The Sweetheart Secret (23 page)

He scoffed. “You're reading
me
the riot act for not opening up? Hell, Daisy, you weren't exactly an oversharer yourself.”

“You're like a
vault
, Colt.” She threw up her hands. The outburst startled a bird in a nearby tree, and he took off with an impatient squawk. “We were married and you still didn't share anything personal with me. You still don't. How hard is it to say,
Hey, I'm busy today, taking some kids fishing
?”

“We never had a real marriage, Daisy.”

The truth hurt. Maybe because a part of her had always hoped that in Colt's mind their marriage hadn't been just one short honeymoon. That it had been more. But what more could she have expected from three weeks together? Did she think that just because their marriage date had a fourteen-year run, that it made them closer? Obviously not, if she had been excluded from the biggest tragedy in his life.

“A real marriage requires opening up,” Daisy said. “Something you have never done, Colt.”

“You know everything about me, Daisy. Hell, we were friends before we . . . well, before we slept together.”

“Were we? Really?” She turned away and looked out over the placid blue expanse before her. The reflections of trees and a far-off cabin shimmered on the water, and the ripples of a slow-moving pontoon boat created gentle kisses against the shore. “Because a friend would know that the reason you ran out on your wife was because your brother died.”

The air between them stilled. As soon as the words left her mouth, Daisy wanted to take them back. Not because they didn't need to be said—they were about fourteen years overdue—but because of how coldly and callously she'd said them. God, what was wrong with her? When was she going to learn to think before she acted?

She reached for his hand. “I'm sorry, Colt, I—”

He jerked away, his face stony and cold. “Let it go, Daisy.” Then he yanked up his fishing supplies and charged up the hill. She hurried after him, scrambling for branches to steady her footing.

“I didn't think, Colt. I just reacted. I was so mad at you for not coming today, and then this woman came up to me at the park, yelling at me about that party I had in her house years ago, and she talked to me like I was the reason your brother died, and Colt—” Her heart broke seeing the pain in his eyes, the cold set in his shoulders. “I . . . I never knew. I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.” He turned away from her, took a couple steps, paused. “Just leave me alone, Daisy.”

“Colt—”

“I said, leave me alone, Daisy.” His voice was raw, scraping past his throat.

“Please don't shut me out. Please tell me.” She reached out to touch him, but her hand hovered inches from his back. “What . . . what happened?”

He whirled on her. “It doesn't matter what happened or how it happened or how I was too late to save him. Talking about it won't bring my brother back, won't get my grandfather to forgive me, won't make me feel any less guilty. Talking about it won't help me one goddamned bit.”

“But—”

“I said I don't want to talk about it.” His features hardened, his voice sharpened. “Which part of that sentence said
please keep bringing it up
?”

She shook her head and swiped at the sudden tears in her eyes. “No wonder you had to hire me to spend time with your grandfather,” she said, partly to herself, partly to him. “No wonder he's so mad, he throws coffee cups and plates at you and you just lecture him. Neither one of you talk about what happened, what's going on, or say that you need each other. Don't you think this hurts him, too? He'd be there for you, Colt, because that's how family works.”

“Don't tell me how family works, Daisy. You told me yourself you never really had one. So that does not make you an expert on mine or anyone else's.”

She stepped back, jaw agape. The harsh words hung in the hot air between them, slicing at her with the precise swath of truth. “You're right, Colt. I have no idea what it's like to truly be in a family. To have someone who is there for you, all the time. Or how to do that myself. I've always been out to protect number one, to take care of me. I never stopped to see how the people around me, the people I loved”—at that, her voice caught—“were being hurt. Or left alone.”

He nodded, his gaze on the trampled ground. “It doesn't matter. It's too late. Just let it go.”

“I'm sorry, Colt. I really am. I loved Henry, too.” She swiped at her eyes again. “And . . . damn it all, I loved you. Even if you're too stubborn to realize that all I wanted then, and all I want now, is to help you.” She turned and headed up the hill, cursing the branches that hindered her path, swatting at leaves and twigs, because her vision was blurry and her chest tight.

He caught up to her just before she crested the hill and put a hand on her arm. “I'm sorry. I was out of line for saying that. It just . . . it hurts so much to talk about Henry. So I don't. I keep it all inside and I come here and I wish . . .” His lower lip trembled, his breath shuddered out of him, and she wanted to just wrap her arms around him and make everything better. “I wish I could do it all over again.”

