The Sweetheart Secret Read online

  “What are you doing? Why is my grandfather carrying your bags?” Colt rushed up, took the bag out of Earl’s hands, and pivoted toward Daisy. Anger flared in his eyes, set in the tension of his jaw. “Didn’t I tell you that you were here to care for him, not for him to wait on you hand and foot?”

  Earl stepped between them and wagged a finger at Colt’s chest. “Colton, don’t you lecture her.”

  “Stay out of this, Grandpa.”

  “Who lit your beans on fire? You’re even grumpier than usual, and that’s saying something.” Earl turned around and waved a hand in dismissal. “I give up. Have it your way, Captain Colt. I’m going to go watch the UFC fight on TV. Something civilized.”

  After Earl had gone down the hall and into the living room, Daisy whirled on Colt. She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “I am not treating your grandfather like a bellhop, Colt. He offered, and so I let him carry one little bag. He wants to feel useful, not put out to pasture.”

  “He shouldn’t be doing anything, regardless of what he wants.” Colt shook his head and cursed under his breath. “I knew this was going to be a mistake.”

  “Gee, way to trust me. I’ve been here ten seconds so far.” She reached out, yanked the bag out of his hands, and strode past him. “Give me an hour and maybe I can really give you a reason to fire me.”

  She marched into the bedroom on the right—the one she assumed was meant to be hers, because there was a freshly made bed and a vase of brightly colored flowers on the nightstand. The flowers caused a stutter in her step. What had Colt been thinking when he’d put the vase at her bedside? Why was she touched? She was mad at Colt, and a few buds in a vase weren’t going to change that.

  She dumped the bags on the chair in the corner, then spun around to shut the door. She would have given it a nice good slam—oh, just like the old days with Colt—but he was there, his hand on the oak door, his tall frame blocking the doorway.

  “I’m not trying to fight with you, Daisy. I just want you to make sure my grandpa takes it easy.”

  From the room down the hall, she could hear the soft undertow of Earl’s television. Still, she kept her voice low. “I know that. And if you’re going to question me every five seconds, this isn’t going to work.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You need to trust me, Colt. I’m not going to hurt your grandpa. I like him.”

  “I’m not saying you’ll hurt him on purpose.” He shook his head again. “Okay, maybe I inferred that. But I didn’t mean it.”

  Colt crossed into the room and took a seat on the edge of the bed. He braced his hands on his knees and let out a long breath. “I worry about him. He won’t listen to me, won’t take my advice. He needs to take care of himself, and as much as I wish I could, I can’t force him to be smart about his health. God . . . if I lost him . . .”

  She didn’t want to care. Didn’t want the raw notes in Colt’s voice to weaken her. But they did. She crossed to the bed, sat down beside him, and placed her hand over one of his. “I’ll take care of him. I’ll boss him around and make him eat his vegetables and get him out on a walk once in a while. I promise.”

  Colt lifted his gaze to hers. He seemed so weary, so ready for someone else to step in and ease the burdens he carried. He searched her face for a long time, then nodded. The weariness ebbed a little. “I’m counting on you, Daisy.”

  No one had ever said that to her before. No one had ever depended on Daisy Barton for anything. The enormity of the responsibility hit her like a weight. In an instant, this had gone from being a deal for a mortgage to something much bigger than she’d expected.

  Something with hopes tied on the end, like strings trailing from a balloon. She wanted to say no, wanted to tell him he was putting his stock in the wrong girl. She’d never settled down, never been responsible for anything more complicated than a houseplant—and even those had withered and died within a week.

  She needed this job, needed the loan. Needed to help Emma find whatever Emma had lost. And right now, Colt needed her.

  In an instant, she’d gone from living a life where she answered to no one, to one with a whole lot of people tying expectations onto her. People, including herself, depending on her to make a difference.

  “You can count on me,” she said. Though the promise sounded shaky to her ears.

