Dockside (25 page)

D
aisy was taking photographs of Camp Kioga. It didn’t even feel like an actual job, yet it was. Olivia and Connor had been so impressed with her portfolio of pictures of the Inn at Willow Lake that they’d hired her to photograph the camp. Within the next year, they planned to reopen the place as a family resort. Her job was to capture its wild splendor, covering two hundred acres of pristine lakeshore wilderness, with networks of trails through mountains and streams.

Julian had accompanied her, carrying the big duffel bag of gear she needed for the shoot. They had walked up a path to Meerskill Falls, which sprang from the depths of the mountain, crashing down to a fern-fringed pool. She took close-ups of the dewy rhododendron blossoms, made a long exposure of the flume pouring down past the rocks and framed a wide-angle shot of the old concrete bridge that spanned the waterfall.

The full summer foliage obscured the trail leading to the top of the mountain and the myriad caves gouged into the striated rock. They were ice caves, so cold in their depths that they never thawed. Last winter, she and her friends had made a sinister discovery in one of the caves, evidence of an old, old tragedy. Even now, in the lush heat of summer, she felt a chill at the memory of it.

“You all right?” Julian asked.

Daisy gave herself a mental shake. “Sure. I’m done here.” She straightened up. The motion caused a sharp twinge in the small of her back.

“Really all right?” Julian asked again.

“Yeah. I’m so tired of being pregnant, sometimes I just want to scream.”

“So go ahead and scream.”

“It won’t help. Believe me, I’ve tried it.” She put the lens cap back on the camera. “Sorry, I’m whining. Just tired, I guess.” They headed down the trail together. Julian had been such a good friend to her this summer, just as he had the summer before. Did he know how much she’d learned from him, about being self-reliant and in control? Did he realize that even though she was massively pregnant, she still had a crush on him? She wasn’t going to do anything about it, though. The friendship meant too much to her, and trying to turn it into something more, especially at this point in her life, would probably cause her to lose him entirely.

She couldn’t afford that. With Sonnet gone for the summer, she needed someone to talk to, someone she trusted. “I’ve decided,” she said after a while. “You know, the thing we talked about before.”

“You want to move away.”

She nodded. “Not right now. But…soon. Maybe when the baby’s a few months old. I haven’t told my parents yet.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, boy. If you knew my dad, you’d know why.”

“He’s not going to want you to go.”

“Exactly. See, I never meant to stick around after high school. I mean, how lame is that, living at home?”

“Not lame at all, with what you have going on.”

“Maybe so, but I need to know I’ve got somewhere to go with my life instead of mooching off my dad indefinitely.”

“So do you have a plan?”

“Kind of.”

“He’s not going to like ‘kind of.’ He’s going to want specifics.”

“He’s not going to like anything except his plan, but at least I’m starting to feel okay about going off on my own. Until recently, I was afraid to leave. Not so much for my sake, but for my dad’s. He seemed so lost after the divorce. I was afraid if I left, too, he and Max would…I don’t know, just shrivel up and blow away. Figuratively speaking. I mean, it’s not like I’m the center of their universe or anything, but since my mom left, I’ve felt like I needed to be there for them.”

“What’s changed?”

“My dad doesn’t need me the way he used to. I think he’s dating Nina,” she said.

“Oookay,” Julian said.

“No, listen, it’s important. I can tell they’ve liked each other for a while. I think now they’re more than friends. A lot more.” She hadn’t noticed precisely when it had started, but it was becoming very clear that her father and Nina Romano were more than friends. Like, way more. They were trying not to be obvious about it, yet when they were together, her dad was different. Happier and more animated. And the way he dressed lately was a tip-off, too. Sure, he’d always known how to dress for business, but he fussed over his hair now. Last time they’d gone shopping, he’d spent a full five minutes picking out an antiperspirant. Some days, his belt and shoes even matched.