The truth dawned on her, as she stood there, watching the man she had once loved, the man who had left her and never returned, the man with a bone-deep pain that still hobbled his life. She thought of the club he had started, the way he dedicated every Sunday to a group of kids about Henry's age. Colt, who was one of the most caring men she had ever met, trying to make up for a sin he didn't even commit. “Did it happen here?”

Colt didn't say anything for a long time. He just stared out at the lake, watching the water glisten under the bright sunlight, golden diamonds twinkling in the ripples.

She took his hand, held it tight, and waited. If he didn't talk, that was fine. She was here either way. The lake began its evening song of birds settling into trees and fish giving one last flip of the tail to a waning sun. Far across the lake, mothers called their children in from the shore.

Colt let out a long, painful breath, then he started to speak, his voice as quiet as the lake below them. “Henry loved the water. You'd take him to the beach and he'd swim until he could barely stand. Take him to the lake and he'd spend all day exploring the shore or leaping off the rope swing.” A slow, sad smile stole across Colt's face. “But what he loved most was fishing. My little brother had no patience when it came to Christmas or dinner or building sandcastles, but put him in a boat with a fishing pole in his hands, and he could sit for hours.”

She thought of the rambunctious eight-year-old she'd known, who had never sat still for anything, except this lake. “It sounds peaceful.”

“It was. And the one time when my brother and I could spend time with Grandpa. He was always working, always at the shop, seven days a week. But pretty much every Wednesday and Sunday, he'd take us boys fishing. Didn't matter if Walt Patterson needed a transmission installed that day or Harvey Michaels had a broken down pickup, my grandpa would take us boys fishing.”

How she wished she'd had a grandfather like that, a brother like Colt. Her admiration of Earl Harper went up another notch. “What a wonderful tradition. I bet you enjoyed that a lot.”

“I did. Both Henry and I looked forward to it all week. Even when I was seventeen and too cool for fishing, I'd still manage to get in those fishing trips.”

She thought back, but of all the days she and Colt had spent together, he'd never said a word about this lake or the fishing trips. “I don't remember you ever mentioning any of this.”

A wry smile crossed Colt's face. “That was part of the adventure. My grandpa said this was a special guy thing, a man's club, so to speak, and so we didn't tell the girls about it. The girls being my grandma, my mom, and of course, girlfriends. Henry loved the idea of a secret, and so we kept the location and the time to ourselves.”

It made it all sound so much sweeter, more special. Daisy thought of a teenaged Colt, not above indulging his eight-year-old brother's requests, treating the fishing trips as sacred events. The bond between the three of them had to have been steel strong. No wonder losing Henry had left such a gaping wound between the Harper men. “Didn't your mother wonder where you were or why you were bringing home fish?”

“We rarely brought home fish. Grandpa taught us to respect this lake, to respect life, which is why we did catch and release, and now I do that with the fishing club I run. As for my parents, I think they welcomed the break from two busy boys. My parents worked so much, we could have backpacked to Antarctica in the middle of the week and they wouldn't have noticed until Saturday.”

Daisy thought how sad that was, how the two of them had grown up with absent, distant parents. Her mother, always following one whim or another, Colt's spending their hours at work instead of with their sons. “I know how that feels. I could have dropped off the face of the earth for a month and my mother wouldn't have noticed. My mother wasn't much for putting down roots. I guess that's why I never have, either.”

“You're putting down roots here, though, by reopening the Hideaway.”

She didn't want to tell him that she was thinking about leaving as soon as Emma took over. Speaking the words aloud would make them true, and right now, with the day winding to a close while she and Colt stood on the hill above the lake and bared their souls, she didn't want to think about leaving. “And you returned to your roots.”

“What else could I do?” Colt said, taking a seat on an overturned log and looking out at the lake. “This is where Henry was. At first, I wanted to leave. To hop on my bike and blast out of town and never come back. Never drive by this damned lake again. Never see Henry's picture on the mantle. Never be reminded of how I let him down, and how—”

He shook his head. Cursed. She sat down on the log beside him, laid a hand on his back, and waited. The birds kept up their chirpy conversations, the boats on the lake motored slowly past with quiet
glub-glubs
, and the day marched from afternoon to early evening.

