Chapter Thirty-four

Weston

This is the last fucking thing I want to be doing right now. I used to hope Daisy would show up like this just so I could serve her with divorce papers, but things are already in the works and can get taken care of. I’ll have to call Mr. Williams tomorrow and see how her showing up like this affects my case.

Exhaustion hits me, making the short drive from my parents’ house to my house challenging. All I want to do is take Scarlet up to bed, fuck her senseless, and pass out naked next to her.

We have a good thing going, and I can’t help the sick feeling that’s forming in the pit of my stomach that all this soon-to-be ex-wife drama is too much for her. I’m terrified of losing her, of having her decide this isn’t what she signed up for and take off running for someone with less baggage.

I know events unfolded in such a way tonight that anyone would be shocked, but there’s something different about Scarlet. I don’t know what it is, but it has something to do with Daisy showing up announced. I suppose I can’t blame Scarlet if she doesn’t want to be involved with all this.

Just the thought of her leaving makes me feel sick to my stomach. I don’t like very many people, and I love even fewer. Scarlet is one of those people who I like a whole lot and also love with my whole heart.

She’s the perfect fit for our family. We just click, as lame as that sounds. I get her, and she gets me. She and Jackson get along perfectly, and she’s been more of a loving mother to him than Daisy ever was. Actually, Scarlet has been here for nearly two months. That’s longer than Daisy stuck around after Jackson was born.

I slow at a stop sign and see a shooting star streak across the dark night sky. My mind immediately goes to Scarlet, and I can hear her honey-smooth voice whispering make a wish.

I don’t believe in wishes. You make your own dreams come true, and it has nothing to do with a wish. But right now, I’m desperate. I close my eyes. “I wish Daisy would go the fuck away and Scarlet, Jackson, and I can get back to being a family.”

Feeling stupid, I open my eyes and shake my head at myself. I let off the brake, and the Jeep inches forward, getting closer and closer to home.

Daisy is still on the porch when I pull up in front of the house. A white car is parked in front of me. It’s the white car we saw the other night. Fuck, that makes me even more pissed. She was driving around spying on us.

“Wes, you came.” Daisy stands, stiff from the cold, and comes over.

“Stop.” I close the Jeep door behind me and hold up a hand. “I’m not here to be won over or any of your other bullshit. I’m here so you’ll go home.”

“Can I at least come in? I’m freezing.”

“Fine. But when I say we’re done, we’re done.”

“Fair enough.” Daisy goes up the porch steps and picks up the doormat. “You got rid of the key?”

“That was an obvious place to hide the key. I took it out the day you put it there, but you weren’t around enough after that to figure it out, were you?”

“Wes, I’m…”

“Save it.” I use my body to block her line of sight when I punch in the alarm code and turn off the system.

“I’m sorry.”

I wasn’t expecting an apology this early on in our conversation. She wants something, I’m sure of it.

“Wow.” She looks around the living room. “It’s different yet the same.”

“What do you want?” I ask her. “It’s late, and I’m tired and want to get this over with.”

“How’s Jackson? He’s at your parents, isn’t he?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, please, Wes. I know you and know you’d only trust your mom with our son.”

I don’t like hearing her say our son. It’s what he is, and I’m well aware she’s his mother, but it sounds so wrong. She hasn’t raised him. Hasn’t been here to sit up with him when he’s sick. To calm his fears in the middle of the night.

“What do you want?” I ask again, taking a seat on the stairs.

“I want to give us another shot.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Daisy, I don’t love you anymore. I stopped being in love with you before you left and we both know that. You didn’t love me either. We had issues from the start and should never have gotten married to begin with.”

She folds her arms over her chest, and I look at her, really look at her for the first time. We were freshmen in high school when we met. She was a cheerleader and I was a football player. She went to Greendale, another small town in this county and Eastwood’s rival when it comes to high school sports. We dated on and off throughout high school, and I proposed before I left for my first tour overseas. We got married shortly after that, and she moved around from base to base with me until my time in the army ended.

We should have broken things off then, but we wanted to give it one last shot. Daisy’s mother was the one who put the idea in her mind that we’d magically fix things if we had a baby, and neither of us expected it to happen the first time we tried.

The moment we knew we were having a baby, things changed. For me. Daisy didn’t want a kid, and I’m sure the resentment started there. I hoped things would change when she gave birth and held our sweet, tiny son in her arms, but it didn’t.

Not everyone is cut out for motherhood, she told me just a few days after Jackson was born. I chalked it up to pain and exhaustion. It was a red flag of a warning. Several weeks later, I came home from work to find Jackson screaming and crying in his crib and Daisy nowhere to be seen. Judging by how dirty his diaper was, we guessed she’d been gone at least half my shift, having left poor little Jackson alone in his crib.

The raw, painful emotions come back with a vengeance, and I remember it all too well: sitting in this living room, holding my crying baby to my chest and having no idea what the fuck I was going to do. I didn’t know anything about babies. How was I going to raise one alone?

“You left us,” I say slowly. “And now we’ve started a life. A good life. Why do you want to take that away?”

“I don’t, Weston. We were happy once. We can be again.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It can be.” She walks through the living room, going to the photos hanging on the wall. She stops before one of Jackson, and her face pulls down with emotion. “He looks just like you.”

“Luckily.”

She turns, eyes brimming with tears. “Wes,” she pleads.

“Don’t.”

Sniffling, she wipes her eyes and looks back at the photos. “Whose baby is this? One of your brothers’?” She’s looking at a family photo we took over the summer, and Jackson is sitting front and center with Emma on his lap.

“No.”

“Quinn?”

“Yes.”

Daisy turns, eyebrows raised. “Wait…she and Archer?”

“Stop, Daisy. It doesn’t matter. You left us,” I repeat. “All of us.”

“I miss your family.”

I let out a sigh. “They don’t miss you.” She’s been gone for so long but still knows about us. I wish I could take the memories back. I just want her gone.

“I’m really sorry.”

“You already said that.” I rub my forehead. It’s been years, but the same round-and-round arguments are certain to take place. “Look, Daisy…I’m sorry too.” I get up and step around the stairs. “I’m sorry for the way things worked out. But you made your choice and now you have to deal with it. You can’t come back into our lives and expect everyone to just accept you.”

“But a girl can dream, right?” She unzips her coat and lets it slide to the floor. “You’re even more handsome than I remember.” Running her eyes over my body, she advances, wrapping her arms around me and trying to go in for a kiss.

“What the hell?” I push her away.

“Wes,” she cries. “You were the first man I slept with. I want you to be my last.”

“No.” I shake my head, wanting her out of my house. “What don’t you get, Daisy? I. Don’t. Love. You.” I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my wallet, getting out enough cash to cover one night at the local motel. “Here, get a room for the night. This isn’t happening.”

“We were good at it.”

“It was the only thing we were good at.” And it wasn’t all that great, if I’m being honest. “I don’t want this. I don’t want you.” The words sound harsh coming out of my mouth, but she needs to hear them. “I love someone else.”

“That blonde whore?”

“Don’t talk about her like that.”

Daisy laughs. “Like she’s so innocent.”

“She’s perfect just the way she is, and we’re happy. All three of us are happy.”

“Sure you are. How well do you know this woman? Maybe I don’t want her around my son.”

“Then you should have stuck around so you’d be able to make such decisions. It’s late and I want to sleep. It’s time for you to leave.”

“One more thing, Wes, and then I promise I’ll leave.”

“Fine. One more thing.”