It started raining just as Daisy Vernon left Eppley Airfield, a torrential downpour more suited to monsoon season in India than September in Nebraska. Her plane had landed in Omaha three hours late and the car rental company had lost her reservation causing another half hour delay, so the storm simply made a rotten end to a miserable day.
In fact, this entire trip to her grandmother’s house might have been designed to confirm Daisy’s suspicion that her stars had recently moved into such a malign orbit that the smart course of action for the next several days would be to go to bed and pull the covers over her head until the universe sorted out its problems. There was no good time for her grandmother to fall and break her ankle, of course, but the timing of Grandma Ruth’s accident couldn’t have been worse in terms of Daisy’s work schedule.
The rainstorm was heavy enough to be intimidating, but Daisy had survived six years of Los Angeles traffic, so she decided she could cope with the worst Omaha had to offer. Setting the windshield wipers on high and her mood on defiantly optimistic, she headed toward her grandmother’s quiet, suburban neighborhood. At least at this late hour the streets were almost deserted.
She heaved a sigh of relief when she reached the outskirts of Elm Village, but between the darkness and the sheeting rain, her problems still weren’t over. In the moonless, leaf-blown bluster of the rainstorm, the road signs were invisible and the tidy, landscaped streets looked like so many clones of each other. Despite the fact that she’d practically grown up here, Daisy somehow managed to miss her turn.
With a sigh of resignation, Daisy lowered the window and stuck her head out, craning for a closer look at the signs. Rain blew into her face with gleeful force, and the sleeve of her cream cotton sweater took no more than thirty seconds to absorb what felt like at least a pound of water. Her hair—the bane of her existence—turned from ash blond shoulder bob to wet yellow frizz in the blink of an eye. So much for returning home and dazzling everyone with her sleek, California sophistication, Daisy reflected, giving a rueful shove to her sopping curls. And judging by the sag in her sleeve, the super-expensive sweater she’d splurged on as a reward for working four 60-hour weeks back-to-back seemed likely to end up with one side stretched to accommodate a three hundred pound gorilla.
At least she could now read the street signs, which was some small repayment for the ruined sweater and frizzy hair. Apparently she was at the intersection of Oak Lane and Bridge Street. That meant a quick U-turn would bring her to her grandmother’s house in less than a minute.
Cheered by the prospect of soon seeing Grandma Ruth, her favorite relative in the world, she checked in her rearview mirror before making the turn. About to swing hard right, she realized a silver BMW sports coupe was pulling up behind her.
The driver of the coupe stopped the car, leaving his headlights on. A man immediately got out of the car, walking toward her with a purposeful stride. He was tall, with an athletic build that was all too familiar. Daisy’s stomach sank as she recognized him.
Matthew Beauregard.
Good grief, what had she done to deserve an encounter with him, on top of every other disaster? Why in the world was he in Omaha, tonight of all nights? Talk about bad Karma. Clearly she had been an evil person in a previous existence and was now being punished for sins she wasn’t even aware of having committed.
She contemplated putting her rented Chevy in gear and driving off full speed ahead, but since Matt had lived in Elm Village most of his life, he would know that she needed to turn around to get to her grandmother’s house. In the circumstances, staying put and being icily polite seemed a better choice than driving off and proving she was too chicken to talk to him. She had the family honor to think about, and her grandmother had been feuding with the Beauregard family for thirty years. The feud was no less intense for having been caused initially by a dispute over trash collection—a dispute that had been resolved approximately twenty-nine years and eleven months ago. Grandma Ruth would expect Daisy to hold her ground and fight, at least metaphorically. She might stand a scant five feet tall, and that was when she cheated by lifting her heels off the ground, but she pretty much defined the word feisty.
Matt came alongside Daisy’s car and gave her a casual salute. The rain that had turned her into a sodden version of Little Orphan Annie hadn’t penetrated his leather jacket and he looked entirely at his ease. More rain streamed off his chiseled features, highlighting the Brad Pitt perfection of his profile.
Daisy registered the impossible sexiness of him and tried to think of anyone in the world she would like to see less at this moment than Matt Beauregard. Short of a coked-out rapist, nobody came to mind.
Matt gave her one of his trademark glances, cool and utterly self-possessed. He followed his inspection with a faint smile—the sort of smile indulgent uncles gave when confronted by a spoiled little niece who was likely to explode into a tiresome temper tantrum any minute. Daisy gritted her teeth and exercised huge amounts of self-control in order to avoid living down to his expectations. At moments like this, it was tough to avoid the conclusion that life truly sucked.
“Hey, Daisy, I thought I recognized you.” Matt’s voice was deep and smooth. Daisy had been assured by all her girlfriends that he only had to speak a couple of sentences and they instantly imagined themselves naked in his bed. Daisy, however, reacted to his voice the same way she reacted to his smile and everything else about him: she developed an immediate and almost irresistible urge to run far, far away.
“Hello, Matt.” Her throat was oddly dry, so her voice, far from sounding smooth like his, came out as a husky mumble. “What are you doing in Omaha?”
“My grandmother sent for me. She’s planning to sell her house and apparently is in urgent need of my advice.”
“Lucille is selling her house?” Daisy was astonished. How come her grandmother had made no mention of this momentous piece of news? Given that Ruth Plumrose and Lucille Beauregard had been in a state of war since before Daisy was born, the fact that Lucille planned to move must surely loom large on her grandmother’s horizon.
Despite a childhood filled with stories about the wicked Beauregards, Daisy secretly rather liked Lucille. More to the point, she was afraid her grandmother would be lost without her favorite enemy to add spice to her days.
“I hope Lucille isn’t ill?” she said.
“No, she’s fine. In fact, for a woman of eighty-two, she’s in fantastic shape. Apparently, she just wants to spend less time keeping up her house and more time traveling before she’s too old to enjoy a vacation. But she’s from a generation that wouldn’t dream of making a big decision without a male relative to tell her it’s okay. So here I am.” Matt pushed his fingers through his short, cropped hair and rain drops scattered. “What’s up with you, Daisy? If you’re having trouble with your car, can I help?”
Daisy tried to mimic the cool sophistication of Matt’s smile, which wasn’t easy with rain dripping off her nose. She gave another useless swat to her hair.
“No, thanks, I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with the car. I missed my turn in the dark.”
