A Week Till the Wedding Read Free Page A

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
    T he 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