Dear Love Doctor (19 page)

Daffy caught her breath. “Did I tell you that?” Perhaps she had, but she hadn’t meant to reveal that side of her.

“Let’s just say I’ve heard the story.”

Daffy wriggled around till she faced Hunter. He kept his arms around her. Looking him square in the eye, she said, “As sick as it sounds, I had my reasons. I wanted to punish Aloysius to get back at his father. My mother . . .” Her voice faltered.

“Yes?” Hunter brushed a strand away from her cheek and the tender gesture almost did her in.

“My mother was with Aloysius’s father, in our house, and Jonni walked in on them. It was for that reason I wanted to punish them. For hurting my sister.”

“And for hurting you.”

She nodded and, to her dismay, realized her chin was trembling. “After that day, my world was never a safe place. I never knew whom to trust or whom to believe in.”

He bent and kissed her gently and held her closer, running soothing hands over her back and shoulders and saying silly things like, “Shush, my baby, everything’s gonna be all right.”

And Daffy believed him.

Because when Hunter had his arms around her, her world was safe again.

19

M
aybe she was all wrong for him, but if she was, holding her sure felt right.

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” he murmured again, between kisses, reveling in the taste of her, touched by the way she’d opened up emotionally. Standing there in the hallway beside the rogue’s gallery his mother insisted on maintaining, he pressed her against him. He savored her with his mouth and let the rest of his body speak to the dramatic effect she had on him. But he needed to address some of the fears she’d shared.

“Your mother is your mother, but you are you,” Hunter said softly. “And you are a very special and wonderful woman.”

Daffy had had her eyes closed, but at that, she opened them and said shyly, “You understand that I’m afraid of being like her?”

He nodded. Given his own fears that he’d turn out to be as big a jerk as his old man when it came to relationships, it was a pretty safe guess.

“Wow,” she said.

“Wow,” he repeated, kissing her throat. “And do you understand you turn me into a wild man?”

“Want to show me just how wild?”

“It’s a good thing no one else is in the house,” he said, cupping her breasts with his hands.

She uttered a shaky laugh and tossed her head back, offering herself to him.

He reached around for the zipper of her dress, then paused. The bedroom he called his when he was in town had a lock on the door. “Maybe we’d better get out of the hall,” he said, scooping her into his arms.

“Whatever you say,” Daffy murmured, snuggling sweetly against his shoulder at the same time that she reached with one hand to enclose his arousal through his shorts.

He almost dropped her.

She laughed, a throaty gurgle of desire that set his fire for her raging. “She-devil,” he whispered, moving past the kitchen doorway.

The phone on the kitchen wall shrilled.

He paused.

Daffy’s deep kisses and naughty handwork urged him down the hall.

He moved his feet.

The phone machine clicked on and a voice Hunter could have gone all day without hearing sounded throughout the house. Lucy.

“Hey, Hunter, it’s me. I saw your Jeep go past Robo’s. I’m glad you didn’t stay away so long this time. Can’t wait to see you. Call me.”

Daffy’s lips had screeched to a halt after the “it’s me.” At least she hadn’t jumped free of his embrace or demanded he put her down.

Before either one of them could say anything, the phone rang again. He stepped quickly toward the bedroom.

“Don’t you want to know who’s calling?” She asked the question in what he could only call a voice of fake innocence.

“No.” He gripped her tighter. “I have everyone I need right here.”

“That’s sweet, but what if it’s your . . . mother?”

“Won’t be.”

“Hi, honey. Lucy told me you’re here. There’s fresh lemonade in the fridge and peanut butter cookies. Come by the shop after you get settled in.”

Hunter stared at Daffy. “That’s completely out of character. And Thelma never bakes cookies.”

“Really?” Daffy wrinkled her nose. “I had this image of her with an apron on, bustling about. And her house looks so homey.”

“Oh, she bakes,” Hunter said, “but pies and cakes. She says cookies aren’t enough of a challenge.”

“Thank goodness. The only thing my mother makes is reservations.” She sounded wistful.

He kissed the tip of her nose.

“Hunter?”

“Yes?” He’d made it almost to the door of the bedroom. He said a silent prayer for the phone to remain quiet. It would be just like Lucy to call Emily and for Emily to call him at home. He didn’t want any more interruptions. And he didn’t want cookies or lemonade.

He wanted Daffodil Landry.

He lowered her to the bed. To his surprise, Daffy sat with her knees together, smoothing her skirt and her hair.

“Maybe we should go to the shop now,” she said, looking more at her pretty pink fingernails than at him.