  Colt’s phone started buzzing. He flipped it out and glanced at the screen. “I gotta go. Patient emergency. Can you just . . . just stay and we’ll talk later?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Colt got to his feet, the phone in one hand, but paused in the doorway. His tie was loosened, the top button of his shirt undone, his hair a little mussed. And so was he. Those notes of vulnerability touched her, drew her closer.

  “Listen, my grandfather can be difficult,” Colt said, “and that’s putting it mildly. Just make sure he takes his medicine and at least gets outside once in a while. Bribe him if you need to—the exercise will do him good, so will getting dressed and seeing the sun for a little bit.”

  “Will do. And if he refuses, I’ll dangle a piece of pizza as an incentive. It’ll be fine, Colt. I promise,” she said again.

  Relief flooded Colt’s face and curved into a smile. “Thank you, Daisy.”

  “No need to thank me. I’m just doing my job.” Though it was the only job she’d ever had where resisting the boss was going to be tougher than the work itself.

  * * *

  The evening settled around Colt’s shoulders like a warm, dark blanket. The moon hung high in the sky, full bellied and bright. A few night birds called to each other, and from somewhere far off came the hoot of an owl. The ocean whooshed in and out, kissing the sand before retreating again.

  He thought of Daisy, asleep inside the house. Already, she tempted him and lured him, simply by being inside the same four walls. He’d told himself when he hired her to be his grandfather’s live-in caretaker that he’d treat her like any other nurse.

  Yeah, not so much. Five minutes in and he had already broken his own rules. He hadn’t bought flowers for any other nurse. Hadn’t made sure the room was stocked with fresh linens and that the pillows were fluffed. He hadn’t wondered if any other nurse wanted Folgers or Starbucks in the morning. He hadn’t fantasized about any other nurse, and stayed up half the night, hoping she’d wander out for a snack in something tiny and see-through.

  He ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath. Why did he want the one woman who reminded him of his biggest mistakes? His deepest pain? Every time she was around, she reminded him of what he had lost—

  And why.

  He had put his family on the backburner. Turned his back on them so he could run away and marry a woman he barely knew. And when the call had come, the call asking him to come back, he had ignored it.

  Will you be here, Colt, when I get back?

  Of course. I’m always here for you, buddy.

  Colt drew in a breath, but it sliced through his chest like a machete. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

  The caws of the night birds turned accusatory, the moon’s light dropped a spotlight over Colt, as if the heavens themselves were asking him why he hadn’t been there. Why he had promised Henry, then not shown up.

  And Henry had gone alone to the lake. Fallen off the boat. And drowned.

  Colt’s heart fractured, and the breath in his chest shuddered in and out. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, to the night birds, to the moon, but they didn’t care. They didn’t respond.

  They never had. Colt tipped his head and took a long drag off the beer. It didn’t help.

  The back door opened and Grandpa Earl stepped onto the porch. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were out here.” He started to duck back inside but Colt put out a hand.

  “It’s okay. Have a seat.” Colt gestured to the spot beside him on the porch. He had been alone with his own thoughts
long enough and welcomed the company, if only because it would make his mind stop playing the endless loop of Henry’s voice. Hell, he’d even welcome an argument with Grandpa if it would divert his thoughts from Henry’s last words to him.

  “Have a seat,” Colt said again.

  “Nah, it’s all right. It’s late. I should go inside.” Grandpa turned to open the door again. When had they gotten to this point? To being strangers, barely even roommates? Colt missed the days when his grandfather had been his best friend, the one Colt could turn to for advice about cars and girls. Before his grandfather had started looking at Colt with disappointment and grief.

  “Grandpa, wait.”

  His grandfather paused, his back to Colt, his hand on the knob.

  “Come outside and sit with me.” Colt swallowed. “Please.”

  Grandpa Earl hesitated some more. Then he let go of the door and lowered himself to the opposite side of the step. There was a good two feet of space between them, but it felt like a mile. He didn’t say anything for a long while, then he nodded toward the sky. “Nice night.”

  Okay, so it wasn’t a conversational milestone, but Grandpa was at least tethering a line between them again.

