A Week Till the Wedding Read online

  “Can that big company you work for survive without you for that long?” she snapped.

  He’d been getting up early and staying up late to take care of business via cell phone and computer while he was here, but that detail wasn’t relevant. Might as well just get to the heart of the matter. “Grandma Eunice isn’t well.”

  Daisy’s face paled a little. She couldn’t have known. The Taskers and the Bells weren’t exactly the Hatfields and the McCoys, but they didn’t run in the same circles, either.

  “I’m sorry to hear Miss Eunice is not well,” Daisy said, her voice cool but not without genuine sympathy.

  “Physically she doesn’t seem to be in bad shape, though she’s not getting around the way she used to. She’s been in a wheelchair for a while. But her mind...” Might as well spit it out. “Daisy, she thinks we’re engaged and she’s been asking about you.”

  Daisy had never had much of a poker face. Her blue eyes widened, her mouth puckered slightly. Maybe she even paled, a bit. Her pretty mouth opened and closed a couple of times before she asked, “Is it Alzheimer’s?”

  “The doctor says no.”

  “Then what...”

  “She doesn’t forget everything, she’s functions very well and remembers what she had for breakfast, but there are certain times when her memory just seems to malfunction. She has a terrible time remembering Ben’s wife, but most specifically, her memory malfunctions where I’m concerned.”

  Daisy looked as confused as he’d been feeling for the past few days. “You’ll just have to tell her the truth,” she said.

  If only it were that simple. “I did. I told her we broke up a long time ago, that we were never engaged. She got upset, I went to the kitchen to make her some hot tea, and when I got back she was completely calm. Smiling, serene, looking out her bedroom window. I thought she was fine, that she’d accepted the truth, but...” The matter still concerned him. “She’d forgotten. In just a few minutes’ time, she completely forgot what I’d told her about us.” He bit the bullet and dropped the bombshell. “She’s planning our wedding.”

  Daisy reached out to steady herself by grabbing the edge of the counter. Jacob considered stepping forward to take her arm, but he quickly thought better of it.

  “What do you expect me to do?” she asked, her voice rising sharply. “I can’t...we can’t...this is not my problem!”

  “I don’t expect you to marry me to keep my grandmother happy,” Jacob said sharply. “But if you would play along for a while, come to the family reunion if she keeps this up, maybe hang out at the house when you can. She might wake up one morning and have forgotten all about this fantasy of hers, but at the very least once I’m gone she’ll let it go.” Out of sight, out of mind. “She’s promised to see a new doctor, but not until after the reunion.”

  “Play. Along.” Ah, there was the difference in Daisy, that’s how she’d changed. Her eyes were harder, more cynical. They’d never looked at him like this before.

  “It would make an old woman very happy. She adores you.”

  “Give me a break. You aren’t doing this for her. No, you want me to get you off the hook so you won’t have to try again to tell her that we’re not getting married. Heaven forbid that Jacob Tasker should have to do anything that he finds unpleasant. Heaven forbid that anything that’s not in your precious plans...” She stopped, choking on her words.

  Jacob took a deep breath, he exhaled slowly. He wished—not for the first time—that he was back in San Francisco, where his days and the decisions he had to make made sense. This situation was maddening. “I’ve been home four days, and I’ve told Grandma Eunice ten times that we’re not engaged and never were. She’s upset by the news, and then a few minutes later she forgets. I’m getting damn tired of upsetting her again and again.”

  Daisy was already shaking her head.

  “I’ll pay you.”

  There were those daggers in her eyes again. Her posture changed, as if she were literally getting ready to attack. “You think you can buy me off? That I’ll do anything for money? Oh, poor Daisy Bell, she’ll do anything for a few bucks.”

  He’d be glad to pay her more than a “few bucks.” And it looked as if she could use the money. Jacob had put Daisy firmly in his rearview mirror years ago, but he hated the idea that she didn’t have more. She’d sacrificed a lot for her sisters; she’d given up her own education, the career she’d planned. She’d raised Lily and Mari, put them through college, and from all he could see she’d done nothing for herself. Why in hell was she still here? She should’ve moved on years ago.