Daisy’s initial reaction had been surprisingly positive. Prior to this, he’d gone out with a few different women, and Daisy had always found it strange and unsettling. Yet the idea of him with Nina sat well with her, maybe because she was best friends with Sonnet and had always liked Nina. Maybe because Nina was someone Daisy could talk with about the baby—about anything, come to think of it. And definitely because Nina had been a single mom and her life didn’t completely suck. Daisy needed to know things would work out for her. When she looked at Nina, she could see a way for that to happen.

So far, her dad hadn’t said a word about liking Nina. Daisy wondered what he was waiting for. Maybe he needed a nudge. Maybe he needed to hear from Daisy that she was in favor of Nina, that she trusted her and even shared confidences with her.

“I don’t get it,” Julian said. “Your dad’s got a girlfriend so that means you get to take off?”

“I’m just saying, if he’s with Nina, I won’t worry so much.”

“You can do that anyway.”

Daisy felt a wave of relief. Of all the people in the world, Julian would understand. He knew exactly what it was like to be a kid, worrying about your parent. “Thanks for listening,” she said, taking his arm, hugging herself against him. It was a dumb thing to do, touching him like that. She let go, suddenly self-conscious. “Um, sorry about—”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I’m not.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Well, now. Wasn’t that an unexpected reaction?

“You’re looking at me funny,” he said. “Like you don’t trust me.”

“I totally trust you. I’m just surprised you’re able to look past…” Embarrassed, she let her voice trail off.

“What, you being pregnant?” he asked, cutting right to the chase.

“Well, yeah. I guess.”

“You’re not going to be that way forever.”

“But I’m going to have a child forever.” In her more optimistic moments, Daisy pictured herself as the young hot mom, toting a baby around like the latest fashion accessory, as though she were a character on a TV show. Of course, the classes she’d been attending were more reality-based, preparing her for night feedings, safety precautions and diaper rash.

They drove back to the inn, a companionable silence mellowing the atmosphere. As they got out and retrieved her camera gear from the trunk, Daisy said, “I finally sent the papers. To Logan, I mean. Actually, I left a message on his voice mail and finally sent the letter by courier, signature required. So I know for a fact that he got them—this morning, actually.”

“Then it’s done,” Julian said. “That’s good. You can move on.”

“Uh-huh. Except for one itty-bitty detail. Logan has to acknowledge that he got my letter and agree that he doesn’t need to be involved. Once he does that, I’ll feel a lot better.”

“You’re letting him off easy.”

“I don’t think he should be punished.” She didn’t want Logan to have a stake in the child they’d made. If he had no obligations, he’d have no parental rights, as if Logan O’Donnell would even want that.

They took her gear into the house, then went to the kitchen and helped themselves to lemonade. Daisy was standing at the sink when a low-slung BMW Z4 convertible came growling into the parking lot. The icy glass she was holding slipped from her fingers, shattering into the sink.

“Hey, you all right?” Julian asked.

Daisy nodded, wiped her hands on a tea towel. “I’ll clean that up later,” she said. “I, um, I think I’ve got a visitor.” She went outside, feeling suddenly afraid, but she covered her weakness with defiance.

Julian frowned at the tall, flame-haired guy striding straight at her. “Who the hell—”

“That’s Logan,” she said.

“Who the hell is this, your bodyguard?” Logan demanded, glaring at Julian.

Julian glared back. “Does she need one?” He assumed a protective stance, angling himself to the side and slightly in front of Daisy. All the harshness of his rough upbringing shone on his face.

Logan took a step toward him. “You don’t want to threaten me,” he warned. His eyes were narrowed, his body taut. He looked dangerous in his own way, cold and angry.

“And you don’t want to take me on, white boy.”

“Give me a break,” Daisy said in exasperation. “Back off, both of you.”

