He scrubbed his hands over his eyes, as if he could rub hard enough to turn her into her sister, someone not so plain and ordinary, and it broke her heart. Why couldn’t she have been as beautiful as her sister? Why had Violet gotten all the gifts?
“Didn’t it mean anything to you?” she whispered. “All the things we talked about? I’ve never told anyone the things I told you.”
“It meanteverything,” he muttered. “And that’s why it hurts so much to know that it wasn’t real.”
“My feelings for you are more real than anything I’ve ever felt in my life,” she confessed, her eyes burning with tears. “Can’t we talk about this? Can’t we try and work through it?”
He shook his head, looking utterly exhausted by it all. “No. I want you to leave.”
Tears burned her eyes. She couldn’t let it end like this. “Earlier, I felt like there was a spark of something between us. I thought that maybe you were beginning to feel something for me. Please, won’t you give me a chance to make this right?”
“I did feel something for you earlier. I felt quite a lot actually, even though it confused the hell out of me. But that was before I knew what you’d done,” he said, a note of pity in his voice. “Now, I never want to see you again.”
“Please,” she begged, knowing that if she left here now, she’d never get a chance to make things right between them. “Please, I want to stay here with you. Don’t make me go.” She couldn’t help but be reminded of that long-ago May Day. She was all grown up now, but he still saw her as a child. As someone he could never love.
For a second, he seemed to soften, but then he shook his head again. “Go, Daisy. Get out.”
As she stared into his eyes, she knew that this time, she truly had lost him. Her lies had cost her everything. She knew she deserved it, but it was still the hardest moment of her life. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I never meant to hurt you.”
Then she fled, her heart breaking.
* * *
FLYNN WATCHED DAISYdash from his room, then fell back into his pillows with a groan. His wound was on fire, he was shaking with exhaustion, and the anger and revelations of the last hour had sapped his strength to the breaking point.
He closed his eyes, wishing he could banish the look on Daisy’s face in that moment before she’d turned and ran away. He hadn’t meant to hurt her either, but what had she expected? Had she believed that when she finally told him the truth he’d just shrug and smile and tell her that everything was all right?
She’d made him fall in love with a lie!
An eternity seemed to pass before his anger slowly ebbed away and he could finally think rationally. As he gathered up Daisy’s letters, which were now strewn across his bed, he forced himself to open them one by one and read them.
As he did so, his anger dissipated even more. Because he suddenly realized that she’d been right. Nothing she’d written had been a lie. He could feel her heart and passion nearly jumping off the page. And he wondered why he’d ever believed it was Violet who had written him. He’d known Violet was not this smart or insightful, hadn’t he? He’d just wanted so badly to believe in this perfect woman he’d created in his mind.
But the more he thought about it, the more it became obvious that he trulyhadfound the perfect woman for him; it just wasn’t the one he’d thought.
A wry smile curved his lips, and the last of his anger dissolved.
He was such a fool. The woman he’d fallen in love with was still here, just right down the road, yet he’d just sent her away. How could he discount how much her letters had helped him while he’d been gone? She’d been right. If she hadn’t fished that first letter out of the waste bin, he’d have been all alone the last few years. He owed her more than he could ever say.
He had to admit that his memories of Violet’s beauty had quickly faded. That image in his mind had been just a placeholder for the real woman he’d come to know through Daisy’s letters.
And while he’d been gone, Daisy had grown up. She was no longer a child. No, Daisy had become a beautiful woman, perhaps even lovelier than her vain, vapid older sister. He supposed he couldn’t be blamed for not seeing the fifteen-year-old girl she’d been as someone he could give his heart to. But he should have known the moment she’d first come to see him when he returned that she was the one who’d written to him, that she was the one he loved.
He thought of the wonderful conversation they’d had earlier in the day and the attraction that had flared between them, even though he’d tried to fight it. He’d never have been able to talk like that with Violet.
He shifted uncomfortably, wishing he felt good enough to go after her, but he knew that would only undo the good work the doctor had done. His first priority had to be to regain his health. After that, he promised himself he’d find a way to fix this.
The maid came in to give him his next dose of medicine, and after he took it, he let himself drift off into a deep dreamless sleep, thinking about what the future could hold if only he was willing to take a chance on passion and love.
He only hoped that Daisy was willing to give him a second chance.
