Authors: Hailey North
“Oh, why did he have to go and do that?”
Her housekeeper carried the bouquet into the room. The arrangement was so large she set it on the floor in front of the fireplace. “Maybe because he loves you.”
“You, Sarah, are a hopeless romantic.”
She dimpled. “I take it Mr. Hunter found you last night?”
Daffy frowned. “Oh, yes, he found me.”
Fortunately, the phone rang and the housekeeper left to answer it. Daffy wasn’t up to any more explanations of her own muck-ups, shortcomings, and failures. She inched toward the bouquet, searching the mass of blooms for a florist’s card.
She spotted it tucked between a daffodil and an iris. Her hands a little shaky, she opened the miniature envelope, wondering what she’d find. Would he try to persuade? Charm? Lecture?
Rather than the florist’s card she’d expected, Daffy found a folded square of lined paper inside the envelope. She opened it and recognized her own handwriting. That confused her, but as she focused on the words, she knew he couldn’t have made a better choice of message. There on the paper was the personal ad she’d penned that first day in the coffeehouse, when he’d asked her advice on how to describe the relationship he wanted.
For Richer or Poorer, in Sickness and in Health:
Don’t answer this ad unless you know what forever means.
But he’d scratched through her message and edited it to read:
Unless you’re willing to discover together what forever means.
Daffy smoothed the paper and walked back to the bed, reading it over and over. Her cat looked up, blinked, and seemed to frown at her. Daffy stroked her silky fur and said, “You’re the only one who doesn’t want me to throw caution to the winds. And you, Mae West, are biased.”
The cat kneaded her claws and purred loudly.
Daffy climbed back into bed and pulled the sheet over her head. A second knock sounded. “Come in, Sarah,” she said, not even bothering to uncover her face.
She heard the door open and close. Suddenly Mae West quit purring and scrambled off the bed. Daffy inched the sheet away from her eyes.
Hunter stood inside the doorway.
“Hunter!” She lowered the sheet; then, remembering she was naked beneath it, she clutched the sheet to her throat.
“Nice flowers,” he said, advancing toward her, his gaze raking her body. “Someone must be goofy over you.”
“What are you doing here?” Daffy asked, thrilled he’d come to her, but stubbornly refusing to admit to such a spineless reaction. Considering she’d said she couldn’t marry him, surely she had no right to feel so happy to see him.
He stopped at the end of her four-poster bed, his expression dark and unreadable. “You haven’t forgotten your water-skiing lesson, have you?”
She had. Not that it mattered. Not after last night. “Hunter, I can’t go to Ponchatoula.”
He moved around to the side of her bed. “Why not?”
“Because.” Daffy pushed up against the pillows. She needed to get out of bed and face him eye to eye, but her bathrobe lay beyond her reach. And she didn’t dare have this discussion while she was naked. If Hunter even reached for her, she knew she’d cave in. Their lovemaking was fabulous, but great sex couldn’t solve her internal conflicts.
“Want this?” Hunter grabbed the very robe she’d been eyeing and dangled it beside the bed.
“That would be nice,” she said, trying to speak primly, but beginning to grin despite herself. “Honestly, Hunter, you can’t expect me to visit your mother under the current circumstances.”
He dropped the robe on the floor. Suddenly he loomed over her, his face serious, his voice harsh. “Oh, but I do. You agreed to learn to water-ski and to take a baking lesson from Thelma. That, Miss Daffodil Landry, constitutes a commitment.”
Daffy stared up at him, dazed by the sudden attack and feeling a teeny bit guilty, too.
“You’re afraid you can’t commit,” Hunter said. “Well, today you can practice following through with something you said you’d do.”
“You don’t have to shout,” Daffy replied, knowing she sounded petulant.
Hunter grinned. “At least you heard me.”
“I thought you wouldn’t want to see me anymore.”
“Are you nuts?” Hunter sat on the side of the bed, his voice softening. “What did I tell you last night?”
“To call you and we’d work through my fears together,” Daffy whispered.
Hunter stroked her hair. “Daffy, people in love help each other.”
Daffy caught his hand and kissed his palm. He leaned over and skimmed his lips over her forehead. Daffy lifted her arms and clasped Hunter around his neck, drawing him closer. Before she could kiss him properly, he withdrew from her grasp, vaulted off the bed, and said, “No distractions. Are you coming with me?”
