A Week Till the Wedding. Linda Winstead Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ dragging Daisy into the family mess—but what would happen if Miss Eunice’s fantasy didn’t fade? Did he really expect that she would go through with a fake wedding ceremony at his family reunion? No, something had to break before that happened. This charade couldn’t go any further.

      Much as she wanted to get Jacob out of her heart once and for all, Daisy knew very well that pretending to be his wife would shatter that heart beyond saving.

      The morning was an easy one, until her eleven o’clock cut and color started talking about Jacob. She supposed it was inevitable that everyone would find out he was back, but you’d think people would have better manners! Not Amanda Williams, who had never met a silent moment she liked.

      She started while Daisy was applying color to her hair.

      “I hear Jacob Tasker is in town.”

      Daisy made a noncommittal humming noise that sounded affirmative enough to her.

      “I also heard that he was in your shop yesterday. Did he need a haircut or did he just stop by to chat? I’m sure none of the Taskers handles their own engine repair—they have people for that sort of thing. And really, why on earth would he want someone from Bell Grove to cut his hair?” She laughed, not realizing that she’d just insulted Daisy—Daisy, who had scissors and a variety of interesting hair dyes within reach. “Oh, you two were such a cute couple, back in the old days.” She barely took a breath, much less leave spaces in the conversation for Daisy to actually respond. Which was just as well, in Daisy’s opinion.

      “Everyone always knew Jacob would light out of town as soon as he got the chance. He was always so smart, so driven to succeed. I didn’t think he’d go without you, though.”

      Well, he did. Daisy wondered if it was too late to add some purple to the color she was putting on Amanda’s honey-blond hair. Maybe a Mohawk …

      “I hear he looks good. Is he married, do you know? Still working for that same company that hired him right out of college? I haven’t heard much about him for a couple of years, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

      He looks damn good, I don’t know for certain if he’s married or not but I don’t think so and last time I checked he was still working for that soulless money-hungry company that stole him out from under me. “I need you to sit under the dryer, now,” Daisy said.

      Sadly the noise of the dryer didn’t shut Amanda up. She raised her voice and continued, thankfully moving on to the other Taskers. Sure, a beauty shop was a great place to gossip, but Amanda’s rambling made Daisy wonder what the residents of Bell Grove had been saying about her lately. All gossip concerning Daisy Bell probably began with “That poor girl, bless her heart …”

      She didn’t want to be a poor girl, didn’t want people to bless her heart behind her back. What the hell had she done to herself? Mari and Lily didn’t need her anymore. Well, they needed her as a sister and she’d always be there for them, but her years as guardian were behind her. She loved Bell Grove, loved her job and her friends, but she no longer had her sisters as a barrier keeping her from pursuing romance. Maybe there wasn’t exactly a glut of handsome, available, appealing men in town, but not every man in the county was an ogre or a jerk. Why was she alone after all this time?

      Jacob’s return was making her question everything! Just what she didn’t need: a man to screw with her head.

      But she did need a man in her life. That was becoming clear. She wanted to be kissed, wanted to have sex outside of a dream, wanted to marry and have kids and make a life for herself. Maybe that would happen here in Bell Grove, and maybe it would have to happen somewhere else. She should make more trips to Atlanta, broaden her horizons.

      But it wouldn’t happen at all until she ended things with Jacob once and for all and allowed herself to start over.

      Jacob left his grandmother’s room with a frown on his face. Great. Just great! Her memory issues were pretty damn selective. And inconvenient. She had told Lurlene to prepare chicken and dumplings for supper, and she’d already started talking about how much she was looking forward to Daisy’s lemon cake.

      Daisy couldn’t cook. She was good at a lot of things, but cooking wasn’t one of them. Maybe he could drive to Atlanta and buy a lemon cake. Not that a store-bought cake, even a spectacular one, would fool Grandma Eunice even on her worst day.

      It had been seven years since he’d been with Daisy, and in that time she’d raised her sisters, taken over the family business, basically grown up. Maybe she’d learned how to cook. Maybe she did know how to make that lemon cake. He called the shop, and she answered with a sharp,

      “Bell’s.”

      “It’s me,” he said.

      “Me? I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific, sir.” Her voice was sweeter, now, a little lower and calmer, but with an edge he couldn’t dismiss. “Would you like to make an appointment for a haircut? I do have an opening this afternoon.”

      “Dammit, Daisy, it’s Jacob.”

      “Oh, so sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry at all. “I didn’t recognize your voice. You sounded a little bit like Old Man Johnson, but I was afraid to assume …”

      “We need a lemon cake,” he snapped, without arguing that he sounded nothing like Old Man Johnson, who was ninety-seven years old and had the deepest Southern drawl of any man for miles.

      The moment of silence told him Daisy was as bothered as he was. “She didn’t forget?”

      “No. You’re expected for supper, and you’re expected to bring a lemon cake. She’s been talking about it all morning.”

      “I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes,” she said. “I have a customer.” She disconnected without a goodbye, and for a few seconds Jacob stood there with the phone in his hand, staring at it as if somehow Daisy was still there, harassing him. Driving him crazy.

      Making him pay.

      He hadn’t purposely left her behind, it had just happened. Like that made a difference. He’d planned to send for her, to send for them all, but the one time he’d mentioned moving, Daisy had been horrified. She wouldn’t uproot her sisters, she’d said, wouldn’t drag them away from their friends and the only home they’d ever known. He’d planned to come home for Christmas that year, to convince her face-to-face to return to California with him.

      But he hadn’t made Christmas that year. There had been a business emergency—in hindsight so unimportant that right now he could not remember what it had been—and he’d canceled his travel plans.

      And that had been that, though there had been a few awkward phone conversations in the early months of the new year. Not many and nothing had been said that could break through the distance between them, distance both physical and emotional. He and Daisy had no longer wanted the same things. They’d drifted apart. His life was there, her life was here. Simple. She’d faded in his memory, as he was certain he’d faded in hers. Life went on.

      Dammit, that hadn’t been entirely his fault. She’d played a part, as well. Maybe he hadn’t fought for her the way he should have, but she hadn’t exactly fought for him, either.

      When Daisy called back he was still holding the cordless phone in his hand, ready for her. Her words were sharp. “Grab СКАЧАТЬ