It was an interesting contrast, to say the least. The kid from nowhere and the heir to a shipping fortune. Julian had survived by his wits and his fists, and was good at using both. Logan, on the other hand, was raised by a small, skilled army of nannies, tutors, coaches and the fine faculty of Manhattan’s Dalton School. He had trophies for rugby, hockey and wrestling, and as Daisy recalled, he loved violent competition.

She put her hand on Julian’s arm. “It’s all right,” she assured him. “Really. I need to talk to him, okay?”

Julian aimed a flinty-eyed glare at Logan. “I’ll be around.” He deliberately brushed against Logan’s shoulder as he made an unhurried turn and sauntered away.

Daisy saw Logan’s hand curl into a fist, and she took hold of his arm. “Don’t even,” she muttered under her breath, holding on until he relaxed. She took her hand away and faced him, more self-conscious than she’d felt in ages. After being gossiped about, poked, prodded, weighed and measured by doctors, she didn’t think she could be made to feel self-conscious.

She was wrong. She looked at Logan and felt as though someone had set her on fire.

Not someone. Logan. He was burning a hole in her with his glare. He tossed aside the courier envelope, not looking to see where it landed. “You couldn’t have called?” he demanded. “It never occurred to you to let me in on your plans? Or—God forbid—give me a say?”

“I think this is the part where you call me a slut and question the baby’s paternity.”

“We can skip that part,” he said.

She lifted her eyebrows. This was unexpected. “We can?”

“You think I don’t know you, Daisy,” he said. “Well, you’re wrong. We’ve known each other since Miss Deering’s class in kindergarten.” He lowered his voice to a husky rasp. “You were never as bad as you wanted people to think.”

Of all the things he might have said to her, she couldn’t have anticipated this. People thought she was promiscuous but that was an illusion. Logan was the only boy she’d ever been with. “Logan—”

“I guess that doesn’t matter one way or another now,” he broke in. “My parents want the paternity test, of course. I don’t need it to know the truth. I just need your word, and I have that.”

“Were they…were your folks…did they go ballistic?”

He laughed without humor. “What do you think?”

“Ballistic,” she said. “Your dad, for sure.” Mr. O’Donnell was a big, blustery hard-drinking man with a temper to match his red hair. Mrs. O’Donnell was quiet, maybe even timid, though tireless when it came to mothering her children. She’d always been at the school, volunteering in the library or lunch room. Not that her presence had kept Logan in line.

“Good guess,” he said, then eyed her with slightly less hostility. “Yours?”

“They were great, after the initial shock. Too great, maybe. In a way, it would have been kind of comforting if they’d grounded me.” She touched her hard, distended stomach. “Then I figured they probably realized they didn’t have to. I’m already grounded for life.”

Anguish flickered in his eyes. “Why did you wait so long? For all I knew, you’d gone to another planet. After that weekend on Long Island, I never saw you again.”

Calling it “that weekend on Long Island” was, of course, code for getting high and being careless about birth control. They’d been beyond stupid, something they’d probably both known at the time. Yet she hadn’t cared. She’d been so crazy, so messed up about the divorce, and not knowing what she wanted to do with herself. Her mom had just announced that they were moving to The Hague. Daisy had an epic battle with her and then took off to someone’s weekend house. She hadn’t been thinking. She’d been one big ball of hurt, and she’d found that getting drunk and high with Logan made her forget.

She cleared her throat, made herself look at him. “I, um, I thought it would be better if we didn’t see each other again.”

“Better for who?” he demanded. “I told you I loved you that weekend. I said I wanted us to go to the same college, to stay together, and you said—”

“I know what I said.” There had been a lot of drinking that weekend. A lot of partying. “So listen, I’m not a big believer in long-term relationships. My parents got married because of me. I’m sure they had good intentions, but ultimately, we all fell apart.” She knew even as she spoke that she was oversimplifying the situation. Her family had been happy for a long time. The slow erosion to divorce had not been one endless torture session.

“And yet you’re committed to having a baby,” he pointed out. “I’d call that long term.”