The Cinderella Deal - Jennifer Crusie [52]
Linc watched him go before he turned back to Tracy. “There are a lot of people here. Is it always like this?”
“Pretty much.” Tracy lay back down, much to Jupiter’s delight. “That’s why we call it the Hive.”
“The Hive?”
“Little yellow house, always busy. The Hive.”
“Nothing about Killer Bees?” Linc asked suspiciously.
“No.” Larry looked up from his notes. “Are there any?”
“No.” Linc went upstairs to find Daisy.
“You’re much better at this than I am,” Daisy was saying to Lacey when he reached the bathroom.
“I like this.” Lacey gazed at the wall with satisfaction. “Teach me to paint something else.”
“Like what?” Daisy put her brush to soak. “We’re almost finished in here.”
“Roses, daffodils, tulips, irises …”
“Not in here,” Linc said from the doorway. “Have a heart. I brush my teeth in here. I have hangovers in here.”
“Well, hi.” Daisy smiled up at him, and for some reason he forgot to breathe. It wasn’t stress this time; he never felt stressed when he looked at Daisy now.
She stood up and walked toward him and he held out his hand to her. She took it and stood close and said, “What brings you home?”
Then he remembered and his stress levels rose again. “My mother called.”
“Oh, dear,” Daisy said.
“Don’t mind me,” Lacey said. “You go talk. I’ll stay here and finish the painting.”
EIGHT
THEY WENT INTO Daisy’s bedroom and sat on the bed, and Linc thought for a moment about how great it would be if they were alone and he could just have his arms around her. It would be such a comfort, such a distraction from all his problems.
“There are a lot of people here,” Linc said. “How can you stand this?”
Daisy blinked at him, surprised. “Stand what? They let me alone. If I go in the studio, nobody bothers me. They answer the phone and take messages and since they’ve been here, Crawford doesn’t stop by in the afternoons.”
Linc’s grip on her hand tightened. “What?”
“He used to come by and ring the doorbell, and I’d just stay inside and wait until he went away. When the kids started coming over, he gave up.”
He scowled down at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Daisy shrugged. “What could you have done?”
“What I should have done the first day: told him I’d break his fingers if he ever touched you.”
Daisy laughed, a soft little chuckle. “Did you ever actually break anyone’s fingers?”
Linc’s annoyance faded with her chuckle. “No, but as your brother from New Jersey, I figure Crawford’s the place to start.”
“You’re not my brother.”
His eyes met hers and he felt a flash of heat that rocked his complacency.
Daisy swallowed and said, “What did your mother want?”
“Oh, Lord.” He put his head in his hand. “I forgot. She’s coming to stay. She’ll be at Wil’s for Christmas, so she’s coming to stay with us for the first week in December. That’s next week.”
“Oh.” Daisy smiled brightly. “That will be nice. Get a room at the inn.”
Linc patted her hand, knowing she was going to hate the next part. “There are none. I tried. It’s Winterfest on campus. And I think she wants to stay here anyway. She knows we have a spare bedroom.”
“No, we don’t,” Daisy said, puzzled.
“My mother, like everyone else we know, thinks we sleep together.”
“Oh.”
“It’s just for a week,” Linc said lamely, knowing that a week with his mother would be hell.
Daisy nodded, her head a little wobbly on her neck. “We’ll be fine. Really. We will. She can have this bed, and I’ll sleep in your room. No big deal. And she’ll get along great with Evan; he never smiles either. By the way, Evan is coming here for Christmas Eve.”
Linc’s visions of Christmas as just another great dinner with Daisy disappeared. “Why?”
“Because he’s not going home, and because Julia will be here.” Daisy grinned. “Which is why he’s not going home. And I asked Art too, and Evan introduced me to Bill from