The Sweetheart Secret Read online

  “Well, I would do that if I had a prescription from you. But unfortunately, I left your office before you could write out that little memo. The one for my gastrointestinal health.” She jerked her head in the direction of the table at the back of the morning room, where four men were seated. Joe Hardy, Reggie White, Walt Patterson, and Harold Twohig.

  Colt chuckled. “Mrs. Winslow, I assure you, you don’t need a prescription.”

  She harrumphed and sat back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. Esther leaned forward and put a hand on Greta’s arm. “If you are having a little . . . intestinal issue, Greta, I have some Pepto-Bismol in my medicine cabinet. Or if it’s stuck the . . . uh, other direction, I have a year’s supply of Metamucil. I knew there was a reason why I entered that contest on the back of the jar.”

  Greta rolled her eyes. “I don’t need either, Esther. For goodness’ sake, I have the constitution of a horse.”

  “Horse? I was going to say goat,” Pauline said. “Seems a far more appropriate comparison.”

  Colt laughed. “You ladies all seem as healthy as can be to me. I’m going to check on the gentlemen, then be on my way.”

  “Doc, hold up a minute.” Greta got to her feet and tugged him to the side, out of earshot of Pauline and Esther. She peered up at him, her pale blue eyes as alert and incisive as a lie detector. “I wanted to ask how things are going with a certain young lady.”

  “Mrs. Winslow, I don’t discuss my personal life—”

  She waved off his words. “I know, I know. But since you are my personal physician, I don’t think discussing your personal life is anything different than you discussing mine. Besides, if you’re happy, that’s good business. When the doctor’s happy, everyone’s happy.” She wagged a finger at him. “That should be a needlepoint on your wall. Esther, the crafting fool, would be glad to stitch you one, if you ask.”

  Happy. It wasn’t a term he associated with his life. Content, perhaps. Predictable, yes. But happy? No. That word wasn’t in his vocabulary right now. For a brief moment in time, it had been, but then he thought of the envelope on his counter and that moment passed.

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Winslow,” Colt said. “Just fine.”

  “And I’m the Easter Bunny.” She put her hands on her hips. “Now, listen, I know you’re the one used to giving advice, but I think it’s time you took some.”

  “Mrs. Winslow—”

  “You are an excellent doctor. And if you tell anyone I said that out loud, I will steal all your stethoscopes and put super glue on the earpieces.”

  He chuckled, then made a zipping motion across his lips. “I’ll never tell a soul.”

  “Like I said, excellent doctor, but an idiot man.” She put up a hand to ward off his protest. “A little birdie told me that Daisy moved out and is now living at the inn. I can’t believe you let her get away.”

  “I didn’t let anything happen,” Colt said, then wondered why he was explaining his love life to his eighty-three-year-old patient. “We just decided to separate.”

  That sounded better than divorce. Less final. Less un-doable. Yeah, then what were those signed documents in that envelope saying?

  “She’s just scared.” Greta waved a hand. “A woman like that needs a grand gesture. Something bigger than life, to show that you are serious.”

  “Are you telling me to rent one of those biplanes and scrawl something across the sky or throw a proposal on a Jumbotron?”

  “Goodness, no. Those have all been done before. Do something . . . special. Just for Daisy. Something that she’ll be unable to resist.” She patted his arm. “Be adventurous, Doc. Love is a risk, and you have to show you’re a risk taker, too.”

  * * *

  Earl Harper lasted about ten minutes in the car. He’d never been the kind of man who could sit around and do nothing. Truth be told, that was what drove him craziest about living with Colton. That sense of . . . nothing.

  At least when he’d had the repair shop, he’d had something to occupy his mind every day. It had kept him from dwelling, and ever since he’d sold his business to Gator Lee, Earl had done altogether too much dwelling.

  Dwelling on mistakes. Dwelling on regrets. Dwelling on the holes in his life, holes that would never be filled again.