Matt didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow, much less make any smart-ass remarks about her inability to find the house where she’d spent every summer of her life between middle school and college. Unfailing politeness was one of Matt Beauregard’s more annoying characteristics. He merely gave a brief nod of acknowledgment, already walking away. He knew as well as she did that they had nothing to say to each other once the basic courtesies were over.
“I’ll back up my car so you can turn around,” he said, over his shoulder.
“Thanks.” Daisy drew in a deep breath, aware that she couldn’t let him leave without at least mentioning his award at last week’s Emmys. Her personal history with Matt might be humiliating, but professional integrity required that Daisy acknowledge his huge achievement.
“Congratulations on your Emmy, by the way.” She was too honest not to tell him the truth. “The writing on your show is terrific. You deserved the win.”
He stopped and turned to look at her again. “Thanks.” His smile gleamed white in the light spilling from his car. “I spent so long telling everyone it was an honor just to be nominated that I haven’t quite absorbed yet that I actually won.”
“Getting kissed by Jennifer Anniston can’t have been all bad, either.”
He grinned, and this time it seemed to Daisy that his amusement was genuine.
“The kiss was a definite bonus, although I was numb with shock so I didn’t get to appreciate it as much as I should have done.”
“Next time you’ll be better prepared.”
“Right now, the chances for another nomination seem remote, to say the least. I’m having to fight the network every damn week to prevent them from subverting my story lines.” Matt turned abruptly. “I’ll move my car so that you can make the turn,” he said again.
Daisy wondered why on earth the network would want to meddle with a show that was successful enough to blow away the competition week after week. Matt was senior writer and co-producer for Orlando Nights, an innovative one-hour drama that had single-handedly changed conventional views of Orlando as a destination strictly for family vacations. The show revealed the glittering, tropical underbelly of a city that catered to thousands of conventioneers each year and also had enough foreign visitors to provide cover for every sort of international crime. The scripts were suspenseful and rich with dark humor. In addition, Matt always incorporated just enough heart-tugging emotion to hold the attention of both men and women. Reviewers and audiences alike lavished praise on the sharp, edgy dialogue and tightly woven plots, so it wasn’t stretching in the least to visualize another Emmy in Matthew Beauregard’s future.
Still, his problems with the network were no concern of hers, even if she couldn’t help feeling a sneaking sympathy for his situation. It was well known in Hollywood that shows became successful because of cutting edge new approaches—at which point the networks usually became scared of protecting their new franchise and demanded that the writers scale back on all the elements that had made the show a standout in the first place.
But Daisy wasn’t about to start sympathizing with Matt, not even about his work. She dismissed him from her mind as he passed her car, leaving the narrow road clear for her to make her turn. He belonged in her past and she had every intention of leaving him there. Buried somewhere very deep, where he retained no power to hurt her.
Right now, she needed to stay focused on the task ahead which, she suspected, would involve a lot more than helping Grandma Ruth cope with a broken bone in her foot. Her grandmother would never invent an injury just to entice Daisy to Omaha. However, she was more than capable of using the broken foot as an excuse to achieve her real goal, which for the past several years had been to get Daisy married off, the sooner the better.
If she’d arrived on time, the odds would have been excellent that a candidate for the role of Daisy’s husband would be waiting to greet her when she arrived at her grandmother’s home. Ruth Plumrose might be among Omaha’s more forward-looking seventy-eight year olds, but she had decidedly old-fashioned views on the question of marriage. She regularly reminded Daisy that human beings were always happier when involved in a committed, caring relationship and she made no secret of the fact that she looked forward to cuddling at least one great-grandbaby before she died. Since Daisy was her only grandchild, the duty of producing said baby rested squarely with Daisy.
Not that Daisy was opposed either to getting married or to having babies. Not in the long term. But for right now, she was concentrating on her career as a costume designer for movies and television and the field was so cut-throat she still felt precariously perched on the lower rungs of her career ladder, despite six years on the job. She’d recently been promoted to the coveted position of assistant to Karen Karvitz, but keeping that job wasn’t going to be easy. Karen was the president of her own company and a major star in the Designers’ Guild, but she was the sort of demanding boss who made Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada look like a warm and fuzzy pushover.
Daisy figured that if she could survive Karen for another six months, the world of costume design would be at her feet. After that, with her career established, she could start thinking about marriage and children. She was still only twenty-eight, for heaven’s sake! Her grandmother sometimes acted as if Daisy’s biological clock had already started ticking down the last few seconds to Doomsday.
Daisy drew to a halt in her grandmother’s driveway. Maybe there was a silver lining to the storm cloud that had delayed her arrival, she reflected. She was so late getting here that Grandma Ruth’s latest candidate in the Find-Daisy-a-Husband contest would almost certainly have given up and gone home.
She could only hope. Slinging her travel bag over her shoulders, Daisy ran through the pelting rain, seeking the shelter of the front porch. The door opened within seconds. Warmth and light radiated out, illuminating the stocky figure of an unknown, dark-haired man with handsome regular features.
Daisy groaned, too tired and frustrated to choke off the sound. Even if she hadn’t been wetter than your average drowning victim, even if she hadn’t just spent ten hours traveling, even if she hadn’t just survived an encounter with Matt Beauregard, she was so totally not in the mood for coping with her grandmother’s latest offering in the Husband Sweepstakes.
The unsuspecting potential bridegroom—at least she assumed he was unsuspecting—grasped her hand in a firm shake. ““Hi, you must be Daisy, Ruth’s granddaughter. I’m Steve Greeley. I’m new to Omaha and your grandmother has been such a good friend. Come on in, she’s waiting for you in the living room. I’m afraid the injury to her foot is making it difficult for her to move around.”
He seemed like a nice enough guy and Daisy gave him the warmest smile she could muster to make up for the fact that she wished with all her heart that he wasn’t there. “It’s kind of you to wait this late, Steve. My plane was delayed—“
He nodded. “I was just about to leave when you called Ruth from the airport. Since it’s real hard for her to get up, I figured I should hang around for a while. It was no trouble, believe me. It’s always a kick talking to your grandma.”
“She’s led an interesting life,” Daisy agreed. “Has she told you about her stint as a nurse with the army in Korea?”
“Man, has she ever! What a spitfire she must have been. And so romantic meeting her husband when he was brought into her hospital tent on a stretcher.”
