Daisy Does It All (Clover Park, Book 2) Contemporary Romance (The Clover Park Series) (23 page)

“So you all played a game of musical houses to fool everyone at
Mornings with Jessica
.” Jessica nodded. “Oh, yeah, I know. The city has power, and I had my assistant look up the real estate records. This is Maggie’s house. That explains all the high-fiber food. And Trav lives in the house across the street. You don’t even live with him; you live in an apartment.”

Daisy clamped her lips tightly together.
Keep it together. Admit nothing else
.

Jessica went on, warming to her subject. “You’re not even separated; you were never together. I’ll bet you don’t even have a marriage record. I’ll find that out the minute your dinky town hall opens again. But here’s what I do know.” She ticked off the evidence on one hand. “Your first date stories don’t match, Trav has Bryce on
his
days, and I heard you telling him you didn’t even know him. Who doesn’t know their own husband?”

“That was a private conversation!” Daisy exclaimed. “You were eavesdropping. You had no right!”

Jessica laughed. “And your cooking. What a joke! All those gourmet recipes you wrote about and all you can come up with is grilled cheese. And no prepared meals. Another lie!”

Adrenaline ran down Daisy’s legs. She desperately wanted to run out of this house and never look back. But she couldn’t. Bryce needed her. It was time for her to fight, not take flight.

Jessica studied her. “So that’s why Max is professing his love for you. He knows you’re not happily married. Oh, yeah, I heard that little scene this morning.” At Daisy’s shocked expression, Jessica shook her head sadly. “Two rutting stags in heat over the”—she finger quoted—“
innocent
doe. Right in the hallway outside my bedroom. Really, it’s just too easy.”

Daisy told herself not to rise to the bait. She didn’t want to give Jessica any more ammunition than she already had.

“Did you borrow the baby too? Is he a prop in your fantasy world?” Jessica tapped her lips with one blood-red talon. “That must be why he cries so much. He wants his real mommy.”

Daisy lost it. “I am his real mommy!”

“But Trav’s not your husband, is he? I should tell Max you’re free.”

“We’ll be married soon,” Daisy said. “We planned to marry yesterday, in fact. You can check town hall for the marriage license.”

Jessica looked down her nose at her. “How could you? All those mothers who turn to you for inspiration, who
aspire
to be a fraction of the wife and mother you are, who feel
less than
because of your lies.”

Daisy felt her lower lip quiver and clamped down on it. She never wanted to make other moms feel bad. Hell, she always felt like less than the perfect mother. She never should have pretended to be the perfect mom and wife.

“I’m sorry,” Daisy said in a choked voice. “It just sort of happened. I made up the perfect life so
I
wouldn’t feel less than. I never meant to make anyone else feel that way.”

Jessica nodded slowly. “Thank you, Daisy, for finally telling the truth. This is an even bigger story than the one we have. I can’t wait to expose you on the air.”

Daisy’s eyes widened. “I’m not going back on your show.”

“You don’t have to.” She opened her palm to reveal a small black recorder. She pressed a button on it. Daisy’s voice played back loud and clear. “I’m sorry. It just sort of happened. I made up the perfect life—”

Daisy lunged for the recorder, but Jessica was faster.

“You can’t use that,” Daisy said. “You took that without my permission.”

Jessica smiled coldly. “People who commit fraud don’t get special treatment when a journalist is investigating them. It won’t take me long to gather up all the evidence against you. Then I’ll get the ratings Max promised me when he lined you up as a guest. See you on TV.” She brushed past Daisy.

Daisy turned. “You better get out of this house, bitch!”

“With pleasure.” Jessica sauntered downstairs.

Daisy sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her hands, as a cloak of misery gathered around her.

~ ~ ~

Trav returned home in good spirits. The roads were clear, cell service was back up, and he’d seen Jessica and Max driving off in the crew’s van.

“Daisy, I’m home!” he called.

Shane met him in the living room, holding Bryce. “She locked herself in Gran’s room and won’t come out.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. She won’t say anything. She just told me to bring Bryce up when he cried. So far, he’s okay.”

Trav got a bad feeling. He took the stairs quickly and pounded on the door. “Open up, Daze. It’s me.”

