A Christmas Miracle for Daisy (Taming of the Sheenans Book 5) (5 page)

“Daisy’s god-momma,” he repeated, still enchanted by the way she’d speak of herself in the third person. She did it less and less now, but as a toddler it was her favorite way to communicate. Daisy wants this. Daisy needs that.

Daisy needs…

His smile slipped, aware that Daisy needed so much in her life…so much more than just him. The incident at her school had proven that.

She didn’t need a mother and a father rolled up in an independent bachelor. She needed a mother
and
a father. Two parents. She needed sisters and brothers. Cousins. Family.

“God-momma Whitney,” Daisy added, clasping his chin firmly to keep his attention.

“You remember her name.”

“Yes.” Daisy’s frown deepened. “Have I met her?”

“Many times when you were a baby and still living in Denver. Whitney and your mommy were best friends.”

“Where is Denver?”

“It’s in a state called Colorado. You have to fly to get there.”

“Is that why she doesn’t come see me? It’s too long a flight?”

His chest, already tight, squeezed into a hard knot. His conscience warred with him. “Would you want to see her?”

The little girl hesitated. “Does she like me?”

Again his conscience smote him. “Yes.” His voice dropped, roughening. “Whitney loves you.”

“Then why won’t she see me?”

He didn’t know how to explain to a four-year-old the complicated situation. He didn’t know how to unravel the messy tangled threads that tied him to Whitney. That tied them to Daisy. But then, he didn’t even know how to explain to himself how something that had once been so good, became so bad. “We just live really far apart. But maybe once we’re in Montana…maybe we can try to get you two together then.”

“Is Montana where Mack and Molly live?”

“Yes. And it’s where we’re going to be living in just a couple weeks.” He kissed the top of her head. “You know your mom was from Montana. I think she’d love it that you’re going to be raised there, too.”

“And Momma Whitney?”

“I think she’d like it, too.”

*

Cormac couldn’t sleep
that night. His bed was large, the mattress new and ridiculously comfortable, his sheets and duvet equally luxurious and soft. His bedroom windows were open, welcoming the fresh sea air, carried in from the breeze off the Pacific Ocean. And yet he was restless. His mind wouldn’t shut off.

Frustrated, he yanked his pillow out from beneath his head and smashed it into a different shape. It was past midnight and he craved sleep—craved escape—but his thoughts raced, his conscience working away at him. Guilt. Sorrow. Regret.

Daisy was asking for Whitney again. She clearly missed Whitney, or at the very least, wondered about her.

It wasn’t the first time Daisy had asked about Whitney. Whitney came up every three or four months, usually whenever Whitney sent a gift or if Daisy played with the toy sent by Whitney.

Now he found himself wondering if Whitney was supposed to be in her life.

Not true.

He did know.

Whitney had been a huge part of Daisy’s life before April and Daryl died. She should have remained a huge part of her life even with them gone. But the logistics had been hellacious. Whitney there in Denver. He here in California. And the grief over the accident, as well as the constant guilt…

He’d escaped the accident. Whitney hadn’t. She’d still been in the limo when it was struck by the truck. In hindsight it was a blessing she’d been thrown from the limo, because it’s what allowed her to survive. Daryl and April had been trapped in the limo in the fire.

Cormac stretched his forearm over his face, shielding his eyes.

Remembering the accident still made him sick. Whenever he remembered Las Vegas he wanted to throw up.

And now he had Daisy, and even though he loved her, and even though he tried to be everything for her, he wasn’t enough. He’d never be enough.

He was hard. Ruthless. Selfish.

He hadn’t always been this way, though. His mother used to say that of all her boys, he was the sweetest. Cormac was her sugar and cinnamon spice. He’d blocked out a lot of memories of his childhood but he remembered loving to cuddle with her when he was small. He could still see himself nestled on her lap as she rocked him in the chair she kept in her sewing room.

He’d loved his mother so much that it had made his older brothers tease him. If they found him on Mom’s lap, they’d pull him off her lap and throw him down, wrestling him into submission. His brothers were rough. His dad was rough. He’d been born into a rugged ranching family in Paradise Valley, and as one of the younger brothers in a family of five boys, Cormac didn’t remember a time where he didn’t have to fight, or compete.

He was maybe six or seven when it finally dawned on him that if he didn’t want to keep getting beat up, he needed to toughen up. He needed to stop going to Mom, and he needed to stop hiding with his books. He had to become strong like his brothers. So Cormac Monroe Sheenan decided he’d learn to fight, and he’d earn their respect.

It’d taken a long time—years—but by using his brain and his muscle he learned to hold his own. He discovered that his strength was strategy. Strategy allowed him to outwit the older brothers now and then, but that was enough. It gave him confidence. It also taught him that setting goals and working towards those goals—even if others mocked his goals—would pay off.

Over the years he carved out an identity for himself, an identity apart from the family name. In high school, people would say he was different from his brothers. Teachers said the same thing, too.

It didn’t hurt that he was the only fair Sheenan in the bunch. In fact, he was the first blonde Sheenan in four generations. As a kid, he’d hated being a towhead. His older brothers used to tell him he was the mailman’s kid, or that traveling preacher’s that Mom used to go listen to every summer when he came to town for his big revivals, but he never took the ribbing seriously. How could he? He looked exactly like his brothers—the same chiseled jaw, the same high cheekbones, the same big frame—except for the blonde hair.

