed off with her, Lia was still offering her moral support. Something Daff definitely didn’t deserve.
“I feel like crap, okay?” she admitted, and Lia leaned over to give her a one-armed hug.
“I know.”
Daff sighed heavily. “I’ll sort it out.”
“I know.”
Damn it. Her sister’s unwavering faith killed Daff. That was a hell of a lot to live up to.