Authors: Maggie McConnell
“Oh Lord . . .” Max rolled his head toward the driveway and his only escape.
Daisy didn’t want to smile, but how could she not? How endearing was this to use his mother as a go-between to ask for a date? And to be honest, in baggy sweatpants and with her hair taking flight, Daisy didn’t look all that appealing herself. If someone could see beyond that, she could certainly see beyond that stained T-shirt and morning stubble.
Besides, she was the
new
Daisy Moon! Moving on. Taking risks. Embracing change. The Universe had obviously delivered this man to test her resolve. And on a day when she was ridding herself of the past. Was Max Kendall her reward for sacrificing the Lladró cake topper?
Until that moment, she hadn’t comprehended what
moving on
meant—
men
and
dating
. But here was her future, staring her in the face—
“I apologize for my mother. I’m sure she doesn’t mean to embarrass
either
of us,” Max said with a pointed glance at Maeve. “And I’m sure you have other plans.”
“Actually . . .” Who was she kidding? She was still the
old
Daisy—who wasn’t ready to be on the market. She didn’t care what she was getting in return. She wanted her Lladró back!
“Actually . . . ,” Daisy began again, trying to manufacture other plans.
“She doesn’t!” Charity shouted from behind.
Daisy swung around. “Will you
please
stop doing that!”
“Excuse us, just for a minute.” Charity pulled Daisy away.
“What do you think you’re doing? I’m not going to dinner with a complete stranger”—Daisy surreptitiously eyed Max—“no matter how good-looking he
probably
is.”
“Probably? The man
sizzles
.”
“He looks a little scruffy.”
“Said the pot about the kettle—”
Daisy tightened her eyes into viperous slits.
“—And don’t act like you don’t know it.” Charity put on her sunny face and called back to mother and son, “We’ll be right there. Don’t go away.”
She turned to Daisy and lowered her voice. “Trust me. This is how I make my living. That man knows golf, which means he’s got money—”
“He could be a caddy—”
Charity hushed her with a raised index finger. “And he’s kindly chauffeuring his mother around on a Saturday.”
“He probably still lives at home.”
“Hello—have you met his mother? If he lived at home, she would’ve mended his jeans and thrown out that T-shirt. Now stop being so pigheaded and do what the doctor orders.”
“What if this guy is a serial killer?”
“Then you can tell me
I told you so
.”
Daisy glared.
“He doesn’t fit the profile.”
“Even so . . . it’s not like this date can lead anywhere.” Daisy glanced back at Max, who had impatiently crossed his arms like Mr. Clean.
“Which is why this is so perfect! No pressure. No thoughts of the future. You can screw up and it won’t matter, but you’ll have gotten over the
first date
hump. And—heaven forbid—you might actually have fun and maybe even get lucky.”
“
Lucky?
You want me to get lucky . . . with a stranger?” Daisy peeked at Max, who cocked his head at her, looking less pleased by the second. Obviously, Max Kendall was not accustomed to being the object of indecision.
“Sometimes, Daisy, the best way to get lucky is with a stranger from a garage sale.”
“You’re making this up.”
“I’ll bet you dollars to donuts this man knows what to do between the sheets. It would do you good to let go a little. Just remember to be safe. And
don’t
fall in love.”
“Love?” Daisy radiated panic. “I’m not ready for
lucky.
Why bring up love?”
“You’re right. You’re much too pragmatic.”
“Yeah, that would explain my very pragmatic attachment to a cake topper.”
“Two entirely different things.”
“Uh-huh.”
“This is the same advice I give clients before I hand them a bill for $150,” Charity said.
“You set people up to get lucky and then you take money? Doesn’t that make you a pimp?”
“A pimp with a PhD.” Charity spun Daisy around and pushed her back to mom and son.
“Daisy would be delighted to have dinner with you,” she said as Daisy mutely smiled. “There’s a quaint Italian place not too far from here—”
“Mama Mia’s?” Max asked.
Daisy’s green eyes popped. How could Charity do that? She knew Mama Mia’s had been her and Jason’s favorite restaurant—after her own, of course.