  He snapped out a ridiculously high amount, a number large enough to make Daisy take a stutter-step back.

  “Are you insane?” she asked.

  No, he wasn’t insane; he was ridiculously rich. He worked eighty to ninety hours a week, and until now he hadn’t taken a real vacation since he’d gone to work for The Hudson-Dahlgren Corporation seven years ago. He’d become a workaholic who had no time for anything else. But all his hard work had paid off. Very well.

  “I’m afraid Grandma Eunice doesn’t have much time left. She’s deteriorated so much since I last saw her. Physically, mentally...the doctor says it’s manageable, but I don’t buy it.” He’d talked to her doctor—an old codger who wasn’t much younger than she was—and according to the doc there was nothing to be done. Eunice Tasker was simply growing old. Jacob had initially offered to bring in specialists, to fly his grandmother to a decent hospital for tests and treatment, but she’d refused both offers. After the reunion, she’d said, she’d see a new doctor. Maybe her mind was slipping, but she was as stubborn as ever.

  “You could help to make her final days happy ones.” And he could leave here knowing Daisy was in good financial shape. She could finish school, close this crappy shop, get out of town the way he had.

  She considered his offer for a long moment, and finally said, “All right, I’ll help. A couple of visits to your grandmother, a few lies...I can do that.” She walked toward him, came close, reached out and punched him in the chest with the tip of her index finger. She didn’t look him in the eye as she poked him there, hard.

  Jacob didn’t move, but he took a long, deep breath. Damn, she smelled good. The sight of Daisy brought back strong, old memories, but it was the way she smelled that triggered memories he had no right to cling to. She was the stuff of dreams, the kind of woman a man could never entirely let go of, no matter how hard he tried.

  “But I won’t take a dime of your money,” she said. “I’m doing this for Miss Eunice, not for you. She was kind to me after my parents died. She’s a good woman and I’ll do this for her.” Daisy lifted her head slowly, until her eyes met his. “Not for you and not for your money.” She said the word “money” as if it was a bad thing.

  He’d change her mind about the money, eventually, but he wasn’t going to argue with her now.

  “Dinner tonight with the family?”

  “Not wasting any time, are you?” she countered.

  “Might as well not.”

  After seeing her, smelling her, remembering their time together—the good and the bad—he knew the sooner they got this over with, the better off they’d both be.

  Their time, their chance, had come and gone years ago. He didn’t pine for anything or anyone, but a small, reluctant part of his brain recognized that Daisy Bell disturbed him on some primitive level. He didn’t need or want to be dragged into the past, not by old memories, not by a surprisingly tantalizing scent.

  Daisy was the past, and Jacob cared only about the present and the future. Only a fool would be tempted by something long gone.

  Chapter Two

  The Taskers had been movers and shakers in the county for as long as there’d been a county. The family home, a few miles out of Bell Grove, was stately and majestic and yet still homey. It wasn’t a showplace, it was a home. At least, it had been home years ago when Daisy had come here often with Jacob as his girlfriend. Holidays,
summer vacations...for nearly two years she’d spent much of her time away from school and her part-time job with her parents right here. She’d never told anyone how much she loved this old house. And she never would.

  Through the years residents had tried to give it an appropriate name, a name befitting a fine home with a rich history. Now and then a Tasker would try to call it Magnolia Whatsit or Oak Something. But what it was always called, what stuck, was Tasker House. Daisy had always thought that made the fabulous, sprawling two-story mansion sound like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe story. Apparently she was not alone in that belief, and that was why Taskers kept trying to change it.