“How it was my fault he died,” Colt said finally, in a soft, ragged voice.

“Your fault? Colt, you weren't even here. You were in New Orleans with me.”

“And that's why he died.” Colt turned to her, his eyes wide and full, his face a mask of anguish. “Did I tell you he called me? Asked me to come home, not to miss our fishing trip. I told him I was married now, and I didn't know when I could go again and . . . shit.” He looked away and his body shuddered.

“Oh, honey, you can't blame yourself. You were eighteen, Colt. It was okay to have a life of your own.”

He wheeled on her, his eyes filled with unshed tears. “I wasn't here, Daisy. Don't you understand? I didn't show up. I wasn't here. Because I was . . .”

His voice trailed off. Daisy filled in the blank in her head.
Because I was with you.

No wonder he hadn't returned to her. No wonder he'd never told her about what had happened. Their marriage had been built on a sandy foundation, and when Colt's life fell apart, he'd retreated to what he knew, instead of returning to a wife who was barely a friend. A wife who reminded him of why he had been far, far away when Henry needed him most. “Colt . . .”

She reached for him, but he jerked to his feet, as if he could charge out to the lake right now and stop what had happened fourteen years ago. “I wasn't here. So Henry took the boat on his own, and there was a storm and—” Colt cursed again. “They found his body the next morning, and I think that damned near killed my grandfather. My parents moved away, my grandpa stopped talking to me, and I've been trying like hell to make up for it ever since.”

In that moment, Daisy could see the entire horrifying moment in her mind. That exuberant, confident little boy, climbing onto the boat, sliding it out onto the beckoning, blue water.

Colt, getting a call from someone and rushing home, leaving Daisy only a note.
Headed back to Florida. Will call later.

Colt had never called. She'd tried to call him, left a dozen messages, but he hadn't called back. Instead of going after him, she had moved on, moved to a different apartment, a different job. When Colt had needed her most, she had left him alone.

“Oh, Colt. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” She wrapped her arms around him, as tight as she could. Tight enough to wash him with forgiveness, tight enough to tell him she was sorry for leaving him alone all those years ago, and tight enough to hold him together now.

They stood there for a long, long time. The sun set behind the trees, and the boaters chugged back to the dock. The birds settled into their nests and the crickets began their evening song.

Daisy drew back, and took both of Colt's hands in her own. “Come on, let's go.”

“Where?” he asked.

She smiled, and gave his hands a gentle squeeze. “Home, with your wife.”

With your wife.

The words rang in Colt's head long after they got into his car and headed back to the house. He liked the sound of them—very much—but didn't want to ask if it had just been a turn of phrase or a purposeful sentence.

The kind that said
I'm staying for a long time.

He reached across the console for her hand. Daisy's palm fit against his, snug and perfect. What if they had had this conversation fourteen years ago? Would it have been enough to keep them together? Would she have been here, to help him wade through those horrible months and years after Henry died? He liked to think so, but he wasn't so sure. They were different people then, and with the passing of more than a decade, they had changed. Maybe this was the Daisy he was meant to be with, not the headstrong, impulsive one from years ago. “Thank you.”

“All I did was listen, which is what I should have done a long time ago.”

“Just like I needed to talk a long time ago. It doesn't make it easy, but a little easier, if that makes sense.” All these years, he'd kept what happened to Henry bottled in his chest, as if doing so would keep him from remembering, from hurting.

Physician, heal thyself.
It was a standby saying because it was true. How many times had he encouraged patients to go see a therapist or just sit down and have a long-delayed conversation with a loved one, because he could see the physical toll their mental anguish was taking? And here he'd been doing the same thing.

Him, and his grandfather. Somehow, Colt needed to break down that wall between himself and Grandpa Earl. Maybe then they could restore a semblance of their old relationship.

Colt and Daisy pulled into the driveway and got out of the car. Night had fallen, and the street was lined with lit porches, beckoning like friends. “You know what we need now?” Daisy said. “Ice cream.”

He chuckled. “I take it there's a gallon in my freezer?”

“There is indeed. But don't worry, it's actually frozen yogurt, and it's marked ‘For Emergency or Special Occasions Only.'”

