Three Words: A Novella Collection (8 page)

“
I’ve been looking everywhere.” Henry indicated the empty
space on the hammock beside her. “May I?”

Swinging her
legs over the side of the hammock so that her feet rest on the
ground, Daisy sat up. “Sure.”

Henry sat
down, handing Daisy a plate of food, already cut into bite-sized
pieces and a glass of champagne. “What’re you up to, out here on
your own?”

“
I was watching the stars. I like stars.”

“
Yeah, me too. Being in the city all the time, you don’t get
to see too many stars but this is awesome. So serene. I’d kill to
have this view to look at every night.”

“
It’s like this most nights at my place. You never get used to
it. The sky’s always changing. It’s like a living
portrait.”

Henry picked a
few bits of burger off his plate. He tossed them into his mouth and
swallowed without chewing. “It’s funny that we met now, isn’t
it?”

“
How do you mean?” Daisy didn’t think there was anything funny
about it at all. She was still in the unbelievable
phase.

“
Well, here we are both loving the stars and the countryside,
both having marriages that failed for various reasons, both loving
sheep….”

Daisy grinned.
“I don’t think you really love sheep. I think you made that bit
up.”

“
Okay, you got me there. But that’s only because I haven’t had
a lot to do with them. But I’d love to learn.”

“
Seriously?”

Hawk Moon
herding a flock of sheep or drenching and crutching them was
something Daisy found quite hard to imagine. Even country people
didn’t like the thought of that.

“
Yep. And after meeting Marsha last night, the idea came back
to me again. I’ve always wanted to live on a farm. In fact, I
bought a homestead and three hundred acres up north with the money
I earnt from my second album.”

“
What do you plan on doing with it? That’s an awful lot of
land.”

“
I want to go there when I retire. Learn to live self
sufficiently ~ in style, of course ~ raise animals and look at the
stars every night.”

“
You do realise you’d have to kill the animals?” Daisy
smirked, remembering the lamb the previous evening.

“
Very funny.”

“
And you’d give up performing? For good?”

“
I guess so. Music’s a fickle industry. The fans might hate me
next week. I have to live for the moment.”

“
But you also want to plan for when the moment isn’t there
anymore?” Daisy guessed.

Henry nodded.
“I never thought about it like that, but you’re right. You’re quite
a deep thinker for a country girl, Daisy Darling.”

“
Flatterer.”

Daisy
concentrated on her plate for a second, pretending to choose which
bite to eat next. The more she learned about Henry, the more she
liked him. Not because he was famous, rich and extraordinarily
good-looking but because of the qualities he exuded. He was a real
man. It was just such a pity that their worlds could never blend
successfully. Anyone with half a brain could see that the country
girl and the rock star weren’t good ingredients for relationship
pie.

As they ate
Henry began to swing them back and forth gently by pushing his foot
against the ground.

“
Do you think that’s a wise move with food?” Daisy asked,
worried that at any moment she would be wearing the remains of her
dinner on her chest.

“
I’m a seasoned hammock connoisseur. I can balance anything
and swing at the same time,” Henry boasted.

“
It’s not you I’m worried about,” Daisy said, putting her
glass on the ground out of the way. “I have a feeling I might be a
hammock novice.”

Henry gave a
huge grin. It lit up his eyes and sent a shot of desire straight
into a part of Daisy’s anatomy she’d practically forgotten existed.
Waves of heat began to spread though her. Bugger the food and the
swinging, she wanted to lay with him in this hammock and kiss every
bit of his face until her lips fell off. If only she didn’t have
this stupid plate in her hand. Or she had the nerve.

“
The trick is to keep your feet on the ground while you eat,”
Henry said, giving her a demonstration of how to pick up small
pieces of food, sip and swing slowly.

“
And you trust me with this? I distinctly remember what
happened the last time we were this close. My head still has the
bruise.”

“
I can kiss it better, if you like.”

