The Sweetheart Secret Read online

  Nineteen

  Ever since Daisy had moved into Colt’s house, her sleeping pattern had gone to hell. She couldn’t fault the super comfortable double bed, or the soothing sounds of the surf outside her window. Her body refused to relax, not until she knew he was home.

  Colt had taken to coming home later each day, often not walking through the door until everyone else was in bed. He’d turned down her offers for family dinners and outings, saying he was too busy working.

  She lay in bed that night, tense, wide awake. Major had opted to sleep in her room tonight, and had curled up a few feet from the window, where the incoming breeze would keep him cool. Above the dog’s gentle sleepy snarfles, Daisy listened for the sound of the door opening.

  Around midnight, she heard the click of the latch. She told herself she was going to stay in bed, and not go out to the kitchen like a worried wife, to make sure Colt had made it home okay. Because she wasn’t really his wife—not in the true sense of the word—and she wasn’t worried.

  Yeah, right.

  Five seconds later, she was putting on her robe and heading down the hall. She found Colt sitting at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. There was something forlorn about his posture, something that said he was battling a war alone. He rarely opened up to her, rarely shared any of the burdens on his heart. She was tempted to leave him be.

  Then he sighed.

  “You okay?” she said, coming up behind him to lay a hand on his shoulder.

  She’d meant the touch to be a quick comfort, nothing more, but when Colt covered her hand with his, her heart melted. He held her hand for a long moment, then turned to look at her. “Yeah, fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “It’s okay.” She almost added, That’s what wives are supposed to do, but stopped herself. Because she wasn’t playing the role of Colt’s wife. Not really.

  He glanced at the clock on the stove and let out a curse. “I’m sorry if I woke you when I got home.”

  “You didn’t wake me, Colt.” She raised a shoulder, let it drop. “I don’t sleep that well.”

  Concern filled his face. She half expected him to feel her forehead for a fever. “I can prescribe something for that, if you want.”

  How could she tell him there was no prescription for what kept her up at night? No magic pill that would keep her from lying in her bed, rehashing the what-ifs? She stepped away, so he wouldn’t read the truth in her eyes. “No, it’s fine. I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “The renovation project?”

  “Yeah.” That worked for an excuse. Far better than admitting the truth. That she couldn’t sleep, wondering why a guy she had stopped loving fourteen years ago still occupied her thoughts. She poured a glass of water, then slipped into a seat across from Colt. “I’m not just renovating the inn, I’m sort of renovating me, too.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of cosmetic surgery.”

  She laughed. “God, no. Though, taken literally, I guess I can see where you would get that.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I meant interior renovations. Sort of a restart on my life, my goals, all that crap I should have figured out at eighteen.”

  He scoffed. “Does anyone figure any of that stuff out at eighteen?”

  “You did. I mean, you did when you came back here and went off to medical school. Me, I just floundered for a while. Got my act together enough to get my GED, but I never really figured out what I wanted. I only figured out what I didn’t want.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “To be like my mother.” She stared out the back door at the endless ocean of sparkling moon flakes, rising and falling with the waves, as if the moon itself was sailing away. She stared at the sea and the sky, and finally faced a few truths about herself. “As much as I tried to avoid that, in the end I became just like her. Never staying in one place for long, never committing to a job, an address, a person. Exactly what you accused me of the other day.”

  “I was out of line, Daisy. You’re committed to the inn, to helping your cousin and your aunt. That’s something. A huge something.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call it that. More like . . . self-preservation.” She wrapped her hands around her glass. “When I sat next to my Aunt Clara in the hospital, she was talking about the Hideaway Inn, about how it had been in her family for so many years, and how she had all these memories centered around it. She talked about the inn being part of Rescue Bay’s history and charm. It all sounded so . . . grounded. I only spent one summer here, that summer I met you, but it was the best summer of my life. I felt like I belonged, if that makes sense. I was a part of the frame and structure of the Hideaway Inn, helping my aunt with the chores around the place, giving her input on planning the meals and hosting events, and then staying up way too late at night, talking with Emma about you and the guy she was dating. It was the longest time I ever spent in one place, with the same people, and it was . . . awesome.”

  All these years, she had never really talked about her life, not in an honest way, at least. When she was younger, she’d made it sound like fun to have a flighty mother who didn’t believe in a traditional life. Daisy had always claimed that she loved having no ties, nothing to hold her down. But that was a lie.

  The woman who had run off and eloped had been seeking the very thing she’d never had—dependability and stability. Irony at its best.

  “I can’t even imagine what that was like for you,” Colt said. “My life may not have been perfect, but it was predictable. Annoyingly so.”

  Even his clothes echoed his words. He had on another variation of the shirt, tie, and khakis tonight, as if his clothes had cloned themselves. A part of her wanted to rip all the stuffy business casual right out of him, and replace it with the leather jacket, battered jeans, and soft-as-butter T-shirts he’d worn when she met him.

  “Which is what had you so anxious to break all the rules.” She thought of what Earl had told her, about all the expectations heaped on Colt’s shoulders. Colt hadn’t talked much about his father when they’d been dating, but she’d gotten the sense that theirs was a difficult, strained relationship, filled with high expectations, the complete opposite of Daisy’s childhood. No wonder he’d craved her world.