“And which is this?”

“Neither. Which makes the dessert all that much more decadent.” She grinned at him, then ducked inside the house.

Colt followed her and dropped his keys in the bowl by the door. The house was quiet, lights off, TV off. No dog lying in an inconvenient spot. “Huh. My grandpa's not home yet.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. He said he was going to go play cards with the guys.”

Colt arched a brow. Maybe he wasn't the only one making mental leaps forward today. “Really? That's great. It's been months since he did that.”

“I think he's feeling a lot better. He stayed at the festival all day today. Talked to a lot of people, and mostly ate healthy. I think he even had fun.” She swung open the freezer door, grabbed the container of frozen yogurt, then snagged a pair of bowls out of the cabinet. “One scoop or two?”

“I'll live on the edge. Two.”

She laughed, then began working the scoop into the frozen dessert. “You run enough miles every week to work off this entire container.”

“It wasn't to work off the ice cream,” he said, slipping into place beside her. Daisy just grinned, and added an extra scoop to his bowl. “It was to work off a certain woman in my system.”

“Couldn't be me. I'm sweet. Easy to live with.”

“Sweetly deluded,” he said, giving her nose a tap.

“Chocolate sauce?” she asked.

“Is there another way to eat ice cream?”

Daisy smiled again, then retrieved a small bottle of chocolate syrup from the fridge. Clearly, she'd been doing some grocery shopping because Colt didn't remember any of these decadent treats in his refrigerator from before. He didn't mind so much, though. She mitigated the sweets with healthy dinners and warm breakfasts. Colt realized he was starting to like having her influence on his life. Not the same hell-raiser influence of their youth, but more of a tempered, balanced Daisy flavor. It made him crave her more, want to know more about her, to fill in all those gaps he'd never taken time to fill before.

“You started telling me about your family back there at the lake.” Colt leaned on the counter beside her and watched her work on the ice cream. “What'd you mean when you said your mother never put down roots?”

Daisy shrugged. “It was nothing, Colt, really.”

“Come on, I spilled my guts to you. Tell me.”

She handed him his dessert. “There's nothing to talk about. I had a crappy childhood. I survived. End of story.”

Which was the same thing she'd said fourteen years ago. Maybe he was wrong about how much Daisy had changed. “I'm no psychologist, but even I know your childhood influences who you become as an adult, why you make the choices you make. Look at me. I had a father who put a thousand rules on me, had expectations higher than Mount Everest. I rebelled, but eventually found a happy middle ground.”

“Are you happy?” she asked.

“I'm getting there,” he said quietly, taking her hand, and wondering why he had waited so damned long to talk to Daisy. Why he'd been so stubborn, thinking he was better off on his own. She hadn't turned away from him after he told her about Henry—she had understood, and comforted him. The weight lifted from Colt's shoulders had to weigh a thousand pounds. “And I'm a lot closer today than I was before.”

“I'm glad. I really am.” She stepped back, put the cover back on the frozen yogurt, and stowed it in the freezer. She started to scoop up a bite, then stopped when there was a sound at the door. “Is that a dog?”

“Must be Grandpa. Must have been a long card game. I figured he'd be home a while ago.” Colt glanced at Daisy when the dog started barking.

“Did he forget his key or something?”

“I didn't lock the door.” Colt darted down the hall and pulled open the back door. Major hurried into the house and straight for the water bowl, lapping up the liquid with furious movements. Colt stepped onto the porch, then came back in. “Grandpa Earl isn't with the dog.”

“There's no way your grandpa would lose track of that dog. Where do you think—”

Colt's cell phone rang. He jerked it out of his pocket and pressed the button. “Colt Harper.”

In an instant, the expression on Colt's face changed from frustration to worry. His features went stony. He listened for a while, then nodded. “I'll be right there.”

Before Daisy could ask, Colt was grabbing his car keys, and reaching for her hand. “We have to go. My grandfather is in the hospital.”

*   *   *

Colt Harper had walked the halls of the Rescue Bay Hospital a thousand times. He'd visited patients, consulted with other doctors, even interned here when he was in medical school. But never had the walls seemed so sterile, so cold, so dead as they did tonight.

