The Right Medicine Read online

  “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head, “you’ve got the wrong girl.”

  Well, that was one way to look at it, Mike thought, shifting his gaze between the ring pinched in his fingers and the enigmatic woman on the pool deck.

  She was dressed in a summer sundress, wavy brown hair flowing to her shoulders. Her eyes, he thought, were just as dark. Although from this angle it was pretty hard to tell.

  Mike braced himself on his arms as he rose from the water.

  “Don’t think so,” he told her, lightly shaking off and extending his hand, palm up, in her direction.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, trying her best to look indignant. There was a little pout to her mouth that looked almost appealing. Almost, Mike reminded himself, not quite. Brunettes, in general, meant trouble. And Alexia had taught him that trouble not only hurt like the dickens, it was darned expensive too.

  “Your ring,” Mike said, stepping forward.

  “You have a lot of nerve…” she said, setting her chin. Yep, Mike told himself, they were definitely brown. Chocolate-brown eyes that could probably look enticingly warm were they not so heated with vehemence. “…intruding on my private moment!”

  Mike laughed. “Intruding? But I was here first!”

  She shuffled sandaled feet beneath the low hemline of her dress. Feet that were attached, Mike couldn’t help but notice, to two very well-formed feminine ankles. “Well, if you were, I certainly didn’t see…”

  Mike arched his eyebrows, and she stopped. By the way her appreciative eyes had traveled from his damp pecs to his navel, sure as heck looked to Mike like she’d been seeing something.

  “What I meant to say was—”

  Mike walked forward and lifted a balled-up fist from the woman’s side. “Here,” he said, prying her fingers loose as she looked on with incredulity.

  Mike pressed the ring into her palm. “Someone spent hard-earned money for that. Don’t think it’s very good of you to go throwing it away.”

  Carrie glared at the insolent man, wondering how he’d known exactly what she’d been doing. More puzzled still at how he dared intrude on her life. “Don’t think it’s very good of you to go telling a complete stranger how to run her affairs!”

  “Oh, so it was only an affair, was it?” he asked, with a cool sheen to his evergreen eyes. Eyes that Carrie was quite certain could look enticing under different circumstances. “Somehow I imagined it was a heck of a lot more serious than that.”

  “Well, maybe,” she said, flipping over his wrist and cramming the ring back into his hand. “You ought to think of something better to do with your overactive imagination than torment women you don’t even know.”

  Carrie turned her back on him and started toward the inn. Of all the indignities. To be trounced upon by one man during dinner, then have a hunky dish like this one serve up insults for dessert.

  “Hang on!” he called, hurrying to catch up with her. “Your ring!”

  “Finders, keepers,” she said, picking up her pace. But what Carrie most desperately didn’t want to find herself doing was falling for another man. Especially one who looked like that in a pair of swim trunks—all six foot something of virile man, dripping wet… Criminy! Carrie scurried up the cold stone steps to the main building’s front door. The flame was barely extinguished on her relationship with Wilson and here she was already playing with matches!

  Carrie struggled against the notion of turning back toward her predator but knew he stood silently watching her at the bottom of those stairs. Silently—rugged, handsome, yes, darn it, handsome. And wet. Carrie’s throat went dry at that last thought.

  “What?” she asked, spinning abruptly on her heels. “What in the world are you staring at?”

  But Mike, who truthfully didn’t know, just stood there dumbfounded with this beautiful stranger’s ring in his hand. Beautiful, indeed. There was a fine sweep of color that just dusted her cheekbones, and somehow—given all the crying she’d apparently been doing—Mike didn’t imagine it was the magic of makeup. No, there was something much more powerful going on here. Something that made absolutely zero sense. And, for a lunatic instant, Mike found himself wishing he hadn’t wasted his heartfelt offering on Alexia but had given it to this goddess instead. Lunatic was right. Mike gazed up at the powdery quarter moon threading stardust through the trees, deciding he’d been out in the night air too long.

