The Sweetheart Secret Read online

  “Because I wanted a moment alone with you, to prove to you that I can change. That I can be more than just a tie, more than just a motorcycle. That I can be the kind of guy you want.”

  She shook her head and realized that for all her arguments about wanting the old Colt back, she had been lying to her cousin, to him, to herself. It wasn’t about the Harley or the khakis. It never had been. “Colt, I don’t need you to buy a motorcycle or a leather jacket or to wear a tie.”

  “Then what do you need, Daisy?”

  He came closer, and a part of her wanted to just dive into his arms and stay there. At the same time, her heart began to race, and she fought the urge to run out of the park. “I don’t know what I need, but I do know the thought of being in one place longer than a few months terrifies the crap out of me.”

  “Why?”

  “I just don’t settle down. I’m not that kind of person.” She shook her head and looked away from him.

  “Yet you came here, took on a giant mortgage and an even bigger project. If that’s not settling down, I don’t know what is. All I’m asking is for a chance for you to settle down with me, too.”

  She backed away, shaking her head and putting up her hands. “You’re going to want me to be this perfect doctor’s wife. Cooking dinner and making pies for the town fair, and dressing our kids in matching little outfits, and that’s just not me, Colt.”

  He laughed. “Where did you get the idea that I wanted any of that? I love you just the way you are, Daisy. I love you when you burst into a room and yell at me, I love you when you climb on top of me outside and make my head spin. I love you when you bring home a dog that I didn’t expect and I love you when you make me break the rules.” He strode forward, caught her chin, and lifted her gaze to his. “What are you really afraid of, Daisy?”

  She broke away from him and walked across the small lawn. A chill ran through her, even though the day was warm and sunny, a nearly perfect blue sky with only a smattering of clouds. Daisy wrapped her arms around her chest and took in one breath after another, fighting the urge to just leave instead of having this conversation.

  A hundred times before, she had walked away—heck, run away—when the conversation got tense and difficult. She’d stomp out of their apartment, slam the door, and not come back until after Colt had gone to sleep.

  Avoid and duck. Two things that Daisy did well. Two things she had been doing since the day she arrived here. How easy would it be to just tell Colt to take her back to the wedding and avoid this entire conversation?

  “Colt, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “I want you to talk to me, Daisy. To really talk. Like a wife talks to a husband who is a part of her life. Not like a woman talking to an unwanted guest who overstayed his welcome.”

  “I never—”

  He came closer, until mere inches separated them. “You never let me in, Daisy. We could run away, we could get married, we could have mind-blowing sex, but when it came to talking about anything deeper than what kind of takeout we were ordering, there was a distinct line in the sand.”

  “What did you want me to talk about?” She threw up her hands. “My sucky childhood? How my mother would take off, just because she got bitten by some whim, or she’d get tired of living on this street or with that neighbor, and wham, we’d move. How I came home from school one day and she was gone? The house was empty, the locks were changed. She’d forgotten to tell me where we’d moved to and I spent the entire day tracking her down.” She shook her head and cursed the tears that sprang to her eyes. “Who wants to hear me complain about that?”

  “I did,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “I did.”

  The truth in his voice stopped her cold. All those days she’d slammed the doors, walked away. What would have happened between them fourteen years ago if she had just stayed? Her heart broke and she wondered if it was too late, too many years passed, too much damage done. “How did we live with each other and so completely miss each other?”

  “I don’t know, Daisy.” He sighed and met her gaze with his own. “I don’t know.”

  * * *

  Earl Harper was having a perfectly good time sulking at Luke and Olivia’s wedding when Walt slipped into the chair beside him. He didn’t say a word to his friend, just grunted in his general direction.

  “You done being pissed at me?” Walt said.

  Earl crossed his arms over his chest and watched the bride and groom swirl around the dance floor. They looked happy, a couple of young kids in love and banking on a long future together. “Nope. I figure I got at least another six months left.”