It was somewhere in his early teens that he learned girls liked his blonde hair, and how it got extra gold highlights in summer. The girls were forever running their fingers through it, combing it back from his face as one leaned in for a kiss, or idly tugging on strands while deep in conversation.

And so he’d let them talk, and kiss, and it had all worked out. Up until they got serious. Eventually they all wanted to get serious. He didn’t.

There was no way in Hell he was going to settle down…marry a girl…have kids.

No way in Hell he’d get trapped, the way his mom and dad were trapped. The fighting. The tension. The sadness.

His mom had had her sadness.

His dad had had his anger.

Cormac’s most vivid memory of his father was his dad staring out the window towards the land, and the river that divided the Carrigan property from the Sheenan ranch. No love lost there, between the two families.

So Cormac loved girls as long as it was fun, and light, and easy. But the moment it changed, the moment his girl wanted
more
, he ended things. Better to end things immediately than let the relationship drag on, with her hoping and waiting and praying for more. Because there wasn’t going to be more. Not from him. Not ever.

And Cormac had managed to escape serious relationships and entanglement until Daisy entered his life.

From the day he took custody of her, Daisy changed everything.

And Daisy was still changing him.

*

Whitney had just
taken a chair at the long table in the Denver boardroom when Cormac walked in.

She couldn’t believe it. It’d been eleven days since he’d left and she hadn’t expected to see him again, and yet here he was, strolling into the conference room as if he always attended the Friday editorial meetings.

He greeted everyone as he dropped into a vacant chair, again acting as if he belonged here.

Of course, since he owned the magazines, he had a right to be here, but he’d never flaunted his power before. She knew why he was doing it now. He was proving a point. Reminding them all of who he was, how he had the upper hand.

Her stomach churned as she watched him flip open a notepad. Her response to him was intense and visceral. She didn’t want to hate him. She didn’t want to react this way around him. She didn’t like being angry and emotional. But he represented everything she’d lost.

He was at the very heart of her grief.

Just two weeks, she told herself, trying to regain her center. Two weeks and she’d be free. Two weeks and she’d have a different job and a different set of problems.

During the ninety minute meeting, Whitney kept her gaze fixed on her team, and scribbled notes, and yet she kept missing huge chunks of the discussion. It was impossible to focus properly with Cormac in the room. With him near, her thoughts wandered, and memories surfaced…memories she didn’t like and want to remember.

April had been her best friend since she was five. April was the sister she never had. Daisy was April’s…

Daisy…

Whitney ground her teeth together and held her breath and then slowly, carefully exhaled. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe and let go. Breathe and forget. But how could she forget when she couldn’t forgive?

And then finally the meeting did end, but before she could escape, Cormac stepped in front of her, blocking her way, asking a question that anyone could have answered. Instead he asked her, which kept her there, trapped in the boardroom with him while the rest of the staff quickly filtered out.

The door closed behind the last straggler and she smiled tightly. “You could have asked anyone on the team for that information,” she said stiffly, clutching her laptop to her chest.

“So I can’t ask you?”

“We had an agreement that you would let me work, undisturbed.”

“Which I have, for two years.”

“The agreement is still in place.”

“Not if you don’t respond to emails or phone calls—”

“Because we have an agreement,” she interrupted.

“I needed a response,” he countered. “You didn’t respond, which invalidates the agreement.”

“You could have gone through Jeff.”

“I am not going to drag an executive vice president of an entire publishing group into this exhausting feud.” His jaw tightened. “We have to deal with this, Whitney. We have to move on.”

But that was just it. That’s what he didn’t understand.

She couldn’t.

She couldn’t forgive him and she couldn’t forget and she couldn’t do this anymore.

Her eyes burned and her throat ached. She swallowed around the lump filling her throat. “I have given my two week notice.”

He didn’t respond and she pressed on, clutching her laptop tighter. “I’m job hunting now. I have a good employment agency looking for management positions for me. They already have some very good leads and your HR will be able to replace me fairly easily.”

Cormac still said nothing.

Whitney’s eyes felt hot and gritty. “You have to admit it will be better for all once I’m gone—”

“No. I don’t agree. And there is no way we can replace you in two weeks. It’d be impossible to replace you in two weeks even if HR wasn’t overwhelmed by trying to shift bodies from one state to another.”

She exhaled in a rush. “And yet you replaced me overnight before.”

“Whitney.”

“You did. One day we were together and then the next you had another beautiful woman on your arm…taking her to the ball you’d asked me to attend with you.”

“We agreed in the beginning that we wouldn’t confuse personal and professional—”

“And yet you did! You made it personal. You made it personal by making sure my goddaughter was not allowed to see me!”

“But your reference just now, it wasn’t about Daisy. It was about you and me. And the way we ended our relationship. But that was a long time ago, Whitney. Four years. Maybe five.”

“Five, and stop saying
we
.” Her voice cracked and heat washed through her. She was amazed that even now, after five years, she could still feel the old baffled pain and anger. She’d loved him so much. She’d thought he was perfect. Love had tricked her. Blinded her. “
You
ended it, and you’ve been in charge of our relationship, personal as well as professional, from the beginning, but not anymore. I’m done. I’m moving on. And yes, you can replace me in two weeks. You have to replace me. Furthermore, I’ve been promised a generous severance package—”