“Now?” He knelt beside her and took her hand. Considering what he wanted to be doing, that gentle touch evidenced pretty strong self-restraint. Then he noticed she was blushing slightly. “What is it, sweetheart?”

She lifted her head, her eyes wide and inquiring, no doubt at the endearment. “It’s just that if your mother knows we’re here and we show up an hour or so from now, she’ll guess . . . well, won’t she guess what we’ve been doing?”

He rocked back on his heels. “I see your point. One look at the smile on my face and the glow on yours and it won’t be a guess, either.”

She smiled and he offered a hand, pulling her lightly to her feet. “Okay, to the Berry Best Frame Shop we go.”

“Berry Best?”

“One of the consequences of Ponchatoula being the strawberry capital of the world is that almost every business has ‘berry’ somewhere in its name.” Hunter led the way back through the house, trying to adjust both mentally and physically to the change of plans. He couldn’t say he blamed Daffy; as a guest, she didn’t want Thelma thinking the first thing she’d done was go to bed with her hostess’s son. But damn, he wanted her.

He held open the front door for her. “By the way, the answer to your earlier question, the name Ponchatoula comes from the local Indian name for hair to hang, inspired by all the Spanish moss draped from the trees.”

“Oh.” Daffy knew that during her earlier nervous chatter she’d asked the question, but at the moment, the last thing she cared about was the Facts on File chapter on Ponchatoula.

Hunter was the most wonderful man she’d ever met.

And unless she’d missed her mark, he had a girlfriend in Ponchatoula. Who else called up and said casually, “It’s me”?

The phone started ringing again and Hunter pulled the door shut behind them, but not before Daffy heard yet another female voice.

Casting a sideways glance at his profile, the high forehead, the vivid, dark eyes, the beautifully formed nose, the generous mouth that curved upward in the expression of a man at peace with his world, Daffy sighed. What woman wouldn’t find him irresistible?

A
girlfriend? More than likely, he possessed a harem.

The yellow cat glanced up from the swing, twitched his tail, and settled down again.

“This is a peaceful house,” Daffy said. “A nice place to grow up.”

Hunter nodded, some of the sunniness gone from his expression. He hesitated; then, instead of walking straight ahead to the car, he steered her to a path that ran around the side of the house.

The porch followed the house, with another set of wicker chairs and two small tables welcoming visitors. Next to the house stood a small outbuilding of sorts, possibly a tiny garage converted to an apartment.

Hunter, hands on his hips, stared at that small building. Daffy watched as his expression fluctuated from neutral to sad and then back to the more self-assured Hunter she was more used to seeing.

“I bought the front house for my mother with the first real money I earned,” he said. “I wanted to buy her a big, new house, but she wouldn’t let me. She said she had her roots planted on this block and there was no moving her.” He cleared his throat. “The little place in back is where I grew up.”

He turned and, mesmerized, Daffy followed him around the path toward his Jeep.

How could anyone live in a place that small? Even for a mother and a growing boy, there wasn’t room to turn around in. Daffy honestly couldn’t get her mind around it, but at least she kept her mouth shut. She was pretty sure the last thing Hunter wanted was sympathy.

Especially from a woman who’d grown up in a mansion on St. Charles Avenue.

“Cat got your tongue?” Hunter stopped at the side of his Jeep, arms crossed, looking down at her with a fierce expression.

“Mr. Pickle?” Daffy put a finger to her lips and said, “No, I don’t think so.”

Hunter laughed, a bit grudgingly, but at least it chased the chill away from his features.

Daffy met his gaze and said, “I don’t care if you grew up in a sharecropper’s shack or the governor’s mansion. To quote what a pretty wise guy said to me only recently, ‘You’re you.’”

His jaw worked and after a moment he said, “Thank you, Daffy.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

He caught her mouth in a sweet, gentle kiss, and Daffy almost wished she hadn’t shied away from making love with him in his mother’s house. She wasn’t the only one nervous about this visit.

Lifting his head, he said huskily, “We’d better go if we’re going.”

During the few minutes it took to drive to his mother’s shop, Daffy tried not to visualize Hunter’s other girlfriends. They were probably all much more like his mother, more of the marry-settle down-raise a family sort. They probably won blue ribbons at the county fair for their strawberry pie recipes. Probably not a one of his hometown girlfriends could compete with her record of disastrous relationships. Probably not a one of them had been caught with her fiancé’s best man.

She sighed and wondered why the competition mattered.

What a great question for the Love Doctor. She laughed, and Hunter looked at her with a question in his eyes. Shaking her head slightly, she said, “Just thinking.”

“Hope they’re good thoughts,” he said with a smile.

