turning her tear-streaked face toward him.
“And I will take you, if that’s what you really want,” he told her. “But sometimes when people misbehave as badly as Selena did in there, the best thing to do is hold your chin up high and show people that you’re better than that.”
“But everybody’s laughing at me,” Daisy said, her eyes filling once more with tears. She regarded him with bewilderment. “I thought we were friends. Why would she be so mean?”
Elliott wondered about that himself. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I think perhaps she is very unhappy tonight.”
Daisy looked intrigued by his response. “How come?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, not wanting to suggest that Ernesto had let her down. “But I think she took her own unhappiness out on you. That was very wrong, but perhaps you will be the bigger person and find it in your heart to try to understand and forgive her.”
Daisy seemed to consider his words for a very long time before she met his gaze and asked with a sniff, “Do I have to?”
Elliott had to turn away to hide a smile. “No, little one, you don’t have to, but I hope you will. Despite what happened here tonight, we’re still family.”
She sighed heavily. “Okay, I’ll think about it.” She met his gaze. “But I still don’t want to go back. Please, can we go?”
“Why don’t we go to Wharton’s for ice cream?” he suggested. “How about that?”
She gave him a wobbly smile. “Ice cream would be good.”
On the way to Wharton’s, she wiped away the last of her tears and turned to him. “Before Selena said all those things, I had a good time, Elliott. Thank you for taking me.”
“Anytime,” he assured her. “And I had a good time, too. Next year’s father-daughter dance will be better. I promise.”
And first thing in the morning, he intended to get to the bottom of whatever had made his niece behave in such an uncharacteristically rotten way. His brother-in-law might be comfortable letting it slide, but he most definitely was not.
* * *
“Selena said what to Daisy?” Karen asked, her expression stunned when Elliott described the awful scene at the dance. “Why would Selena do such a thing? Daisy adores her. She must have been crushed.”
“At first, yes,” he admitted. “But a hot fudge sundae seemed to go a long way toward making her feel better.”
“At least this explains why she went straight to her room when you got back here just now and didn’t answer when I asked about the dance.”
“She felt humiliated, no question about it,” he admitted, looking chagrined. “For my niece to do such a thing…” He shook his head. “Honestly, though, I’m more worried about Selena right now. Something was not quite right with her tonight. I got the sense that Ernesto had no desire to be there and had made that plain to her. Maybe his insensitivity explains why she was so mean to Daisy.”
“That’s no excuse,” Karen said.
“Of course not,” Elliott agreed, for once not taking his family’s side. “I think there’s a lot more to the story. Adelia hasn’t been acting herself lately, either. I’ll get to the bottom of all of it tomorrow. And, trust me, Selena will apologize.”
“A forced apology won’t mean much,” Karen said.
“But it is necessary, nonetheless,” he said with conviction. “People in this family do not behave in such a way.” He gave Karen an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry the night was ruined for Daisy. I wanted so badly for it to be special, a memory she could cherish.”
Karen could see how upset he was that a member of his family had caused her distress. “As you said, the sundae went a long way toward fixing things. I’m sure it will all blow over.”
He hesitated, then said, “There is one thing Selena said that I think we should discuss, something we could correct.”
Karen frowned at that. “Why is it up to us to correct anything that Selena said out of spite?”
“Because we can,” he said simply. “She said Daisy wasn’t her real cousin and that I wasn’t her real dad. We’ve talked before about me adopting Daisy and Mack, but we haven’t made a decision. Maybe it’s time we did.”
Karen nodded distractedly. The subject of adoption had come up in passing before. She’d let it slide, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. Tonight, though, she simply couldn’t focus on such an important topic.
“We’ll talk about it,” she said, “but not now. I need to check on Daisy.”
Elliott’s sigh hinted at his exasperation, but she ignored it. Tonight Daisy came first. She was still seething over what had happened. At least this once Elliott hadn’t rushed to take his niece’s side. Sometimes, she thought, he wore blinders where his family was concerned. There had been a few occasions when Adelia, his other sisters and even his mother had been just as careless of her feelings. Thankfully, though, that was mostly in the past.
As she stood to go to her daughter, she leaned down and kissed him. “Thanks for taking such good care of her.”
“It’s my job,” he said simply.
She found Daisy in bed with the covers pulled up high. The dress, which had been the cause of tonight’s incident, was in a heap on the floor.
“You should have hung this up,” Karen said lightly, picking it up and putting it on a hanger.
“Why? I’ll never wear it again. I don’t want it here. Give it back to dumb Selena if she cares about it so much. And I don’t want to go to Grandma Cruz’s after school anymore, not if Selena is going to be there.”
Karen sighed at the stubbornly determined note in Daisy’s voice. She sat on the edge of the bed, still holding the dress as she met her daughter’s gaze. “We’ll discuss where you’ll go after school another time. I’d rather focus on what happened tonight. Maybe I can help you to understand it.”
“Selena’s just selfish, that’s all.”
Karen shook her head. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You know, don’t you, that what Selena said most likely wasn’t about the dress at all?”
“What then?”
“Elliott seems to think her dad wasn’t very excited about taking her to the dance, not the way Elliott was so happy to be there with you. I suspect Selena was jealous.”
Daisy sat up, her eyes wide. That her idol might have been jealous of her clearly intrigued her. “Of me?”
Karen nodded. “You know that Elliott adores you. It made him feel great that you asked him to take you to the dance. Ernesto seemed to think it was a chore or a duty he couldn’t get out of. I’m sure that hurt Selena’s feelings. Can you understand that?”
Daisy’s expression turned thoughtful. It was a lot to ask of a nine-year-old that she try to grasp the impact of an adult’s hurtful actions.
“I guess,” she said eventually.
“Then maybe you can think about focusing on how lucky you are to have Elliott as a stepdad and consider forgiving her,” Karen suggested.
“Maybe,” Daisy said grudgingly.
Karen leaned down to hug her. “Just think about it. Good night, angel. I’m sorry your first dance wasn’t everything you wanted it to be.”
“It started out okay,” Daisy admitted. “Elliott was teaching me to dance.”