  He glanced at the retirement home. He could go in there, sit down at the scuffed table in the back of the morning room, and play a couple rounds of poker with the guys. It would pass a few hours, maybe even ease the heaviness in his mind. But going in there would mean delivering an apology to Walt Patterson, and if there was one thing Earl wasn’t in the mood to do, it was apologize. Or explain.

  He glanced at the keys dangling from the ignition. Then again at the entrance to Golden Years. Earl tugged on the door handle and got out of the car. He stood in the parking lot for a good long second while the Florida sun beat down on his thinning hair, until the decision he needed to make cemented some resolve in his heart.

  * * *

  Joe, Reggie, Walt, and Harold still left an empty seat on the right side of the table, even though Earl Harper hadn’t been at a game in more than six months. Colt slid into his grandfather’s chair, and waved off Joe’s offer to deal him in. “I think there’s something in the Hippocratic oath against playing poker during working hours.”

  Joe put a finger to his lips. “Don’t use the P word around here. Nurse Ratched”—he nodded in the direction of the tall, thin woman who often patrolled the morning room—“will kick us out.”

  “Then what are you guys playing?”

  “A shell game.” Walt winked, then dropped a trio of shells into the pile in the center of the table. “I raise you two scallops and one pear whelk.”

  Joe rubbed his chin. Then he raised his gaze and studied Walt. “I think you’re bluffing. I’ll see your bet and raise you one King’s Crown.” He added a giant curved shell to the pile.

  “Too rich for my blood,” Harold said. He folded his hand and tossed it onto the table. “Gentlemen, it’s been great. But I see my sweet petunia is leaving, and I want to talk to her.”

  Walt scoffed. “Harold, you are either a fool or a glutton for punishment. Greta Winslow hates you.”

  “That’s just a front. She doesn’t want her friends to know she’s hot for this eighty-four-year-old body.”

  Walt snorted back a laugh. “Then she’s either blind or desperate.”

  “Says the man who’s got his eye on a certain bachelorette in this room himself.”

  Walt ignored the jab, and added his shell to the pile. “Whatcha got, Joe?”

  “Three ladies.” Joe laid his cards on the table and displayed a trio of queens.

  “Sounds more like your love life than a hand of cards.” Walt grinned, then laid his own hand on the table. “I’ve got a whole handful of diamonds. Read it and weep, Joe.”

  “I thought you guys said this was a shell game,” Colt said. “Not p—”

  “It is a shell game.” Walt winked. “In the strictest sense of the meaning of shell game.”

  “As in, our pathetic attempt to fool Nurse Ratched into thinking we’re playing a simple game of cards and trading shell collections,” Joe explained.

  Colt laughed. “And how’s that working for you?”

  “Working just . . .” Joe let out a low whistle. “Well, would you lookie there. That’s not a sight we see around here nearly often enough.”

  Colt turned. His breath caught, and his chest tightened. If he hadn’t known better, he’d swear his heart was stopping.

  Daisy stood beside Greta, talking to the three ladies. The rest of the room dropped away, and all Colt saw was Daisy’s curves, luring his attention in a clingy green dress that skimmed her knees and dipped in a V above those amazing breasts. She had part of her hair pinned back, which left dark bangs skimming across her brows and long curls brushing her shoulders. She l
aughed at something Greta said, and something in Colt’s gut tightened.

  “Seems Harold isn’t the only smitten man in the room,” Joe said.

  “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me . . .” Colt got to his feet, started toward Daisy, then stopped when Walt tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Forgot your bag, Doc.” Walt handed him his black medical bag. “A pretty woman will do that to you.”

  “I’m on rounds. I have to . . .”

  Walt chuckled, then gave him a little nudge. “Yeah, whatever. Go on over there. Just remember to close your mouth first. Don’t want to drool all over her, you know.”

  Colt cleared his throat, and shifted the medical bag from one hand to the other. The action helped shake off the temporary stupor brought on by Daisy’s presence and bring him back to planet earth. Where he was a doctor, not an infatuated fifteen-year-old. Still, he wondered if she had come here to see him. He hoped like hell that was the case and quickened his pace.