Many people had said the same thing, although Daisy had never quite grasped what was so romantic about meeting your prospective life partner when he was suffering from an infected bullet wound to the groin. Still, despite this difference in viewpoint, Steve seemed to be one of her grandmother’s better picks as far as husbands went. He was a little on the stocky side for her taste, but his jeans fit just right, he was wearing a pleasant, woodsy cologne, and he had apparently been very kind to an elderly lady.
She was willing to forgive him a lot in exchange for that.
Daisy gave Steve another smile as she walked past him into the living room, then promptly forgot all about him when she saw her grandmother seated in the Queen Anne chair next to the fire. A pair of crutches had been stacked against the arms, and Ruth’s right foot rested on a low stool. Daisy almost ran the few yards separating them, her breath catching when she realized how frail her grandmother looked.
Ruth enveloped her in a talcum-scented hug. “Daisy, you poor child, you’re soaked. What can I get you to eat? I know they never feed you on planes these days. And it’s such a miserable night for a long journey!” Ruth reached for her crutches, beaming with pleasure at the sight of her only granddaughter.
“No, don’t get up, Gran. You look so comfy. Besides, I’m not hungry. I ate at the airport while I was waiting for the rental company to find me a car.” Daisy kissed Ruth’s soft cheek before bending down to take a closer look at her grandmother’s ankle. There was an ugly gash visible above the splint, and several dark bruises as well. Her grandmother had clearly downplayed the severity of her injury.
Daisy tried not to show her anxiety. “Are you in a lot of pain, Gran? Have you been able to get any sleep?”
“Well, the doctor gave me plenty of pain pills, so it’s not too bad. Getting up and down stairs is a bit difficult, but otherwise, I’m fine.” Ruth smiled brightly.
Translation: her injury hurt like hell. Daisy took her grandmother’s hand. “Next time you decide to walk downstairs in the middle of the night, will you please switch on the light?”
“I promise,” Ruth said humbly.
Only severe pain would account for such astonishing meekness, Daisy thought. “Are you following the doctor’s instructions, Gran? I mean all of them, not just the parts that happen to agree with what the ladies in your bridge club recommend.”
“Do you think I’d be sitting here with my foot up and these dratted things getting in my way if I wasn’t doing just what the doctor ordered?” Ruth thumped the crutches on the floor for emphasis and then smiled. “Anyway, let’s not talk about my silly injury. Did you notice the lovely fire Steve lit for us? It’s my first this year, and that’s always a treat. Sit down next to me for a moment and enjoy the warmth while you dry off.”
“The fire is lovely.” Daisy pulled up the ottoman and sat down close to her grandmother, extending her hands to the blaze. “The whole room smells of pine.”
“I like to listen to the crackle. Somehow, those little sparks and splutters make the whole room feel alive.” Ruth gestured to Steve, who was hovering barely inside the doorway, apparently reluctant to intrude on the reunion.
“Come on in, Steve, and join us.” Ruth beckoned in welcome.
“I don’t want to butt in—“
“You’re not. On the contrary, I need you for back-up.” Ruth’s eyes twinkled. “I need you to tell my granddaughter how quiet and well-behaved I’ve been these past two days.”
He laughed, taking a seat on the sofa across from them both. “I wouldn’t say quiet, Ruth, but I can reassure Daisy that you’ve been a model patient.”
“I’m delighted to hear it.” Daisy pushed the ottoman a little further away from the fire. “How long will you have to keep the cast, Gran?”
“Oh, a week, maybe a bit longer. I’ll be running around in no time.”
Steve shook his head, quietly chiding. “I know you’re the Wonder Woman of the Senior Citizen circuit, Ruth, but you need to take the time to heal.” He got up to give her shoulder a gentle squeeze, and then turned, speaking directly to Daisy. “The doctor said it was a stress fracture, not a complete break, but your grandmother’s bones are fragile and she could end up with a real problem if she doesn’t respect her limitations. It’s going to be a while before she can walk without crutches.”
“Don’t worry, there’s nothing Daisy likes better than ordering me around.” The affectionate glow in Ruth’s eyes removed the sting from her words. “She’s a dictator at heart, you know.”
“Then I’ll leave her to do some dictating,” Steve said, chuckling. “I have an early start tomorrow morning and I need to get going. Goodnight, Ruth. I’ll call tomorrow afternoon, just to get a progress report.”
“Come to dinner,” Ruth said. “I owe you a home-cooked meal after all the attention you’ve given me these past two days and we’d love to have you join us. Daisy’s a wonderful cook.”
“Movie star beautiful and she can cook, too!” Steve clasped his hand to his heart in a melodramatic gesture. “At last I’ve met the woman of my dreams!”
Daisy rose to her feet, her anti-matchmaking antenna on full alert. “My grandmother is exaggerating. My major talent in the kitchen is pushing buttons on the microwave—“
“But you’ll come anyway, right, Steve?” Ruth’s smile was sweet, but there was no mistaking her steely determination to get Steve and Daisy seated together at the same dinner table. “Let’s eat early, shall we? How about six o’clock?”
“I wish I could, but I’m working at the literacy center tomorrow night. I’ll take a rain check, though, if you’ll let me.”
“Of course.” But Ruth looked disappointed at the failure of her plan.
“You’re a teacher?” Daisy asked, escorting Steve to the front door.
He shook his head. “I’m a certified financial planner, but I volunteer at the literacy center downtown. I’m tutoring a class of new immigrants, helping them to learn English. There are a couple of kids in the class who could break your heart, one from Afghanistan and the other from Kosovo. They’re great kids, both of them. Battle scarred, but determined to succeed.”
Daisy was impressed by Steve’s commitment to such a worthy cause. He was certainly a major improvement over her grandmother’s last candidate for a husband, who had been a neurosurgeon and probably the most self-absorbed man Daisy had ever met. And that was saying something, given that she worked in Hollywood, surrounded by models and actors for whom self-absorption was the bedrock of their being.
She said goodbye, and when Steve commented that he would look forward to seeing her again soon, she astonished herself by saying, “That would be great. I hope you can join us for dinner some time this week.”
He grinned. “Now that you’ve asked, I’d love it. Have a good night, Daisy. I’m glad you’re here.”
She grimaced. “You haven’t tasted my cooking yet.”
