Midnight Remedy (3 page)

That meant publicity. Lots of publicity. Oh, Lord, if the tabloids got hold of this
 . . .

Determined to convince Chambers to drop the idea, she continued. “Imagine what the tabloids could do with something like this. ‘Aphrodisiac Discovered in West Texas.’ ‘Herbalist Discovers Cure for Impotence.’ Never mind that I’m no more an herbalist than Herman is. That’s what they’d call me. If they didn’t call me something worse. Something like sex herbalist, probably.” That kind of innuendo she didn’t need. Couldn’t deal with. Not with her past.

Piper closed her eyes at the sudden rush of memories. A mental image as clear as the day she’d first seen the papers. Headlines screaming her name, a picture of her on the courthouse steps. God, not again, she thought, shaking the image away. Leaving Herman on the counter, she paced the room. “It would be a zoo. A nightmare. Everybody and their dog would descend on the area and all the peace would be shot straight to hell.” Especially her peace. Once the tabloids found out who had invented the remedy, her past would again be fodder for the rumor mills. Lord, she couldn’t bear to imagine it. She had her son to think of now.

“Beautiful Herbalist,” Chambers murmured with a glint in his eyes.

Her attention caught, she stared at him. “Pardon me?”

“I said, beautiful herbalist. ‘Beautiful Herbalist Discovers Cure for Impotence’.”

She flushed again and her stomach fluttered. Lord, the man was flirting with her. A tingle of excitement crept up the back of her neck. Ruthlessly, she squashed it.

“Nursery owner,” she corrected him severely. “Not an herbalist.” She returned to her original point, warming to the theme. “That’s only the beginning. The possibilities for abuse are endless. What if the crime lords got hold of it?”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?” he said. “I can absolutely guarantee I won’t sell it to any crime lords.”

The easy smile he gave her invited her to share the joke. It made him look younger, even better looking. He wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but that charm was lethal. His light brown hair had fallen forward over his brow. She didn’t know why, but it disarmed her, made her want to push his hair back from his forehead, like she did her son’s. Piper decided Eric Chambers was about as guileless as a rattler.

“Well, Ms. Stevenson. What’s it going to be?”

“The answer is no,” she said, enjoying his look of disbelief.

“How can you refuse? Surely you can see the importance of researching this remedy.”

“Nope.” Important or not, she couldn’t risk it. “All I see is that you can’t guarantee that the remedy won’t be misused and you can’t promise that my part in finding this supposed aphrodisiac won’t get out to the press. No research is important enough for me to risk the negative publicity. I’m thinking about my son, Dr. Chambers, and that’s the only decision I can make. You can leave now.”

“Wait!”

Piper slanted him a haughty look. “Wait for what? We have nothing left to discuss.”

“The hell we don’t. If you think I’m getting into a moving vehicle with Gus the Grim again, you’re absolutely nuts.”

“Gus the Grim? Gus drove you here?” What was he talking about?

“After my car broke down he picked me up. He must be in cahoots with the grim reaper. Probably brings him sacrificial victims. He scares them to death with his driving.”

Laughing in spite of herself, she said, “Your metaphors are a bit mixed. The grim reaper doesn’t have sacrificial victims.”

“Literature was never my forte. Isn’t there another way I can get home? Like call a cab?” he suggested hopefully.

“Sorry. No can do. No cabs.”

“Then I’ll walk.”

“It’s twelve or fifteen miles to Capistrano. Unless you’re a marathon runner, it will take you forever to get there.”

“I run,” he said, adding at her skeptical look, “Well, maybe not fifteen miles at a time, but I do run.”

“Oh, all right, I’ll give you a ride,” she said reluctantly. “I have some errands in Capistrano.”

“Lifesaver isn’t too strong a word. Thank you.”

Watch out, Piper,
she told herself. He’s no dummy. Now he’s decided if he can’t get that remedy one way, he’ll get it another. And she was just dumb enough to let him charm her.

“Let me make a couple of calls and we can go.” She dialed, her fingers tapping a staccato rhythm on the counter while she waited for her grandfather to pick up. “Grandpa? You’re supposed to have the phone on you, you know. What good will it do you if you can’t reach it?”

Piper held the receiver away from her. Though the words weren’t discernible, the tenor of the reply boomed across the airwaves. “Yeah?” She brought the receiver back against her ear. “Well you just listen to me, you cantankerous old coot—” She broke off, grinning. “Promise to keep it beside you next time and I’ll back off. I wasn’t calling to check on you. I’ve got to go to Capistrano. Cole is at Jason’s. See you later.”

Another call to Jason’s mother and she was ready to go.

Stepping over the slumbering dog at the foot of the steps, Eric followed her across the yard. “Look, I’m sorry if I came on a little strong.”

“Strong? Try rude, obnoxious or offensive.”