  “And every week we pick a letter to answer, giving advice culled from decades of experience,” Greta was saying as Colt approached. “We are always looking for someone who needs our advice. Or helpful . . . nudges.”

  Colt came up behind Daisy, resisting the urge to put his hands on her waist and spin her into his arms. She sensed him behind her and pivoted. For a second, a smile lingered on her face and his heart stuttered. Then the smile died and his heart fell.

  “Colt. You startled me.”

  “Sorry.” He felt as awkward as a teenager at his first dance, especially with the ladies of Golden Years watching his every move. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “I came by to meet Olivia and Greta to talk about the final details for the wedding on Saturday.”

  “It’s going to be lovely. On the beach, at the end of the day. The Hideaway Inn provides the perfect backdrop for a sunset wedding.” Pauline sighed. “So romantic.”

  Harold came up to table, and sidled into place beside Greta. “Wedding? Well, I can think of one lovely lady who is going to need a date.” He put out an arm, and patted the elbow, gesturing for her to link hers. “Greta, dear, would you accompany me to Olivia and Luke’s wedding?”

  “I can accompany my own damned self.” She jerked her arm away. “Besides, it’s almost flu season. I have no idea where your hands and nose have been. I wouldn’t take a chance on infecting myself by coming into contact with possible contagion.”

  Harold just chuckled. He leaned over, and before she could stop him, pressed a light, quick kiss to Greta’s cheek. “They say the best way to avoid the flu is to get exposed. Call that your Harold vaccination.”

  “Would that there was such a thing,” she grumbled.

  Colt chuckled. “Don’t knock it. There are advances in medical science every day.”

  Greta scowled and gave Harold a little shove. He took a half step back, but didn’t leave. The other men got up from the poker game and came over to the table, flanking Harold like a backup team.

  “Where’s your grandfather?” Daisy asked, peering around Colt. “I’d like to say hello to him. Is he doing okay?”

  “He’s his usual self.” Colt nodded toward the exit doors. “Refused to come with me and said he wanted to stay in the car.”

  Walt frowned. “You mean he’s here, and decided not to see us?”

  “He’s still licking his wounds, Walt.” Colt put out his hands. “What can I say?”

  “Let me go talk to him. Straighten this thing out once and for all.”

  The three of them headed out of Golden Years, with Walt leading the way, a man on a mission, it seemed. Before they even reached the parking lot, lead sank in Colt’s gut. He saw an empty space between two yellow lines. “My car is gone.”

  “Who would take . . .” Daisy’s voice trailed off. “Grandpa Earl?”

  Colt nodded, his posture calm, but his mind a wild whirlwind. He’d never thought Grandpa would do something like this, and wondered for a second if maybe the other cruel partner to Parkinson’s—dementia—was starting to set in. Had Grandpa forgotten where he was? Why he was in the lot? And just driven off to somewhere far, far from here?

  Colt had left the car with a half a tank of gas. That gave Grandpa a good two hundred miles before the tank ran empty—enough mileage to get pretty much anywhere in the state of Florida. “Damn it. I never should have left the keys in the car.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t go far, Colt. Is there a friend he might go see or a church or something?”

  Colt scoffed. “No. Not my grandpa. He probably got pissed at me for bringing him here or for taking him to the doctor or for criticizing his breakfast choice, and decided to strand me. He didn’t use to be like this and no matter how hard I try, it doesn’t get better between us. I swear, I have no idea how to get him back.”

  “He’s gone through a lot the last few years, Colt. Losing Henry, and then Nancy . . .” A sad smile filled Walt’s face. He looked out over the road, empty now, quiet. Then back at the space where Colt’s car had been parked. “I think I know where he went.”

  * * *

  Daisy drove because it kept her from having to look at Colt, and focusing on the road kept her from wanting to hold Colt’s hand. Walt had given Colt a strong, man-to-man hug, then gone back inside. She sensed that whatever Walt wanted to talk to Earl about was going to wait, and that right now, Earl’s friend realized his grandson should be the one to bring him back from wherever he’d gone.