Daisy’s eyes
dropped to her plate. Her face turned the colour of the tomato
salsa on top of her mini burger. How the hell was she meant to
respond to that? Yes, please?

“
Sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“
It’s okay,” she whispered.

“
I meant it, though. I would kiss it better. In fact, all I
could think about while I was on stage tonight was kissing you. I
think it gave something extra to my performance.”

“
In a good way?”

“
Of course. Weren’t you listening in the car?” he
tutted.

“
Yes, but….”

“
So you wouldn’t mind if I kissed you?”

“
I’d like that.”

Heavens. Where
had that come from? In her entire life, Daisy had never been so
bold as to ask a man to kiss her. All this new experience stuff was
going to her head.

Taking the
plate from her and putting both of them aside on the ground, Henry
shuffled so that he was facing Daisy. With the hammock gently
swinging, he leaned one hand forward to balance himself. His mouth
was so close to Daisy’s she could feel the warm breath coming from
his nostrils. His smile had grown more serious and his eyes were….
Well, Daisy had no idea. She was utterly lost in the moment.

Slowly, Henry
reached over to stroke the side of her face and along her jaw. The
hammock rocked back and forth. Tiny charges of electricity danced
from his fingers onto her skin. Her head went all woozy. God. Oh
God. She hoped she wasn’t going to…..

Oh
shiiiit.

*****

When Daisy
woke up what she thought was a few minutes later, she discovered
she was lying on a very large bed. A quilt had been placed over her
body and her shoes had been removed. Trying not to move for fear of
setting her head into another spin, she took in the room around
her. Where was she? This certainly wasn’t her antique high back bed
with the rose coloured quilt and those prints on the wall were most
definitely not the family photos she’d had taken at the reunion
last spring. They were bordering on pornographic.

Through the
crack in the partly closed door, she could hear two voices
whispering. It didn’t sound like a friendly conversation.

“
What the hell are you doing?” Georgia’s voice had lowered to
a tone Daisy assumed was her cross one. She sounded as if she were
scolding a child. “She’s a bumpkin, Henry! There can never be any
future in this. Send her home.”

Daisy sat up
on the bed. Her head swam in giddy circles and she tried keep as
still as possible. If they were discussing her, she had a right to
know what they were saying.

“
But I like her. She’s very sweet.”

“
Oh for Pete’s sake. So are lolly snakes but you don’t go
round sucking on them all day.” Georgia sounded
exasperated.

“
I didn’t even kiss her. She fainted before I got the
chance.”

“
Sleep with her then, get her out of your system but keep it
on the Q.T. Please. It’ll do no good for publicity if you drag her
around town on your arm. And I’ve no intention of picking up the
pieces in the media like I did last time you had a ‘little fling’.
The fans like you single, Henry. When and if you do decide to date
again, in public, they’ll be expecting a little more than some
country halfwit in a pair of cheap stretch jeans.”

Henry’s reply
was muffled but Daisy never heard it. She’d heard plenty enough to
let her know she could never be a part of Henry’s world. Picking up
her boots in one hand, she slid her jacket over her arm and crept
out to the limmo where Joseph was waiting. She only hoped she got
home before it turned into a pumpkin.

Chapter 9

“
You got in a little late last night,” Mrs. Hanson commented
as she and Daisy stood behind her stall at the Antiques and
Collectables Fair the next morning. “You’re looking rather peaked,
if you don’t mind me saying.”

Daisy regarded
the other woman and inwardly rolled her eyes. Actually, she did
mind her saying. She was well aware what she looked like. She
hadn’t had a wink of sleep because she’d been thinking about Henry
for the entire night and the mirror this morning had proudly
displayed what at pointless exercise
that
had been. The
dreaded dark circles had resurfaced with a vengeance and her skin
was all blotchy from doing the very thing she promised herself she
would never do again. Cry over a man. What exactly had been the
point of Henry getting her hopes up like that, of making her want
him when they both knew perfectly well she could never be a part of
his world? Georgia had been right. She was small town and he was
the universe.

