The Sweetheart Secret Read online

  Five

  A squat blue coffee cup whipped by Colt’s head, so fast and so close, it made his hair flicker. The words Fishermen Hook ’Em Faster spiraled by in a blur, before the nearly empty mug crashed into the wall and shattered on the tile floor. The cup fractured into an alphabet soup, and the remaining dregs of coffee bloomed a brown daisy onto the beige wall. “Grandpa, what the hell—”

  “I told you I’m not going for any more tests. Quit making those damned appointments.” Grandpa Earl stood in the kitchen and hoisted the cordless phone by one end, like a snake he’d yanked out of the garden. Even at eighty-two, Earl Harper had the same wiry frame and close-cropped hair of his military days, but age and illness had stooped his posture and hollowed the contours of his face. His dark hair had gone gray, nearly white, and his blue eyes had softened to a pale sky.

  Grandpa Earl, once a man who Colt had thought could beat anything, conquer any obstacle, was sick. Early onset Parkinson’s, coupled with the gradual wear down of congestive heart failure, had eroded the hearty Earl Harper, a little more every day. Something Grandpa had refused to accept. Hell, even Colt was having trouble with the concept, and he was the one who had made the initial diagnosis.

  Colt sighed. “Grandpa, you need to at least see a specialist. I’m a general practitioner. Not an expert in Parkinson’s or heart disease.”

  “I don’t need an expert. I know what’s wrong with me.” Earl scowled. “So leave me be, will you?”

  “At least get out of the house once in a while.” Colt loosened his tie, tucked his glasses in his pocket. “Go back to the card games at Golden Years. Nick said his grandpa was asking about you.”

  “That rat bastard. The day I play cards with him is the day I roll over and die. And don’t start asking me why. I don’t need to talk about it or get my feelings on the table or any such Dr. Phil foolishness. What I need is to be left the hell alone.” Grandpa Earl tossed the phone onto the counter, then crossed to the living room and returned to his seat in the ugly La-Z-Boy recliner that sat in direct line with the television screen. With a grunted exclamation point, Grandpa pulled the lever and flipped out the footrest. The brown leather chair had seen better days—hell, better decades—and sported duct tape bandages on all major appendages. Grandpa’s La-Z-Boy had been in Earl’s house on Bayberry Lane for as long as Colt could remember. When Colt insisted his grandfather give up the old, rundown house and move into Colt’s bungalow, the chair had been the one non-negotiable on Grandpa’s list.

  As much as he hated that hideous chair, Colt had agreed. Grandpa Earl needed to be in a safer environment, one where Colt could be sure that his elderly grandfather was getting the care he needed. Care that involved making sure he took his medications every day, and ate three squares. Colt had thought it would be easy.

  He’d been wrong. Grandpa Earl had never been one for convention, and apparently not one for following doctor’s orders—especially when that doctor was his grandson. Hence the coffee shrapnel. Right beside the dent in the wall from yesterday’s soup bowl. And the triangular hole made by Colt’s iPad the day before.

  When Colt had been a kid, Grandpa Earl had been the closest thing to a parental role model in Colt’s life. Grandpa had taken Colt and his brother fishing, taught the boys how to tie a gossamer thin line into a lure, how to reel in a silvery-green bass before it slipped the hook, and how to have patience as the sun marched lazily across the sky and the fish hovered beneath the lake’s placid surface. His grandfather had served two decades in the military, then worked forty-five years under a hood, fixing anything with an engine, until he was forced to retire when he lost his grip on his tools and his patience.

  Then Grandma Nancy had died a little over a year ago, and the busy, brimming life that Grandpa Earl had once had ground to a halt, except for the weekly card games with Walt Patterson, which came to an abrupt end earlier in the year. From that day forward, Grandpa Earl had fully withdrawn into a hermit-like life, ignoring medical advice and doctor recommendations. As his illness progressed and loneliness took over the four-bedroom house where he and Nancy had raised their sons, the once vital, energetic grandfather Colt had known slipped away.