Daffy could think of no rejoinder. So she merely nodded, meanwhile mentally composing a letter that followed the salutation with:

I met this really great guy, but I’m not the only woman who thinks he’s great. As a matter of fact, he told me point-blank that, given thirty days, he can make any woman fall in love with him, and I’ve known him less than a month, and, Dear Love Doctor, he’s right!

She gasped and Hunter hit the brakes.

“What’s wrong?” He looked truly concerned. She rubbed her forehead. “A teeny touch of a migraine,” she mumbled, trying to sort out what had gone wrong in her brain. She might be smitten with the guy, but no way was she in love with him! Impossible. She was too jaded and too worldly-wise to let that sort of silliness happen to her. Besides, everyone knew that the minute Daffy Landry even imagined herself in love with a guy, nothing but trouble followed.

“Do you want to stop at the drugstore?”

“For what?”

“Migraine medicine.”

“Oh, no, thanks. It was only a twinge. I’m better now.” She mustered what she hoped was a convincing smile and wondered how to escape his charm, his magnetism, his sweet solicitude over her faked headache. Darn it. Hunter James was too good.

Too good not to fall in love with.

He parked in front of a row of shops. “Feel like going in?”

Daffy nodded. “Absolutely.”

“I could take you back to the house. No tricks,” he said, grinning slightly. “Just so you could rest.”

Daffy reached over and patted his thigh, a gesture of comfort intended as much for herself as for him. “I am perfectly fine,” she said. “And I want to meet your mother.”

Hunter hoped both of Daffy’s statements were true. He got out of the car, opened the door for Daffy, and led the way across the sidewalk to the Berry Best Frame Shop, all the while wondering what he was doing that Saturday in Ponchatoula.

He’d turned down two invitations that only a few weeks ago he would have jumped at. He’d declined not only a day lazing on a sailboat but a weekend skiing in Salt Lake (to rush home to see Daffy). He’d also ignored a call from Tiffany Phipps about a pair of tickets she just happened to have to a hot sold-out concert in New Orleans, but Hunter hoped he would have had the sense to do so even if he’d never met Daffy.

It was funny, he thought wryly, pausing at the door of his mother’s shop, but Tiffany was the sort of woman he’d feared Daffy would turn out to be. And yet here he was, about to introduce Daffy to Thelma.

“Here goes,” Hunter said, somewhat under his breath, but Daffy’s nervous smile told him she’d heard.

“Don’t worry,” she said as he opened the door and the bell tied to it clanged, “I won’t embarrass you.”

“You couldn’t,” he said.

“Be with you in a minute.” His mother’s voice floated from the back of the shop.

Hunter glanced around the small store, its floor crowded with bins of photographs and prints available to be framed, the walls nearly solid with paintings, lithographs, and prints. His mother had an eye for the striking and unique, but she also carried the usual suspects. Jazzfest posters, Mardi Gras memorabilia, strawberry festival posters, and, of course, anything and everything else ever done with a strawberry on it—you name it, Berry Best could frame it, sell it, and wrap it to go.

Daffy also was glancing around, surveying what probably looked to a first-time visitor like an art-supply store hit by a hurricane that was at least a four on the Saffir-Simpson scale. But Hunter had grown up in the artistic clutter and he knew his mother could unerringly locate every piece of inventory.

“Hello,” Thelma said, advancing from the back of the shop. Then she caught sight of him and said, “Hunter!”

He nodded and smiled and cocked his head slightly sideways to indicate Daffy’s very obvious presence.

Thelma moved forward. “And you must be Hunter’s friend from the city,” she said, a smile on her lips but a searching look worthy of Hercule Poirot solving a whodunit in her eyes.

“I’m Daffy,” Daffy said, holding out her hand. “From Daffodil.”

Thelma shook hands, very businesslike, and said, “How nice of Hunter to bring you by for a visit.”

Hunter couldn’t believe his ears. The woman who had given birth to him was acting like one of those characters on a
Twilight Zone
episode taken over by a creature from another dimension. Who had kidnapped Thelma and replaced her with this automaton of socially correct behavior? What had happened to the woman who had stood-in as mother, confidante, companion, and tutor for his friends for as long as he could remember?

“I thought so, too,” Daffy said. She moved toward Thelma as she spoke, placing herself closer to his mother than to him. “Hunter said you’re quite the baker.”

“He did?” Thelma shot Hunter a look that would have withered a less valiant son. Hunter gave it right back. Damn it, he wanted his mother to like Daffy. She doted on Lucy, and Lucy was all wrong. No matter how many times she threw herself at him, Hunter would resist.