by Loree Lough
“Neatly sidestepped,” he said, making his way to the hall. “You stay right there while I fetch some salve and gauze.”
“Fetch some salve and gauze”? He reminded her of the grizzled old fellow who played Doc in that 1960s TV Western. She was still grinning at the image of him in a long white lab coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck, when he returned, carrying the black shoe box of first aid supplies.
“The water can’t feel that good,” he said, grabbing a clean towel from the drawer beside her. “You’re grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.”
He had no way of knowing it, of course, but Parker had just proved her mother’s theory. “So what’s in the box?” she asked. “Running shoes, so you can hightail it far, far from my klutzy self?”
He turned off the water and lightly dabbed her palm with the towel. “Don’t worry. No way a germ could survive one of Maude’s bleach and boiling-hot water launderings.”
She wasn’t worried, and as she opened her mouth to admit it, he squeezed a dollop of antibiotic ointment onto the burn. “You’re pretty handy with this stuff,” she observed, as he blanketed it with a thick sterile pad.
“Practice makes perfect,” he droned.
She’d seen him yesterday while he changed the dressings on Maude’s feet. If he’d felt any aversion to the task, it certainly hadn’t shown in his voice or on his face. So why the sour tone now? And why did he constantly refer to his mother as Maude?
“If I’m not being too nosy, what happened to your mom’s feet?”
Parker put everything back into the shoe box. “Surgery,” he said, “to correct…I don’t know…a bunch of long-standing problems.”
“Such as…?”
“I guess decades of on-your-feet work is tough on the sole.”
Three jokes right in a row? Holly didn’t dare comment for fear he’d go back to behaving like a grumpy old man.
She’d tried hard not to let her thoughts show on her face. Not hard enough, as evidenced by the deep furrow reappearing between his eyebrows. “Thanks for this,” she said, holding up her whitepadded hand. “Feels much better, by the way.”
Tucking the box under one arm, he turned off the oven. “Don’t mention it. To anyone.”
Then he winked. Winked!
“Can’t have folks thinkin’ I’m some kind of marshmallow nursemaid, now can I?”
No sooner had he disappeared from sight than a plump, rosycheeked woman blustered through the back door. “Hello!” she said, plopping an overstuffed faux leopard tote bag onto the table. “I’m Opal. Opal Miller. Maude’s first cousin on her mother’s side.” Squinting one eye, she pumped Holly’s unbandaged hand as if expecting water to trickle from the fingertips. “Guess you must be that hotshot doctor from Baltimore. The one who’s come to town to help Parker write his book?”
Laughing, Holly said, “Must be true, what they say…”
Opal opened her mouth to respond, but Parker spoke first. “That bad news travels like wildfire?”
Surprised by his sudden reappearance, Holly winced. He’d probably been teasing, but if she saw so much as a glimpse of meanspiritedness today, she’d run straight to her room and pack… one-handed.
“Well, doggies,” Opal scolded, “you sure do know how to dazzle the girls, don’t you, ya big galoot?”
Both brows lifted as his mouth formed a silent O. “Hey. Wow. Man,” he said, taking a step closer to Holly. “Aw, I was… I never… I didn’t…” Slapping a hand to his forehead, he said, “I was just pullin’ your leg. You know that, right?”
And though she wasn’t at all sure his remark had been a joke, Holly waved it away. “Of course.”
“Honeypot, don’t you dare come to this gorilla’s rescue,” Opal told her. “Let the big oaf squirm. How is he ever gonna learn the proper way to treat a lady if no one ever calls him to the carpet for behaving like an inconsiderate ape?”
Parker sighed and met Holly’s eyes. “I hate to admit it, but she’s right. I am an oaf. Sometimes.”
Opal grabbed the apron draped over a chair back. “‘Sometimes’?” she quoted. To Holly, she said, “I’ll have you know, this boy has had three fiancées.” She let a moment pass, as if to let the words sink in. “Three!” Clucking her tongue, Opal tied the apron strings behind her back. “And he wonders why.”
