He’d heard voices—Lee and his future in-laws, Marshall and Denise, as they rushed outside to greet her.
He’d stepped over to the window. Daisy was climbing out of the car. Shafts of afternoon sun struck her blond hair and glinted on earrings and a gold bangle on a bare, lightly tanned wrist. She was wearing jeans, a white top and some kind of pointless but beautiful, vibrantly colorful summery scarf that got mixed up in her huge, warm hug with Lee.
She didn’t even seem to see Lee’s newly scarred skin, she was just so busy hugging her and exclaiming, wiping happy tears from her eyes, laughing. She hugged her parents, said something about the beautiful June day and the sun on the water.
“You’re later than we expected,” Denise Cherry said.
“My fault,” Daisy answered. “I want to bake for you tonight, so we stopped for ingredients.”
“You don’t have to bake for us! Not when you’re only just home!”
“I want to. Please! I really do!” She was already diving into the trunk of the car and bringing out shopping bags. “I’m going to do a raspberry dacquoise that’s so luscious we’ll have to row right around the lake to burn off the calories. And a peach tart, because French tarts are just so gorgeous to look at.”
“I don’t know where you get the energy, honey!”
Tucker didn’t know, either. All he knew was that it glowed from every pore of her skin and he was captivated by it. Lee was pretty energetic, too. She liked to hike and ski and climb and run, and he loved that about her—that she was active and fit, and not some girlie girl who wouldn’t set foot outdoors for fear of ruining a pedicure.
But Daisy’s energy was different, electric and beautiful, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
He felt as if he was spying, a voyeur, betraying Lee, betraying the whole Cherry family, betraying himself, and even his mother, who adored Lee. And he kept right on doing it, watching the outline and movement of Daisy’s body as she carried the shopping bags. She paused to take another look around her at the beloved, familiar sights of home, and let out a big sigh of contentment that he felt in his own body.
It couldn’t be happening.
Even if it was happening, it couldn’t mean anything, or be important in any way. It was just some stupid symptom of his prewedding nerves. He seriously didn’t believe in this kind of thing. He seriously didn’t want to believe in it, after Dad. And if it seemed to be happening anyway, then it was just a meaningless illusion. It wasn’t real.
And yet... He felt it again a little later, when they formally met, the moment they shook hands. The aura of creative energy and star-kissed good fortune that radiated from her like an inner light, the optimism and curiosity and zest for life. Her hair, her eyes, her bow of a mouth, the way she undraped that stupid, beautiful scarf, unconsciously running her hand over the silk as if its color gave off heat and her fingers were cold.
Wow.
Just wow.
There were three Cherry sisters in his life. He liked the eldest one a lot, even though she could be prickly at times and he couldn’t stand Alex, her boyfriend. He loved the middle one like a comrade-in-arms and he was going to marry her. He was. Everyone wanted it.
Sister number three was a revelation he hadn’t expected or wanted or—
Hadn’t wanted.
Really, really didn’t want.
He wanted to marry Lee.
He wanted to want to marry Lee.
“Should we get out of here?” she asked him suddenly, and he realized he was still staring into space, roughly in the direction of the kitchen door, even though it was a good forty-five seconds since Daisy had disappeared through it.
“Out of here?” he echoed stupidly.
“Away,” Lee said. “Right after dinner. Go to a bar, or something. Even better, skip dinner and go to a bar right now.”
“You know we can’t do that.” As a future Cherry son-in-law...as the first future Cherry son-in-law...he was well aware of family requirements five days before the wedding, and his sense of duty about it was strong. “Not even after dinner.”
“Is it wrong that I want to?” There was a huge amount of appeal in Lee’s voice, and he didn’t know how to answer her.
“We’re both on edge.” He touched her neck. It was a caress he’d used countless times before the accident and he wasn’t out of the habit of it yet, even though he knew she didn’t like it anymore. The burn scarring there and on her jaw and shoulder was fading now, but it was still too fresh for comfort and would never fully disappear, and they were both self-conscious about it, second-guessing their own motivations.
Was he only touching her neck to prove that he didn’t mind touching it? Did she only dislike it because she didn’t believe such a caress could possibly be sincere? She hated the scarring way more than he did.
Why had he started touching her neck in the first place? He liked her so much, they were such great friends, they had things in common, but that slightly crazy party night when friendship had spilled over into something physical...
To be honest, he wondered where they would be now if that night had never happened.
Maybe we would have stayed just friends, and I would have met Daisy instead...
No! Idiot!
When Lee had still been in the hospital after the accident, they’d both said to each other that this was what love was all about, going through the dark times together as well as the good times, and yet...
Something’s not right.
It wasn’t just wedding jitters.
And it wasn’t just Daisy.
Lee felt it, too, he was sure she did.
Almost sure.
But she wasn’t saying anything.
And he couldn’t say it for her because then she’d think...everyone would think...that he was doing it because of the accident, when really he thought the accident had done him a favor, reaffirming his bone-deep understanding of how serious marriage was, forcing a realization that they weren’t together for the right reasons. They cared about each other, but not in the right way.
I have to say it. If she won’t, I have to.
But what if he was wrong? What if this was just a temporary blip in the beat of his untrustworthy heart? What if the Reid and Cherry families were right to be so happy about the wedding? And what if Lee was devastated instead of relieved? Could he do that to her?
He couldn’t say it. Was there any way he could work out what both of them really felt without resorting to the finality of words? Maybe the best marriages were the ones that started out exactly the way he’d started out with Lee—as friends. After seeing what passion and wild impulse had done to his own family, he truly didn’t think that was the way to go.
So
