The Sweetheart Rules

by Shirley Jump

  “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.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Then sign the papers.” He shook them at her, but still she ignored them. “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. 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, keys 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.” 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. “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 budgets or money or what tomorrow might bring.”

  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, sweet and spicy all at the same time. 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 her, waiting tables at a restaurant near the convention center, he was 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. “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.”

  “It does now.” She 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. 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 couple days. Room 112.” 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 wrapped 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 o
f 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?”

  “Dying alone, drooling into your Wheaties.” She grinned, then patted him on the arm. “See, Doc? It could always be worse.”