Holly’s “defend the underdog” nature kicked into high gear. Parker might’ve been partly responsible for the demise of one of the relationships, but all three? Impossible. Especially considering the way he’d looked out for her yesterday, tended her burn just now, and affectionately taken care of his mom last evening…
“I’m taking Holly to Charleston today,” he said, changing the subject, “so she can see the sights before we get to work.” He held up a hand, traffic-cop style. “Just part of our work arrangement, so don’t get any romantic notions.”
“Hmpf,” said Opal.
“I saw to it that everything’s under control until lunchtime, but you and Mom are on your own for supper. Hank said he’d be here by five, but if you need to leave before that, Cousin Pearl says to give her a call.”
“Pearl,” Opal huffed. “You’re kidding, right?”
“She said—”
“Why, that woman’s about as nurturing as a hyena.” Then she reached out and gave each of Parker’s cheeks a pinch. “Now, don’t you worry none, darlin’. The way you work? Why, I can’t name a body who needs a day off more’n you do. You two have fun…sightseeing.” She winked and then fixed her steady, darkeyed gaze on Holly. “If he can’t sweep you off your feet in a city like Charleston, well then, I don’t believe it can be done at all.”
Holly didn’t know what to make of the wink…or the comment, for that matter.
“Ready?”
At first she thought he’d addressed the question to Opal. But when she met his gaze and saw that humorless lift of his left eyebrow, Holly knew better. “I’ll just be a minute. I need to run upstairs to grab my purse. And a sweater. And an umbrella, in case—”
“My truck’s out front,” he said, using his chin as a pointer. “Meet you there in two minutes.”
Holly was halfway up the stairs when she heard Opal say, “Oh me, oh my. I have a good feeling about this one, Parker darlin’.”
There was no rational explanation for the hurt and disappointment Holly felt when she heard him say, “Let’s hope you’re wrong, ’cause look where I ended up the last time you said that.”
Chapter Four
“Oh, wow. Look at this!” She glanced over at him. “How thoughtful of you to pack breakfast for me.” Holly poked around in the tiny cooler. “Sandwich, fruit, napkins, juice… Why, it looks like you’ve put everything in here but the tuxedoed butler to serve it.”
“It’s the least I could do, since it was my timetable that cheated you out of a full-fledged Maude Brant breakfast.”
“But…you’re the one who did all the work this morning.”
“Yeah, using her recipes.”
She handed him a sandwich then unwrapped her own. He could use this time to tell her that he and Opal shared a long-standing “dumped” gag—one she enjoyed far more than he did, because that last breakup made the score Opal 2, Parker 3.
Or not.
Explaining the joke would involve the story about how the last breakup had left him at the altar, a full-regalia groom version of the proverbial jilted bride, and he’d just as soon not revisit that fragment of his life. Besides, what did it matter what Holly thought? She was here for the summer to work on his book, period. When the end of summer rolled around, she’d head north, to everything and everybody she cared about. For all he knew, she had a fiancé of her own back in Baltimore—though he didn’t know how any man in his right mind could let a woman like her out of his sight for three long months.
A woman like her…
He blamed the twin fudge pops he’d devoured before hitting the hay for the crazy thoughts looping in his mind, and he made a me
ntal note to do a better job of of abiding by the “don’t judge a book by its cover” rule.
“Why so quiet?” she asked around a crunchy bite of apple. He shot her a quick glance then stared straight ahead and smirked. “My mother taught me never to talk with my mouth full.”
Holly went into hiding behind her bandaged hand. “Mine did too. Oops.”
Did she have a clue how cute she was? Not likely, because if she knew, she wouldn’t seem nearly as adorable.
Cute? And adorable? What in blue blazes was happening to his vocabulary? Parker could count on one hand the number of times he’d used either word and have fingers left over. So why had both pinged in his head at least a dozen times since she rode into town in that teeny red convertible?
“Teeny”? Parker groaned inwardly then shook his head. Better get a grip, pal, before you turn into one of those poetry-spewing dudes who picks bouquets of roadside flowers for his best girl. He pictured the rows of paint tubes and brushes in his so-called studio and shrugged. Was it possible he already was that dude?