She’d intended to avoid him and do battle with her demons in her own way. Yet here he was, offering to stand side by side. She wasn’t sure she could face the challenge in his way, but she certainly owed him at least a major attempt to do so. Meeting his gaze directly, she said, “I’ll go.” And in her head, she could almost hear herself saying the words “I do.”
Hours later, inside Thelma’s kitchen, Daffy finished swabbing Solarcaine on the tip of her nose and the tops of her shoulders, then washed her hands. “I thought I had enough sunscreen on,” she said ruefully.
Thelma pulled a bag of flour from the freezer and plopped it on the counter. “It’s the reflection off the water that burns you,” she said.
Whistling, Hunter entered the room. He paused as he surveyed the baking items lined up on the counter, then winked at Daffy when his mother’s back was turned.
Daffy blushed as red as her sunburn. They’d made love on that same surface and Hunter didn’t have to say a word for her to know that was exactly what he was picturing.
“Everyone else is coming at six,” Hunter said. “What can I do to assist?”
Thelma turned and studied him, a smile softening her face. “If I do say so myself, I raised you right.” She dusted some flour from her hands, then asked, “Want to help with Daffy’s lesson before you fire up the grill?”
“Sure.” If possible, his grin grew even more wicked. “I love giving cooking lessons. Are we having any appetizers?”
“For a barbecue?” Thelma shook her head. “You’ve been living the good life too much. It’s ribs, corn on the cob, and potato salad. Oh, and pie, of course.”
“If I don’t mess it up,” Daffy said.
“Don’t be silly.” Thelma handed her an apron that went around her neck and tied at the waist. Before Daffy could put it on, Hunter was at her side, easing it over her head so the fabric didn’t scratch her sunburned shoulders.
“Nothing to making a pie,” Thelma said, taking out a large mixing bowl.
“Daffy was a natural at water-skiing,” Hunter said, tying the knot and then patting her on the fanny.
“That she was,” Thelma said. “I’m glad you two could make it. It was a treat to shut the store and go have fun.”
“You should do that more often,” Hunter said, moving a big bowl of peaches over to the sink. He selected a knife and began peeling the fruit.
Thelma sighed. “I suppose I should. Now, Hunter, if you and Daffy were to spend more time up here, I just might do that.”
Uh-oh. Dangerous waters. Daffy pointed to the mixing bowl. “What goes in first?”
Thelma shot her a piercing glance, and Daffy realized Hunter’s mom knew she’d been trying to change the subject. One couldn’t get much past any member of the James family!
“Flour. You measure dry ingredients in this type of cup and liquid in this kind.” Thelma pointed to the metal and glass containers. “I was glad to see Lucy is dating that new science teacher at the high school. Makes me feel all’s well that ends well.”
Hunter nodded as Daffy dumped the indicated amount of flour into the bowl and followed Thelma’s directions to make a well for the other ingredients.
“Daffy’s pretty much a natural at anything she attempts,” Hunter remarked, apparently still following his own line of thought.
“Is that so?” With two sharp knives, Thelma demonstrated dicing the cold butter into flaky pieces and then handed the knives to Daffy.
“Yep. She puts her mind to it, she does it.”
“Now that’s an admirable trait,” Thelma said, flicking the oven on.
“Hey, I’m right here,” Daffy said. “You’re talking about me as if I’m not.”
Hunter nodded. “You almost weren’t.” He began slicing the skinned peaches.
Daffy glared at him. She didn’t want to discuss their private business in front of his mother.
Hunter smiled back at her and said, “We don’t keep secrets in our family, do we, Thelma?”
“Now mix the butter and the flour together,” Thelma instructed.
Holding the two knives at a rather awkward angle, Daffy began trying to blend the two ingredients. Hunter’s mother replaced the knives with a metal utensil Daffy had never seen before and said, “Pastry blender. I never bother with it, but it might be easier for you to use. So what’s going on between you two?”
“I asked Daffy to marry me,” Hunter said.
Daffy gasped.
“I take it she didn’t say yes?” Thelma glanced between Daffy and her son as she asked her question.
He shook his head. “Can you believe it? She turned down your son.”
