Dear Love Doctor (23 page)

Inside, she led him to her favorite chairs in the back room. After a deep breath, she said, “At dinner, when you were describing how we met, I realized you only invited me—or rather, Jonni—out to use me.”

Hunter leaned forward in his chair, his eyes intent. “I don’t deny that.”

“It, um, hurt.”

He shook his head slowly. “Quite the arrogant jerk, wasn’t I?”

Daffy laughed. “At least you admit it.” She smoothed the skirt of her silk evening dress. “And that bet, that you could make me fall for you . . . is that . . .” She couldn’t even bring herself to ask the question. It was too humiliating. Daffy Landry, who was always the one to crook her finger, nab her man of the month, and then discard him, was groveling.

Plus she was still holding back. Blurt it all out, she lectured herself. Tell him you’ll die if he isn’t sincere; tell him you can’t live without him. And then top it off with the truth about the Love Doctor.

Hunter was out of the chair and on his knees beside her. Taking her hand, he said, “Daffy, look at me.”

She met his gaze.

What she saw frightened her.

She could drown in the love and adoration she saw there. “I’ve never cared about another woman the way I care about you. I don’t know what happened, but somewhere between Las Vegas and New Orleans, I fell and fell hard. I swear on my mother’s head I am not leading you on.”

Daffy caught her breath. “Wow,” she murmured. She’d seen how he felt about his mother. Slowly, she said, “I believe you. It’s just hard to know what to think sometimes.”

He gathered her to him and whispered, “Then don’t think. Just love me.”

Hunter didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until Daffy relaxed into his embrace and snuggled against him. Smoothing her hair and murmuring her name, he slipped free the clever bows that held her dress together. His crew at work could manage without his motivating presence for a little bit longer. Heck, there wasn’t a one of them who would walk away from a woman like Daffy at this moment.

Not that there was anyone else quite like Daffy.

They were standing and moving in dancelike circles, undressing each other as they swayed. On the rug in front of the fireplace, Hunter joined with her, slow and sweet, their passion almost a sacred ritual, rather than the wild frenzy they’d shared before they’d left for dinner.

He moved with her, loving the rhythm of her body as she found her release with him deep inside her. Clinging to him, she cried his name, and Hunter vowed in that moment that no other man would ever touch her. Clasping her cheeks, he drove with a sense of urgency he’d never experienced in his life. She met him, thrust for thrust, and he sensed her own passion reigniting and rising free and wild all over again.

He exploded into her as she cried out and lost herself in him for the second time.

They collapsed onto the rug, arm in arm. “There’s no one like Daffy,” Hunter said and promptly fell asleep.

23

H
unter carried her to bed, kissed her good-bye, and promised to call her as soon as he got to Salt Lake the next morning. Curled up on her side, feeling more satisfied than she’d ever felt in her life, Daffy said a sleepy good night.

Five minutes later, she sat bolt upright in bed, the covers clutched against her naked breasts.

Hunter was leaving town and she hadn’t told him that she was the Love Doctor.

It wasn’t something she could say on the telephone.

She threw herself against her mounds of pillows and slapped one hand against her forehead. Boy, did she know how to mess things up.

But it was hard to feel too bad after making love with Hunter. She snuggled down under the covers and relived every moment, beginning not when he’d slipped her dress free from her body, but when he’d cared enough to get her to tell him what was wrong.

If she could make a relationship work with any man, Hunter was the guy.

If . . .

She sighed and decided not to worry about the answer. She’d tell him, she’d apologize, and that would be that.

Or would it? Hunter had Aloysius and goodness knows who else warning him away from her. Don’t trust Daffy—she’s, well, daffy. And sometimes that daffiness skirted on cruelty, according to her enemies. Given the truth, would Hunter decide she was not his type of woman?

She frowned and considered keeping the Love Doctor’s identity to herself. She could quit writing the column, something she wanted to do anyway, and move forward with her life.

No, she couldn’t do that. If she was to have a chance with Hunter, they had to be honest with each other.

Honest.

So why had Hunter said he’d been acting on behalf of a friend?

What else had Hunter said?
Don’t think. Just love me
.

Beginning to feel dizzy from her thoughts, Daffy decided to sleep on things and see what they looked like in the morning.

Morning came and Daffy still didn’t know what to do. But work intervened and as she hustled downtown to the Hilton to a Ladies Lunch and Fashion Show Fund-raiser, camera in hand, she considered asking her sister’s advice.

She was sworn to secrecy on the Love Doctor’s identity, but telling Jonni was a lot like talking things over with herself. And with her best friend, Beth, working overseas for CNN, Jonni was the natural one for Daffy to turn to. After all, if one couldn’t trust a twin to keep a secret, whom could one trust?