He laughed. “You may be a lousy cook, but you’re even more beautiful than your photos.”
He was gone before she could find a reply.
“I’ve decided to sell my house,” Ruth said, as she and Daisy were eating breakfast the next morning. “The Realtor’s coming around this afternoon so that I can sign the papers.”
Daisy set down her glass of juice and stared open-mouthed at her grandmother. “But you’ve lived here for thirty years! You and Grandpa always loved this house.”
“I still do. It’s full of happy memories. It’s also way too big for one person.” Ruth pushed aside the remainder of her toasted breakfast muffin. “I have to be practical, Daisy. The truth is, my knee joints aren’t what they used to be and I have trouble with the stairs even when I don’t have a broken ankle. The washing machine is located way down in the basement, there’s half an acre of yard I have to pay someone to take care of and there are three bedrooms nobody is sleeping in. This is a house for a young family, not for an old woman living alone.”
Her grandmother’s logic was irrefutable, but Daisy was still shocked. “What brought on this sudden decision, Gran? Is this because of your fall?”
Ruth shook her head. “I made the decision a while ago. My accident just confirmed to me that it was the right one.”
Daisy searched her grandmother’s face. “Does the fact that Lucille Beauregard is selling her house have anything to do with your decision?”
Ruth looked momentarily taken aback, then her eyes narrowed. “How do you know Lucille is planning to put her house on the market? Who told you?”
“Matthew Beauregard. Her grandson,” she added, in case her grandmother didn’t remember the name.
“I know who Matthew is.” Ruth sounded a little exasperated. “And if I’d forgotten, Lucille Beauregard would have made sure to remind me.”
“I thought you and Lucille never spoke?”
Ruth gave a little snort that somehow managed to sound entirely ladylike. “Lucille made an exception to the No Talking rule as soon as her grandson was nominated for an Emmy. You think that woman hasn’t told me and everyone else in the entire state of Nebraska that her grandson is the famous scriptwriter who’s co-producer of Orlando Nights?”
“Well, I guess that’s something any grandmother would be proud of.” Daisy felt defensive of Matt’s professional achievements, perhaps because she also worked in the entertainment industry and recognized the months of hard work that lurked behind the glamorous moment of running up on stage and collecting a golden statue. “Winning an Emmy is a pretty big deal.”
“I didn’t think you and Matthew ever saw each other even though you both live in L.A.,” Ruth said. “You hardly know each other, do you?”
Daisy managed a casual shrug. “L.A. is a big place. It’s not surprising that we almost never run into each other.” That wasn’t exactly a lie. In the past two years, they’d encountered each other five times at various industry functions. The fact that they’d seen each other a lot more often when she first moved to California was irrelevant. The fact that they’d once been lovers was totally, utterly and completely irrelevant to everything.
“So when did Matthew Beauregard tell you about Lucille putting her house on the market?” Ruth, unfortunately, was not a woman who lost track of where the conversation had been headed.
“We met by chance last night and he mentioned that his grandmother was planning to move.” Daisy changed the subject, before Ruth could delve any deeper into the subject of Matt Beauregard. It was a measure of her desperation that she willingly introduced Steve Greeley’s name even though in other circumstances she would have worked hard to avoid talking about Ruth’s latest candidate for the role of grandson-in-law.
“Steve Greeley seems like a nice guy,” Daisy said, taking another sip of juice. “How did you meet him, Gran?”
Ruth slanted a satisfied glance in Daisy’s direction. “Hah! I wondered when you’d get around to mentioning Steve. You like him, then?
“Based on the half dozen sentences we exchanged last night, he seems okay. More than okay, actually.”
“Sometimes half a dozen sentences are all it takes. I knew I wanted to marry your grandfather from the first moment he opened his eyes on that stretcher and looked into mine.”
Daisy reflected that her grandparents’ courtship had been getting shorter and more passionately romantic the further it receded into the past. When she first heard the story, her grandfather had been in rehab and physical therapy for almost two months before he asked her grandmother out on a date. Now, apparently, passion had flared within seconds.
She hid a smile. “Does Steve work for your bank?” she asked, deciding not to express her doubts about the amazing shrinking courtship of her grandparents.
“No, he’s an independent financial advisor who’s just moved here from New York.”
Daisy frowned. “Don’t financial people usually try to move from Omaha to Manhattan, not the other way around? If they’re any good, that is.”
“Steve says that with today’s technology, you can live anywhere. After all, it doesn’t take any longer to send e-mail from Omaha than it does from New York City.”
“True, but I thought financial types liked to hang out together. Meet for lunch and give each other tips about hot stocks and so on.”
“Steve already has a great network he can tap into. He’s really informed about the market and all the new ways there are to make money. He’s quite sure he can make a lot of money for me. He says banks and other institutions are so conservative they miss a lot of the best opportunities—“
Daisy felt a sharp twinge of alarm. “I don’t know, Gran. Isn’t it a bit risky to get involved with a financial planner who has no established corporation to back him up?”
“If you can’t take risks at my age, when can you take them? What have I got to lose?”
“Your life savings?” Daisy suggested.
“Oh, my goodness, don’t be such a pessimist! Steve has recommended I should invest in this private partnership he’s promoting. He puts together associations of small investors and then leverages the capital to buy out private companies with neglected assets.” Ruth spoke as if she were repeating a lesson she’s learned by rote. “He’s shown me the prospectus and the success rates are amazing: people have been doubling their money every eighteen months or so.”
It all sounded pretty hokey to Daisy, although she had to admit the sum total of her knowledge about capital markets could fit on one decent sized note card. “You should remember what Grandpa always used to say, Gran. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Making money isn’t easy, I guess, otherwise we’d all be millionaires. I’d be careful about trusting this Steve person too much.”
“For heaven’s sake, Daisy, you can trust me to make good judgments about people. I’m not naïve, you know. By the time I was twenty, I was in Korea keeping half-dead soldiers alive long enough for a doctor to get them onto the operating table. I was married at twenty-three and giving birth to your mother ten months later—“
“I know, Gran.” Daisy grinned. “Real life started a lot earlier when you were young.”
Ruth laughed, visibly relaxing. “All right, you’ve made your point. I know how annoying it is when old people climb on their hobby horses and start spouting off about how much better everything was back in the good old days. But Steve is absolutely right about one thing: you need money to make money. Part of the reason I’m selling my house is so that I’ll have enough money to give Steve—“
“That sounds like a seriously bad idea to me, Gran.”
