by Shirley Jump
Wildcat. That was the perfect word for Daisy Barton. She stood there, brunette hair cascading down her shoulders, a figure-hugging red dress that made the word hourglass seem like a sin, and full crimson lips that could tempt a man into doing things he knew he shouldn’t.
Colt knew that firsthand. He’d tangled with Daisy—willingly—twice. Even though he knew any encounter with her was bound to end with a fight and regrets, seeing her again made his chest tighten and those straight lines begin to curve. Damn.
He cleared his throat. “It’s okay, Frannie. I’ll handle this.” He returned his attention to Daisy. “Please wait outside. We can talk about this later.”
Daisy put her hands on his hips. “Talk? Honey, you were never interested in talking with me.”
Across from him, Greta’s mouth formed a surprised O. She glanced at Daisy, then at Colt. “Why, Doc Harper, it seems I have misjudged you. You have surprised me, and so few people do that at my age. No wonder you’ve been so distracted lately.”
Damn. If he knew Greta, this little encounter with Daisy was going to be all over the Rescue Bay gossip channel before the end of the day. That was the last thing he needed.
“I’m with a patient right now, Daisy,” he said, forcing a cool, detached, professional tone to his voice, when all his brain could do was picture her naked and on top of him, that wild tangle of hair kissing the tops of her breasts, and tickling against his hands. “Please wait for me in the lobby.”
She eyed him, her big brown eyes like pools of molten chocolate. “You’re going to make your wife wait?”
Oh, shit. Now he knew why Daisy had come in like a tornado.
“Hold the phone. Did you say . . . wife?” Greta kept glancing between Daisy and Colt, as if she’d just realized Big Foot and the Abominable Snowman were involved in a clandestine affair.
Colt could feel those straight lines dissolving into a tangled, messy web. He glared at Daisy. “Please. Wait. In. The. Lobby.”
Daisy took a step forward, placed the envelope in his hand, then pressed a hard, short, ice-cold kiss to his cheek. “I’ll be outside, dear,” she said, with a slash of sarcasm on the dear. “But I won’t wait long.”
Then she was gone. The door shut, leaving behind the faintest trace of her dark, smoldering perfume. Colt jerked into action. He bent down, gathering the papers he’d dropped earlier, stuffing the envelope Daisy had given him to the back of the pile. He straightened, then let out an oomph when something—or someone—slapped him on the back. “What the—”
“How could you not tell me you’re married?” Greta asked. “And to a beautiful girl like that, too.”
“I’m not married. Well, technically, maybe I still am, but . . .” He pushed his glasses up his nose. What was he doing? Confiding in Greta Winslow? “I don’t share my personal life with my patients, Mrs. Winslow.”
“I think your personal life just shared itself, Doc.” Greta waved toward the closed door. “Where have you been hiding her anyway?”
“It’s . . . complicated.” Yeah, that was the word for it. Complicated. And crazy. And a mess he didn’t need right now. “I would appreciate it if this . . . incident stayed between us.”
She propped a fist on her waist and eyed him. “Are you going to give me a prescription to keep Harold Twohig away?”
“Are you blackmailing me?”
“I’m bargaining. That’s different.” She shrugged. “And legal.”
“Mrs. Winslow, I have no doubt you can handle Mr. Twohig on your own. You are a smart and resourceful woman.”
She snorted. “You’re the one with the fancy degree. And if you ask me, you’re a blooming idiot.”
“Mrs. Winslow—”
She hopped off the exam table and stood in front of him, hands on her hips, her chin upturned in defiant argument. “Women like that don’t come along every day. Heck, God doesn’t even make females that look like that every day. I don’t know what you did to let her get away, but you need to go get her, and keep her this time.”
“Mrs. Winslow, we’re in the middle of—”
“We’re done. I’m the last patient of the day. Don’t think I don’t know you save me for last.” She wagged a finger at him. “Now go after that girl and apologize for whatever you did wrong. She’s your wife.”