  “It was also what attracted me to you,” he said. “You didn’t live on a timetable. You just . . . lived. Take off in the middle of the day and go to the beach. Eat breakfast for dinner—”

  “Still one of my favorite things to do.”

  He grinned. “Mine too.”

  Their gazes met, held, and smiles curved up both their faces at once. A shared memory, a snippet of the past, filling the space between them, knotting another thread. “If you have eggs and bacon, I have mean frying skills.”

  He grinned and got to his feet, hauling her up, too. “You read my mind, Daisy May.”

  Hot tears rushed up her throat, behind her eyes, damn it. Had to be the late hour or the reminiscing. Not the way he said her name. “No one’s called me that in . . . fourteen years.”

  He took a step closer, and reached up to whisk a lock of hair away from her brow. “No one?”

  She shook her head. “No one else calls me by my middle name. Just you.”

  “Then I should do it more often.”

  Oh, this was dangerous. This was the kind of moment that made her fall for him. There’d been so many of those when she’d first met Colt. The way he looked at her—really looked at her—when they had a conversation. The way he’d sit back and listen to her talk, or meet her eyes and tell her she was beautiful. The way he made her feel like she mattered.

  No. She wasn’t falling for that again.

  “Let’s, uh, get those eggs in a pan before midnight breakfast becomes early morning breakfast.” She crossed to the fridge and pulled out the necessary ingredients, then put two frying pans on the stove and turned on the heat.

/>   Colt slid into the space beside her and dropped four slices of bread into the toaster. “O.J.?” he asked.

  “Of course.” She set two glasses on the counter, before adding bacon to the first pan and sliding two eggs into the second one. Within seconds, breakfast was sizzling, filling the kitchen with the tempting aroma. Coupled with the dim room, the ebony night outside, the whole scene seemed to whisk her back in time, to that tiny fifth-floor walk-up apartment they’d had. Cheap on rent, bare on furnishings, but for three weeks, filled with life.

  “Here’s a clear sign that we’re older and more risk averse.” She held up the package. “Turkey bacon.”

  “And free range eggs.” He grinned. “I like to call it being smarter, not older.”

  She put her back to the counter and waved at him with the spatula, while the eggs fried and the bacon crisped. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about aging.”

  “Not at all. If I can age as well as you have.” He caught a tendril of her hair, and let it slip through his fingers. “How is it that you look more beautiful now than you did when you were eighteen?”

  “High-dollar cosmetics.”

  He chuckled, then sobered. “Seriously, Daisy, you are a thousand times more beautiful now. You have an edge about you that you didn’t have at eighteen.”

  “It’s called graduating from the school of hard knocks.” The self-deprecating words gave her an excuse to break her gaze away from his.

  Dozens of men had told her she was beautiful over the years, but there was just something about the way that Colt said it that made her feel shy, as if she was seventeen all over again and sitting on those steps, sharing a package of Oreos with the cute boy who had stopped to talk to her.

  From the second she’d climbed into bed tonight, her plan had been to stop thinking and fantasizing about Colt. Stop letting him invade her sleep and her thoughts. To look at her time here as just another job. Except Colt Harper wasn’t some sweaty manager in a greasy diner telling her to hurry the hell up, and he wasn’t some drunk customer refusing to pay for the meal he’d finished eating. He was Colt, the only man she’d ever fallen in love with, and the one man she’d never been able to forget.

  With so many other people, she could throw on the mask of sassy defiance, and turn the tables back on him. She had to be sleep deprived to be so easily undone by a few sweet words.

  “You don’t believe me?” he asked.

  “The . . . eggs are burning.”

  “Let them.” He captured her jaw with his hands and waited until her gaze connected with his. Behind them, the bacon sizzled and spat and the eggs crinkled along their edges. The toast popped in the toaster. But all Daisy saw was Colt’s hypnotic blue eyes, eyes that seemed to see past her walls and defenses, deep into the pit of her soul, in the places she kept hidden from everyone else. “You are a beautiful, amazing woman, Daisy, and sometimes, I think I forget to appreciate that.”

  “Colt, I—”

  He put a finger to her lips. “Repeat after me. Thank you.”

  Silliness. But it made her smile anyway. “Thank you.”

  “Now don’t say another word to negate that or disagree, just hold on to that compliment and believe it.” He waited a second. “As I was saying, you are beautiful and amazing and I appreciate everything you have done with my grandfather. You’ve been here a handful of days and you have changed . . . everything.”

  “I didn’t—” She saw the warning look in his eyes, which made her laugh. “Okay, thank you. He’s a wonderful man, Colt. I don’t mind spending time with him at all. You should join us more often. I think it’ll really help whatever went wrong between you two.”

  A shadow dropped over Colt’s face. He turned off the burners and moved the eggs off the heat. “Maybe. It’s been years since he sat around and joked with me. Or hell, wanted to do anything with me besides throw a coffee cup at my head.”