  But whether he was crazy or not, Mike knew one thing and one thing only. Before she disappeared into the inn, and perhaps for eternity, he had to get her name.

  “I was just wondering,” he began tentatively, feeling the heat expand from his temples to the tops of his ears. “What your name is.” Holy Christ. He was insane! Alexia’s ring was still at the bottom of the pool, and here he was…what? Making eyes at another woman who’d just now broken some Romeo’s heart?

  “Why?” she asked, holding court at the top of the stairs but not looking half as menacing as she apparently intended.

  “Just in case the law comes after me for stealing your ring,” Mike raced in, thinking quickly. He gave her his best smile but found it impossible to tell whether she was charmed by it or not.

  “Very funny.”

  He guessed not. “Seriously, I—”

  “Name’s Carrie, if you must know. Carrie St. John, and you can rest assured, uh…”

  “Mike,” he filled in with a grin.

  “Mike,” she said, clearing her throat and averting her eyes from his naked upper torso, which he’d noticed her perusing just the same. “You can rest assured I won’t be calling the police on you anytime soon.”

  “Ah, so you do admit the ring was yours, after all.”

  Her eyes flashed as she turned and headed through the door.

  Conniving male! They were all the same, every last one of them. And what, pray tell, did this dripping hunk of flesh plan to do with that information? Blackmail her? As if the entire world wouldn’t find out soon enough. With Carrie’s luck, it would make the morning edition.

  Carrie let herself into her room and fell in a heap of emotion onto the bed. Her life couldn’t possibly get any worse! First, Wilson brought her all the way here, to this gorgeous historic home—to tell her he’s fallen in love with another woman. Then he left her, more like deserted her, in this love nest built for two, and had the gall to tell her to enjoy the rest of the weekend. His treat.

  Carrie pressed her palms to her forehead to ward off her ensuing headache. But knew that it would come regardless. This was stress with a capital “S”! She’d been such a fool, had already invited six women to be her bridesmaids! And now she’d have to call each one and confess her misfortune.

  And what was worse, what would truly be the worst part of all would be in facing her matchmaking grandmother. The grandmother Carrie had finally managed to convince she’d found a dashing bachelor to make “an honest woman” of her.

  Carrie rolled over on the bed and clutched her pillow to her streaming cheeks. One time. Okay. But this was the second disaster she’d endured at the near-altar. What was it about her, Carrie wondered, that made men want to cut and run? Or worse still, rush straight into another woman’s arms? Carrie had actually seen Teresa, knew exactly who the woman was. And though as a fellow stockbroker of Wilson’s she certainly shared Wilson’s business savvy, Carrie truthfully didn’t find Teresa that much to look at.

  And that made matters all the worse, Carrie admitted to herself, as her throat swelled tight and tears blazed trails down her cheeks. She couldn’t blame Wilson’s leaving her on something as base as hormones, or his sheer physical attraction to another woman. No, what had caused Wilson to leave ran deeper than that. When he’d looked beneath the surface of his relationship with both Teresa and Carrie, Teresa had won hands down.

  Mike took another dive below the surface and cursed himself once again for his inability to find Alexia’s ring. If she wasn’t going to use it, she could have at least had the good grace to return it, not to
ss it in the pool.

  What was it with all the women in this place? Had they made a silent pact to simultaneously ditch their men in this affronting fashion? Maybe that was what this vacation locale was all about. Some sort of fantasy dumping ground for all disenchanted females. Bring your man to the Sawyers House and be rid of him for good! Elegant starlight pool, suitable for ring-tossing!

  Mike was just about to call it a night when he saw something shimmer at the far corner of the pool bottom. Aha! It was his ring all right. One perfect solitaire that obviously hadn’t been enough to do the job. “Marry you?” Alexia had scoffed. “You can’t be serious?” Only as serious as a heart attack, a heart attack Mike had sorely wished he’d had rather than face the blistering look in Alexia’s cool blue eyes. “But, sweetheart,” she’d told him, “everything’s been so good so far. Why would you want to go and ruin it now?”