“She’s not. She’s . . .” He let out a gust. How could he even begin to explain the push-pull that defined his relationship with Daisy Barton? “It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s not. You make it complicated. If you ask me, the secret to life is easy. Go for what makes you happy.” She gave him a light jab on the shoulder, which required quite the stretch from her five-foot-three frame to reach his six-foot-one height. “Even if it’s bourbon in your coffee. Take my advice, Doc. Before your life gets sucked into a whirling drain filled with crappy food and pesky old men.”
The door shut behind Greta. Colt stood there, the chart in his hands, all organized and tidy again. The rest of him, though, was a rat’s nest. What the hell was Daisy doing here? She could have simply signed the papers and put them in the pre-addressed, stamped envelope he’d included. Instead, she’d come all the way from Louisiana to Rescue Bay and dropped a bomb in his lap.
He’d never thought Daisy would return to Rescue Bay. He should have known better than to try to predict the very unpredictable Daisy Barton. She’d never done or said what he anticipated. When he’d been young and determined to flip off the world, he’d found that quality exciting. Intriguing. But now, today, as a man cemented in the community and in his job, he didn’t need surprises.
Especially a surprise like her.
He dropped the chart on the exam table, then exited the room. The lobby was empty, save for Frannie, who was still sputtering an apology. Colt waved it off, then exited through the side door, skirting the small brick building that housed his practice. He caught up to Daisy just as she was climbing into a dented gray Toyota sedan.
He put a hand on the door before she could shut it. Her perfume, dark and rich like a good coffee, wafted up to tease at his senses, urge him to lean in closer, to linger along the curve of her neck. He gripped the hard metal of the door instead. “What the hell are you doing here, Daisy? Why didn’t you simply sign the papers and mail them back to me?”
“Because I don’t want a divorce.”
The words hung in the air, six words he never expected to hear. Hell, he hadn’t expected to find out he was still married to her when he asked his lawyer to unearth a copy of the divorce decree. A mistake in the filing, his lawyer had said, and sent a new set of divorce papers off to Daisy. A quick, easy process, his lawyer had promised.
Apparently his lawyer had never met Daisy Barton.
“Daisy, we haven’t been together in fourteen years—”
“What was that back in June?”
“An . . . aberration.”
She snorted. “Is that what you call it?”
“We had one night,”—one crazy, hot, turn-a-man-inside-out night—“and that was it. It was wrong and when I realized that our divorce was never final, I sent you the papers. I don’t understand the problem, Daisy. We both wanted that divorce. Besides, we never had a real marriage to begin with.”
“Well we do now, my dear husband. All legal and everything. In fact, next month is our fifteenth anniversary. Maybe we should think of doing something.” The ice in her voice chilled the warm Florida air.
Was she insane? There was no way he was going to celebrate their anniversary or anything of the sort. He thrust the envelope of divorce papers at her, but she ignored them. “Just sign, and we can be done with this insanity. I’m dating someone else.” Well, technically, he wasn’t dating anyone, but Daisy didn’t need to know that.
“So sorry to put a crimp in your social life with our marriage.” She turned away from him, facing the windshield, her features c
old and stony.
“A marriage that has been over since we were nineteen. A marriage that only lasted three weeks. A marriage we ended by mutual agreement years ago.”
“Mutual agreement? You walked out and never returned. I’d call that a one-sided decision on your part.”
He wasn’t about to retread all that again. He’d had his reasons for leaving, reasons she didn’t need to know. Telling Daisy wouldn’t change a thing. “Just sign, Daisy. We’ll be rid of each other once and for all. Isn’t that what you want, too?”
She bit her lip, and the gesture sent a fire roaring through him that nearly made him groan. Damn. This was why he didn’t want to be with Daisy. Because every time he got close to her, his brain turned into a pile of useless goo. “No, I don’t,” she said. “Not yet.”
“What do you mean—not yet?”
