“Remember that day I told you I was going for a drive to clear my head?” Daisy says. And I remember it because it was only three days ago and it was also the day Tate found out he didn’t lose his scholarship. “I drove down to Gray, Maine, where she—our grandmother Elizabeth, who goes by Betsy—lives. And we met and we talked and now I need you to meet her and talk to her.”
“Right now? We’re driving to Maine?” I am so confused. “Daisy why did you keep this from me?”
She frowns. “I’m telling you now. And no, we’re not driving to Maine. She is in Colebury for the weekend and we’re meeting her there. That is, if you want to meet her. She really wants to meet you.”
“I do. I think.” I’m conflicted, to be honest. But Daisy met her and she is eager for me to do the same, so I will. I nod. “I’ll go shower.”
I start peeling off my blanket cocoon.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, I meet Daisy in the kitchen where she hands me a travel mug of coffee and my coat. I realize, as we walk down the stairs from our apartment and out the front door of the building that she’s holding two mugs, not just one. “You’re double fisting caffeine this morning?”
I climb into the passenger seat and she gets behind the wheel, putting her travel mug in one holder and reaching back to put the other one in the holder in the back seat. “We’re picking someone up.”
That’s when I start to panic. “You are not surprising Dad or Uncle Bobby or Ben with this are you? Because that’s just going to fracture our already splintered family tree even more.”
She shakes her head and turns the car off our street and toward campus, which is not the way to Colebury. “I’ve told Dad and he told Bobby and Ben.”
My jaw drops so hard I think I might have dislocated it. “When the hell did you do this?”
“Last night,” she replies. “I didn’t want to tell them without you, but Mags, you’ve been an emotional puddle. Completely justifiable and partly my fault, so I just went ahead and decided to try and sort this all out myself.”
Daisy looks so serious and adult right now with a stern brow and tight jaw, that I almost forget I’m the older sister here. And then, as if there weren’t enough surprises in the last half hour to last a lifetime, she pulls to a stop in front of the hockey house.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask in horror as I watch Tate emerge from the house and make his way to the car. My eyes fly to Daisy in sheer disbelief and panic.
“I know this is hard to believe, but he needs to be there too,” Daisy replies. He slides into the backseat wordlessly. “There’s a coffee there for you. Cream, no sugar the way Hank told me you like it.”
“Thanks,” he tells Daisy.
My eyes collide with his in the rearview mirror.
“Hi. I miss you,” he says simply.
“I miss you too.” I smile softly but it hurts. A lot.
“You two are going to be the death of me,” Daisy says as she starts to drive. “And I mean that quite literally because by the end of today, you might want to kill me.”
“I still have no idea why I’m here,” Tate says. “Can someone fill me in? I’m already on very shaky ground with my family. If they find out I went joy riding with you two…”
“All I know is Daisy found our grandmother and I’m going to meet her,” I say.
As Daisy turns onto the on-ramp for the highway, she starts to tell Tate what she told me—about the ancestry site, the DNA swab, the match with a woman in Maine and her meeting with that woman.
“She has red hair,” Daisy explains with a content smile. “Well, mostly gray now but not totally. And she looks a lot like Maggie. And she didn’t abandon my dad and his brothers. She was forced out of their lives by… Clyde and circumstances. But she swears she tried to keep in touch with letters and Christmas gifts. I haven’t confronted Clyde about it. I’m leaving that up to Dad and our uncles just like I’m leaving it up to them to contact her if they want. But I’m not leaving it up to you, Mags, because there’s other stuff I think will change things for you.”
Daisy’s eyes shoot up to the rearview mirror to look at Tate. “Things that will change life for you, too.”
Tate leans forward so his head is between Daisy and me. I get a whiff of his scent. It’s honestly nothing special—a blend of deodorant, shampoo and laundry detergent but mixed with the heat of his skin and pheromones, it sends my stomach into backflips and my heart aches harder than before. “I still don’t understand but as long as I’m back for the harvest festival tonight, I’m good. The farm has a booth and so does the team, so I’m double-booked.”
“Of course. I’m not kidnaping you overnight or anything,” Daisy assures him. “Trust me.”
“With you, Daisy, that’s not easy,” Tate says and I know it hurts Daisy, but he has every right to feel that way.
We drive the rest of the way to Colebury in silence. Somewhere along the forty minute drive, my hand slips back and I feel his fingertips tangle with mine. We shouldn’t be giving in to temptations but we do, and I don’t care how pointless and stupid it is—it feels good.
Daisy pulls into the parking lot of a place called the Busy Bean a little after nine in the morning and we all get out of the car. “They didn’t feel comfortable coming into Burlington just yet so we agreed on here,” Daisy explains as we walk toward the front door.
