The Sweetheart Secret

by Shirley Jump

  “Just peachy.” He wasn’t about to explain about Walt and Pauline and the little soap opera in his life. All that did was give him indigestion anyway.

  She stacked the brochures in a pile and wrapped a rubber band around them, then did the same with her business cards. “Emma and I were going to go get some dinner. Maybe some takeout, since it’s getting late. Do you want to go with us?”

  Earl had done enough socializing for the day. He didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be anywhere. He wanted to be alone. “Some of the guys invited me to a card game,” Earl said, and instantly felt bad for lying to Daisy. “I’m going to go there, and catch up with you later.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need a ride? Do you want me to pick you up later?”

  “No, no, I’m fine.” He even put on a smile, to give his words a little extra believability.

  “Okay. Well, have fun.” Daisy turned back to talk to someone who had stopped at her table, and Earl walked out of the park.

  Just him and the dog. And a whole lot of regrets and heartache that hung heavy on his shoulders, like a winter coat on a summer day.

  * * *

  The festival wound to a close. Still no Colt. It was Sunday, for Pete’s sake. Where could he be all day? Daisy told herself she didn’t care that he’d let her down, that he avoided all the family outings she planned. Colt kept saying he wanted one thing—a family, relationships—and did everything to work against that. That was what she needed to remember every time she got swayed by a kiss or a late-night conversation with him.

  “I can take this stuff back to the inn,” Emma said, lifting the box of cards and brochures and wine glasses.

  “Thanks. You want me to pick up some food and meet you over there?” Daisy said. “Chinese? Pizza?”

  “I . . . have a headache. I think I’m just going to get something at a drive-thru and turn in early. Sorry.”

  Emma’s happy, light mood from earlier had evaporated, and her face had gone back to being troubled, her green eyes filled with sadness. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s just been a long day.”

  “Okay.” Daisy gave Emma a quick hug. “Call me if you need anything, and thanks again for helping today.”

  Emma headed out of the park and Daisy picked up the few pieces of trash that littered the ground near her feet. Except for the encounter with Jane Mellon, the festival seemed to have been a success for the Hideaway Inn. They had several people interested in future events, and three appointments to meet with possible customers next week. All good signs for the future of the inn.

  The encounter with Jane had left Daisy shaken. Maybe staying here, where her past mistakes would haunt her, wasn’t such a good idea.

  It was more than that. It was the hurt that had washed over her when she’d realized Colt had kept Henry’s death from her. Hadn’t he realized that she had cared about Henry, too?

  Mike Stark crossed the park toward her. “Hey, need some help with the table? I can take it down and bring it back to Olivia’s shelter for you. I have a truck.”

  “Definitely. Thank you. I appreciate it.” Daisy ran a hand through her hair, then scanned the park entrance again, but no one came through the gate. Disappointment washed over her. “I was hoping Colt would be here to help Emma and me clean up, but he never showed.”

  Mike gave her a quizzical look. “He said he’d come to this?”

  “Well, not in so many words, no, but I thought since it was Sunday, and he had nothing to do—”

  “What do you mean?” Again, the confusion on Mike’s face. “He’s busy every Sunday.”

  “No. He has Sunday off. Sometimes he does rounds on Saturdays, but . . .” Her voice trailed off. “What do you know that I don’t?”

  Mike hesitated, then let out a breath. “Listen, I have to head over there anyway. Let me just load up the table, then we’ll go.”

  She touched his hand to stop him. “Go where?”

  “You’ll see. It’ll make sense later.” Mike broke down the table and carried it to the bed of his truck. Daisy followed, trying not to show how hurt she was that Colt had kept a secret from her. They weren’t really married, and never really had been, so his life was his own. It shouldn’t bother her that he went other places or saw other people. But it did because today had hammered home once again how she lived on the periphery of Colt’s life. And maybe always would.

  A half hour later, Daisy sat in the passenger’s side of Mike’s pickup truck, with his daughter Ellie between them, as they rode out of Rescue Bay. Ellie chattered a mile a minute, about kittens and horses and dogs and pretty much anything that popped into her head. She was an adorable four-year-old, but Daisy’s mind was on where they were going.

  And what she’d find there. Mike hadn’t explained and she hadn’t pressed him. Daisy wasn’t so sure she wanted to know.

  The sun was just starting to kiss the tops of the trees when Mike pulled off the main road and headed down a worn, rutted road. The road curved to the left, then ended in a dirt-packed circle, right beside a beautiful lake that spread out like a deep, dark blue blanket. A few boats bobbed on the placid water. A heron flapped his wings and made a graceful exit from one side of the lake to the other.

  The three of them climbed out of the truck just as Mike’s other daughter, Jenny, came running up to the truck. Her muddy jeans and T-shirt were topped by a ball cap that said HOOK, LINE AND THINKER CLUB. “Daddy, I caught three fish today!”

  “Awesome, Jelly Bean. You’re turning into quite the fisherman.” Mike ruffled his daughter’s hair, then turned to Daisy. “I suspect you’ll find Colt right down there. He comes here every Sunday, runs a fishing group for kids. Teaches them all about water safety, and how to bait a hook. It’s all catch and release, which teaches the kids to respect the water, and the creatures who call it home.”

  She would have been less shocked to hear Colt was jetting off to Mars on the weekends. Of all the things she imagined him doing on Sundays, this didn’t even make the list. “He does?”

  “Yup. Been doing it for years now.” Mike pointed at a well-worn path that wound between the trees and down to the water. Colt’s car was parked beside the path.

  Daisy thanked Mike, then headed in the direction he had pointed. Behind her, she heard Mike start up his truck and head down the road. Quiet descended over the woods, broken only by the rustling of some squirrels and the occasional chirp of a bird.

  She grabbed a sapling to steady her steps as she climbed down the embankment, her shoes skidding a little on the smooth path. At the bottom of the hill, Colt sat on a stump, his back to her, a fishing pole propped against a nearby tree. A matching cap to Jenny’s hung from the handle of a pale blue tackle box.

  “Colt?”

  He turned at the sound of her voice. Surprise filled his face. “How did you find me?”

  “Mike brought me here.”

  Colt scowled, then turned back to the lake. “You might as well catch a ride back with him. I’m not leaving yet.”

  Daisy crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not going anywhere. And Mike already left.”

  “Fine.” Colt cursed. “I’ll drive you home.”

  He started to get up, but she stepped in front of him and put up a hand. “No. Not until you tell me why you lied to me about where you’ve been every Sunday.”

  “I didn’t lie to you. I just . . . chose not to provide details.”

  “Why? What are you doing? Illegally poaching fish or something?”

  He shook his head. A slight smile flickered on his face for a moment before it was gone. “You can’t poach fish, Daisy. And it’s nothing illegal. Just not something I want to talk about.”

  She wasn’t going to be swayed by his smiles or his attempts to deflect the question. In all the time they had been together, the two of them had never done much talking.
A lot of sex, but not a lot of conversations deeper than What do you want for dinner. Even now, when she was living in his house, taking care of his grandfather, their conversations had been mostly superficial. Coming here and finding out Colt was running a fishing club—something that he could have told her—made it clear that he didn’t want to include her in his life. He hadn’t even told her about his brother, never even mentioned it, and she wondered if any part of their relationship had been real. “Well, I’m sick and tired of you and your grandpa and everyone I know not wanting to talk about what hell is bothering them.”

  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 fi
shing 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.”