“
Yes. I did,” Daisy answered, snappishly.

“
Were you out?” Mrs. Hanson probed, knowing full well that
Daisy hadn’t been ‘out’ for over three months and wanting the juicy
details.

“
Well, yes. I was. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been coming home,
now would I?” Daisy couldn’t help being short with her neighbour.
She felt like shit. The fainting episode had been embarrassing
enough ~ she’d forgotten the effects rocking things could have on
her inner ears ~ but to be called a ‘country halfwit’ was even
worse. And Henry hadn’t even defended her. He’d just stood on the
other side of the door and let Georgia stomp on her when she wasn’t
even there to speak up for herself. It was so unlike the Henry she
thought she was getting to know and like.

“
And such a big black car,” Mrs Hanson continued.

“
Yes. It was,” Daisy stated, praying that would be the end of
it.

Curling her
lip at Daisy’s lack of information, Mrs. Hanson turned to talk to a
customer about the price of a hideous pink jug. The customer wanted
to know her best price but knowing her neighbour, Daisy didn’t
think she would have such a thing as a ‘best price’. She was
tighter than a woollen jumper, shrunk in the wash.

Daisy walked
to the other side of the stall and surveyed the shed. Row upon row
of stalls had been set up, stocking everything from high-end willow
pattern to rusty garden tools and teddies with body parts that had
seen better days. She could even see Mrs Evans across the way,
trying to flog off her crocheted rag rugs as vintage for three
hundred dollars each. Seriously, nobody had wanted them last year.
What made her think things had changed?

A heavy sigh
of resignation escaped Daisy’s lips. Sometimes living in a small
town really was the pits. She got roped into all manner of
ridiculous things in the name of community spirit and being the
kind hearted person she was, she never said no. Today, she’d
promised to help Mrs. Hanson with her stall at the fair, which
would have been fine if she’d had an interest in old things but
from what Daisy could see most of this stuff was junk. Very
expensive junk. And after the events of last night, she was
beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t give up being nice altogether.
It always seemed like she was the one getting hurt. Frankly, she’d
had quite enough of being everyone’s doormat. Yes, she decided,
she’d absolutely done the right thing by leaving when she did last
night. It would only have ended in tears. Well, more tears.

An elderly
lady approached the stall and stopped to examine a china dog. She
picked it up, turning it over and over in her bony wrinkled
fingers. “How much is this, dear?” she asked, handing it to
Daisy.

Daisy looked
at the dog. It had rather evil looking eyes for a china thing. It
was enough to give you the creeps. Heavens knows why anyone would
want to buy it. She turned it upside down to find the price tag.
That was even scarier.

“
Uh, it’s two hundred and sixty dollars,” she told the old
lady, feeling almost embarrassed at having to say it. She wouldn’t
have taken the thing for free.

“
Can you do a better price? I’d really like to have it on my
mantle. It would complete my set but I don’t quite have that much
in my purse.”

Daisy
considered giving it to the lady but knew Mrs. Hanson would throw a
fit. Quickly, she calculated the discount Mrs. Hanson had told her
was acceptable. “I could probably do two twenty.”

The old lady
bit her lip. “Two hundred?”

Just take the
damn thing, Daisy thought. I don’t care.

“
Let me check.”

She walked
over to Mrs. Hanson, who had finished talking to the other customer
and was now holding up a small cracked compact and reapplying her
lipstick. “Is two hundred okay for the ugly dog?” she
whispered.

Mrs. Hanson
almost missed her mouth with the lipstick. “It’s not an ugly dog,
Daisy. It’s a limited edition Royal Dalton figurine designed by
Frederick Daws in 1935.” She stopped and looked over her shoulder
at the elderly lady. “And tell her we’ll take two ten and nothing
less. That old biddy has more money than the whole of the South
West put together.”