“Why?” Ruth didn’t wait for Daisy to list the dozens of reasons why handing over her life savings to a stranger might be considered the height of folly.
“We’d finished paying off the mortgage before your grandfather died,” Ruth continued. “That means this house represents a wonderful nest egg—except right now it’s no use to me whatsoever! What’s the point of having thousands of dollars of capital if you can’t use it? I need to put my assets to work for me.”
It seemed to Daisy that her grandmother was parroting Steve’s words without having fully digested the implications. “You don’t think you’d miss your garden if you sell? And all the neighbors you’ve known for so many years?”
“There is that,” Ruth acknowledged. “But my best friends are all in my bridge club or my book club, and when it’s my turn to be the hostess, I expect they’ll be just as happy to meet in a spiffy new condo as they are to meet here.”
Daisy suspected there was more to moving from the house where you’d lived for thirty-five years than notifying your bridge club that they would be convening in a new location. But her grandmother was a smart woman, showing not the slightest sign of losing her wits, and she had every right to put her house on the market if she wanted to.
The truth was, Daisy thought ruefully, this house was her home—far more so than anything she’d ever shared with her parents, who were anthropologists perpetually flying off on academic safaris into the African desert or riding donkeys across the steppes of Inner Mongolia. Her reluctance to see this house sold probably had as much to do with her personal sense of loss as it did with her niggling worry that Ruth was placing a lot of trust in Steve Greeley, a man she barely knew.
“Don’t look so alarmed,” Ruth said cheerfully. “I’ve investigated Steve’s background. I know exactly what I’m doing. Trust me, Daisy. This is all for the best.”
Daisy wished she shared her grandmother’s confidence. Unfortunately, she was more cynical than Ruth and she was starting to wonder exactly why Steve Greeley had been so kind to her grandmother. She was afraid she might not like the true answer to that question one bit.
The phone rang a few minutes after the real estate agent arrived to consult with Ruth about listing the house for sale. “Could you get that, Daisy?” her grandmother called out.
“Sure.” Daisy picked up the phone and almost dropped it again when she heard Matt Beauregard’s voice on the other end of the line. Two encounters with Matt within the space of eighteen hours were more than she was equipped to deal with.
“Can your grandmother hear what you’re saying?” he asked as soon as she’d identified herself.
Daisy moved out into the hall. “Not any more.”
“Good. I have something I need to discuss with you. It concerns my grandmother and yours as well.”
“This isn’t about their crazy feud, is it?”
“No. Unfortunately, this is more serious than a feud that’s kept the pair of them happily entertained for thirty years. I’m afraid they’re both about to get ripped off by a fast-talking, so-called financial planner—“
“Would that financial planner be a man called Steve Greeley by any chance?”
“Yes, that’s the guy. Have you heard about him, too?”
“Not only have I heard about him, I actually met him last night,” Daisy said. “He’s charming when you meet him in person.”
“I guess he wouldn’t be much good as a con man if he was a pain to have around.”
“Do you really think that’s what Steve is—a con man?”
“Seems that way from what I’ve managed to dig up this morning. Look, Daisy, I know you consider spending time with me about as much fun as checking an alligator for tooth cavities, but we need to talk. I’m parked two houses down from Ruth’s place. Would you come out and meet me?”
There were very few things that would persuade Daisy to meet willingly with Matt Beauregard, but protecting her grandmother was one of them.
“I was getting ready to go for a run,” she said. “Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll be there.”
She joined him wearing the sweats she’d planned to run in, topped by a loose sweater, since the weather remained gray and damp. She’d pulled her hair ruthlessly away from her face, partly so that it wouldn’t curl, and partly because she had no intention of primping for Matt Beauregard. When she’d found herself applying blush and eyeliner before going out, she’d been so annoyed that she tossed her makeup back in her purse without putting on even a dab of lipstick. Matt had his pick of Hollywood’s A-list beauties as she’d learned the hard way, and she had no intention of trying to compete. Not any more.
Matt was already out of his car and looking his usual devastatingly attractive self. Daisy had no idea how he managed to exude sexual promise simply by leaning against the car door, but somehow he did. He smiled as soon as he caught sight of her, his gaze locking with hers. Her stupid, ridiculous heart performed a couple of back flips just to prove that it was still as unreliable as ever. Two years had passed since she and Matt broke up in a blaze of pain and anger. By now, for heaven’s sake, they surely ought to be able to meet without her body undergoing some weird chemical reaction that left her mind a jittery blank and her body a mass of zinging nerve endings.
She greeted him curtly, more annoyed with herself than with him. She was so over the whole ridiculous mess of being in love with him. Why couldn’t her body at least try to cooperate with this entirely sensible decision?
“It’s too cold to stand still,” she said. “Shall we head for the pond?”
“Sounds good.” Matt straightened, falling into an easy stride alongside her. “Thanks for coming to meet me, Daisy. I appreciate it.”
“You said you wanted to talk about our grandmothers.” She needed to keep this conversation tightly focused. Straying off into byways or wandering down memory lane was likely to lead them somewhere she didn’t want to go. She felt Matt’s gaze resting on her face, but she wasn’t going to fall into the trap of looking at him. She thought she heard him sigh before he spoke.
“When my grandmother called last weekend and said she was planning to sell her house, it seemed straightforward enough. But the moment I arrived here, I knew she was hiding something. At first she stuck to the story she’d given me over the phone—“
“That her house is too big and she wants the freedom to take more vacations?”
Matt nodded. “Yeah. Then, gradually, she admitted the real reason she’s selling is because she needs the money if she’s going to invest a quarter of a million dollars with this Steve Greeley person—“
“A quarter of a million!” Daisy squeaked. “Good grief, that’s a hefty chunk of change!”
“It sure is, and she says your grandmother is planning to invest the same amount.”
Houses in Omaha didn’t command anything like California-level prices, so handing Steve Greeley a quarter of a million dollars would probably wipe out everything Ruth and Lucille netted from selling their homes. No wonder Matt was worried. She was right there with him, she realized.
“Gran is with a real estate agent right now, signing the papers to put her house on the market.” Daisy shook her head in bewilderment. “Why in the world would these two smart women suddenly decide to part with most of their life savings to a man they scarcely know!”