  “If that’s the way it’s gonna be . . .” Walt started to rise. Earl clamped a hand on his arm.

  Earl sucked up his pride, and decided he’d wasted enough of his life. It was no fun being a hermit when your only company was your own grumpy self.

  “I’ve been an ass,” Earl said to Walt. “I let a woman come between us, and I shouldn’t have.”

  Walt nodded. “For what it’s worth, I never dated Pauline. Took her to lunch once, but there just wasn’t any chemistry.”

  “Are you blind?” Earl gestured toward Pauline, standing on the other side of the patio, in a pale blue dress and low heels. She had her hair pinned up today, with a few curls dangling along her face, making her look softer, younger. Even the sun seemed to like Pauline, the way it scattered golden light along her skin. “She’s a beautiful woman. Any man worth his salt would be head over heels for her.”

  Walt chuckled. “Sounds like there’s already one man in love with her.” He got to his feet and clapped Earl on the shoulder. “I’ll see you back at cards next week.”

  Earl nodded, and just like that, a many-decades-old friendship was restored. That was the good thing about true friends. A spat could come between them, but eventually it would pass, like a summer storm. He’d go back to the card games, and maybe add a few woe-is-me medical issues to the table. He did, after all, have a recent hospital stay he could milk for sympathy points.

  Just as Earl was thinking about getting in the buffet line, Pauline strode up to him. “I want a word with you, Earl Harper.”

  He gestured toward the empty seat beside him. Seemed everybody in Rescue Bay was wanting to talk his ear off today. Though this particular somebody was a welcome change. “Have a seat.”

  She stood. “I am at a wedding. Which means I have a rare opportunity to dance. So I am going to talk to you and you are going to dance with me.”

  He cocked his head. “You think you can just order me around like that and I’ll jump to my feet and do the fox-trot?”

  “Yes, I do. Because you are interested in me and you are being too pigheaded to show it. So somebody has to take the lead in this relationship, and I guess it’s going to be me.”

  Earl got to his feet. “Since when do we have a relationship?”

  “Since you asked me to dance at Luke and Olivia’s wedding.”

  “I did no such thing. You ordered me to dance.”

  She put her fists on her hips and glared at him.

  Earl shook his head and laughed. Never had he ever met a woman more stubborn than himself. That was what he’d liked about Pauline from day one. Earl Harper needed a woman who would keep him in line, and this one did that in spades. She was awfully fiery for an old woman, and that, Earl thought, would keep them both young. “Pauline, would you do me the honor of dancing with me?”

  “Why, I would be delighted, Earl. I thought you’d never ask.”

  He just laughed some more and took Pauline’s hand. Hers felt right in his, smaller, more delicate, but soft and warm. They made their way past the tables and chairs and out to the center of the patio. A boom box played a Michael Bublé tune on the speakers, one of his covers of a Frank Sinatra hit. Earl put out his arms and Pauline stepped into them, fitting into the space as if sh
e had been made for him.

  “Now would be a good time to compliment me,” Pauline said.

  He arched a brow. “Are you always going to tell me what to do?”

  “Are you always going to be difficult?”

  He chuckled. “Probably.”

  “Then, yes.” She smiled up at him and did a nice sashay to the left, twirling her skirt around her legs. She sashayed to the right, then gave him an expectant look.

  “You look lovely today, Pauline. That . . .” He paused, scrambling for words that didn’t make him sound like a fool. “That shade of blue looks nice with your eyes.”

  “Thank you, Earl.” She stopped dancing and rose on her toes, planting a soft, sweet kiss on his lips.

  “Hey, the guy is supposed to do that.”

  “I was tired of waiting. I’m an old woman, Earl Harper. I don’t have a lot of time to wait for you to make the first move.”

  “Then at least let me kiss you right,” he said softly. He stopped in the middle of the dance floor, placed his palms on her cheeks, then pressed his lips against hers. It was a soft, tender kiss, the kind that melted like butter on a man’s heart, and when Pauline let out a little sound and wrapped her arms around his neck, Earl knew he was a goner.