  For the occasion, Daisy had chosen her outfit carefully. She wanted to look good, for the family and even for Jacob, though where he was concerned it was intended in a “this is what you threw away, look but don’t touch” kind of way. She wore a pale green sundress that hit the top of her knees, white sandals, and her hair down. Maybe she hadn’t done anything spectacular with her hair, but she’d brushed until it gleamed. Jacob had looked at her more often than was necessary on the ride from town, cutting his eyes from the road now and then to study her. It was what she’d wanted, right? She wanted him to regret giving her up, she wanted him to suffer.

  So why was she determined to meet him here next time and avoid being trapped in a car with him again?

  The way he stared at her made her squirm. Sitting so close to him for so long was making her seriously antsy. In trying to punish him, she had ended up punishing herself. It was absolute torture to have him so close. And he didn’t seem to be tortured at all.

  The house was just as she remembered it, majestic and welcoming, perfectly positioned on a vast expanse of land that was lushly green. A portion of the land was flat and had once been farmed, but to the west there were gentle hills and ancient trees. She and Jacob had taken many a long walk in those hills...

  He offered his arm at the porch steps, and she took it. She would not allow him to see how she was affected by his closeness. He couldn’t know, not ever, that he made her squirm.

  “Do you sleep in a suit?” she asked coolly as they walked up the steps, neither of them in a hurry. He looked good in the dark suit and crisp white shirt, she’d admit, especially since everything he had on fit him as if it had been made for his body, but the outfit seemed wrong here at Tasker House, especially given the season. Even late in the day, the summer heat remained. And the humidity...you could not dismiss the humidity! Besides, the stupid suit reminded her that he’d dumped her for his precious career. She didn’t want or need his success rubbed in her face.

  “Not usually,” he said.

  She shouldn’t have asked that question. As she recalled, he usually slept in nothing at all. At least, he had when she’d been around. So had she, come to think of it. They hadn’t lived together, though that step had been coming, but she’d spent the night at his place and he’d spent the night at hers—when roommates were away. It was a vivid memory she could do without, given the circumstances. She tried to think of other things, to push the memory of a naked Jacob out of her mind, but nothing else would stick.

  Before she could wipe the image of a naked Jacob from her brain, Susan Tasker met them at the door. The screen door squealed as she opened it, and she smiled. Or tried. It was the most pathetic attempt at a smile Daisy had ever seen. Focusing on Jacob’s mother helped; it was difficult to fantasize about the man naked while the woman Daisy had once believed would one day be her mother-in-law looked on.

  Susan Tasker had married into the prominent and wealthy Tasker family, but she’d soon become one of its leaders. Her husband, Jim, Miss Eunice’s only living child, was a quiet man who seemed to be happy to share the handling of the family business matters and properties with his wife. She had given him four sons and taken on an active role in the multiple Tasker concerns—there were a number of businesses across the South that were at least partially owned by the family corporation—as if she’d been born to it.

  And now she cared for his mother, as well.

  “Daisy,” she said softly as she backed up to allow her and Jacob to enter the house.

  “Mrs. Tasker.”

  The older woman—she had to be approaching sixty—turned around, waving a hand dismissively. “Oh, call me Susan. You’re not a child any longer.”

  Susan had put on a few pounds in the years since Daisy had seen her, and whoever was styling her hair had done a terrible job. The color was flat and lifeless, and the cut was too severe for the shape of her face. She needed layering, and some highlights to soften the color.

  Which was, Daisy reminded herself as they followed Susan Tasker toward the parlor, not her problem.

  From first glance, it was clear to her that the house hadn’t changed. Not a stick of furniture from the entryway had been moved, and she would swear that even the fresh flowers on the round table near the foot of the staircase were exactly the same as they’d been last time she was here. The ceilings were high, the furnishings antique, the pictures unexciting landscapes and old family portraits framed in gold. This place was a constant, never changing.

  She loved this old house, even though Taskers lived in it.

  Jim Tasker was in the parlor, enjoying a predinner drink. Jacob’s youngest brother Ben was there with his wife, Madison. And Eunice Tasker sat in the center of the room. She managed to look stately and dignified, even though she was seated in a wheelchair. Even though she did not look well.