“My grandmother feels she knows Steve quite well, that’s the problem.” Matt sounded as frustrated as Daisy felt. “She met him at church and he immediately volunteered to work on one of her committees. Next thing you know, almost before you could say con artist, he was bringing tubs of flowers for her front porch and she was baking him oatmeal cookies. He was clever enough not to mention financial planning or investments until he’d impressed her with his hard work on the committee—and the fact that he donated five hundred bucks to the homeless shelter, my grandmother’s cause.”
“Five hundred dollars is a tiny investment if he’s going to walk away with half a million,” Daisy pointed out.
“Yes, and when my grandmother voiced a few reservations, he sent her to his website. I checked it out this morning, and it’s really impressive. He has glowing references from dozens of satisfied investors who make him sound like the next Warren Buffet.”
“But, of course, anyone can write whatever they please on a web site,” Daisy pointed out. “There’s no way to be sure any of those investors actually exists.”
“Absolutely. I also wonder how many other lonely widows he has dangling on his hook,” Matt said. “There must be plenty of elderly women in Omaha who are a lot more vulnerable than Ruth and Lucille. I’m guessing Steve Greeley tries to find victims with no family to look out for them, in which case Lucille and Ruth might have appeared ideal targets. They’re both elderly widows, living alone. He’s probably furious that the two of us turned up just when he was about to close the deal.”
“No wonder he was so anxious to behave perfectly last night.” Daisy had assumed Steve was being tactful when he hovered in the doorway to the living room, not saying a word. In hindsight, she wondered if he had actually been observing her relationship with her grandmother, silently assessing whether this newcomer was likely to be a danger to his plans.
“You didn’t suspect anything was wrong?” Matt asked. “Even though men in their thirties don’t usually hang out with women who are almost eighty?”
“I suspected the wrong thing,” Daisy admitted ruefully. “I assumed my grandmother had Steve lined up as the next candidate for my husband, so I never questioned why he was there with her, or why he was obviously so much at home in her house.”
Matt’s voice deepened with wry amusement. “How lucky for Steve that Ruth is still determined to get you married off.”
“Is your grandmother still equally enthusiastic about playing matchmaker?”
“God, is she ever! Despite the amount of time we’ve spent discussing Steve Greeley, she’s already made it quite clear that she has three lovely girls she expects me to take out to dinner before I go back to L.A.”
Daisy laughed. “Good luck dodging those bullets.” She was so sympathetic she looked straight Matt’s eyes, totally forgetting how dangerous that was.
Matt’s gaze met hers, the blue of his eyes more intense than usual in the misty afternoon light. The air between them thickened with tension. There was almost a foot of space separating them and he made no effort to close the gap, but Daisy felt his physical presence as powerfully as if he’d put his arms around her and dragged her against his body.
“I missed you at the Emmys,” he said softly. “When I went on stage to collect my award, I wanted you to be there with me. I wanted it in the worst way.”
His words wrapped around her in a seductive coil. Somehow, Daisy resisted the urge to melt into his arms and forget about the several excellent reasons why she hadn’t been at his side.
“You had Zita Moralis as your date for the Emmys.” She hoped her voice sounded casual and faintly teasing. “What more could you want than the star of this summer’s hottest movie? You were the envy of fifteen million American males as they watched you escort Zita along the red carpet. The only thing that would have made them more envious is if she’d actually had the wardrobe malfunction her dress seemed to promise.”
“Zita is a nice person and a talented actor, but she isn’t you.” His gaze still held hers, demanding and yet seeking at the same time. “Did you watch the entire broadcast, Daisy?”
“Yes, I did.” She hated the husky, breathless sound of her voice but she could do nothing to control it. She shook her head, determined to break the spell. “I always watch the Emmys; they’re such a great spectacle. It’s one of my favorite nights of the year. Not to mention that it’s professionally important for me to see what everyone is wearing.”
“Is that the only reason you watched? Because it’s professionally important?”
It was a second or two before she found the courage to reply honestly. “No, it wasn’t the only reason.” She hesitated again then admitted the truth. “I wanted you to win.”
Matt turned away, seemingly absorbed in watching a family of ducks that hadn’t yet flown south for the winter. A late flight to winter warmth and fresh food supplies was risky behavior for ducks, but no more risky, Daisy thought, than allowing herself to get involved in this conversation.
“I was a fool two years ago,” Matt said finally. “A total and complete moron.”
“Yes, you were. Do you expect me to disagree?”
“No.”
Her mouth felt dry and her stomach cramped at the hurtful memories. “You weren’t just a fool, Matt. You were cruel and you were unfaithful. You stood me up on my birthday so that you could take Jessica Portman to that movie director’s party, and then you made sure the betrayal was complete by having an affair with her that was so torrid the gossip columnists fed on it for weeks.”
Matt had stopped watching the ducks, but his expression was now shuttered even though he turned to face her once again. “Does it make things any better if I tell you that Jessica and I never slept together? That our relationship was all a PR stunt?”
“The pair of you seemed to be generating plenty of sparks for a supposedly business relationship.”
“If we were generating sparks, it’s because we cordially disliked each other. We barely spoke unless there was a photographer somewhere in the vicinity.”
Daisy turned away, since it was too painful to look at him. “No,” she said finally. “That doesn’t make it any better, Matt. It means you pushed me aside for a cheap publicity stunt instead of for hot sex with the latest “it” girl. How in the world is that supposed to make everything okay?”
Even now, she couldn’t understand how Matt could have thrown away their relationship for something as trivial as a few weeks of tabloid publicity. The ache of his rejection squeezed her lungs making it hard to breathe.
“I thought you loved me, Matt. I thought what we shared was the real, happily ever after kind of a thing.” She fought against the tears that clogged her throat. “It wasn’t much fun to discover that I was just the hometown stopgap until Hollywood’s power elite noticed you.”
“You were never a stopgap,” Matt said, his voice low and fierce. “Daisy, you’re the woman I’ve loved ever since we were college kids sneaking out of our grandparents’ homes to meet in secret because of their crazy feud. I never stopped loving you. I still love you—“
Wincing, she held up her hand, warding off his words. The trouble was, she wanted to hear them too much. “No, don’t go there, Matt! It’s way too easy to claim that you loved me. If that’s true, what can love possibly mean to you? Nothing very important, that’s for sure.”