  Twenty-seven

  Daisy was halfway to the motorcycle when she stopped. What was she going to do? Hop on the bike and roar out of here, leaving Colt in her dust?

  The part of her that had done that a thousand times before wanted to go, wanted to run, wanted to put as much distance between herself and the fear that had ridden her shoulders all her life. Colt wanted her to stay, to put in the grunt work that being in a real relationship took, to give all of herself, and risk that he would be there once she did. This wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment runaway idea they’d had. This was staying in place, building a fence, and putting azaleas in the front yard.

  Risking failure. And that, when Daisy boiled down all her fears and worries and bad decisions, was what sat at the core. Fear of failure.

  She hung her head, then drew in a deep breath and turned around. “Do you want to know why I never wanted to make love with you?”

  The question came out of the blue and his brows knitted in confusion. “I thought that’s what we did the other day on the beach.”

  “No. That was sex. Hard, fast, dirty, and good. It wasn’t making love.” She took a step closer to him, and thought no one in the world had eyes as blue as his. “We’ve only really made love once. It was that night after we ate at that little café on Bourbon Street, do you remember? I stumbled on the sidewalk, and I twisted my ankle, and you carried me home. Up all five flights.”

  He took a step toward her, the smile of memory playing on his lips. “I put ice on your ankle, and propped it up with pillows in our bed.”

  “I didn’t want you to leave, so you curled up on the bed with me, and you held my hand, and it was so sweet”—tears sprang to her eyes, but she let them come this time, instead of hiding her emotions from Colt, because hiding hadn’t gotten her anywhere but alone—“and the next thing I knew, we were kissing, and then a lot more than kissing. It was slow and sweet and easy. And . . . beautiful.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt your ankle, so I tried to be gentle.”

  The memory washed over her, so real, she could almost hear the trumpets jazzing in the New Orleans air, smell the crisp, sweet fried dough from the bakery underneath their apartment. “I remember feeling like . . . a baby bird. Like something that would break if you weren’t very, very careful.”

  He brushed away her bangs, then let his fingers trail down her cheek. “Because I loved you, Daisy. I still do.”

  The words beat a tattoo in her heart, caused a hitch in her breath. “And that’s what scared me.”

  “How can me loving you, making love to you, scare you?”

  “Because you left, Colt. You left that next morning. And you never came back. And . . .” Her throat clogged and tears sprang to her eyes. “It broke my heart.”

  “So you think I might do it again? Leave you, break your heart?”

  “Everybody leaves, Colt. But that’s not what this is about, not really. I thought it was. Did a darned good job convincing myself I was afraid of being alone, but I’m not. I’m afraid of finding out I suck at being a good friend, a good wife, a good anything. I mean, look at me—I’m a high-school dropout whose only skill in life is waitressing.” She tried to shrug it off like she didn’t care, but that fear sat at the crux of everything in Daisy Barton’s life. The girl who had never had a home that was permanent enough to celebrate two birthdays in a row had grown up terrified to become someone, to settle in one place and bloom there, because she had learned how fragile everything around her was. And how easily she could screw it up. So she’d cut the ties before she lost them forever. Then she’d taken a risk and fallen in love with Colt Harper—and he had walked out the door when she wasn’t there, proving correct her misguided philosophies.

  “Oh, Daisy. You are a success in a thousand ways. You’re smart and determined and strong, and the bravest woman I know. You take risks all the time and I . . . I don’t.” He sighed. “Do you want to know why I left and never came back? Because I realized pretty quickly that I wanted more. More than just sex. More than just fun. I wanted something real and lasting and true, but I was just as scared as you to take a chance on that and totally screw it up. I was running from the very thing I wanted most.”

  She chuckled at the irony that they’d had the same fears all this time, and never said a word to each other. “Join the club. I’m a charter member.”