Eric didn’t think he’d been that bad, but it would only antagonize her more to say so. Diplomatically he said, “I’m sure you wouldn’t intentionally do anything to harm Mr. Johnson, but he is my patient, and I’m responsible for his health. Randy’s improvement and Virginia’s subsequent pregnancy mean a lot to both of them, and when they told me about you
 . . .
” He shrugged. “I’ll admit I was skeptical.”

“Think nothing of it,” she said with an airy wave of her hand. “I’m used to being insulted by perfect strangers.”

Did that smart mouth of hers ever get her into trouble? “Good, then I won’t worry.”

For a moment she stared at him, then she laughed. “Got me on that one.”

Pleased, he started to answer, then choked and cut himself off in mid-sentence to stare at the vehicle in front of him.

Another pickup, worse than the last one. The rear end was a study in dent art. Large, small, some of them old and rusted, others obviously of newer origin, they were a collage of indentations.
Oh, God, I should have taken my chances with Gus
, he thought.

“One of the prices you pay to ride with a short person,” Piper said, noticing his discomfort and looking pleased.

Eric eyed the long expanse of bare leg. They didn’t look short. Even ending in a pair of pink socks and beat up tennis shoes, her legs were something to see. She wore bright pink socks with lime green shorts and a yellow tee shirt with the word “Not!” imprinted on it. Interesting color scheme, he thought.

In answer to his question, she said, “You seem like the big city type.”

It didn’t sound like a compliment. His head banged against the window as she swerved to avoid a pothole. He bit off a curse. “Capistrano suits me fine.” Much better than Dallas had. Eric liked Capistrano, both the slower pace and the more personalized practice. “Looks like you’ve got quite an operation going. I thought you only sold herbs until I saw your greenhouse.”

“No, the herbs are a sideline. I grow more African violets and orchids than anything else.”

He wondered how she could possibly make a living in the middle of ‘Nowhere, Texas’, as she so aptly put it. And why the devil was a woman who looked like her stuck here, anyway? He glanced out the window, noticing how barren the area was. Barren of people, at least. Cattle, on the other hand, were plentiful.

Piper could have lived in the big city easily, he thought. Clearly, she was no hick from the sticks. But she didn’t live in the city. She lived right here on a ranch in the middle of one of the most sparsely populated areas of the state. With her grandfather and her son—and no husband. Knowing she wasn’t married didn’t break his heart.

Noticing the route, he asked, “Are you going to Capistrano?”

“Of course. Where did you think I was taking you?”

“Gus came through the mountains.”

She bit her lip. “Gus always comes by the mountain road. He likes it.”

Eric stared at her, his eyes widening. “He always comes by
 . . .
You mean I didn’t have to suffer through that?” A strangled sound escaped her. “That was the worst excuse for a road I ever saw. With Gus driving, it defies description.” He shuddered, remembering.

“Think what an experience, though,” she told him, with only the barest hint of a laugh in her voice.

“Experience? ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ is more like it.” Eric lapsed into silence. A memory niggled at the corners of his mind, something to do with her name, but he couldn’t quite place it. “My mother is into plants,” he said after a moment. “In fact, she raises African violets. She’s been bugging my father to build her a greenhouse for about a year now. Since she’s taken over half the living room with plant stands and grow lights, I suspect he’ll do it before too much longer.”

“That’s how I started. I bullied Grandpa and Sam, our ranch foreman, into building my first greenhouse when I was ten. Are you interested in plants?”

“Don’t know too much about them, other than the times I go looking for a present for my
 . . .
” The elusive memory became clear. “Now I remember. You’re ‘Pay the Piper’, aren’t you? The name should have tipped me off.”

She turned a long, slow smile on him. “You’ve heard of me?”

A woman with a smile like that was dangerous. “Saw some of your plants in a nursery in San Antonio when I was looking for a present for my mother. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t ask about my nursery. You were too busy shouting at me about my herbal remedy, remember? If I
were
an herbalist, I do believe I’d be insulted. Do you have a hang-up about herbalists or something?”

“Not at all.” His legs were cramping and he shifted them again. “I merely said I didn’t think you should practice medicine without a license.”

“Since I wasn’t practicing medicine, that’s a moot point, isn’t it, doctor?”

“No.” He stretched his legs toward the door and moved his shoulders closer to her.

Piper stared at him. “What do you mean, no?”

“We haven’t established that anything is a moot point, and we won’t until you tell me what’s in that remedy.” He smiled when she started to sputter. “Better watch the road,” he advised her. “I’m not quite as narrow-minded as you seem to think, Piper. And I thought you were going to call me Eric.”

“I didn’t say you were narrow-minded.” She shot him a sidelong glance. “Eric,” she added in dulcet tones.

“You didn’t need to. Piper.”

She laughed, abandoning the subject. “I’m surprised you’ve heard of me. I ship to several places in Texas, but it’s a wholesale operation, and fairly limited.”