  It broke Daisy’s heart a little to see the elderly woman so confined, and so obviously unwell. Her color was sallow, her hands unsteady. Her face was more deeply lined than it had been the last time Daisy had seen her. Like Susan, she could use a decent haircut.

  Eunice’s face lit up when she saw Daisy and Jacob. She smiled, the expression erasing years from her wrinkled face. A little color crept into her cheeks. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re finally here,” she said, her eyes on Daisy. “We have so much to discuss!”

  Daisy walked to Eunice, bent and kissed her on the cheek. The old woman smelled like baby powder and flowery perfume, and her skin was papery soft. Standing there, the last of her doubts about this ridiculous scheme fled. She’d do this, no matter how painful it might be. And she was not doing it for Jacob. “Miss Eunice, it’s been too long.”

  “Yes, it’s been several weeks, hasn’t it?” Eunice said, taking Daisy’s hands in her own. “That is far too long.”

  Daisy just smiled. It had been years, not weeks, but she wouldn’t distress the ill woman with inconvenient facts.

  Miss Eunice squeezed Daisy’s hand. “You look even more beautiful than I remember.” Her gaze—those eyes dark, like Jacob’s—flitted past Daisy to look upon her grandson. “Doesn’t your lovely bride-to-be get more beautiful every day?”

  “Yes, she does,” Jacob agreed solemnly.

  “She’s going to be stunning in my wedding gown.”

  The entire room went silent. Of course, everyone there but Eunice knew Daisy’s relationship with Jacob had been over for a very long time. How hard must this be for the family?

  Daisy couldn’t feel too bad for them. This ruse was harder on her than it could possibly be on anyone else. She had to pretend not to hate Jacob for moving on without her, for not giving up his dreams for her the way she had given up hers for her sisters. He’d chosen his precious career over her. His determination to succeed at anything he chose to do had been one of the things she’d always admired about him, but in the end that determination had taken him away from her.

  And then she looked around the room, taking in the pale faces, the thinned lips, the clasped hands. The Taskers were losing a beloved member of their family, not quickly and without warning, the way she’d lost her parents, but slowly. Painfully. And she had the power to make Miss Eunice’s final days happier. Not for them, she reminded herself, but for a woman who had been good to the Bell family for as long as Daisy could remember.

  She smiled, looking at
Miss Eunice and ignoring the others. “I can’t wait to see the gown. I’m sure it’s lovely.”

  “Tonight, after dinner,” Miss Eunice said with barely contained glee. “You must try the gown on! We have to make sure it fits properly.”

  It was as if the old woman was trying to make this as difficult as possible. Everything was happening too fast as it was! “Oh, there’s no rush,” Daisy said, making a real effort to keep her voice calm. The idea of trying on a family wedding gown, when at one time she had been so sure that one day this would be her family, was enough to give her hives.

  Eunice leaned forward, gripping the armrests of her wheelchair. “No rush? What if alterations are necessary? And don’t forget, we must choose a new veil that will complement the gown and your face. So much to do, so very much to do. If the wedding is going to take place during the Tasker Reunion in less than three weeks, we haven’t a single day to waste.”

  “What?” She and Jacob responded in stereo.

  “Surprise!” Eunice said brightly.

  * * *

  Jacob held his spine straight and kept his face impassive. In a few hours Grandma Eunice would forget that Daisy had been here. She’d definitely forget about a wedding she’d planned to be held during the reunion. In two and a half weeks. The delusion had come to life when she’d seen him, and it would go away just as suddenly, when something else grabbed her attention.

  Daisy looked like she’d seen a ghost, and in a way she had. For a couple of years she’d been a part of this family. For close to two years he and Daisy had been together. For almost a year of that time, they’d been damn near inseparable. Christmas and Thanksgiving, family reunions, weekends at home...she’d been here. They hadn’t discussed marriage, they had both been too young. But she’d fit in so well here, she’d become like a member of the family. Everyone had loved her. Including him.