Yeah, so?
So, I thought I found it all in Jean-Luc. I thought he was exotic and romantic and wonderful.
And was he?
Oh, yeah. I remember the first time he sold a painting for big money-over a hundred thousand. He rented a yacht. With crew. We sailed with some friends, feasted for four days. He bought me a Hermes bag.
I dont know about the bag, but the rest sounds romantic and generous and all.
Yup. Only, by the time we got back home, hed spent every dime. We didnt have money to pay the rent, much less to buy groceries. The car had already been repossessed. Not for the first time. She turned her head. Suddenly youre real quiet. You getting the picture? Because thats just the tip of the iceberg.
Not good.
Not good.
Not good, she echoed dryly. All the trunks that I shipped home were loaded with stuff. Stuff I could sell, but I just wouldnt get much for it. I mean, its not like a Natori bra can be resold. And Ive still got a few drops of LaMer moisturizer-the kind that goes for a thousand an ounce-but I cant sell that. What it all amounts to is that Im wearing good clothes because its what I have, not because Im trying to impress anyone.
But you do care that people think youre successful, Teague said quietly.
She didnt answer that. He already knew she had more pride than brains. Besides, he wanted the whole story-and she wanted to get it over with. I sold plenty through the marriage. I sold yellow diamonds, black pearls from Polynesia. Ive also washed dishes in a bar to pay the rent, and Ive cleaned up messes after parties that you just couldnt imagine. When Jean-Luc had money, he loved sharing it with the whole world. No one ever said he wasnt generous.
He sounds as practical as a tree stump.
Again she had to smile. His fingers were sieving through her hair, creating that light tickle sensation that made her want to curl up close-when she was already as close as a woman could get. Yeah-and what kills me was that I never wanted to be the practical one. I wanted to be the wild, impulsive one. Everyone in White Hills knew I was born to be wild.
You are wild, babe.
She closed her eyes, all too aware that shed completely changed from the woman she once was. The woman shed once wanted to be. And she still had to finish the story for Teague. Jean-Luc was honestly a creative man, a talented artist who deserved all the glory he got. But he needs a harem to take care of him. At least three maids, then someone to work and actually bring in food and rent. And then a bodyguard to keep all comers away wholl ask him for money-because for damn sure hell give it away.
Sounds like hell to live with.
She whispered, He was. And suddenly she found it was easy to get out of bed. She wanted her clothes on. Wanted that reality shed wanted to disappear minutes before. Didnt want to look at Teague anymore at all if she could help it. At least until she had a better handle on control. For some stupid reason, she felt like crying.
You stayed for so long because you loved him?
She wasnt a Vermonter for nothing. Her voice was as brisk as a sturdy wind. Nope. I was wildly in love with him in the beginning, no question about that. But I think love started dying the first day I woke up hungry. I mean, seriously hungry. The thing was, we moved around so much that I couldnt work-day-by-day jobs, sure, but nothing that could have given us some financial stability. We were all over the place. Living with friends one day, renting a cottage or a villa the next-wherever the spirit of painting took him. So
So? he prodded her when she didnt immediately finish her thought.
In the dark, though, it was hard to find every sock and buttonand somehow she didnt want to turn around until she was fully dressed. Sohe gave me the yellow diamond one day-and we had to pawn it the next. That was the turning point for me. I didnt give a hoot about the stone. It was just that I finally realized he wasnt being impulsive and absentminded and a devil-may-care artist. He knew we couldnt afford his grandiose gestures. He knew they were going to turn off the electricity. He just thought he could snow me, like hed snowed me all the other times. He thought Id be swayed into staying by the romance of the extravagant present. He loved me the same way. Hugely one day-and pawning me off the next.
Teague still hadnt moved from the bed. Yet you stayed with him for a long time.
Yeah. Out of idiotic misplaced pride. She lifted her hands in one of the Gallic gestures shed picked up in that ghastly marriage. I was just so ashamed to tell anyone. My family thought I had this jet-setting fabulous life. My sisters thought of me as a role model, the one they could always turn to for advice, to take charge. They were proud of me, for living my life my own way, for making it unconventionally. I knew famous people. I dressed in designer duds. I was traveling, seeing the world. Teague?
What?
I stole a loaf of bread one day. She pushed a hand through her hair. I was hungry. But I wasnt that hungry. And I can still remember thinking, how ashamed my mom and dad would have been if theyd known.