To his credit, Holly was different. Despite the detours that put her into town three hours late…and the flat tire…and falling into the mud…and burning her hand, she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint. Even more remarkable, she hadn’t tried to blame something or somebody else for her bad luck. If she minded riding all the way to Charleston in his battered, un-air-conditioned pickup, she hadn’t said so, not even after the wind and humidity restyled her eyecatching hairdo.
Artists tended to be more aware of things like hue and texture and scent. At least that’s what he told himself when he noticed that she’d swapped her sporty red, white, and blue outfit for a flouncy pink skirt and matching blouse. Her blond hair bounced into curls, and freckles dotted her cheeks—and some scent between line-dried sheets and lilacs followed her like a sweet shadow.
“I have aspirin in my purse. Of course, you’d have to wash the tablets down with coffee, and I don’t know if that’s the best idea.”
“What?”
“Aspirin. You know, for your headache?”
“Headache?” He didn’t dare look over at her. One more peek at those full pink lips, pulled into a concerned pout on his behalf, and he’d be a goner for sure. “What makes you think I have a headache?”
Peripheral vision told him she’d shrugged one pink-sleeved shoulder. He’d known her, what, twelve hours? He’d fallen hard and fast for a pretty face in the past, but this? This was just plain ridiculous!
“Well, when I get a headache, I take deep breaths and frown too.”
Great. So she wasn’t just one of the most stunning girls on sneakered feet, she was also observant. And caring. And thoughtful. Lord, help me, he prayed.
“I don’t have a headache,” he admitted. “Just trying to decide which exit will put us in the best part of Charleston to start your tour, is all.”
Holly gathered up their paper napkins and the foil he’d wrapped their sandwiches in, tucking everything back into the cooler. “More coffee?” she asked, holding the thermos in her good hand.
And risk having her spilling it all over her pretty outfit, or worse, burning herself in the process? “I’ve had my caffeine quota for the day.” Then, in case he’d sounded as gruff to her as he had to himself, Parker quickly added, “But thanks.”
“You have a terrific smile, you know. You should show it off more often. Lots more often.”
His mom, Opal, Pearl, Hank—just about everyone he could name had made similar comments. And his routine retort? “I’ll smile when I have something to smile about.” But he didn’t say that now. In fact, he couldn’t think of a valid comeback.
“I know, I know,” she said, holding up the bandaged hand. “You’re right. I tend to speak before I think. My family says it all the time. Feel free to tell me to shut up.” A nervous giggle punctuated her statement. “And don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I’ve heard stuff like that so often, I’m practically immune to it.”
Practically?
The wounded expression on her face earlier, when his “bad news travels like wildfire” joke backfired, hadn’t lasted more than a nanosecond. But it glittered in her eyes long enough to prove she was anything but immune to “stuff like that.”
“No way I’ll ever tell you to shut up. I love the sound of your voice.” Parker resisted the urge to smack himself in the forehead. Had he actually said that out loud? He stared hard through the windshield and pretended that the big green sign overhead had captured his total attention: CHARLESTON, NEXT TWO EXITS. Maybe she hadn’t heard him. And maybe you ought to shut up.
From the corners of his eyes, he could see her over there, grinning and blinking those long thick eyelashes. He didn’t know if it labeled Holly as one of those females who enjoyed the “Good golly, me?” game to stir additional compliments, or if she’d exaggerated when talking about her big, close-knit family.
“So I guess it’s okay for me to admit it now… .”
He turned the radio off. “Admit what?”
“That right from the get-go, I thought you sounded like a DJ. And that I’ve always loved a Southern accent.”
Not high praise, exactly, so why did it feel so good, hearing it? Feeling playful for the first time in longer than he cared to remember, he lowered his voice half an octave. “Why, thank you, my dear.”
The moment of silence that followed made him wish he had the sense God gave a turtle. And then her cell phone rang, rescuing him.
