She nodded across the field to the man and his sons. ‘I was just thinking what a wonderful dad he is.’
Connor craned his neck, leaning back on his elbows to watch. Then made a scoffing sound. ‘How do you know he’s a good father?’
It seemed self-evident to her, but she decided to humour him. ‘Because he’s being so fair with his two sons. And he really enjoys their company. When I have children, I’ll want them to have a father like that. Someone as involved and committed as I am.’ The words slipped out on a wistful sigh.
Connor’s eyeb
rows lifted. ‘When you have children?’
‘Well, yes.’ She blushed, thinking she might have said too much, then thought, What the heck? This had been her dream for a long time, why should she keep it a secret? ‘I’ve always wanted a family, a big happy family. In my opinion it’s what makes life worth living.’
He watched her for what felt like an eternity, not saying a word. ‘Is that what your own was like, then? Your family? Your father?’
The personal question stunned her a little. They’d both been avoiding them so carefully up till now. ‘I never knew him.’ She shrugged. ‘But I was hardly deprived—there was never any shortage of pretend dads.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Pretend dads?’
She gave a laugh, trying for casual but getting brittle instead. ‘My mother was the original born-again Bohemian—addicted to the idea of being in love. So she’d fall madly in love with some guy, we’d move in with him and then she’d discover he didn’t love her—or not enough. I had a lot of what I called pretend dads as a result.’ Why had she brought this up? Thinking about all those men who hadn’t wanted to be her father, to be anyone’s father, had always made her feel a little inadequate, and very insecure. ‘None of them were horrible or anything like that. They all tried to be nice. But they weren’t my father—and they didn’t want to be.’
‘That must have been tough,’ he said gently.
His astuteness surprised her and made her feel unpleasantly vulnerable. ‘I suppose it was at first,’ she said, not sure she could cope with the sympathy in his eyes. ‘When I was really little, I used to make the mistake of getting attached to them and then I’d be devastated when they left. But after a while I realised none of my mother’s relationships would ever last. After that I forced myself not to get too attached and it was easier.’
Connor sat up, a strange tightness in his chest. She’d just given him an insight into her life he shouldn’t really want. He’d been working overtime in the last week to make sure neither of them had too much time to think. He’d nearly blown things wide open at the gallery. And he still didn’t know what had possessed him to introduce Daisy as his fiancée to Jessie and Monroe.
So he’d decided that night, when she’d looked so wounded, so unhappy, that the best thing to do was to keep things upbeat and not make any stupid mistakes again. Not to talk about feelings and emotions and any of that serious stuff that might complicate things.
But somehow, watching her now, hearing the hurt when she talked about all those pretend dads who’d rejected her, he felt the urge to comfort her, to make it right.
He gave his head a rueful shake as he studied her. ‘Damn, Daisy, who’d have thought it?’ He brushed his thumb down her cheek, felt her shiver. ‘Who’d have thought my practical, steadfast little Daisy would be such a dreamer?’ He forced a smile onto his lips, desperate to keep the situation light.
She took hold of his hand, pulled it down from her face. ‘Why are you smiling?’ she asked, and he could see the shadow of hurt in her eyes. ‘What’s so funny about the fact that I want a family? Just because you don’t, it hardly gives you the right to laugh at me.’
‘I’m not laughing. I don’t think it’s funny. What it is, is sweet and incredibly naive.’
‘Why naive?’ she said warily.
‘Because you’re looking for something you’ll never find. There’s no such thing as happy ever after. Your mother didn’t find it because it was never there.’ He sighed, then nodded at the spot across the meadow where the father was still playing with his sons, the old bitterness assailing him. ‘How do you know yer man over there doesn’t get drunk every once in a while and take his belt to those boys?’
She drew in a sharp breath. ‘Why would you think that?’ she whispered, her eyes wide with shock.
He shrugged but the movement felt stiff. ‘Because it happens.’
‘Your father did that to you, didn’t he?’ she said softly.
His heart slammed into his ribcage. ‘How would you know that?’ he said, carefully.
Seeing the compassion, the concern in her face, he wondered why the hell he’d started this conversation.
‘You talk in your sleep, Connor, when you’re having the nightmares.’ Daisy watched his jaw tighten, the cocky smile gone from his face. And her heart bled for him. ‘And I’ve seen the scars on your back.’ But how many more scars, she wondered, did he have on his heart?
Jessie had said his attitude to family, to kids, was all mixed up in his past. She knew she shouldn’t pry, that she really had no right to pry, but suddenly she just wanted to know. She’d accepted that this had to be a temporary fling, because he wasn’t looking for permanent, and she couldn’t change that. But suddenly she wanted to know why. Why would he want to deny himself the one thing in life that really mattered?
‘Will you tell me about it?’
He gave a half-laugh, but it had a hollow ring that stabbed at Daisy’s chest. ‘There’s nothing much to tell,’ he said. ‘My mother died. Left my Da on his own with six kids.’ His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. ‘He came home that night from the hospital, cried like a baby and got blind drunk. And after that everything changed.’ He plucked some grass up, rubbed it between his fingers.
She waited, a part of her scared to hear what he had to say, a part of her desperate to know so she could understand. ‘How did it change?’ she said gently.