“Like clockwork,” Brenda said, her voice a little grim.

“You don’t seem happy about it,” Daisy said.

The other woman looked back at her with candid hazel eyes. “I think it’s lovely, but it’s not about me. It’s about Katie. And my daughter would never ever have wanted this for the man that she loves.”

Chapter 8

Daisy contemplated making happy, easy chatter as they walked back to the car, but she sensed he wouldn’t want that. Instead she let Lincoln have his quiet, understanding that sometimes the mind and heart needed a little buffer time to repair their walls.

He opened the passenger door for Daisy, and closed it behind her before going around to the driver’s side. Neither said anything as he started the car and drove away from the woman he loved.

It was a good twenty minutes before he broke the silence. “Thank you.”

She looked over. “You’re welcome.”

Lincoln caught her eye and smiled, and she was relieved to see that it was a real smile. Not flirtatious, but real all the same. As though he’d gone about the process of tucking Katie away somewhere safe. Until four Sundays from now when he’d do it all over again. The thought was as sweet as it was sad.

He looked back at the road, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Daisy, listen. What you just saw…Nobody else knows…”

She felt her stomach clench at his words. Nobody? As close as he was with Cassidy and Emma and the gang, she would have thought he’d need to share his pain with someone.

And if not, why her?

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” she said quietly.

He didn’t smile or look her way. “I figured you wouldn’t.”

Daisy turned and looked at the passing landscape. “How’s that?”

“Because you understand the nature of secrets.”

She looked out the window, considering this. “Is that why you brought me?”

His thumbs drummed against the wheel again. “Honestly, Wallflower? I don’t have the faintest clue why I brought you.”

She laughed a little at his honesty, then turned serious once more. “You know, if you ever want someone to talk to…”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice a little gruff. “And likewise.”

She felt a weird tingling at the thought of becoming Lincoln’s confidant. It felt…intimate.

And appealing.

“You know,” he said, glancing over at her and giving her a smile that echoed last night’s casual flirtatiousness, “it’s going to be hard for us to have those heart-to-hearts without each other’s phone numbers.”

Daisy snorted. “Nicely played. All right, gimme your phone, I’ll put my number in it and yours in mine.”

He jerked his hand toward the back. “In the pocket behind my seat.”

Her nose wrinkled as she reached an arm around to fish for it. “I didn’t even see you put it away. What’s the story there?”

His smile was gone once again. “So I’m never tempted. To look at it while driving.”

Daisy understood immediately. A phone used while driving had destroyed more than just Katie’s life.

“Want to give me your phone passcode, or should I just text you my number?” she asked.

“Zero-one-one-five.”

“Your birthday?” she guessed.

“Hers.”

Ah.

“I didn’t know,” he said quietly, as Daisy added her name and number to his contact list.

“Know what?”

There was a moment of silence. “That she was on the road when I was texting her. We were joking about me hiding in her closet when she got home, trying to get a look at her dress before the actual day. We were just…I was so happy. I assumed she was texting me from the dress shop. Then she quit responding, and I assumed it was because she was driving. Then she called, and I picked up…”

He braced his left elbow on the door and rubbed his forehead. “It wasn’t her. It was the first responder. Just the day before I’d changed my name in her contacts to Husband, joking that it would keep her from changing her mind, and that’s who the cop called. Her husband. Except I wasn’t. Not yet.”

“Lincoln.” Daisy rested a hand just above his knee, the gesture instinctive and platonic, if perhaps a bit too personal. He covered it with his own and squeezed, as though grateful for the contact. She wondered if anyone touched him in a way other than teasing and uninvited. If he’d ever accepted comfort after what happened.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

His laugh held no humor. “On some level, I guess I know that. The rational part of my brain tries damn hard to convince my heart. But the heart is…louder. The heart wonders. If I’d not texted her back, or if I’d just…”

She squeezed his hand. “It’ll eat you alive if you go there.”

He looked out the window, then straight ahead. “I think it already is.”

Daisy said nothing, sensing that maybe the best comfort she could offer was silence.

Several moments of silence passed before he spoke again. “I wanted to marry her. After.”

She only nodded, not wanting to reveal that Brenda had already told her as much.

“Her parents gently reminded me that it wouldn’t have been right. That you can’t marry someone who’s incapable of giving their consent. Katie wouldn’t have been able to say her vows. She wouldn’t have known I was putting a ring on her finger, much less been able to put a ring on mine. Hearing that is when I knew—when it sank in that my Katie was gone forever.”