  There were days when Colt would do anything to get those moments back. To have one last fishing trip, one last memory on the banks of the Whistler’s Lake. One last day of wisdom and laughter, the kind of days Colt had never treasured—until they were gone.

  Because of Colt’s mistakes. Mistakes Grandpa had never forgiven. For fourteen years, Colt had been doing his level best to atone, but the wall remained between Colt and Grandpa Earl. Two stubborn men, hurting in their own ways, and refusing to be the first to yield.

  Colt laid his briefcase by the door, dropped his keys into the wooden bowl on the credenza. He bit back a comment about the dirty dishes littering the kitchen counter and table, the empty ice cream container sitting beside, instead of in, the trash. In the weeks since Grandpa Earl had moved in with Colt, the daily silent battle between them about maintaining order had grown in proportion. It wasn’t an argument Colt wanted to have today. Or any day. “Grandpa, I’m not trying to hurt you—”

  “No, worse. You’re trying to kill me. I don’t need any of those fancy medicines you keep trying to shove down my throat. And I don’t need to be living here, like a prisoner on death row. Let me go back to my own house and my own ways of treating these damned shakes.”

  The house his Grandpa had no longer been able to maintain on his own was now on the market, but Colt chose not to remind Grandpa of that fact. “Those shakes are called Parkinson’s, Grandpa. There are medications that can help and treatments that can ease the symptoms. You can’t just—”

  “I can and I will. It’s a free goddamn country. Something you’d know if you’d gone to war, like I did, instead of going to that fancy college.” Grandpa thumbed the remote and turned up the volume until Alex Trebek’s voice boomed in the tiny space.

  That fancy college had given Colt a medical degree, something his grandfather conveniently ignored every time the subject of his failing health came up. What was that saying about physician, heal thyself? Right now, Colt was having a hell of a time just healing thy family.

  The doorbell rang, cutting off Colt’s next argument. Didn’t matter. Some days, it felt like he was just rehashing the words from the day before. Maybe he was crazy for trying to restore the past—for trying to get close again to the man who blamed Colt for the death of his youngest grandchild. Hell, Colt still blamed himself.

  If he couldn’t find a way to forgive himself, how could he expect to find a way for Grandpa to do the same?

  The doorbell rang again, and Colt shook off the thoughts. Grandpa gestured toward the door with a remote. “I bet that’s the pizza I ordered for dinner. Thank God.”

  Pizza? Again? After the Chinese food yesterday and subs the day before? Seemed like Grandpa had every delivery place in a ten-mile radius on speed dial. Colt threw up his hands. “What are you ordering pizza for? I had a perfectly healthy dinner planned.”

  “Let me guess. More rubber chicken and tasteless broccoli?” Grandpa scoffed. “I’d rather chew off my own hand.”

  “That can be arranged,” Colt muttered. He crossed to the door, debating whether to send the pizza guy away or just buy a few moments of peace with a large pepperoni. But when he pulled open the front door, he found something far more tempting and dangerous standing on his front stoop. Colt sucked in a breath, told himself he wasn’t at all rocked by the sight of Daisy on his front step, looking radiant in a bright yellow dress that flared at the waist and showed off shapely legs that could erase a man’s willpower in the blink of an eye. “Daisy. What are you doing here?”

  Gee, way to start with a stellar conversational opener. He’d basically just repeated what he’d said earlier.

  “I handled our first meeting poorly and I wanted to try talking to you again,” she sai
d. “Calmly this time.”

  Colt heard the TV volume descend, followed by the click of the La-Z-Boy’s footrest going down, then the shuffle of his grandfather’s feet on the tile floor. “Is that my pizza?”

  “No, Grandpa, it’s not. It’s . . .” Colt hesitated. How to describe Daisy? Friend didn’t fit, neither did wife. Trouble might be more apt, but that would open a door to questions that Colt didn’t want to answer. “Someone here to see me.”

  She glanced at the coffee cup shards. “Uh, is this a bad time?”

  “No, no . . . it’s fine.” Colt started to step through the door and usher Daisy out onto the porch, when he saw a familiar hand grip the door frame above his head.

  “You didn’t tell me this someone was a woman. Invite her in, boy, before someone scoops her up and you’re left holding nothing but your regrets in one hand and your Johnson in the other.”