So she shot the photographs of Junior Leaguers modeling clothing from a thrift shop they wouldn’t be caught setting foot in under normal conditions, and stared down her old nemesis Tiffany Phipps, who, of course, had taken time away from her important law practice to stroll down the runway.

She sent the photos to the newspaper, then raced over to
The Crescent
’s offices. Working for both the city’s daily newspaper and one of the main entertainment tabloids was driving her a little bit nuts. What she needed, Daffy realized as she screeched to a halt in the parking lot at
The Crescent
, was one real job.

One real, meaningful job.

But right now, she had a stack of mail to sort from readers seeking the wit and wisdom of the Love Doctor. Smothering a sad laugh, Daffy entered through the back door of the building and made her way to the cubicle she used.

The letters waited in a folder on the desk.

At least One of the interns had sorted the emails and printed the most promising ones.

Wondering why she’d ever appointed herself to such a role, Daffy bent her head and began shuffling through the letters.

“Daffy Doc!”

Oh, no, not Marguerite. Daffy didn’t think she could take such chipper energy today. All this thinking in circles was wearing her out. Plus she’d missed Hunter’s call while working the fashion show. Hearing his voice on her cell-phone messages cheered her yet depressed her, too. “Hello, Marguerite,” Daffy said, holding a letter and barely lifting her glance from it. Surely the editor could tell how much she had to do.

“Just the person I wanted to see.” Marguerite perched on the edge of Daffy’s desk. “I’m thinking that we should double the column length of Dear Love Doctor beginning next week.”

Daffy dropped the letter she’d been holding without really reading. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Marguerite looked shocked, no doubt because she thought every idea she had was terrific, and most people didn’t disagree with her, at least not out loud. “Well, whyever not?” She picked up a pencil from the desk and began drumming it against her knee.

Daffy squelched the urge to grab the improvised drumstick from the editor and said, “Too much of a good thing can work against it. Think of television. There are some shows that are meant for the half-hour format. They get popular and the network gets greedy and expands them to an hour. And what happens? It doesn’t work.”

“I’m certainly not greedy.” Marguerite snapped the pencil in two. “I’m a businesswoman.”

Daffy shook her head. Debating with Marguerite was generally useless. Besides, why bother? All she had to do was resign and she was out of the discussion. And so was the Love Doctor. Daffy had insisted on a contract that said no one else could author the column should she decide to quit writing it. Marguerite had really hated that provision, but Daffy had stuck to her guns. But she wasn’t ready to resign. Not yet.

“And a very good one,” Daffy said, deciding to smooth things over. “Let me look at my schedule and consider the idea.”

“That’s more like it.” Marguerite jumped off the desk and flitted away, no doubt buoyed by what she interpreted as Daffy’s concession to her decision.

Wanting to be done, wondering yet again why she’d appointed herself the Dear Abby of the lost souls of love, Daffy closed her eyes and stabbed one with her finger. Whatever it was, she’d answer it.

When she opened her eyes and saw how long the letter was, Daffy almost dumped it back. But a plan was a plan.

Dear Love Doctor,

I have three best friends. I’ve asked two of them what to do about this situation and since it involves the third one, I can’t ask her. So I’m writing to you to break the tie between my two best friends’ opinions.

Daffy rubbed her eyes and wished she’d stopped at PJ’s for a cappuccino on her way in.

The problem is I found out my third best friend’s boyfriend is cheating on her. My two other friends disagree on whether I should tell her or not. One says she won’t believe me and it will cost me our friendship. The other best friend says it’s my duty and I must tell her. I’m confused and worried because if I tell her, my other friend will be upset with me, and if I don’t, then the other friend will be mad at me.

Daffy had to admit she was confused, too. She eyed the letter and realized it carried on to the back of the page. And Marguerite wanted to double the column!

The way I see it, I also have a fifty-fifty chance of losing my third best friend, too. I mean, I think I should tell her ’cause I’d want to know if my
boyfriend was a skunk, ’cause as I’m sure you know, guys can be skunks and hide it real well.

At that kernel of wisdom, Daffy paused.
Guys can be skunks and hide it real well
. But it wasn’t just guys who did that.

So please, Dear Love Doctor, tell me what to do. Do I tell my friend or do I look the other way?

Signed,
Confused in Chalmette

Daffy turned to the computer and poised her hands over her keyboard. She wanted to dash off a quick and pithy reply to Confused so she could call Jonni and discuss her own problems. Yes, Daffy thought, the doctor needed a doctor.

As she glanced over the letter, an image of her mother filled her mind. She tried to force it away, but as she focused on the monitor, the image overtook the blank screen. And joining it came the picture of her dad, her dear, long-suffering—perhaps too much so—dad.

What would have happened if Daffy hadn’t told her dad about her mother’s affair? Had he wanted to know? Obviously he’d forgiven Marianne, so had Daffy done the right thing? Remembering how dramatic she’d been, she cringed. She’d driven like a bat out of hell down to his law firm and flung herself into his office. He’d excused himself from the meeting going on and taken her into another room, where she’d burst into tears and told him his wife—she couldn’t bring herself to say “my mother”—had been in bed with Aloysius’s father.