“What does love mean to me?” He tilted his head to one side, giving her question careful consideration. “It means caring and trust and friendship. It means loyalty and having someone to share things with.” He gave a faint grin. “Happily, in our case, it also meant lots of incredibly wonderful sex.”
“And you tossed all that aside for a PR stunt?” Daisy didn’t attempt to hide her scorn.
“Yes, I did.” Matt’s smile became self-mocking. “I was crazy, okay? But it’s a heady experience writing for the number one new hit TV show and knowing that you have the power to keep twenty-six million viewers a week hooked on your story line. Success inflated my ego to the point where I couldn’t see around it. You were my anchor, but for a few crucial, insane moments I wasn’t sure I wanted to be anchored. So I lost my bearings and you along with it. Jessica Portman was a power trip, an excursion into fantasy land. It took me about a week to realize what I’d done to our relationship and by then it was too late. You wouldn’t see me, you wouldn’t answer my calls. You threatened to get a court order against me for harassment…”
“What choice did you leave me? Don’t you see, Matt? I couldn’t trust you any more. And without trust, there was nothing worthwhile left of our relationship. You were harassing me…”
She didn’t realize her tears had spilled over until she heard Matt’s sigh. “Ah, Jesus, Daisy, don’t cry. I was such a stupid prick. I’m sorry. You’ve no idea how sorry I am. I have my head on straight again now, I swear.”
She felt his thumbs brush gently against her eyelids, and then she felt the wet of her own tears on his fingers. Dammit, she was through with crying over this man! She jerked away from him but he put his arms around her and pulled her hard against him. His head lowered and his mouth touched hers, softly at first and then with all the passion pent up during two years of separation.
Daisy felt torn between a burst of anger and instant sensual response. The anger flared because she apparently still couldn’t resist Matt, and the sensual response flared because…because she was an idiot who had spent the past two years yearning to make love again with a man who couldn’t be trusted. Humiliatingly, it seemed he only needed to take her into his arms and her protective cover was blown away. How had she managed to trick herself into believing that her feelings for Matt were under control? She would never have been running away so frantically if she hadn’t suspected her defenses wouldn’t be strong enough to stand up to a meaningful encounter with him.
Matt’s hands tangled in her hair, tugging it free from its band. She felt the soft strands twining around his fingers as his tongue searched deep in her mouth and his body pressed hard against hers. Doubts and questions vanished as the taste of him swept over her, transforming the last remnants of her anger into a desire that was all the more powerful for being edged with something darker. She forgot Matt’s betrayal and her own determination not to get involved with anyone again until her career was on track. She forgot everything but the heat and strength and passion of the man who was kissing her as if his life depended on her response.
Her desire intensified as she felt the increasing urgency of Matt’s demands. Their bodies both burned, but she wasn’t sure who generated the heat. She wanted him, needed him, craved his touch—and she knew at some deep level that he experienced the same needs, the same wants, the same cravings. The hunger to be with him had never ceased during their time apart, had never been satisfied by anyone else. She had often wondered if he experienced the same harrowing sensation of perpetual emptiness. As he kissed her, she knew that he had.
When they broke apart, there was no point in trying to pretend that nothing had happened. She had just provided irrefutable evidence of the fact that she was still physically attracted to him. She felt disoriented, and no doubt looked thoroughly aroused. She was hot, panting, her nipples were hard, and her skin felt on fire with sexual tension. If they hadn’t been in a public place, Daisy knew they would have ended up on the nearest available horizontal surface. She wasn’t sure whether to be devastated or relieved that they happened to be in Elm Village Park, where someone could walk past at any minute.
Matt stepped away from her, breathing hard. “God, I knew I missed you, but I forced myself to forget how much. Let me back into your life, Daisy. This time, I promise not to mess up. Spend enough time with me to let me convince you we should get married.”
Daisy had no idea how to answer him. The protective devices she’d developed over the past two years were at war with the reality of what had just happened between them. Everything was happening too fast, and she was in a state of utter confusion. In the end, she took refuge in evasion.
“We can’t deal with our relationship right now. We have to deal with Steve Greeley and the risk to our grandmothers. Houses sell fast in this neighborhood and they’re both stubborn enough that they’ll hand over the cash proceeds unless we can provide proof that Steve can’t be trusted.”
Matt wasn’t about to let her get away with that sort of equivocation. “Whether or not Steve Greeley is a thief has got nothing to do with whether or not you want to start seeing me again when we’re back in L.A.” He took her hands and lifted them to his mouth, brushing his lips across her knuckles. “Don’t be scared, Daisy. We can take things as slowly as you want. I’m a lot smarter now than I was two years ago and I can wait for however long it takes.”
Going out with Matt again would be a huge risk because he had more power to hurt her than anyone else she knew. But waking up each morning and getting out of bed involved risks, Daisy thought. That’s what life was about: measuring risks and then calculating which ones were worth taking. Dating Matt was definitely high risk, but the rewards could be correspondingly great. What was the point of settling for second, or third, or fourth best, when there was a chance that she and Matt could really make things work between them?
Her body suddenly felt light, as if a two-year old straight-jacket had been ripped away and her emotions were once again free to soar. Laughing, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “Yes, yes, yes! I’ll go out with you again when we get back to L.A.”
“Thank God!” Matt put his hands at her waist and swung her high. “Where’s a drum roll when you need it? And isn’t this a cue for the clouds to part and the sun to come out?”
“Only on TV, I guess.” At that moment the clouds parted and a few watery rays of sunlight appeared. They both burst out laughing.
“And no more sneaking around this time,” Daisy said, when Matt finally set her back on her feet. “It’s crazy that we never let our grandmothers know we were together. We should tell Ruth and Lucille the truth. They need to officially declare an end to that insane feud of theirs.”
Matt rolled his eyes, tucking her hand through his arm as they walked back toward home. “Are you sure you understand what you’re suggesting? I agree our grandmothers ought to be told, but they’ve both been so determined to get us married off they won’t even care that we’ve crossed enemy lines to find a partner. Far from playing a tragic scene from Romeo and Juliet, it will take the pair of them about a minute and a half to declare the war over and start making plans for our wedding.”