  Daisy arched a brow and covered up a laugh. Colt rolled his eyes. “Grandpa!”

  Grandpa sidled around Colt’s side and stuck out a hand. “I’m Earl Harper. Colt’s grandfather. The friendlier Harper man.”

  Colt snorted.

  Daisy smiled, a smile that Colt knew could sock a man in the gut and leave him weak in the knees. “Nice to meet you. I’m Daisy. Colt’s—”

  “Friend,” Colt supplied. At least until he came up with a better alternative to describe their complicated, on/off relationship. Something with less than ten syllables.

  “Friend,” Daisy affirmed.

  Somehow, hearing the word coming from Daisy made his gut ache. Just friends was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Exes who remained on friendly terms, friendly enough to sleep together three months ago? Friendly enough that she lingered in his mind like a favorite song stuck on repeat? Or friendly enough that they’d send a Christmas card each year, maybe check in once in a while on social media?

  Yes, complicated was the word for it.

  “Well, come in, come in,” Grandpa said. “It’s been so damned long since we had any company here, I thought we were living on the moon. We’re having pizza, if you’re hungry.”

  “Oh, I’m not staying long. I just needed to talk to Colt for a minute.”

  Grandpa waved that off. “It’s near supper time. Come in, have a few bites. I promise to be sociable, though I can’t say the same for my grumpy grandson.”

  “I’m the grumpy one?” Colt said. And what was up with Grandpa Earl? Since when did he want company? Or make jokes? Maybe it was a diversionary tactic. To keep Colt from focusing on the canceled doctor’s appointment and the roughage revolution. “Grandpa, I think—”

  “Why, would you lookie there. My pizza. Right on time.” Grandpa waved at a beat-up two-door Chevy jerking its way up the drive. A faded RAY’S PIZZA sign sat askew on the roof. “Give him a good tip, Colt, will you?”

  Colt reached for his wallet. It was either that or send the pizza guy away and right now, that was a battle Colt didn’t want to have. Grandpa had stopped throwing coffee cups and that was reason enough to relent on the pizza. “Seems my grandfather is sticking me with the bill for his dietary indiscretions.”

  Daisy grinned. “As far as indiscretions go, I’d have to say pizza is a pretty inexpensive one. Don’t you agree?”

  Something went hot in Colt’s gut. Hotter than any pizza the pimply kid coming up the walk was holding. A few words, and he was rocketed back to the night in the hotel with Daisy, when he’d forgotten his life, his responsibilities, and most of all, his reasons for walking away all those years ago.

  He cleared his throat and reminded himself there’d been more than one reason why he and Daisy didn’t work outside the bedroom. “Depends on who’s footing the bill.”

  “For God’s sake, quit your chatting and start your paying,” Grandpa shouted. “My stomach isn’t getting any fuller standing here waiting.”

  Colt fished some money out of his wallet, then exchanged the bills for a large warm cardboard box. The kid thanked him with a grunt, then trotted back down the steps. Loud rock music thumped out of the speakers when he hopped in the car and pulled away.

  Daisy laid a hand on Colt’s. Just a momentary touch, but it sent a sizzling flicker down his veins. “I should let you have dinner. I’ll come back another time.”

  “Have you eaten?” Colt asked, before he could think about the wisdom of inviting her in. That touch had frazzled his brain. Not to mention what the dress, and that smile of hers, had done to the rest of him.

  He was as bad as his patients. He knew what was right for him, what was best for his health and sanity, yet he craved the very woman who made him run from all those smart choices. Insane.

  What was it about Daisy Barton that drove him crazy? From the first time he’d seen her, sitting on the steps outside of the Hideaway Inn, she’d invaded his thoughts and his better judgment like honeysuckle.

  When Daisy’s mother had shown up that summer and whisked Daisy back to her home in Jacksonville, Colt had been unable to focus on anything. College applications, homework assignments, all got forgotten. One day he hopped on his motorcycle, roared up the state, and showed up on her doorstep. Five minutes later, Daisy had her arms clasped tight around his waist and they’d been on their way—to anywhere that they could be together. Back then, his only thought was being with her. Now he was presumably smarter and more grounded. Until he looked at her, and everything inside him flipped again.

