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Daisy didn’t fit. Daisy was an illusion.
She was oblivious, and it was better that way.
“You’re right,” he told Lee. “After dinner. After we’ve put in as much time as anyone could expect. We do need to get out of here and get a couple of hours to ourselves.”
“Or I’m going to explode.”
“Me, too.”
“We need to talk, and—”
“Yes, work things out. Think. Out loud. To each other.” The words didn’t come easily. Frustrated by the difficulty of coherent speech, he grabbed her shoulders and squeezed her and felt the breath come out of her as if she’d been holding it for too long. She squeezed him back.
“Yes. Yes. We really do,” she said, and blinked back what could have been tears.
Shoot, he was giddy with relief!
Giddy, and thirsty, he realized. He’d been out of doors from six until two at the garden center, where he worked three days a week on top of his hours at the hotel. He’d repotted grafted plants, unloaded new stock and supplies, planned his own future landscaping business inside his head while his body lifted and carried and stacked and sorted. He’d grabbed a burger and a sugar-filled soda for lunch, but hadn’t had a real, thirst-quenching drink since before noon.
Thinking only of a long glass of clear, icy mountain water, he made for the kitchen, and there was Daisy stirring a pot that bubbled with sweet, fragrant syrup. He could smell it the moment he walked in.
And the moment he walked in, he was far too aware of her—of how pretty and exotic she seemed, so freshly arrived from France, with that indefinable nuance of Frenchness about her. She looked a little steamy at the hot stove, with pink in her cheeks and several tendrils of fine, golden-blond hair curling around her face in the humid warmth. She brushed one back behind her ear then looked up and caught sight of him.
They looked at each other.
He froze inside and looked away before either of them could even blink.
This was not important. This was not what was making him jittery about his future with Lee. The jitters had been building for weeks, when Daisy was just a name and a vague reference.
He’d seen her in family pictures as a cute toddler and then a gangly-limbed teen, and right up until their meeting ten minutes ago he’d still been thinking of her as a kid, as Lee’s kid sister.
Someone he might tease a little about boyfriends.
Someone with a boyfriend—a local guy she’d known since high school who’d been texting and calling and emailing her faithfully the whole year she was in France.
She didn’t have a boyfriend, he’d learned.
Not that this was important, either way.
But still, they’d looked at each other for that tiny moment before he’d flinched his gaze away.
“Thirsty,” he said, to explain his presence.
“Beer or soda?” she offered, smiling. “There’s both in the refrigerator.”
“Actually, water...”
“Bottled or tap?”
“Tap is fine. I’ll help myself.”
“Thanks. I can’t leave this glaze right now, or very bad things will happen to it.”
“No problem.” He ran the faucet, and cold mountain water gushed into his glass. And then he took it outside to drink it, because he didn’t trust himself to stay anywhere near her.
Chapter Three
Present Day
Out in the yard, Daisy saw Tucker in worn jeans and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up his arms the same way—although it was not the same shirt—as they’d been in the photo on the wall inside.
He was shifting a large paving stone into place in an open-air alcove that formed one of Reid Landscaping’s displays. There were five of these alcoves, each designed to show what could be achieved with barbecue areas, ponds and fountains, raised garden beds and a dozen other features.
He straightened, stepped back to judge his work and was apparently satisfied. He paused for a moment to stretch his shoulders and check his phone, then turned to begin striding across the large yard, sliding the phone into his back pocket as he caught sight of her. She waved at him and came forward to meet him before he got too close to the building. She really didn’t want to end up back inside, with the possibility of their conversation being overheard.
Just in case Mary Jane was right about the kind of person he was—the nasty kind, like Mary Jane’s ex. After her long experience with Alex Stewart, maybe Mary Jane was a really good judge of scumbag men. Maybe there really was a good reason, even after all this time, not to contract Tucker’s company to relandscape the Spruce Bay grounds, and it was all bound up in Lee’s accident and Tucker’s response.
Daisy wondered again about the second reason, the one Mary Jane hadn’t spoken.
