Page 58 of Fighting for Daisy

“You have no idea. I’m constantly settling,” she said.

“I’m glad you’re bouncing back,” he said.

“Yeah, I was pretty scared there for a while, but I knew you’d save me.”

“Daisy, it was blind, dumb luck that I put things together and found you. This could have easily had a very different outcome.”

“Well, it didn’t.” She shrugged. “And now, we don’t have to have aBodyguardmoment, where you figure out at the last second that it’s the cameraman and jump in front of me to take a bullet.” She smiled.

“You’re so not funny,” he said. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“I’m sorry. Truly,” she said, laying a hand over his and squeezing. “And thank you for saving my life. He really did mean to kill me.” She kept the fact that he’d come pretty damn close to herself.

“Hey. I’m just glad I got there in time.”

“And now that we’re out of danger, we can have some fun. You wanna do some sightseeing before the banquet?”

He pulled up a chair to the cart with the food on it. “Let’s eat, then talk.”

She laughed and agreed. Over coffee, eggs Benedict, and waffles, they ran through the possibilities of what to do around town. That was until he brought up the elephant.

“We gonna discuss what happened last night?” he asked. “Twice.”

“Um, no thanks,” she said. If they discussed it, he might ask what it meant to her, and, despite her deathbed resolution to come clean, she wasn’t ready to tell him she’d fallen for him.

At least, shethoughtshe had. She did harbor a few doubts. Could one really fall in love in under a week? And what if he was right about her just being caught up in strong emotions because of the kidnapping? He’d taken a bullet for her and saved her twice now—seven months ago from an armed robber and last night from a murderer. Could her feelings merely be based on gratitude or the fact that he could keep her safe? Until she was sure, she wanted to avoid conversation about it, so she played it off like she usually did anything important.

“Last night was just for fun,” she said. “A celebration of life. I hope you didn’t take it to mean more.”

Something resembling hurt crossed his face, but it flashed so quickly she couldn’t be sure. “No problem.” He shrugged. “Like I said, life-threatening situations tend to bring out those feelings. As long as we’re on the same page.”

“Good, we agree then,” she said. “So, Empire State Building? Grand Central Station? Times Square? How should we kill the day?”

“Horrible choice of words, Daisy.”

They walked to Times Square, but it was so crowded and the weather so muggy, they ended up ducking into a shop on Fifth Avenue just for the air conditioning. It was ritzy and regal, and formal dresses lined the walls. Noah groaned.

“It’s a sign,” Daisy said. “I brought a dress, but I feel like cheating death calls for something more extravagant.”

As she suspected, Noah wasn’t much of a shopper. He excused himself to deal with some work stuff while she tried on dress after dress.

By the time he returned, she’d picked one and was at the register paying for it. The clerk had already bagged it, so he hadn’t seen it.

“Do you need to get back to New Bern?” she asked. “Now that Lance is out of the way, I’m fine attending the banquet by myself.”

“After all we’ve been through?” he said. “I’m coming to the banquet. I want to be there when you win. Enough to suffer through a few ounces of reheated chicken and overcooked green beans.”

She smiled.

They stopped for lunch, and she took a second to make one last-ditch video to beg for eleventh-hour votes.

“Well, that’s that,” she said, turning off her phone and dropping it into her purse. “Nothing else I can do now. We’ll see if it was enough tonight. Who are you texting?”

“Oh, no one. Just a notification from the tux company verifying they dropped the suit at the hotel,” he said, putting his phone back in his pocket.

She’d meant what she said about being fine attending alone. She just didn’twantto. Now that she’d gotten used to Noah and his moods and strong presence, she was pretty sure she would miss it. Going from 24/7 companionship to being alone again cold turkey might take a minute to get used to.

As they exited the diner, she spotted a palm reading place.

---