Guilt weighed his steps, as if he was running through mud. Once again, someone he loved had been hurt when he'd been elsewhere. He shouldn't have taken Daisy's word on where Grandpa was. He should have followed up, picked Grandpa up from the card game.

Daisy hurried alongside Colt, into the building, down to the information desk, and then up to the third floor. For a second, he couldn't remember if Room 308 was to the left or the right, and he hesitated at the T outside the elevators.

“This way,” Daisy said, taking his hand and turning to the right.

Three doors down, the placard outside Room 308 read
HARPER
,
E
. in thick black Sharpie. Colt halted just outside the door, then forced himself to turn, to enter, to take in that disinfectant smell that managed so often to mingle with death and hope.

“Grandpa?”

Grandpa Earl lay in the big white bed, the light dimmed above his head. His eyes were closed, his lips pale and a little blue, his hands still upon his chest. Oxygen tubes snaked into his nostrils. The television above his head played some inane sitcom, the sound lowered to almost a whisper. The heater kicked on, sending a rattling burst of forced hot air into the room.

Colt stepped forward. He barely noticed Daisy's hand on his shoulder, her presence by his side.

“Grandpa?”

There was no movement, no response. Panic climbed Colt's throat.
He's dead
, Colt thought,
he's dead, and it's my fault
.

“He's sleeping,” Daisy whispered, as if reading his mind. “That's all.”

Colt pressed forward until he reached his grandfather's side. It took a solid minute of concentrating to convince himself that yes, indeed, Grandpa Earl's chest was rising and falling. The cardiac monitor machine beside the bed kept a steady track of his blood pressure, heart rate.

The clinician in Colt made a sweeping assessment. A furosemide drip, inserted into a basilic vein. Blood pressure 110 over 70, heart rate steady, but a little high at 140. Colt picked up the chart on the end of the bed, and flipped through the ER assessment.

Dehydration. Elevated heart rate. Light to moderate confusion. Hypertension.

Colt sank into the bedside chair. “It wasn't a heart attack. He just pushed himself too hard and too fast.”

Daisy's hand returned to his shoulder. “That's good news, then. Isn't it?”

Colt nodded. “I think so. I'll know more when the tests come back.”

“There aren't going to be any goddamned tests.”

Colt got to his feet and hovered over the bed. Relief replaced the irritation and worry in Colt's chest. “Grandpa. What happened?”

“I just got a little worn out. That's all.” Earl opened his eyes and shifted toward Colt, as if daring his physician grandson to disagree. “Nothing to get worried about.”

Colt wanted to throw up his hands and yell at his grandfather. Instead, he kept his voice low, and controlled his frustration. What was it going to take for Grandpa to realize he had to take care of himself? “You're in the hospital. That's something to worry about. You should have let me drive you home. Should have—”

“I know what I should do. Doesn't mean I'm going to do it.” Earl patted the bed until his hand hit the attached remote. He fumbled with the buttons and started flipping channels. “Now are you going to let me get some rest or are you going to keep on lecturing me?”

Colt sighed. “Do you need anything?”

“A nap. And for you to feed my dog. The damned doctor's keeping me overnight. Told him I was just fine.”

“Dr. Boyle is one of the best cardiac specialists in Florida, Grandpa. You're lucky he was here when you got admitted. If he wants you to stay overnight, then you should listen to him.” At least listen to somebody, because Lord knew Grandpa wouldn't listen to Colt.

Grandpa just harrumphed. He lay back against the pillows and turned up the volume on the TV. That, apparently, passed for agreement.

Colt sat back in the chair, feeling helpless, as if his hands had been tied behind his back. “Did they do an EKG? You know your last one was three months—”

“Are you going to yap through my show about medical crap?”

Colt got to his feet. “Fine. If you don't want me here—”

“I don't.”

“Then I'll go home. I'll call Doctor Boyle in the morning and ask him—”

Grandpa Earl waved his hand in dismissal. “Call him, talk medications and CAT scans and EE-whatevers and all that stuff you enjoy so much. Just leave me the hell out of it.”

Colt stared at his grandfather for a long time, but Grandpa Earl kept his attention on the images flickering on the screen. Daisy stood to the side, looking from Colt to Earl, as if asking Colt to do something, to figure this out somehow.

Instead, Colt turned on his heel and left the room. There was no prescription for this situation, and the sooner he accepted that, the better.