He fiddled with the radio dials again, adjusted the rearview mirror, dropped the sun visor… . Despite his attempts to give her privacy, he could tell that it was her mom on the other end of the phone, and from what he heard, it was clear that Holly had promised— and forgotten—to call home when she arrived yesterday. The mostly one-sided conversation lasted all of two minutes, and when Holly snapped her phone shut, she leaned against the headrest and groaned.
“Sometimes I think that crazy family of mine forgets that I’m thirty. A tad ‘up there’ in age for scoldings, don’t you think?”
The last thing Parker wanted to do was come between Holly and her mother.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, Mom’s great, and I love her to pieces—really I do. There are only a handful of things about her that drive me nuts.”
Did she expect him to ask what those things were? No way he intended to step into that quagmire!
“She’s a great mom, but boy oh boy, sometimes, let me tell you, she’s like the proverbial mother hen, you know? One who hasn’t figured out how to let go of her chick even after she’s fully grown and ready to leave the nest!”
He was tempted to say, “Don’t you mean ‘coop’?” Instead, Parker took his earlier advice, played it safe, and kept his mouth shut. “So what do you think you’d like to see first? The fancy mansions on Battery Row? The French Quarter? The pirates and buccaneers tour?”
“Oh, the pirates, for sure. Anything but those old mansions.” She held up one hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re all filled to overflowing with history and beautiful furniture and antique tea services, but to be honest? That would simply bore me to tears. I mean, really, how many sterling silver punch bowls and King What’s-His-Name settees can a body look at in a lifetime?”
Where have you been all my life? Parker asked silently. He was about to say something akin to “Your wish is my command” when she continued:
“I took a job in Ocean City, Maryland, just over a year ago. Bought myself a really great little condo overlooking the Atlantic. But Mom cried buckets every time I called home, and it was even worse when I’d visit. After a while, guilt got the better of me, and I sold the place and moved back to Ellicott City. Took a beating, financially, what with the shape the real estate market is in, let me tell you! Not that I don’t love my hometown, mind you, because it’s charming and quaint and—”
Her bandaged hand caught his eye, reminding him how accident-prone she was. “Maybe she feels you need more protection
than her other, ah, chicks.”
“I wish my mother had other kids to focus on. I’m an only child. Mothers generally reserve this sort of ‘hovering’ for the baby of the family, don’t they?”
“Wouldn’t know. I’m an only child too,” he informed her, pointing to himself.
Holly was the proverbial accident waiting to happen. What mom wouldn’t worry about a kid like that? “Well,” he started, choosing his words carefully, “I’m sure your mother means well.”
When Holly expelled a sad sigh, he resisted the urge to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. For one thing, the hand closest to him was the one she’d burned. Ironic, he thought, that the fat white bandage was a testament to her need for protection.
Yet again, he found himself fighting his desire to save her from harm forever.
Chapter Five
Parker started the tour at the American Military Museum, where he pointed out a tattered uniform and told her that he’d spent five years in the army. The news didn’t surprise Holly, given his straight-backed posture and close-cropped hair. That and his “devil’s in the details” mind-set.
She’d only known him a few short hours, but already he’d demonstrated skills in multiple areas. As one who’d changed a dozen flat tires and watched nearly as many mechanics perform the same task because she’d cut corners too sharply, Holly couldn’t help but marvel at the speed and accuracy of Parker’s tire-changing system. She added to the quickly mounting reasons to admire him with the fact that he was tall and broad-shouldered and made transporting her heavy suitcases up two floors to the “Captain Dan” suite look like child’s play.
If asked, she would have said that entertaining clients aboard a charter boat was on a par with the skills required of a tour guide— until today. Holly smiled to herself, remembering the stiff-lipped way he’d brought her attention to Charleston’s diverse points of interest.
Now, as they stood side by side on an ornate footbridge over-looking the Ashley River, he leaned both forearms on the wood rail and expressed regret for not knowing more about the history of Mepkin Abbey and Gardens. “Never took anyone here before, but since you said you like flowers and stuff…” He ended the apology with a one-shouldered shrug.