To his surprise, the door sprang open. She’d been crying. He folded her into his arms. “What happened?”

“Is she gone?”

“Jessica and Max took off with the rest of the crew. And good riddance.”

She pulled back. “Jessica knows. She knows everything. She’s going to expose me on the air.”

“How could she know everything?”

“I don’t know. She said she made some phone calls, and I admitted…
shit
. She never said what she did know. She goaded me into it.” She smacked her forehead. “I’m so stupid. She recorded me admitting I lied. On this stupid little recorder she had hidden in her hand. It’s only a matter of time before she puts the pieces together.”

He stared at her. “Why would you admit you lied after everything we did to pull this off?”

“She just kept pushing me, telling me I was the wrong size and in the wrong house. She figured out we weren’t living together. And the whole time, she had this nasty smile.”

“So you just told her everything?”

She looked at her hands. “She said I wasn’t Bryce’s real mom.” She met his eyes. “I just lost it.”

“Aw, Daze, you gotta control that temper.”

“I can’t help it!” she cried. “I’m ruined before I even began. All that career stuff Max talked about—poof! Gone! No blog, no more talk shows, no endorsements. And you want to know the worst part? Marrying you doesn’t even fix it.”

He didn’t like where this was going. “We could just say we considered ourselves married because we’ve been together so long. Make it sound like we just hadn’t gotten around to making it official.”

“No more lies! And no quickie wedding. It’s wrong. This whole thing was wrong from the beginning, and I’m just the fool who thought I could do one good thing without screwing it up.”

Tears leaked out of her eyes, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand.

“Come on, we can take her,” Trav said in a coaxing voice. “Jessica’s a skinny thing. One gust of wind and she’s toast.”

She gave him a hard glare. “Not everything’s a joke.”

“I know that.”

“I’m out.” She lifted her chin. “Of everything.” She raced out of the bedroom, and he followed as she flew down the stairs and headed for the front door.

She stopped, hand on the knob. Slowly, she turned around.

He watched her curiously.

She looked at the ceiling. “I’m not running away. I just wish I wasn’t cooped up here.”

“We’ll take a walk. It’ll clear your head.” He met her at the door and handed her her coat.

They left the house, stepping out into the cold together.

~ ~ ~

Trav was right
, Daisy thought. Walking did make her feel better. Especially once they stopped at Liz and Ryan’s place.

Ryan answered the door and grinned. “We finally got rid of the riffraff, and then you show up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Trav said.

They stepped inside, and Liz rushed to the foyer, wearing rubber gloves up to her elbows. “Oh, hi, guys. I was just cleaning up after our guests. You wouldn’t believe the state of the bathroom.” She shuddered. “Men.” She turned to Ryan. “They make you look like a neat freak.”

“I like neat freaks.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

“Ryan, I’m all gross,” Liz protested.

“I’ll help you clean, sis,” Daisy said.

Liz’s mouth dropped open. “You want to help me clean?”

“Sure.”

Trav and Ryan headed for the living room with its leather sofa and giant-screen TV. Except the TV had no power or cable with the blackout. Still, they sat in front of it.

Daisy followed Liz into the downstairs powder room. “It’s already clean.”

“No, it’s not,” Liz said. “I just started. Lucky for you I already cleaned the toilet.” She handed Daisy some paper towels and Windex. “Here, get that mirror.”

Liz got on all fours to scrub the floor. At least she wasn’t attacking the grout with a toothbrush.

Daisy squirted the cleaner and rubbed wide circles around the mirror.

“Not circles,” Liz said, peering up from the floor. “Top to bottom. Got it?”

“Got it.”

They cleaned a few moments in silence.

“Tell me why you’re upset,” Liz said.

Daisy snapped her head around. “I didn’t say I was upset.”

“You have never, ever signed up for cleaning duty in your life. What happened? Was it Jessica? She stopped by here and ordered the crew around. I get a bad feeling from that one. She’s not perky and nice like she seems on TV.”

Daisy told her the whole awful story.

“Oh, Daisy, I’m sorry.”

Daisy swiped at the mirror. They cleaned in silence while Daisy berated herself for this latest screw-up. For the fallout that would no doubt fall on her and Bryce. She glanced over at her sister, who whipped a toothbrush from her back pocket and attacked the grout.