  Gee, call him a fool, but somehow Mike hadn’t seen wanting to spend the rest of his life with someone as “ruining” things. What an idiot he’d been, believing that someone like Alexia could possibly care. Even in refusing his ring, she’d been the quintessential ice woman. Couldn’t she even have pretended to have been impressed by the half-carat diamond?

  Instead, when their server had arrived with dessert, she’d pushed the small velvet box aside and urged Mike to be “mature” about things. She certainly wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment—and he could keep the ring.

  Mike had shoved the box back in front of her, saying she could hang on to it until she felt ready. She’d given him a thin smile and said, “Fine.” It was only because he’d followed her when she’d excused herself to the ladies’ room that he’d witnessed her break the delicate ring free from its velvet prison and lob it into the pool before climbing into her black Jaguar and driving out of his life.

  Just like that.

  Alexia hadn’t even planned to say good-bye.

  Mike sat on the end of a lounge chair and studied the two rings in his hand. One glistening solitaire, the other an elegant arrangement of emeralds and diamonds. For all Mike knew, he thought, casting a tired gaze over the pool surface, there were others like these down there. Dozens, maybe. Heck, if he looked long enough, he might even find thousands.

  He could start his own business: Ring Finders Unlimited. He’d make a fortune on broken hearts…

  Mike blinked back the heat in his eyes and stared up at the star-speckled night, realizing just how cynical he’d become.

  It was really too late to drive back to the city, and his room for the night was bought and paid for. Plus, he still had mystery woman’s ring in the palm of his hand. Mike didn’t know how, but some way before he left here tomorrow, he was going to get that woman to take back her ring. Then maybe she could return it properly to whoever had given it to her in the first place.

  Not that it was Mike’s normal style to go inserting himself in other people’s relationships, but someone had to wise the female species up to the damage it was doing out there. And, since he had nothing left to lose, Mike thought, tightening his grip around his solitaire, it might as well be him.

  Chapter Two

  Carrie sat at the small breakfast table, absentmindedly stirring her coffee.

  “Good morning,” a deep baritone echoed from above her.

  Carrie looked up at the dapper man in chinos and a button-down shirt. “Mike! I almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes on!”

  A couple at the next table set down their grapefruit spoons and stared.

  “I mean,” Carrie backpedaled, perspiration sweeping her hairline, “dry.” Oh, Criminy. Carrie picked up her cup, but Mike just grinned and pulled out a chair.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked.

  Now that was a loaded question for eight o’clock in the morning. Carrie picked up the Style Section of the newspaper and rapidly fanned her face. “Sure, why not?” Anything, she thought. Anything to get this Greek Adonis to sit—and her to stop babbling like an idiot in this public place.

  “Listen,” he said, squaring his chair in with the table. “I think we got off on the wrong foot last night.”

  “Look, Mike,” Carrie said, reaching a hand across the table to touch his arm, then instantly regretting it. It had to be over eighty degrees inside, with the air-conditioning in this antiquated building malfunctioning, and yet, still, the contact sent shivers up her spine. “As far as I’m concerned, the two of us aren’t even going anywhere. So, wrong foot or no, it’s all water under the bridge.”

  “Or, into the pool,” he said with a smile that pinned her in place even though a very big part of her longed to spring from her chair and race from the room. What was it with her? What in the world was she afraid of? Mike…? And if it was terror she felt, then why did every inch of her skin vibrate with electric fire each time his sea-green eyes settled on hers?

  Carrie took a very long, deliberate sip of water, then set down her glass. “You know, I never got your last name,” she said with a smile she hoped looked pleasantly interested, not recklessly giddy.

  “Davis,” he said as a server sauntered over. “No,” he told her as she tilted the silver coffee carafe, “I’m not staying.”

  “You’re not?” Carrie asked before she could stop herself.

  Mike arched one eyebrow, and the slightest tingle took hold of Carrie’s tailbone. Damn it, she thought, shaking off the confusion. She was not attracted to this man, not attracted one iota. And she was going to prove it. To him—and the rest of the world, as well.