Dark brows slid together as Max looked curiously at Daisy. “If you don’t like Mama’s, there’s another restaurant, Fireflies—”
“No! I mean, I
love
Mama’s,” she insisted through clenched teeth and a forced smile.
“Mama’s it is,” Charity quickly concluded. “Why don’t you two meet there about . . . six thirty?”
Max had tickets to the Mariners’ game. “How about six?”
“I guess.”
“Now you can finish your business with the clubs while I show Maeve your fabulous Royal Doulton.” Charity ushered away Maeve, leaving the two strangers staring at each other.
“You’ve got quite the mother.”
“Irish.”
“Ahhh.”
“You’ve got quite the friend.”
“Psychologist.”
“Ahhh.”
“The truth is, she’s been trying for months to get me on a date and I’m afraid you’re the unlucky guinea pig. I’m . . . kind of going through a . . . splitting of the sheets.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think your husband really fell into a tree chipper.”
“A tree chipper?”
“Your friend said—”
“Got it.”
Max reached into his back pocket. “Your ex-husband doesn’t know you’re selling his clubs, does he?”
“Actually, he’s my ex but wasn’t my husband. Long story.
Longer
engagement.” Daisy might have smirked. “And they’re not
his
clubs.”
Max lifted his eyes from his opened wallet. “That explains the blue grips.”
“It does?”
“Women’s clubs are usually lighter in weight with different head angles for greater loft, but you can’t
see
that. The color of the grips gives them away; men’s are usually black or grey.” He gauged her height. “But these fit someone about five-nine. They’re a little long for you.”
“They’re not mine.”
“If these aren’t his and aren’t yours . . .”
“The pro shop called,” Daisy confessed. “Said my clubs were in. Except I don’t play golf,
obviously
. Yadda, yadda. It was a terrible thing to do.”
Max grinned and his blue eyes twinkled.
Yes,
twinkled
, Daisy thought. “So if . . . So if buying
stolen
clubs offends your morality, you don’t have to.”
“I’m sure I’ll hate myself in the morning, but what the heck.” He counted the bills in his wallet. “Here’s $647.” He held out the cash. “And while I’m going into debt, I’ll take the
Superman
comics, too.”
Sheepishly, as if this were an illicit transaction, Daisy took the money.
“I owe you $380.”
“Why don’t we call it square?” she said, her discomfort rising like dough. She didn’t want to dine with this man. And she certainly didn’t want to like him, let alone find him attractive. But she might be doing all three. Worse, she had just confided her relationship woes—something every courtship guru warns against.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“You might have some valuable issues in that stack of comics.”
“I doubt it. I found them at a garage sale myself a few years back.”
“Think about it. We’ll talk at dinner.”
“About dinner . . .”
Max jerked back. “You can’t possibly feel guilty about dinner.”
Guilt?
Is that what she felt? Guilt, for selling clubs that her fiancé of
ten years
had bought for his girlfriend?
“Look, if you’d rather not,” Max said.
“It’s just that, well, you were kind of roped into it.”
“So were you.”
Not the reassurance she was hoping for. “So . . . if
you’d
rather not . . .”
“Hey, I’m fine with it”—the edge to his voice hinted otherwise—“but I certainly don’t want to force
you
.”
“I hardly think you could
force
me into dinner.”
“Okay then,” Max said, sounding a little too breezy.
“Okay then,” Daisy said, going for the same nonchalance.
In one fluid motion, Max hefted the clubs to his substantial shoulders. Then he nested the stack of comics in the crook of one elbow. “I’m sure my mom has a few more garage sales to hit. If I don’t move her along, I’ll never make Mama’s by six..”
“If you’d rather make it later . . .”
Max huffed. Yes,
huffed
. “Six is fine.”
“Okay then. I’ll see you at Mama’s.” An awkward moment later, Daisy asked, “You’re not a serial killer, are you?”
His brows jumped, then he smiled. “Not yet.”
Max collected his mother, who was paying for three Royal Doulton figurines. Along with the cash, she handed Charity a business card.
Daisy busied herself rearranging items into the bare spots while surreptitiously watching Max and his mother head toward a very new, very shiny, very expensive, very red Chevy truck with temporary cardboard plates. After putting the comics inside the cab and the clubs in the bed, he helped Maeve into the passenger seat, then went to the driver’s side. Daisy watched until the truck was gone from sight.