He hadn’t acted all that shocked. He’d paled a bit, she remembered, but his attentions had been focused on calming her, rather than on expressing his own feelings.

Daffy lowered her hands to her lap. After a long moment, she began to type.

Dear Confused,

I cannot tell you what to do in this situation. I’m afraid both your friends are right, which also means both your friends are wrong. Look inside your heart and ask yourself why you would tell and why you would not. Calm and still within you is your answer. What I’m trying to say is only you can know what is right for you to do. Not even the Love Doctor can solve this riddle for you.

Daffy scanned in the letter and saved it and the reply to a thumb drive. Never before had she not answered a reader’s question. Never before had she felt humble enough to admit she didn’t know right from wrong. The Daffy of a month ago would have rattled off a smart-ass response and her readers would have tittered and some of them probably would have taken the path suggested. Certainly the Daffy of a month ago would have responded that any friend in her right mind would share her information.

Yet she hadn’t called Chrissie after she’d encountered Aloysius with two hookers in Vegas. But she had been pursuing David and his intern, seeking any signs of wrongdoing.

Why one and not the other?

Because she didn’t like David.

And she thought she knew what was good for her sister better than her sister did.

Guilty on two counts of arrogance.

Sobered by her realization, Daffy pushed away from the desk, took the backup, and slipped it into her purse. It wouldn’t do for Marguerite to catch sight of this column until it was too late to stop the presses. She’d hand it to the production people on Friday, saying the editor had asked her to deliver it. Then they’d assume it had been signed off on, and the answer that wasn’t an answer at all would appear in next week’s issue.

And Daffy would probably be fired, which might not be the worst turn of events when all was said and done.

For what had to be at least the twentieth time in the past half hour, Hunter opened and shut the blue velvet ring case.

He’d known the ring he wanted for Daffy as soon as he saw it perched regally in a case by itself. Three stones commanded attention, the center a dark blue sapphire that reminded him of the color of Daffy’s eyes when they were flamed with passion. On either side of the sapphire lay a perfect pear-shaped diamond in a weight and size worthy of a pharaoh’s queen.

A solitaire hadn’t seemed like enough, not for Daffy.

And not enough to express the depth of his feelings for her.

Hunter eased the case open one more time, picturing the ring on Daffy’s hand. Jonni had supplied the ring size and the knowledge that Daffy adored sapphires.

More nervous than on the day WebWeavers’ stock went public, more anxious than on the day he’d hired ten employees he could scarcely afford to pay, and more eager than he’d been when, as an eight-year-old, he’d been treated to a weekend at Disney World, Hunter headed to his Jeep.

Having returned a day earlier than anticipated, he planned to surprise Daffy at her house. And at the appropriate moment, or when he could no longer contain himself, ask her to marry him.

When the housekeeper answered the door and told him Daffy wasn’t at home, his face must have telegraphed his dismay. Silly of him to expect a society photographer—and a babe of the first water—to be sitting at home on a Friday evening at six o’clock.

Fortunately, the housekeeper knew where Daffy kept her appointment schedule, and even more fortunately, she was partial to Hunter.

“You’ve been away?” she asked as she opened the door and ushered him into the cool interior.

He nodded, the ring scorching his pocket.

“I thought only business could keep you from Miss Daffy.”

Hunter grinned. “I’m that obvious?”

She smiled. “Yes, and it’s beautiful, if you don’t mind me saying so. Miss Daffy needs a man like you.”

“I hope she agrees with you,” Hunter said under his breath. But how could she not? They moved together, breathed together, loved as one. He’d never met a woman with whom he felt so much at peace, had never known such a state was possible. Oh, she drove him wild, but in a wonderful way.

The housekeeper left him seated in the hallway, where he’d delivered coffee to Daffy only a short time ago, the morning they’d traveled to Ponchatoula. She returned quickly with an address on a slip of paper.

Eyeing his slacks and casual shirt, she said, “At this address, it’s bound to be black tie. You may want to change your clothes.”

He took the paper and thanked her. She called, “Good luck,” as she closed the door behind him.

Pausing on the porch, the sun slanting in his eyes, Hunter studied the address and after he had, he knew the fates were with him. The night’s event was at the Opera Guild House, the house next door to where the Orphan’s Club fund-raiser had taken place—the first time he had spotted Daffy across the proverbial crowded room.

She’d disappeared that evening, a little bit like Cinderella with the clock striking midnight.

But now he was on his way to claim her.

He was doubly lucky in the location, as the house next door was Aloysius’s aunt’s house, where he kept his rooms in the city—and where his evening gear was stashed. A quick change and he’d charm his way into whatever event was taking place.