Thelma grinned, a reaction Daffy found surprising. Surely most mothers would leap to their sons’ defense. “No doubt that’ll keep you from getting too big a head.”
Hunter laughed. He dried his hands on a towel and leaned over to Daffy. “Sharing isn’t so hard, is it?”
She stared at him, puzzled. “Sharing? You mean talking about such personal matters in front of others?”
He nodded. “I’ve finally figured out that the biggest difference between your family and mine isn’t money or social status. It’s the way you all keep your true feelings hidden. Everything’s polite, but nothing reaches beyond your emotional vests.”
Daffy looked down at the bowl of pie dough beginning to form under her ministrations. Sure enough, the flour and the butter were blending and forming a whole new entity. Meeting Hunter’s gaze, she said, “Jonni and I are a little bit better at sharing, but none of us are willing to reveal ourselves too openly.”
He tipped her chin up.
“Any idea why not?”
She shook her head.
“Afraid you’ll get slapped down, most likely,” Thelma said. “Most of us are afraid of rejection.”
“Is that what you’re afraid of, Daffy?” Hunter dropped his hand, but he just kept looking at her as if he could see into her soul. “If you had a frank and open discussion with your mother about that issue standing between the two of you, are you afraid she’d reject you?”
Daffy stared down at the ball of dough. “Maybe I am. And maybe she would. But you know what? She couldn’t push me away any more than she does already.”
“Bravo,” Thelma said. “Now, sprinkle some flour on this cutting board and I’ll show you how to roll out that dough.”
“Bravo,” Hunter echoed softly, slicing the last of the peaches and smiling at Daffy.
A week later, Hunter paced the floor of his office. He thought he’d made great progress convincing Daffy they could work through her issues together, but upon their return from Ponchatoula, she’d asked for time alone. To think, she’d said. She wanted him, of that Hunter was certain, so rather than drive her away, he’d reluctantly agreed.
Aloysius, stretched out comfortably on the leather sofa, sipping a scotch and water, shook his head.
“What if time works against me? I’ve done everything I can think of,” Hunter said. “I’ve sent flowers and not just any old bouquet. Daffodils every day. The florist warned me today they might not be able to make my order.”
Aloysius eyed his drink. “I think maybe I went a little heavy on the water.”
“Are you listening to me?”
“I always listen to you. You made me a multi-millionaire. Why shouldn’t I listen to you?”
Hunter stopped pacing. “I thought you were already rich when I met you.”
Aloysius shrugged. “A common misconception.”
“What do you mean?”
“I come of old stock, but the bank account had pretty much been drained dry.”
“Do you mean to tell me when you were hanging around the computer lab bragging about how you could bankroll the smartest, the best, and the brightest, you didn’t have the cash to do what you said you could do?”
Again his business partner shrugged. “Maybe I should have told you, but your ideas made so much sense, I figured with my name and your brains, my uncle’s bank would ante up the seed money.”
Hunter walked over to the leather sofa, a piece of furniture that alone must have cost several grand. “I can’t believe you never mentioned this fact before.”
“You thought I was wealthy. That gave me a leg up so I could hold my own with the brilliant Hunter James.”
Hunter shook his head. “I’ll be damned.”
“I knew a good gamble when I saw one,” Aloysius said, “and I can’t thank you enough for coming through and making us both filthy rich.” He took a long swallow of his drink. “I like being rich much better than being poor.”
“What good does it do if the woman you love isn’t with you?” Hunter resumed his pacing.
“Tell you what I’m going to do,” Aloysius announced. “It’s against my better judgment, but given how well our business has turned out, it’s the least I can do.”
“And what’s that?” Hunter responded with only half his attention, expecting Aloysius to offer to set him up with yet another babe to take his mind off Daffy.
“I’m going to tell you how to win Daffy over.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He whipped around. “Does that mean you’ve really forgiven her?”
Aloysius shrugged. “Don’t remind me of the details or I may change my mind. However, I must say it seems the two of you have met your match, so who am I to stand in the way?”
Hunter smiled as he watched Aloysius sit up and reach over to the coffee table. Sifting through several technology and business magazines, he pulled out an old issue of
The Crescent
. He flipped through it, folded down a page, and handed it to Hunter.
Dear Perplexed,