Chapter Three
“Y
ou’ve done good,” Charity said to Daisy three hours later when only a sprinkling of items remained. “I’m proud of you.”
“If I’ve done so good, why do I feel so lousy?”
Charity squeezed Daisy’s shoulders. “This too shall pass.”
“And people give you money for this? Boy, am I in the wrong profession.”
Charity ignored the sarcasm. “It’s almost four-thirty. I’ll take down the signs. Why don’t you get cleaned up for your date?”
“Oh boy, my date.”
“Stop! You’re acting like this is the worst thing that could happen to you.”
“No. This is the second worst thing.”
“A breakup is hardly the worst thing—”
“I was talking about Fireflies
.
”
“You’ll see—this is a blessing in disguise. Now make a ‘bad things’ list. Bunions. Allergies to chocolate. Getting eaten by a bear—”
“Mangled by a tree chipper?”
“Just imagine how nasty
that
would be. See how lucky you are? Now go get pretty.”
An hour later, Daisy came down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Charity sat at the island with a calculator beside stacks of currency spread on the granite. Clustered on her other side were a plate of crackers, a half-eaten bowl of salmon pâté, and an opened bottle of Chardonnay next to a full goblet.
Charity stopped counting bills. “You clean up real nice, Daisy Mae. What I wouldn’t give to have your hair when it looks like that”—she scooped salmon pâté onto a cracker and popped it into her mouth—“an’ your talen’ with foo’. Mmmmmmm.”
“You don’t think it’s too frou-frou?”
“Your hair is perfect.”
“The pâté. I’m trying some new recipes. I was going for sophisticated, but maybe I should stick to basics. It’s not called Wild Man Lodge for nothing.” Daisy thought about the rustic cabins shown on the website and imagined what the photos didn’t reveal—spiders, dust, musty sheets, screeching faucets, rusty water, mice—
“I’m sure you’ll find a bunch of business types
pretending
to be wild men. They’ll love your food and they’ll love you.”
Daisy hadn’t mentioned the website to Charity. It was bad enough she was going to the ends of the earth; the third-world living conditions only made it worse. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I took this job.”
I was thinking I had no choice
, Daisy reminded herself as she bulldozed a cracker into the salmon.
“You were thinking you need to start over. You were thinking you need an adventure. You were thinking you need a change. And you’re right. You can always come home. Lots of restaurants in Seattle would jump at the chance to have you as their chef. Fireflies is not the only game in town,” she said. “And Jason’s going to rue the day he lost you as chef...
and
his wife. I’ve seen his girlfriend—”
“Fiancée,” Daisy corrected.
“Soon to be ex-wife,” Charity quipped. “She’s working her way up the food chain. Not that I’ll be sorry when she dumps his cheating ass.”
Daisy wasn’t sure which was worse—losing her place in Jason’s heart or losing her place in the restaurant she had nurtured into Seattle’s most popular and prosperous.
Even the name Fireflies had been her brainchild, along with the twinkling lights scattered around the romantic restaurant and the Mason jars glowing with fake fireflies on the linen-covered tables. Like an old-fashioned summer evening—
“In a couple of months it will all be forgotten,” Charity added. “People understand.”
Daisy thought about her job search and all her phone calls that were never returned—something else she hadn’t mentioned to Charity. “People might understand, but
men
don’t. And
men
own the four-star restaurants. And
men
are the executive chefs at those restaurants. And
men
do the hiring for their kitchens. And
men
don’t hire volatile, violent women. If I were a
man
, I’d have my own television show by now.”
“You’re
not
volatile
or
violent. The judge had just rejected your claim in the restaurant you’d given your heart and soul to for ten years! That same restaurant in which Jason had always promised you a partnership—”
Next time, get it in writing
, her attorney had said.
Or get married. Never trust love to be fair.
“—and Jason—the gutless prick—was gloating up a storm. He had no reason to fire you in the first place, let alone have his attorney do it in a letter. You showed considerable restraint. I would’ve torched the place and taken a meat cleaver to the man’s dick.”