He was absolutely right, Daisy realized. And yet keeping her relationship with Matt a secret seemed flat out silly. Okay for college students, but not okay for a woman of twenty eight and a man already past thirty. “We’ll just have to stand firm and let them know that we’re seeing each other, but that’s as far as it goes for the moment, and they’re not to nag.”
“Great plan,” Matt said. “Except that it doesn’t have a chance in hell of working. I figure we’ll have about twenty-four hours before Lucille and Ruth are comparing calendars and drawing up lists of wedding guests. In fact, as soon as we’ve told them the truth, we might as well go out and choose an engagement ring. And we should put in the order for our wedding rings while we’re in the store. Probably with a rush order on the engraving to meet our grandmothers’ accelerated wedding schedule.”
Daisy laughed. “They’re two elderly ladies, Matt. You need to get some backbone. We can stand up to them.”
“Hey, I’m a man of steel. I can stand up to anything the toughest sons-of-bitches in Hollywood can throw at me, but I’m smart enough to know when I’ve met my match. It takes everything atom of strength I’ve got to resist my own grandmother once she gets an idea into her head. With both of them campaigning for us to get married, we don’t stand a chance.”
Daisy frowned.
“What is it?” Matt asked.
“I just had an idea,” she said. “Maybe we can strike a bargain with them. We’ll get married in Omaha and they can help plan the wedding on the condition that they don’t invest any money with Steve Greeley.”
Matt looked at her strangely, the laughter fading from his face.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Do you realize what you just said? Daisy, you just agreed to marry me.”
Her eyes widened in shock. She stared at Matt, waiting for the panic to strike, waiting to be swept by the sensation of having made a huge mistake. Instead she felt a surge of utter and complete happiness.
“I guess I just did,” she said, and rested her head on his shoulder. It turned out to be a perfect fit.
Having left Matt to drive home and break the news to Lucille, Daisy hurried into the living room and found her grandmother seated in her favorite armchair with the latest issue of People magazine open on her lap. “Sorry to have been so long,” she said. “Can I get you anything, Gran? A snack? Something to drink?”
“Nothing, thanks. I’ll be fine until dinner. Did you enjoy your jog?”
“My jog? Oh, yes. It was fine. I…um…went to the pond.”
“You seem nervous, my dear. Is something bothering you?”
“Not exactly.” Daisy drew up the ottoman so that she could be close to her grandmother when she broke the news that Lucille Beauregard was about to pay them a visit.
“I met Matt Beauregard when I was out,” she said.
“You seem to be bumping into him rather frequently these days,” Ruth said.
“I guess I am. The thing is, Gran, Matt is planning to bring his grandmother over here for a visit. He’d like to come more or less right now, if that’s okay with you.”
“I’m sure I would never be impolite to a neighbor.” Ruth raised an eyebrow. “However, I can’t imagine why you would expect me to have anything to say to Lucille Beauregard and that arrogant grandson of hers.”
“You don’t know Matt. He’s not in the least arrogant,” Daisy said. “In fact, he’s pretty neurotic and insecure when he’s trying to write.”
Ruth’s other eyebrow lifted. “And you know all these details about Lucille Beauregard’s grandson…how?”
Daisy swallowed and then swallowed again. “Actually, we’re seeing each other,” she said.
“So you just mentioned—“
“No, not seeing each other as in accidental meetings. I mean we’re going out. We’re dating.” Daisy sucked in air. “Matt and I had been a couple for a while, and then we broke up, and now we’re back together other again.”
“Is that so?” Ruth’s lips were drawn into an ominously tight and compressed line.
The doorbell rang and Daisy heaved a sigh of relief as she ran to welcome reinforcements. “I’ll get that. It must be Matt and his grandmother.”
She opened the door and discovered Lucille Beauregard standing on the doorstep, looking fierce. Matt stood behind his grandmother, looking harassed. Daisy suspected she looked pretty much the same as Matt.
“Hello, Mrs. Beauregard. Would you please come in? My grandmother can’t get up because she’s broken a bone in her foot.”
“So I’ve heard.” Lucille, all five feet two inches of her, swept past Daisy and headed straight for the living room.
“She looks as if she’s on the warpath,” Daisy whispered to Matt. “Is she angry that we’re seeing each other?”
He took her hand. “I haven’t a clue. She’s been behaving strangely ever since I told her about us.”
They followed Lucille into the living room, where she stood in the middle of the room, hands crossed in front of her rather ample abdomen. “Well, Ruth, my grandson tells me that he plans to marry your granddaughter.”
Ruth looked over her glasses at her old enemy. “Daisy indicated something along those same lines to me. Although she didn’t actually bring herself to utter the M-word.”
“My grandson seems to believe that he can get her to the altar.”
Ruth looked from Matt to Daisy and back again. “I should certainly hope so after all the trouble you and I have taken to get them together again.”
“What?!” Matt and Daisy exclaimed in unison.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Matthew.” Lucille clicked her tongue impatiently. “Do you really think I’m so incompetent that I can’t decide whether or not to sell my own house without asking you for advice? Ruth and I have been watching the pair of you make a total and complete mess of your relationship for long enough. We decided it was time to put a stop to it.”
Ruth nodded her agreement. “My broken foot just made it a little bit easier to get you here, Daisy. I must say it’s rather gratifying that you managed to get your acts together a little sooner than Lucille and I anticipated. We were both getting extremely tired of being polite to that wretched Steve Greeley person.”
Daisy wondered if her mouth was really hanging open or if it only felt that way. “You mean, you aren’t planning to sell your homes and invest the proceeds with Steve?”
“We’re planning to sell our homes,” Lucille said. “We just don’t plan to give the money to Steve.”
“We’re going to buy a condo together,” Ruth added. “Naturally, neither one of us would be foolish enough to invest money with a man who has con artist written all over him.”
“We’ve reported Steve Greeley to the police,” Lucille said. “They’ve started an investigation into his affairs and it seems he’s run this same sort of scam on elderly widows in several states.”
Daisy and Matt exchanged harried glances and then burst out laughing. “Daisy and I are going out to buy an engagement ring,” Matt announced, taking her hand and tucking it through his arm. “When we get back, would you be kind enough to let us know the date we’re getting married?”
“It will be our pleasure,” Ruth said.
“Absolutely,” Lucille agreed. “I brought my calendar.”
The End