She blew her bangs out of her face and stared straight ahead, her hands resting on the steering wheel, key in the ignition. A tiny pair of bright pink plastic dice dangled from the ring, tick-tocking back and forth against the metal keys. “It’s complicated.”
He’d said the same thing to Greta. He laid his palms on the roof of the car and bit back a gust of frustration. “That’s the understatement of the year. Everything about you is complicated.”
She jerked her attention toward him, fire sparking in the set of her mouth. “There used to be a time when you liked that.”
“There used to be a time when we both liked each other’s faults.”
“Yeah, well we were young and stupid then. We were different people then.” She shook her head, then fiddled with the dice again, her keys jangling softly together. Her shoulders sagged a little and her voice dropped into a softer range. “Do you remember when we bought these?”
Remember? Hell, it was one of those memories that lingered in the back of a man’s mind like taffy. He started to lie, then let out a sigh and said, “Yeah, I do.”
“We were walking down the street in New Orleans, with what, ten dollars between us?”
They’d been too broke to even consider themselves poor, but hadn’t cared at all. They’d both been infatuated and naïve enough to think the world would work out just because they wanted it to. “Back then neither of us cared about how we were going to pay the rent or buy a winter coat. We lived every day by the seat of our pants.”
Impractical and spontaneous. Two words that no longer described Colt, but had always come attached to Daisy. There’d been a day when he thought that was attractive. Intoxicating even.
“I saw those dice in one of those tourist-trap stores on Bourbon Street, and told you I had to have them.” She fiddled with them some more and a smile stole across her face. “You asked me why and I said so that we always remember to take chances. Do you remember that, Colt?”
The memory hit him like a tidal wave. The crowded, busy street. The eager vendors hawking everything from beer to beads. And in the middle of all that, Daisy. He’d fished the last couple dollars out of his pocket, bought the dice, and dangled them in front of her. She’d let out a joyous squeal, then risen on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips, a honeyed kiss that had made everything else pale in comparison. He’d swooped her into his arms, then made the most insane decision of his life, all because of a pair of dice and a kiss.
They’d lasted three whole weeks together, three tumultuous weeks as filled with fights as they had been with wild, hot nights, until Colt called home and was hit by a hard, fast, and tragic reminder of where irresponsibility landed him. That day, he’d left Daisy and those crazy weeks behind. He’d started all over again, become a respectable, dependable doctor, a man with principles and expectations. Far, far from the Colt Harper he’d been in Louisiana.
Then this past summer, a medical conference had taken him back to New Orleans. The moment he’d seen Daisy, waiting tables at a cheesy diner near the convention center, he’d been standing there with the dice and the ten dollars all over again. Before he knew it, he’d invited Daisy back to his hotel, and for a few hours, it had been like old times. And ended like old times, too. With a fight, a promise to never see each other again, and one of them stomping out of the room. He’d thought that was it. He’d been wrong.
She looked up at him now, her eyes hidden by dark sunglasses. “What happened to you, Colt?”
“Nothing. I told you I had to go back to—”
“I didn’t mean that morning. I meant in the last fourteen years.” She reached out and flicked the navy satin tie he wore, as if it was a spider crawling down his shirt. “Look at you. All pressed and neat as a pin. You’re wearing a tie. Khaki pants. Khakis, for God’s sake. The Colt I used to know wore leather jackets and jeans and didn’t even own an iron.”
“I’ve changed since then.”
She dropped the sunglasses and let her gaze roam over him. “Well, at least you give off the aura of a respectable husband.”
“I’m not your husband, Daisy.” He tried again to get her to take the divorce papers. The last thing he needed to do was fall for that smile because of nostalgia. “So just sign this.”
She pushed them back in his direction. “I don’t want a divorce. I want a fresh start.”
“A . . . a what?”
“You owe me that much at least, Colt. I need to start over, and I have a chance here, in this town. But it turns out I need a little help to do that, and you know it pains me to even admit that. But I was hoping my husband would give me a little assistance. Then we can quietly get divorced.”