  His eyes danced with laughter. “Maybe we should start an organization. Commitmentphobes Anonymous.”

  “As long as you don’t serve crappy coffee at the meetings, I’ll be there.”

  “I promise, no crappy coffee,” he said. “But there will be dessert.” A car went past the park, and from far down the street, she heard the sound of children playing.

  Colt’s features sobered and his mouth thinned. “Deep down inside, this commitmentphobe really wants someone in my life that I know is going to be there when things get rough, like you have been for me this last month. Someone who understands when I need to talk and doesn’t let me hide behind work. Someone who challenges me and makes me want to be more than I already am.”

  She wanted that, too, and if there was one thing that Colt Harper had done for her since she returned to Rescue Bay, it was challenge her. To reach further, to try harder, to trust more.

  “Call me a sap, or tell me I’m getting soft in my old age,” he went on, “but I don’t want just a good time in bed. I want more, Daisy. Either you do, too, or we’re just wasting our time here.”

  “I do, Colt. I want all that, and more.”

  He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them. He held on to her, and the tender look in his eyes wrapped a spell around her heart. “I love you, Daisy May. I always have. I just wasn’t smart enough to come back for you the last time. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “I love you, too, Colt,” she whispered, and a tear fell onto her cheek. “I’m just scared.” Scared to trust. Scared to give him her heart. Scared to let him deep inside her, where she was vulnerable and small. “Scared that we’ll try again and it will all fall apart. And it’ll hurt ten times more when it does. I’ve taken so many other risks—coming here with no real plan or financing to resurrect an inn that had been closed for a long time—but I never took the risk on coming after you.”

  He chuckled softly. “I don’t know about that. You came after me in my office that day. All fire and sass. Any man would be a fool to resist that . . . or let it go a second time.”

  The earth beneath her feet was solid, strong. She loved this place, this town, and most of all, this man. Having all of those things meant taking a giant leap off the cliff of faith, handing the contr
ols of her fragile heart over to another with no guarantee. It was the scariest leap she’d ever taken, but she knew if she didn’t jump now, with both feet, she would lose something special and true. “Kiss me, Colt,” she said. “Slow and easy. I don’t want to rush anymore.”

  “Me either.” He lifted his hands to cup her jaw, whisking away the tear with his thumb, as tenderly as he had cradled her ankle all those years ago. He lowered his mouth to hers and their lips brushed, once, twice, three times, then he opened his mouth and kissed her, as gentle as kissing a china doll. This wasn’t a hard, fast, demanding kiss, it was a slow, musical concert against her mouth, playing strings and percussion with his lips, his tongue, his hands. She swayed into him, her eyes closed, letting the kiss wash over her like sliding into a warm pool of water.

  He drew back, then captured her gaze with his own. “Are you scared now?”

  “Terrified.” A grin played at the edges of her mouth. “I’m terrified that if we wait one more minute to make love, someone might disturb us.”

  “Here?” He glanced around. “It’s risky.”

  “Isn’t that our new motto?”

  “Absolutely. Then I think we should do this”—he kissed her—“again and again, until you’re not scared anymore.”

  She smiled. “Immersion therapy, Doctor Harper?”

  “Something like that,” he murmured.

  He kissed her a second time, until her knees went weak. Then he slipped out of the leather jacket, led her to a secluded area behind a thick copse of trees, and spread the jacket on the ground. Colt lowered her to the grassy bed, slow and easy, and took his sweet time kissing her mouth, her throat, her neck, her shoulders, her breasts, her belly. The languid tease stoked the fire inside her, made her writhe in agony beneath his tongue, his fingers. She stroked his erection, nipped at his shoulders, rubbed her legs along his. When neither of them could stand the sweet torture another second, he slid into her, holding her hands above her head and watching her, his blue eyes warm and full, as his strokes seemed to reach the deepest parts of her that Daisy had always kept hidden.