“Can Bryce and I stay with you for the rest of the power outage?” Daisy asked.

Liz stopped brushing. “Of course you’re always welcome here, but don’t you want to stay with Trav? I know he cares about you.”

Daisy turned away and caught her sad reflection in the mirror. Her face crumpled in misery.

Liz jumped up. “Oh, no. It’s okay. Forget I said that. You can stay here.”

Daisy nodded. “Thank you.” She sniffled. “Trav just doesn’t get it. I’m ruined. All he does is
joke
about it. You can’t joke about this!”

“Okay, first of all, you’re not ruined. This will pass, eventually. And as for the joking…well, everyone copes in a different way. I clean.”

Daisy studied her sister. “Are you upset about something?”

“No, sometimes I just like to clean to get things back in order. Sometimes I
have
to. See the difference?”

Cleaning was cleaning as far as Daisy was concerned, but she nodded anyway.

She finished the mirror and threw out the paper towels. “I’m gonna fetch Bryce and some of our stuff; then we’ll be back. I’ll grab his Pack-N-Play too.”

“Okay, sweetie. See you soon.” Liz went back to scrubbing what already looked like a clean floor to Daisy.

She stopped by the living room to tell Trav she was leaving.

He jumped off the sofa. “Wait up. I’ll walk back with you.”

They got their coats, said their goodbyes, and headed out the door.

“Feeling better?” Trav asked.

“A little. Liz always seems to know the right thing to say.”

“Yeah, Ry’s like that for me.”

She smiled, glad for him. “I’m moving in with Liz for a while. Now that Jessica and the crew are gone, we don’t have to pretend anymore. Besides, I know it’s just a matter of days before the press is all over me. I’d feel better staying with a cop.”

“I can protect you. Stay with me.”

“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

He stopped short. “What idea is that?”

“That we’re a couple.” She kept walking. “We’re not.”

He caught up with her. “We’re not a…” He sliced a hand in the air. “
Fine
! Do what you want. I’m tired of begging.”

“Trav, come on. I’m just staying with them for a little while. Maybe later—”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Forget it.”

He marched ahead of her back to Maggie’s house.

Within a half hour, he had packed them up and dropped them off at Liz’s house. He drove off without a word.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Daisy couldn’t shake the deep funk of misery that hounded her. It had been three days since she moved in with Liz and Ryan, and she could barely bring herself to leave the guest room. There were no reporters yet; Jessica must be waiting for the perfect moment. Jessica’s words played on repeat in her head,
All those mothers who turn to you for inspiration, who aspire to be a fraction of the wife and mother you are, who feel
less than
because of your lies.
And she couldn’t even do anything about it. The power was still out, going on five days now. She wanted desperately to update her blog. To apologize before the show aired where Jessica dug up whatever dirt she could and broadcast it to millions.

She knew from Max that the show hadn’t aired yet, though the city had power and Jessica was hard at work putting something together. At first, when Max had called her Monday morning from the studio, she’d thought he might actually be able to help her.

“I’ll pull the plug on your interview,” Max had said. “We’ll do damage control. If you take down your blog—”

“First of all, we still don’t have power. Second, even if we did, I’m not taking down my blog! It’s the only thing I’ve ever done that I’m proud of.” Besides Bryce, of course. The blog might not have been an exact reflection of her life, but the heart of it was.

“Daze, she’ll ruin you. She’ll do anything for ratings. That’s what the network loves about her.”

“Then I guess I’m screwed.”

“I’ll do my best to can it. But if she goes to the higher-ups, it’s out of my hands.”

Jessica went to the higher-ups later that day. Max let Daisy know as soon as he found out.

“I was in on the meeting,” Max said. “I told them they weren’t being fair to you, but Jessica made a good point. The ratings could reel in big-time sponsors. That’s exactly what the network needs to stay competitive. We’ve already had some interest from Gerber.”

“So you just let them do it?” Daisy asked.

“I really didn’t have a choice. It would’ve been career suicide to let my personal feelings get in the way of good business.”

Daisy couldn’t believe Max would turn on her like this after begging her to give him a second chance. The show would go on; it was just a matter of when and how long it took Jessica to put all the pieces together.