The one that had put a stubborn, shuttered look onto her face, as if the second reason was something she wouldn’t confess even under torture.
Tucker saw her and stopped to wait until she reached him, watching her with a steadiness that unnerved her, given how uncomfortable she was already feeling. Those memories of his unreadable presence ten years ago were fresher and more vivid than they should have been.
She hadn’t been too impressed with strong and silent back then, but she’d learned to appreciate it in the years since, and the Tucker Reid of today was even more impressive in the flesh than he’d been in the photos on the main office wall, hard and solid and strong, with the kind of maleness that only belongs to a man who works hard with his body in the open air.
Daisy knew she would be incredibly disappointed if she couldn’t manage to like him, if he was exactly what Mary Jane claimed him to be, or worse.
Superficial. Unkind. A womanizer. All of the above.
“Daisy,” he said when she was close enough. He gave her a brief smile, but it didn’t last. She started to hold out her hand, but he turned his palm up and showed the dirt and they both gave an awkward shrug and dropped the idea. “It’s been a while.”
“It has.”
“Jackie says you’d rather talk out here?”
“Oh, she—?”
“Sent a text about ten seconds ago. Weird how we do things now, isn’t it?” Most people would probably have smiled with that line, but he didn’t.
“Weird...” Daisy echoed. “Convenient.”
“Want to sit here?” he offered. “It’s a sun trap. Beautiful today. Better than inside.”
“That’s what I thought.” He wasn’t giving her much, she decided. Short phrases, an offhand observation about phones. Their exchange seemed familiar, a flashback to their brief acquaintance in the past.
She settled herself a little stiffly on the wide wooden bench seat he’d indicated. In a sheltered, sunny position it was warm to the touch even in October, and the splash of an ornamental fountain nearby brought a sense of natural tranquility that contrasted uncomfortably with the rather less peaceful feelings inside her.
Who were we back then, all of us? Mary Jane, and Lee, and Tucker, and me? What’s Mary Jane not telling me? Why am I feeling so tense about this, now that I’m here?
“What can I do for you today?” Tucker asked, sitting down beside her. He kept to his own body space, their hips a good two feet apart, with a safe stretch of smooth, sunny bench in between. Did they really need that?
“You mean because I’m actually supposed to be meeting you tomorrow at the resort?”
He shrugged and smiled. The smile was too tight. “I guess that’s what I’m asking.”
Suddenly, she realized that she didn’t know how to handle this. It had seemed easy on her way here, but maybe it wasn’t going to be.
Face-to-face, with Tucker understandably expecting her to take the initiative since this meeting was her idea, she felt her poise evaporate like spilled water on hot pavement. She couldn’t exactly accuse him of breaking up with her sister for nasty reasons ten years ago, and then ask him if he was still the same kind of man.
And yet she had to say something, or he wouldn’t know why she was here.
With no other option, in the end she just said it the best she could. “Mary Jane thinks it’s inappropriate for Spruce Bay Resort to hire Reid Landscaping for the work on our grounds because you were once engaged to our sister.”
“Ah,” he said.
Which gave her just about as much as he’d given her ten years ago—one handshake, a few words and a couple of looks that disappeared too fast.
She waited for more.
After a moment, it came, but it wasn’t much help. “And what do you think?” He shifted a little on the bench. Farther away, not closer. Still, the movement made her more aware of him, of just how strong and solid he was, of just how well those jeans fit his muscled legs. He was intimidating.
“I—I didn’t think it should be a problem. Which was why I set up the appointment without consulting her first.”
“You didn’t think it should be a problem. But now you do?” He’d narrowed his eyes against the bright light, but the glint of blue was still strong. She was very glad not to know exactly what he might be thinking.
“No, I—” she began, then stopped and started again. “Well, I just thought we should explore the idea. Mary Jane is pretty sensible...” She gathered herself and sat up straighter, determined to take a little more control of the conversation. “Seriously, though, on this occasion I think she’s wrong. I’ve also talked to Lee on the phone, and she says she’s fine about it. But still, I thought we should get it out in the open. You were engaged to Lee, and then the wedding got canceled. I want Reid Landscaping because I know you’re the best in the area, and I don’t see that having a personal connection so long ago is going to be an issue. I want to be able to reassure Mary Jane that you and I have talked about it and dealt with any concerns.”