Well, hell. Lets get a rope and hang you right now. For a man whod been so somnolently still, he suddenly bounded out of bed in one swift move and crossed the room stark naked. Suddenly he was an inch from her, his knuckles lifting her chin. Before she could breathe, his mouth came down on hers, soft, warm, firm. I think you can probably let that guilt go, he murmured.
Youre making light of it. And maybe it was just a loaf of bread. But I wasnt raised to take anything from anyone. I still dont understand what made me do it.
You think you might have felt just a little bit desperate at how you were living? Not knowing where the next dime-or franc-was coming from? That sometimes scared people do scared things?
Thats not an excuse. But she searched his eyes in the dark room, still felt the warmth of his kiss, of his body, of all theyd shared naked moments before. I dont know why Im telling you all this. He didnt answer, just stood there, his finger idly tracing her jawline. I think Im just trying to explainwhy I kept it all from my family. From the people who knew me growing up.
You wanted them to think you lived a romantic, exciting life.
It sounds pretty shallow when you put it that way. I just meanI hate coming home with my tail between my legs. I hate people thinking Im a failure. Thinking that I was always a wild, irresponsible screw-up and the life I got was payback.
He stood at the front window long after shed left-taking his sacred Golf GTi-and he heard her moving to third gear before shed reached the end of the road and the first stop sign.
His head was buzzing. Hed never dreamed, from the image she put on, that her ex had been such a selfish self-centered bastard. It changed things.
All this time hed believed her about not wanting to stay in White Hills. Now he wasnt so sure. She had plenty of pluck. Shed coped with a blizzard, coped broke, coped with a selfish liability like Jean-Luc for years. When it came down to it, she seemed to be inspired by adversity, not afraid of it. Shed pushed up her sleeves and become a cook. Made that horrible attic room into something artistic and personal and fun.
He got it. That she wanted people to think she wasnt practical and responsible. She wanted people to think she was exotic and fun and romantic and wild. He didnt understand it, but he did understand that the key to Daisy was her pride.
She said she was proud, but as far as Teague could tell, it was her pride that had taken a battering over the last years. In her own way, on her own terms, she needed to feel that fierce sense of pride again. Not fake pride. Not lying-to-everyone pride. But the kind of pride that made her feel good about herself inside.
She wanted to feel wild. She didnt want to be ordinary. The more Teague repeated those concepts in his mind, the more a plan slowly started brewing. Possibly a goofy plan-but then any plan was better than desperation. Teague understood that Daisy intended to be gone as fast as she saved a down payment on a car and enough savings to take off. And that meant, if he had any way to influence her feelings, he had to move damn fast.
Because he was afraid hed fallen. Hard and fast. He already knew the odds were against both of them-but a man didnt feel this power of love very often, if ever, in a lifetime. He wasnt throwing away a treasure if there was any chance he could woo Daisy into seeing herself as unique and wonderful and loving as he saw her.
Nine
Daisy had never spent much time thinking about Valentines Day, yet for the last week, she couldnt get it off her mind. She wanted to give Teague a present. She didnt have much money, but the present she wanted to give him wasnt an issue of cost. She just had to prowl the market for exactly the right item, and Valentines Day was coming up in another week so it would give her an excuse to give it to him.
This morning she was standing in the café kitchen with a hot mug of coffee in one hand and a wooden spoon in another, when panic hit.
It was so natural, thinking of Teague as her lover. Thinking of giving her lover a gift. Thinking of the kind of gift that really, really mattered to him-even if he didnt know it yet.
The feeling of panic lunged at her like a surprise nightmare. Holy cow. When had it happened? How could she have done such a damn fool thing as fall completely in love with him?
The oven buzzed, forcing her attention back to practical priorities. It was still ink-black outside, sleet coming down on a day doomed to be gray, as she swiftly took a cake from the oven and then hustled to the counter, where she was tossing together a blend of dried lavender buds, orange zest, and some beautiful baby white onions. Because she was working this afternoon with Teague, shed come in the café before dawn, hoping to get a bunch of cooking and baking done.
She spun around and reached in the refrigerator for a weighty package of ground round, when her mind did it to her again. Whispered that love word.
Her heart started mainlining more panic. Okay, okay. Making love with Teague had been stupendous. More than stupendous. Maybe she found it crazily easy to be honest with him, to share things with him she told no one else. Maybe she loved working with him, pushing him, being with him.