  “Please,” Carrie said in her most gracious Southern tone. “Do stay. It’s the least I can do for…”

  Their waitress colored slightly as Carrie’s words fell off.

  Mike accepted a cup of coffee then met Carrie’s eyes with a sly smile. “You know,” he whispered as their server departer. “I think you almost embarrassed that woman.”

  “Truth be told,” Carrie admitted, taking a sip of coffee that had grown lukewarm, “I almost embarrassed myself.”

  Mike tore open a sugar packet and dumped the contents into his cup. “Do tell.”

  But Carrie didn’t want to tell—tell this man any more than she had to. For, in a very big way, she already feared she’d told him way too much. Maybe not in so many words but certainly with her eyes. Guy who looked like that was bound to be experienced. Would certainly know when a woman was…what? Ogling him? Impossible. Carrie St. John was a business professional, a seasoned woman of the world. She did not ogle. She appraised. And every one of Mike’s assets, darn it, were starting to add up.

  “I never kiss and tell,” Carrie said, realizing afterwards just how flirtatious that sounded.

  Carrie flagged down the waitress and asked for another glass of water, wondering if she wouldn’t be better off having the waitress dump the whole pitcher in her lap.

  Mike stirred his coffee, then set aside the spoon. “Okay by me,” he assured her with earnest green eyes. “Believe me, I won’t be pressing you for details.”

  Carrie shifted in her chair, wondering why his gentlemanly assertion made her heart drop down to her belly. It wasn’t that she wanted him pressing her—for details.

  Criminy! She was a mess!

  Carrie gratefully grabbed her refilled water and downed half the glass in one long swallow. “Won’t be here for too much longer anyhow,” she said, searching for a reasonable-sounding way out of the corner she’d painted herself into. “Least ways, not long enough to engage in long-winded conversation.”

  “I see,” Mike said, studying her white-knuckled grip on her water glass. “So, then, where will you be going back to?”

  “Mill Creek,” she told him, feeling the room lightly spin around her. As ridiculous as it seemed, there was something about him that made her want to forget about going home altogether. Maybe it was in the heart-stopping way he looked at her, even when he pretended to be making normal conversation. Or maybe it was in the way he looked when he was half undressed…

  Carrie
bit into her bottom lip as Mike fell back in his chair with surprise.

  “No kidding? I’m right next door in Redfields!”

  “So what are you doing up here?” she asked, trying to keep her thoughts on the straight and narrow. Straight and narrow? Holy cow! Totally wrong image! What on earth was wrong with her? Never in her life had her mind been so carnally occupied!

  His eyes fell to his coffee cup. “Maybe it’s best if I don’t kiss and tell either.”

  “You mean,” Carrie asked with surprise, “you were here with a woman?”

  He looked up, little wrinkles creasing his brow. “You find that so amazing?”

  Actually, what Carrie found amazing was that any woman in her right mind who’d come here with Mike in the first place wouldn’t still be here with him now. “What happened?” Carrie asked, softening her voice in concern. “I mean, certainly you don’t have to tell me, but—”

  “She dumped me,” Mike said, bright eyes darkening. “Sayonara. Just like that. Didn’t even have the courtesy to say good-bye. Simply walked out at dinner and never came back.”

  “No…” Carrie said, catching her breath on the unbelievable. That actually sounded worse than what had happened to her!

  “Wish I could say it wasn’t so,” Mike said with a shake of his head, “particularly after all the… Well, never mind,” he told her, fingering the rings through his pants pocket. “None of that matters much now.”

  Mike reached into his chinos and pulled out the pair of rings. “Not quite a matching set,” he said, laying them on the table. But quite an attractive pair just the same.”

  Carrie blanched and looked up. “Are you telling me that… Now, wait a minute—”

  Mike nodded. “Uncanny as it seems, my ring got tossed in the pool as well. Maybe it’s some sort of unwritten bylaw to staying in this place.”

  “Only when the guys involved are first-class jerks,” Carrie said with a hard edge to her voice.