wherever she went,” Cosette said. “Robert’s got ventures all around the world. Last I heard, he’d bought up something in Shanghai.” She frowned. “Or maybe it was Bangkok.”
John tipped his hat back. “It’s all my fault, anyway. If she wants peace and quiet, she should get all she wants.”
“Your fault?” Dennis asked.
“Yeah. I pushed her.” He sighed. “Sam’s mad as the dickens at me, too. He said I was being a louse, and that he was doing his very best to get me moving.”
“To be fair, Daisy never gave you a whole lot of encouragement until lately.”
“I wish I could use that as an excuse, but I can’t.” Since she’d seduced him in Montana—or had he seduced her?—it had all happened so fast and seemed so beneficially organic.
“It’s funny how we used to call her the Diva of Destruction.” Sheriff Dennis laughed. “That seems a long time ago now.”
Daisy was still a diva to him—the Diva of Delights. They couldn’t understand how mad he was about her, had been from the moment he’d laid eyes on her zooming around on her motorcycle.
“Patience has never been a virtue of mine.”
They laughed. “Nor ours,” Cosette said.
“In the meantime,” Jane said, “you can be our fall guy. Just until Daisy gets back. She will come back one day, you know.”
“Fall guy?” He perked up. This sounded distinctly dangerous. One didn’t sign up to be a fall guy in Bridesmaids Creek willy-nilly. This crew could think up some wingdingers.
Jane nodded. “We need you to find out whose baby Daisy is having. We must be prepared.”
The blood left John’s head. “Whose baby?” He couldn’t bear thinking about it. “I thought they were just making up that tale.”
The ladies looked at him, concerned. “Daisy’s really expecting,” Jane said.
He sat dumbfounded, shell-shocked.
After a moment, Jane sighed and went on. “Well, it’s clear Daisy thinks she’s going to do this all on her own. She’s just that kind of independent woman. Goodness knows she doesn’t need a man for financial reasons.” Jane shook her head. “If that’s not your baby—”
“I’m afraid not.” His ears were ringing, to go with the light-headedness assailing him. He couldn’t bear to think of Daisy even kissing another man, much less having a baby! “Do you have anything stronger than tea, Jane?”
The three gentle folk looked at him with grave concern.
“I keep some whiskey in the back for after hours,” Jane whispered. “On occasion, our close-knit group likes to sit in one of the circular booths and enjoy a small tipple.”
“I could use a small tipple.” John couldn’t imagine Daisy being held in another man’s arms. Oh, Sam had tried to make him jealous, but no one was jealous of Handsome Sam.
But he hadn’t thought through the fact that Daisy might be with child by another man.
“We’re wondering if Branch Winters did more than reroute Daisy’s brain,” Dennis said, and cold and hot swamped John in nauseating waves. “Something happened up there, something big.”
“He changed her,” Cosette said. “We’re wondering if perhaps Daisy might have fallen for—”
“I can’t,” John said. He leaned back in the booth, and when Jane put the “tipple” in front of him in a sweetly painted tea cup to disguise its contents from the other patrons, John knocked it back without hesitation.
“Easy there, sailor,” Dennis said. “It’ll be closing time soon. I’ll take you to my place and we’ll cauterize your brain for a bit. Or maybe Phillipe’s place for some yoga. I’m really getting into that yoga crap Phillipe’s got going on, Cosette. Do you do it?”
“I do, and I’m getting so flexible! Who would have ever thought my husband would become a yogi of sorts?” Cosette looked pleased, and John noticed that she didn’t refer to Phillipe as her ex-husband. Maybe matters were looking up for them. He sure hoped so.
“I’ll pass on the yoga.” After their divorce, Phillipe had moved into a small house, and outfitted it with hanging beads and floor cushions for the yoga practice he’d started. It looked like a regular hangout for hippies, which had caught them all off guard because Phillipe and Cosette were anything but the hippie type.
Cosette picked up the delicate floral teapot and poured some more amber liquid into his cup. “You look like you could use another smidge of whiskey.”
“And all this time I thought you sat in this booth and drank tea.” John shook his head.
“We do!” Jane glanced at her friends. “But on occasion, like right now, something with a little oomph is required. Now, if you’re feeling fortified, let’s get back to the topic at hand, which is Daisy.”
He froze up again. “I can’t be the fall guy. I can’t even think about it.” He swallowed hard. “Anyway, isn’t it her business who the father of her child might be?”
“Maybe,” Dennis said, “unless the father lives in Montana or something.”
Crap. He could see where they were going with this. Daisy Donovan might just have allowed herself, in a moment of heartbreak and confusion, to be seduced. The cold chills he’d suffered a moment ago came back with a vengeance, despite the whiskey he’d quaffed out of the eggshell-thin teacup.
She might not ever return to Bridesmaids Creek.
“I suppose you’re absolutely certain, one hundred percent sure that the baby couldn’t possibly be yours...not that we’re trying to pry?” Jane asked gently.
He read between those lines. “Oh, you’re dying to pry, but I know you mean well.” He took a long, deep breath. “I suppose the way things work in BC, I can’t entirely count out the remote, infinitesimal poss—”
“I knew it!” Cosette clapped her hands.
Jane beamed. She made another pour out of the teapot for the entire table, making sure John’s went clean to the rim of his cup. “This calls for a celebration!”
“Now wait,” John said. “I was going to say that Daisy’s baby being mine would be something on the order of a miraculous—”
They all looked at him, their faces gleaming as his words drifted away. Each of them looked so pleased he couldn’t bear to let them down.
“You have to understand, you’d be better off looking for another bachelor,” John said. “I’m not your man.”
“He may be right,” Jane said thoughtfully. “I don’t know that I’m feeling it.”
Dennis wore the same suddenly thoughtful look. “And then there’s the matter of Sam. I still can’t figure out how he got into this.”
John