He was silent for a moment, and she wondered if this meant he thought the same way as Mary Jane. Then he took a deep breath. “Tell me how Lee is,” he finally said. “She’s still in Colorado? Is she married? Kids?” He took another breath. “Is she happy?”
This was easy, thank goodness. “She’s still in Colorado. Yes, she’s really happy. I don’t think marriage and kids figure on her agenda.”
“No?” He slid her a sideways glance.
“That’s what she says. I’ve visited her there a couple times. From what I can see, she has everything set up just the way she wants, and she’s not pining for change.”
“That’s good,” he answered. “That’s really great.”
“Well, we all think so, yes.”
“Meaning it’s none of my business because I took myself out of her life at the wrong time?”
“That’s Mary Jane, not me,” she said quickly.
“Mary Jane thinks it was my fault, you mean, that the wedding got called off?”
“Apparently.”
“Mary Jane needs to find something better to do with her time than making judgments about something that happened so long ago,” Tucker growled, and it was so close to what Daisy had just been thinking that she almost groaned out loud.
“It won’t be a problem,” she said quickly. “She’s going to Africa tomorrow.”
“Africa?”
“She loves to travel. She’ll be gone for three weeks. I mean, I’m not sure how booked up your schedule is...”
“Pretty booked up.”
“Right.”
“I’ll see what I can squeeze in. You mean, if we could have the design and budget and timetable all locked in by the time she gets back, she’d realize everything had been worked out with no difficulties?”
“I’d been wondering if you might even have started on the actual work by then.”
Ah. No.
“Not possible, I’m afraid.” The look he gave her clearly said, Reid Landscaping is way more in demand than you realize, and she was embarrassed at being caught out in such a mistaken assumption. It seemed arrogant on her part, entitled, and she was quite horrified about how well he could get his meaning across without words.
She backpedaled politely, aware that this improvised meeting had not achieved very much. She’d been too impulsive in coming here, hadn’t thought it through. “In that case, if we’re lucky enough to have an estimate and plans by then, that would be great.”
“So I can leave you with Jackie, then?” He didn’t try to hide that he needed to end this meeting. In fact, he was so cool about it that she wondered if he wanted Spruce Bay’s business at all.
She stood, and said even more politely than before, “Of course, since you’re busy.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, then let out a sigh between his teeth. “I’m sorry, that sounded rude.”
“You are busy.”
“Jackie’s been with us since we started. She knows more than I do about prices and delivery times, and she has a great eye. I have an appointment I need to get to. Shouldn’t have sounded so impatient about it. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
He smiled, and she felt a rush of relief that the intimidating distance seemed to have shrunk to a much more manageable level. “You can have a browse around here,” he offered. He made a gesture of casual ownership that hinted at his sense of success. “Take a look through our gallery of past projects and gather some ideas, get Jackie to show you the brochures from our suppliers.”
“Sounds good. Please go to your appointment and leave me to it, and we’ll meet as planned at Spruce Bay tomorrow.”
“Looking forward to it.”
But he wasn’t. She could see it in the guarded expression that had appeared again on his face, and she didn’t know why it was there.
Ten years earlier
“We have to pick up the tuxes from the hire place,” Lee said to Tucker in their usual corner of their usual bar, “finalize the seating arrangements and write out the place cards, work out the checks we’re going to need to give to people on the day and write those out. We should probably call the hotel to confirm our reservations—”
“Lee,” Tucker cut in quietly. “Is this really why you wanted to get away and talk? To go through our to-do list for the millionth time? We can talk about this stuff anywhere.”
She got that frightened, doubtful look on her face. “But we weren’t talking just now, were we? We weren’t saying anything. I was...filling the silence.”
“There’s allowed to be silence, isn’t there?”