  “Yeah. I love this time of year. Still pretty warm but not so hot you feel like you’re living in an oven.”

  “The breeze off the water is always nice, too.”

  Here they sat, two men who used to be close, exchanging small talk about the weather. It frustrated Colt, made him want to get up and go in the house, giving up like he had done a hundred times before. Instead, he reached to the right and grabbed a beer from the box he’d grabbed earlier from the fridge, then held it out to his grandfather. “Want one?”

  Grandpa Earl raised a brow in surprise. “You’re offering me a beer?”

  “Once in a while, a beer is okay. And besides, these are non-alcoholic.” Colt picked up a second bottle. Regardless of all his lectures about healthy eating and living, right now what he wanted more than anything was a connection with the man who was more like a father than a grandfather.

  Grandpa chuckled. “Non-alcoholic? What’s the point?”

  “Pretending they’re real beers is almost the same thing as drinking one.”

  “Almost. Thanks.” Grandpa took the bottle, popped the top, then clinked the bottle against Colt’s. “Cheers.”

  The action brought back the memory of toasting with soda cans when he was a boy. Grandpa, Colt, and Henry, sitting on the wooden skiff that Grandpa used for fishing on the lake, drinking sodas in the sun and eating peanut butter sandwiches that Colt’s mom had made for the boys. “What was it you used to say? To big fish and bigger tales?”

  Grandpa Earl chuckled. “Something like that.”

  Colt spun the bottle between his hands. It cooled his palms, eased the tension in his shoulders. How he missed those days, missed the sun on his back, the suspense of a line in the water. It wasn’t just the fishing that he missed, though, it was the time with his grandfather, when Grandpa Earl would ramble on about his childhood in a post-war world, or the best ways to deal with girls who still held an ick factor for young Henry and Colt. He missed the camaraderie, the closeness. The bond.

  For years, Colt had tiptoed around the subject of Henry, avoiding that painful minefield with every breath he took. Still, the unspoken words had sat in the background of every conversation, like a festering wound. Maybe if they finally talked about Henry, about what they had lost, it would be that first step back to . . . somewhere other than here. Maybe if he started with fishing, the one thing that used to bind them all, it would help. “You know, Grandpa, if you ever want to grab a pole, head for the lake, it might be a way to remember him—”

  The mood between them shifted in an instant. Grandpa Earl let out a curse and put his bottle on the step. “Goddamn it. Quit asking me, Colton.”

  “Why don’t you ever want to talk about it?”

  “Talking doesn’t do anyone any good. It just fills the world with more hot air.” Earl drank from the beer, and stared out at the ocean.

  Colt sighed. “I miss him, too, you know. I’d do anything to bring him back.”

  “Yeah, well, there isn’t anything you can do to make that right. There never will be.” Grandpa Earl got to his feet and went to the door. He opened it, then stood there, his head hung low. “You keep talking to me about me having heart disease, and about taking care of myself. Well, if you ask me, my heart’s been broken for fourteen years. There isn’t a drug in the world that’s gonna heal that, so quit trying to mend what’s never getting better.”

  Then he went inside, leaving Colt alone in the dark.

  Twelve

  The next morning, Daisy realized what Colt had been talking about when he called Earl “difficult.” Within ten minutes of Colt leaving for work, she’d had three arguments with Earl about taking his medication, the last one ending with him stomping off, slamming the door to his room, and raising the TV volume to deafening.

  Daisy waited ten minutes, then strode down the hall and knocked twice on Earl’s door. “Get your walking shoes on.”

  “I’m not going for a walk,” he said through the closed door.

  “We both are. And if you walk far enough, there’s ice cream at the end of our route.” The earlier pizza incentive hadn’t moved Earl one inch, so Daisy decided to up the ante. A bowl of ice cream—well, frozen yogurt masquerading as ice cream, she decided—would motivate her to do about anything, so she figured it’d work on Earl’s sweet tooth, too.

  It reminded her of the beignets and Colt. Of how tempting and alluring a simple bite of fried pastry could be. And how much trouble it could get a woman in if she wasn’t careful.

