“What are you trying to say about my brother?” Mason’s tone was inadvertently defensive, and her eyes widened in alarm.
“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry, that sounded worse than I intended; I just mean that he doesn’t strike me as very—”
“Intelligent? Who’s guilty of judging by appearances now, Daisy?” he chided, genuinely disappointed in her, and she exhaled impatiently.
“I was going to say observant. Your brother’s intelligence has never been in doubt. The man owns a successful business; he completed a master’s degree, for heaven’s sake. You and he are very much alike.” A curl of warmth unfurled in his chest, an unfamiliar feeling that he couldn’t quite identify, but it made him want to puff out his chest and grin like an idiot.
“How so?” he asked softly.
“You know how,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re both good looking, really smart, and determined to succeed. You’re basically the complete package. Thanks for making me spell that out, mister. Like your ego isn’t big enough as it is.”
Pride. That was what he was feeling. Pride that this wonderful woman saw him in such a flattering light. He couldn’t help it; the grin broke free and his chest expanded just a little.
“You think I’m hot and clever with a great package? Dr. Daisy, you’re such a flatterer.” His words were teasing, but Daisy could see a spark of sincere appreciation in his eyes. Something told her that Mason was even less used to honest compliments than she was. It was an astonishing revelation, and it completely melted her heart.
“Ready?” he asked, and Daisy nodded, suddenly feeling inappropriately ebullient as if she wasn’t on her way to orchestrate the biggest deception of her entire life.
It was a six-and-a-half-hour drive to Morgan’s Bay in the Wild Coast on the national highway, and they had long periods of silence followed by spurts of lively conversation. They debated about everything from politics to religion. Sometimes the arguments were less topical and about favorite movies, music, and even reality shows. They were also playing an ongoing, cutthroat game. The winner was the person who had spotted the most red cars by the end of the journey. It got hilariously ugly and argumentative really fast. Especially when they were driving through the tiny towns en route to their destination.
“Why doesn’t that one count?” Mason asked heatedly, as they were passing through yet another small cluster of shops and homes that posed as a town.
“It’s parked,” Daisy said smugly, and he shot her a look so incredulous she could read it even through the sunglasses.
“Bullshit,” he snapped. “That wasn’t a rule when we passed through the last town and you called out three dozen parked cars.”
“I didn’t,” she denied smoothly. It had only been three. “You’re driving, so I don’t blame you for not being one hundred percent focused on the game, but there’s no reason to make stuff up.”
“That isn’t a rule,” he maintained.
“Well, it should be. In fact, I think it is. Now.”
“You’re such a cheat. Fine, whatever, no parked cars. You were the one earning the most points on parked cars anyway, so it’s no skin off my nose!”
“Great. So that’s twenty-three to you and thirty-five to me.” He swore under his breath and shook his head.
The game continued.
On long, isolated stretches of road, when there were hardly any other cars, they talked about other more personal topics, and Daisy found herself confiding things she had never admitted to another soul.
“I was convinced unicorns existed. I was embarrassingly persistent about it,” she confessed. “Up until the age of twelve I was determined to prove their existence. I was so gullible, and the Internet didn’t help. There are so many ‘true accounts’ of unicorn sightings, unicorn fossils, unicorn videos on YouTube, and grainy ‘found’ images. I was going to be the person to definitively prove that unicorns were an actual animal species. I thought it was a legitimate branch of research.”
She shook her head wryly and a little sadly as she recalled it.
“It added to my reputation as the ‘weird, other McGregor sister.’ In fact, I think that’s probably what started it. It didn’t help that I was a plump, frizzy-haired misfit without a single friend and that it looked like a unicorn factory had exploded over every item I possessed. We’re talking clothing, bags, books . . . I even had a frickin’ unicorn Alice band.” Mason winced at that revelation.
“At some point your mom had to have said something, right?”
“You’ve met my mother, of course she said something. She was absolutely appalled. At first, for about five seconds, she thought it was adorable. Until it became an obsession. I was a mouthy brat about it too. If she threw anything out, I’d whine to my dad about it, and he saw nothing wrong with it. Told my mother I was just being creative and creativity should be nurtured and not stifled. So every time after that, whenever she said anything about my unicorns, I’d throw those words back at her: ‘You’re stifling my creativity, Mother!’