  “I haven’t eaten since lunch when I had something masquerading as meatloaf.” Daisy pressed a hand to her belly. “I think that diner next to the motel is a little loose with their descriptions.”

  Colt chuckled. “The Drop Inn isn’t known for its cuisine. It does, however, sport forty-four different beers, which is what brings in most of the local traffic, from what I hear.”

  “For God’s sake, Colton, invite the woman in and quit jabbering on the porch. What kind of host are you, anyway?” Grandpa Earl opened the cabinets, withdrew a trio of plates, and put them on the kitchen table. “Look. I’ll even use a napkin this time.” He sat in a chair, tugged a napkin out of the holder on the table, and spread it across his lap.

  A meal at the table. With Grandpa Earl in something approximating a good mood. That was enough reason to invite Daisy to stay. If she could inspire a good mood in Grandpa, even for a few minutes, it was worth the price Colt would pay to have a momentary peaceful lull in this ongoing battle. A way to forget all the things that Colt did a good job of shoving under the carpet.

  “Why don’t you stay for dinner? We can talk after we eat,” Colt said. She hesitated, so he gave her a smile. “I promise, we don’t bite.”

  “Pity, because I sometimes do.” She flashed him a smile that was half vixen, half sex kitten. As Daisy whispered by him in a soft cloud of tempting perfume, Colt had to wonder if he’d invited her in because he wanted his grandfather to behave—

  Or because Colt wanted an excuse to misbehave. Again.

  Six

  The dissolution of Emma Barton Jennings’s marriage had been as slow as molasses dripping into a bowl. One day, her relationship with Roger had all been perfect and shiny and wonderful, and then bit by bit, each day, the union that had started so bright began to dim. She’d made one last-ditch effort to resurrect their marriage, a weekend getaway, and instead ended up inadvertently driving the last nail in the coffin. The second they got back, Roger had packed the last of his bags and moved the rest of the way out.

  But if there was one thing Emma excelled at, it was maintaining a fiction. She’d done it all her life, and she wasn’t about to change now. No one knew Roger had left; no one knew her marriage was on life support. She kept thinking that maybe if she pretended it wasn’t happening . . . it wouldn’t.

  “Hi, Momma.” Emma placed a kiss on her mother’s cheek, then smoothed the blanket lying across Clara’s chest. Her mother was in her favorite spot—on the cha
ise lounge in the living room, where the big screen TV held court over the fireplace and the sun streamed in from the sliding glass doors leading to the lanai. She’d been home from the hospital in Jacksonville for over a week now, and except for lingering cough and exhaustion, seemed recovered from that scary bout with pneumonia last month. For a while there, Emma hadn’t been sure her sixty-year-old mother was strong enough to survive, but in the end, Clara had surprised everyone, including the doctors. “How are you doing today?”

  “I’m still breathing. Always a positive.” Clara pushed up on the pillows behind her head and sat up straighter. “How’s my favorite daughter?”

  Emma laughed at the familiar joke. “I’m your only daughter. Always have been, always will be. And Jack is your favorite son, also your only son.”

  “All the more reason to be my favorites.” Clara grabbed Emma’s hand and met her daughter’s gaze with direct green eyes. Her mother had always had that ability to zero in on any little detail. Maybe that was why Emma had always talked in vague terms about her marriage to Roger. If she dropped even the slightest hint of trouble, her mother would have been all over it. And now . . .

  Well now Emma had problems of her own to deal with. Problems she didn’t need to add to her mother’s plate.

  Don’t you miss the place, just a little?

  Daisy’s question came back to Emma, offering a way out, but also a return to the very place where Emma’s memories had been destroyed and her mother’s heart had been broken. Lord knew why her mother had held on to that place, given what all had happened there. Going to the Hideaway would mean answering Daisy’s questions—questions that Emma had yet to answer for herself.

  “You didn’t answer the question, missy,” Momma said, as if reading Emma’s mind.