  A second passed, then the door unlatched and Earl stuck his head out. The TV had been muted, and that told Daisy she’d already halfway won the battle.

  “That ice cream offer wouldn’t be a bribe, would it?” Earl asked.

  “I prefer to call it a reward. I don’t know about you, but I am a reward motivated kind of girl. Put a bonus at the end of a paycheck, or a great pair of shoes at the end of a tedious shopping trip, and I’m in, a hundred percent.”

  “I don’t need bonuses, and I prefer a decent pair of Timberlands over any other kind of shoes. But ice cream . . .” A smile curved across Earl’s face. “You know my grandson will read you the riot act for that one.”

  “Then I say we destroy all the evidence before we get back.” She bent and picked up a pair of sneakers, sitting just inside his door, far easier to walk in than his beloved boots. She dangled them in front of Earl. “Chocolate chip or vanilla?”

  * * *

  On Friday night, Colt stood in his living room, looking down at the giant brown-and-white ball of fur sprawled at his feet, then up again at the two guilty parties, one sitting in the La-Z-Boy and the other on the edge of the sofa. Neither had the slightest bit of contrition in their features.

  “What the hell is this?” Colt said.

  “You went to college. I’m sure you can figure it out.” Earl harrumphed, then flipped out his footrest and leaned back in the chair.

  “I’m not asking literally, Grandpa. I mean, what is it doing in my living room and whose idea was it?” Not even twenty-four hours after Daisy moved in, Colt’s perfectly ordered life was in disarray. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Daisy never had been one for asking permission or thinking a decision through. But this choice . . . this one impacted Colt, not just today, but for years to come. “Well?”

  No one answered him. Grandpa Earl fiddled with the remote, while Daisy just sat on the edge of the sofa, with a smile on her face. The kind that said she knew she was breaking the rules, and didn’t care. There’d been a time when he had loved that about her, and been as much of a party to rebellion as she was. Skipping school, blowing off work, partying in public places—Colt and Daisy had done what th
ey wanted, when they wanted, and when his father had disapproved, Colt had hopped on his Harley, with Daisy on the back, and blown off everything and everyone.

  And look where it had gotten him.

  “Well, either way, it goes back.” Colt waved a hand at the door, but still no one moved or said a word. “Immediately. I don’t have time or space or—”

  The floppy-eared beast on the floor got to its feet, then nosed Colt’s pant leg. A long brown tail wagged a happy beat, then the dog lifted his head, pressed it beneath Colt’s hand. Seeking attention, approval?

  The stone resolve in Colt’s chest eased a little. How could it not? The dog looked up at him as if he was saying Just give me a chance to worm my way into your heart. The dog’s tail kept on wagging, and his head bopped beneath Colt’s palm. Love me, love me.

  Colt gave the dog’s head a half a pat. Seemed kinda mean not to at least respond. It was a silly-looking dog, half-brown, half-white, two giant ears flopping to the side. As hairy and big as he was, the dog had to be a mix of some kind of sheepdog or mountain dog, and something else that Colt couldn’t figure out. He didn’t know much about dogs, and especially not this dog.

  “We were thinking of calling him Major. You know, because he kind of looks . . . authoritative,” Daisy said.

  “He looks like a Major Pain, is what he looks like.” Colt gave the dog another pat, which apparently provided an open-ended invitation to be his new best friend. The dog started panting, then sat squarely beside Colt’s foot, his tail swishing a half circle in the carpet. “We’re not keeping him.” Colt tried to keep his voice firm and resolute, even as the dog pressed his furry head against Colt’s hand again. Love me, love me, I’m nice. “I don’t have time or room for a dog.”

  “You said that already,” Daisy said, with that knowing smile.

  “Because apparently neither of you thought of that before you brought Major Pain here home.” Didn’t they realize how much he already had on his shoulders? His grandfather, his practice, his . . . whatever this was between himself and Daisy? The last thing Colt Harper needed was something else with a heartbeat depending on him.