  “He misses you, Colt. He really does. I know that sounds silly since he lives here, but when we were talking about you—”

  “You were talking about me?”

  “I asked him what you were like as a little boy.” She danced a finger along his button-down shirt, wrinkled now at the end of the day, but still as buttoned up as ever. “He said pretty much like you are right now, all scheduled and organized.”

  Colt slid the eggs and bacon onto their plates, then flanked the protein with buttered toast triangles. He handed Daisy one of the plates, then took a second for himself. Instead of sitting down at the table, they both leaned against the counter and began to eat, just as they had years ago. “Life is easier that way.”

  “Is it?” She held a bite of egg in his direction and gave him a teasing, sassy smile. “Or is it better to mix things up once in a while and have breakfast for dinner?”

  He leaned over, and ate the bite off her fork. “Maybe a little of both. Best of all worlds.”

  “I do believe we’re rubbing off on each other, Mr. Harper. You’re getting a little loosey-goosey with those rules, and I’m getting a little more organized and traditional.” She stacked her toast until all the points aligned.

  He chuckled, then plucked a slice of bacon from her plate. “Like that?”

  “Hey, no! That was my bacon. You’re going to pay for that.” She reached for his plate, but he whisked it away.

  “You want my bacon?” He dangled a piece in front of her, but kept yanking it out of her reach. “You’ll have to work for it.”

  She propped her fists on her hips. “And how exactly do you want me to work for it?”

  His eyes turned dark, his smile sexy. In an instant, the mood between them shifted from playful to charged, the air sparking with electricity. “I can think of one very, very good way.”

  “If I remember right, it’s what followed breakfast for dinner, every single time.”

  Oh Lord, did she remember. Making love with Colt had never been boring, never been anything short of amazing. An ache started deep inside her, stoking embers that had never died.

  Colt came closer, holding the bacon between them. He brushed it against her lips. “Every. Single. Time.”

  She took a bite, watching him, while she chewed, swallowed, then opened her mouth again. Her heart raced, her pulse pounded in her head.

  “More?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Much . . . more.”

  He dropped the bacon onto the counter and kissed her instead, soft and sweet for one long moment, then harder, hungrier. She wrapped her arms around him, and he grabbed her waist, pressed her into the counter. She arched against him, fire burning deep inside her, as if Colt had flipped a switch.

  He grew hard against her, and his kiss deepened, his tongue dancing with hers, a wild, feverish pace. He anchored his palms on the counter on either side of her, and she reached up to claw at his back, the breakfast forgotten. He hoisted her onto the counter and slid into the space between her legs, his cotton khakis rubbing against the bare skin of her legs. He reached a hand between them, parted the flimsy fabric of her robe and nightgown, then lowered his mouth to her breast, drawing her nipple into his mouth.

  She arched, gasping his name. Her pelvis met his, heat against heat, throbbing need raging through every ounce of her body. She scrambled to wrest her arms out of the robe, the nightgown, to bare everything to him, to ease the hunger for more, more, more. At the same time, he reached for her robe, and their arms collided, knocking into one of the glasses on the counter.

  It toppled onto the floor. The glass shattered on the tile, spraying them both with juice and tiny shards. Colt jerked back. “Damn it. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. Let me—”

  He stopped her from hopping down. “Stay right there. I’ll get it. You’re barefoot and I’m still wearing shoes. I don’t want you to cut your foot open.”

  “Hey, if I do, at least I have a doctor readily av
ailable for some stitches.”

  He grabbed a broom and some paper towels and set to work cleaning up the mess. By the time he was done, Daisy had straightened her clothes, and begun cleaning up from breakfast, as best she could by reaching from the countertop to the sink. When Colt was done, he hoisted her off the counter. “I’m sorry our breakfast is cold now,” she said. Not just the breakfast, but the passionate moment, too. She wasn’t sure she was sorry about that, because every time Colt touched her or kissed her, her brain short-circuited and she forgot all those wise arguments she’d had with herself about staying away from him.

  “It’s fine. Besides, you should get to bed. I can finish this up.” His voice was cooler now, platonic.

  She put a hand on his. “Or you can just let it soak. The world won’t fall apart if you go to sleep with a sink full of dirty dishes and an overflowing trash can.”

  He looked back at the mess, then at her again. “Okay. But if I wake up in the morning in a Day After Tomorrow scenario, you’re cleaning the kitchen.”

  She laughed. “Deal.”

  As they walked down the hall toward Daisy’s bedroom, she debated inviting him in, asking him to spend the night, to finish what they had started. Oh, how she wanted that, but then she thought of the broken glass, its timing like a warning bell heading off a bad decision.

  What if she fell in love with Colt again, spent three weeks or three years with him, and in the end, he shut her out just as he had a thousand times before? Her wary heart cautioned her to keep it light, and to keep her door shut—in case she was tempted to run upstairs to his room.

  “Sunday, there’s a big festival in downtown Rescue Bay,” she said. “I’m setting up a table to advertise the Hideaway Inn, and your grandpa is planning on going to help out. Do you want to go? If Emma works the booth with me, then you and I can take some time to walk around the festival. There’s supposed to be a band and everything.”