Page 67 of The Life Daisy Devlin Designed
“So, did you have someone to cook for in the States?” Daisy swirled the wine gently in her glass.
He looked at her. “Sometimes. I never lived with anyone there, if that’s what you’re asking.”
What was she asking? It felt like they were dancing around each other. “That woman in the photo upstairs – was it recent?”
“Recent enough.” He sighed. “It’s complicated.”
Daisy wondered if it was behind his decision to come home. “All of this.” She gestured vaguely around the room. “It was a pretty dramatic move, Matt.”
“I know, yeah.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll get a dog. I could buy some farmers’ boots and go for long country walks.”
Daisy started to laugh. “Come on, it’s not really you, is it? The big house in the country, the isolation.’
“People are full of surprises.”
She stopped laughing as she met his eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d said that. And this time she wasn’t imagining an edge to his voice.
“Tell me more about New York?” she said.
Matt seemed to be choosing his words. “It was great for a few years. I had an apartment in one of the villages. You know those old brownstones you see in films?” He raised an eyebrow. “There was even an artisan bakery on the corner where I got my bread and organic coffee.”
“God, the notions!” she teased.
“Ididhave a favourite hotdog stand.”
“Better!”
Matt got up to throw another log into the stove, and Daisy watched the flames flicker up around it. She stretched, wriggling her feet in the dark, wool socks she’d borrowed.
She felt cocooned here, with the rain beating down outside. When had she and James last spent the night on the sofa together, just snuggling?
Matt sat back down beside her. Oh, brilliant, now she was thinking about snuggling!
“Do you know what I’ve just remembered?” Matt said.
Snuggling?“Um, you’ve ice cream in the freezer?”
“Sorry.” He grinned. “I was thinking of that time we spent a couple of days away in that little hotel in Donegal. The one with the shepherd huts?”
“They’d double-booked us with that elderly couple, so they offered to put us up in one of their huts for free!” Daisy buried her face in her hands. “I still have nightmares about being woken by that spider.”
“To think that your screams were the last thing it heard before I had to kill it.”
“Hey, only one of us was getting to spend the rest of the night in that hut!” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure they heard me screaming in the hotel!”
“Wedidget a few funny looks the following morning at breakfast.” Matt was deadpan. “Although I figure they assumed we’d been having really great sex.”
It was pointless trying to pretend to be cool when your face matched your hair colour! All these memories that she’d managed to bury, or at least blur, were suddenly sharper than ever.
“Are you getting too warm?” Matt was looking closely at her. “We can move the sofa a bit away from the fire.”
“No, I’m fine, thanks.” She pressed a cool hand against her warm cheek.
He got to his feet. “I’m going to leave some clean sheets for you in the bedroom. Have some more wine, I won’t be long.”
CHAPTER 29
Daisy got up and wandered over to the window, aware of a slight draught along the ledge. She took out her phone to check if there was anything from James: nothing. She rang him again, relieved when the call was picked up.