  Save for “Take a right here,” and “Left at the light,” Colt didn’t say a word on the ride. Daisy tightened her grip on the steering wheel and told herself she wasn’t hurt.

  But she was.

  She’d asked for this, though. By keeping him out of her own life, by keeping her own cards close to her chest. Colt had opened up and told her all about that heartbreaking day his brother had died, and what had she done when he asked her about her life?

  Divorced him.

  “Take this turn,” Colt said, the words soft and sad.

  She did as he said, then wove her way down the curving road and around to the back, past the lines of trees, the manicured shrubs, the well-tended flowers, until she saw Colt’s Honda parked beside a low white concrete bench.

  Earl’s hunched body filled the center of the bench. He had his elbows on his knees, his head down, and a paper-wrapped cone of flowers drooped from one hand. Daisy parked, then shut off the car. Colt didn’t say a word, just got out and crossed to his grandfather.

  The two of them sat there a long time, not saying a word, as still as figures in a painting. In the distance, Daisy heard the sound of a lawnmower roaring to life. Some birds calling to each other, and far, far away, the traffic on the freeway progressing at a steady hum.

  Earl stared straight ahead at the two oval headstones before them. The first had a slight green tint to the concrete, and a trail of ivy curling up the side and over the top. The second, newer, gleamed in the sun, and the letters for NANCY HARPER, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER, shone where the granite had been chipped away.

  But it was the first headstone that held Daisy’s attention.

  HENRY HARPER, SON, BROTHER, GONE TOO SOON.

  And then the date, a date Daisy knew well. It had been a sunny spring day in New Orleans, and she’d been coming home from the store, groceries in her arms, a smile on her face, ready to make dinner for her new husband and to settle into this life of domesticity. She’d gone upstairs, and found empty drawers, an empty closet, and a note. Her heart broke for Colt all over again, for the tragic, horrible loss of that little boy with the infectious laugh.

  The two men sat there a long time. Daisy stayed in the car, the windows down to let in a breeze, giving them space, privacy. And she whispered a silent prayer that this time, these two men she was beginning to care very deeply about, would find a way to bridge the rocky gulf between them.
r />   * * *

  Earl Harper wasn’t a man who opened up a vein and let it bleed. He was raised in a time when men kept their emotions buried and sucked the hell up, whether they’d lost a finger in an accident or a grandson in a tragedy. He’d done a damned good job of sucking it up, years and years of burying every emotion he ever had. Where’d it get him?

  Sitting on a cold stone bench in a cemetery. Next thing he knew, he’d be part of the ground here, and Lord help him, he didn’t want to have his time come before he lost a second grandson to his own stubbornness.

  “I’ve been a shitty grandfather,” Earl said.

  Colt turned on the bench. “No you haven’t. Why would you say that?”

  “Because it’s true. I’ve treated you like crap. Resisted your medical advice. Called you an idiot—”

  “Only a couple times.” Colt grinned.

  “A couple times too many.” Earl tore off a long blade of grass and tossed the pieces onto the ground. “I wasn’t raised to be a huggy kind of guy. Hell, I don’t even like to smile.”

  Colt chuckled. “You’re grumpy, but you’re not that bad.”

  “Okay, maybe not.” Earl looked down at the two granite slabs that marked the graves of two of the people he’d loved most in the world. Maybe it was time to quit being so damned stubborn. Nancy would have read him the riot act for the way he’d been acting lately, and rightly so. She’d had a way of bringing out the best in him, and with her gone, it was like he’d lost that side of him. “I’ve been blaming you, because it’s easier than blaming myself.”

  “For what?”

  “For not being there that day.” He shook his head and let out a curse. “Eight years, I never missed a fishing trip. Eight goddamned years, I went with you boys, twice a week, like clockwork. That day, though, I told Henry I couldn’t go. My business had been hurting the last few weeks before, and I had a rush job come in. Some snowbird, needing his car fixed after it broke down coming down here. Offered me double just to get it done that night. I told Henry, hey, we’ll go tomorrow.”

  “But he didn’t wait.”