Twice in the space of ten minutes, he’d been blackmailed. To think he had once been head over heels for this woman. A mistake, of monumental proportions. “You want money? Is that it? How much, Daisy?”
“I don’t want any money. I want a name.” Her lower lip quivered for a moment and made him feel like a heel, then she blew out a breath and she was all steel and sass again. Whatever had been behind the comment was gone now, replaced by that impenetrable wall that made Daisy both infuriating and mysterious. “Give me a few weeks and then I’ll be out of your life.”
“Weeks? Why?”
She turned the key in the ignition and the car roared to life. “You don’t get to ask why, Colt. You gave up that right a long time ago.”
“You can’t come into this town and tell everyone we’re married. I have a life here, Daisy. A life that doesn’t include a wife.” People had forgotten about the Colt he used to be. The town had moved on, changed. Everyone here knew him only as a respectable doctor, not the headstrong teen who had run out of town, tossing aside school and his family, for what had amounted to a fling. An unforgettable fling, but a fling nonetheless.
“That life includes a wife now.” Daisy jerked the door shut, then propped an elbow on the open window and looked up at him. “Listen, I’m not here to make your life miserable. Maybe we can work out some kind of deal. Quid pro quo. Maybe there’s something you want—”
His mind rocketed back to that night in New Orleans. Daisy climbing on top of him, pinning his wrists to the bed—
Okay, that wasn’t helping anything. At all.
“There’s nothing I want. Except a divorce.”
“I can’t do that. I need you, Colt. Just for a few weeks. Please.” She bit her lip, and he sensed she hated having to beg. “There’s got to be something I can do for you. Something, uh, other than what happened in New Orleans.”
Meaning no sex. Not that he’d even considered that.
Liar.
What was with this woman? She turned him inside out and upside down in the space of five minutes.
“Think about my offer, Colt. I’m staying at the Rescue Bay Inn for a few days. Room one twelve.” She handed him a slip of paper. “My cell.”
He stepped back and she pulled away. A moment later, her car was gone. Three months ago, they’d been tangled in soft-as-butter sheets. She’d had her legs wr
apped around his waist, her nails clutching at his back, her teeth nibbling his ear, and he’d been lost, in the moment, in her. Now they were exchanging numbers and making appointments, as if none of that had ever happened. That was what he’d wanted, how he’d left things three months ago. But it didn’t make words like quid pro quo sting any less.
A pair of seagulls flew overhead, squawking disapproval or agreement or the location of the nearest fish shack, Colt didn’t know. A breeze skated across the lot, making palm fronds shiver and the thick green grass yield. Daisy’s car disappeared around the corner with a red taillight flicker, and Colt stood there, empty, cold.
He started back toward his office, then stopped when he saw Greta Winslow, standing under the overhang on the corner of the building, out of earshot but still watching the whole thing. Great. Now this was going to be on the front page of the Rescue Bay paper: LOCAL DOC HIDING SECRET MARRIAGE WITH MYSTERY WOMAN.
“Here, Doc,” Greta said, marching up to him and thrusting a paper at his chest. “I think you need this more than I do.”
He glanced down at the orange sheet he’d handed her earlier. Beneath his signature he’d written: Doctor’s Advice: Embrace the things that scare you, from broccoli to love.
“That was just a joke, Greta. I didn’t mean—”
“Sometimes your subconscious is smarter than all those fancy medical degrees put together, Doc. And sometimes”—she laid a hand on his arm—“an old woman with eighty-plus years of life experience has a thing or two to teach her too-smart-for-his-own-good physician.”
“I appreciate the advice, Mrs. Winslow, I really do. But Daisy and I are just friends. Acquaintances, really. This whole marriage thing is a misunderstanding.”
She eyed him, her pale blue eyes squinting against the sun. “You should take a dose of your own medicine. Eat more broccoli, drink less bourbon, and most of all, don’t be afraid of love. Because in the end, it’s sure as hell better than the alternative.”
He arched a brow. “What’s the alternative?”
