The Big 5-Oh! (17 page)

“While standing in shallow water,” she read aloud, “practice putting your face below the surface while looking through the mask.”

Liv wiggled her flipper-covered feet in a sort of greeting before tilting back her head and lifting the mask like a headband.

“If your mask or snorkel should fill with water,” she read, “this can be a frightening experience. Take great care to learn the process of clearing the equipment prior to your day of snor-keling—o-kay! To clear the snorkel, exhale strongly through your mouth, which will send the water up and out of the tube. Some snorkels are fitted with … blah blah blah blah.”

Liv swished the snorkel around in the pool water, and then pressed it to her mouth. Breathing in hard through her nose first, she then blew out, sending water sprinkling out of the tube.

“This seems easy enough,” she declared, and then slipped the mask into place for her first snorkel-swim in just four feet of chlorinated water.

Jared squinted, trying to figure out what was at the center of Josie's pool. At first, it looked to be a large, red plastic plate bobbing at the surface. And then it took an odd curve, and a border of solid white appeared on one side.

He moved closer to the edge of the pool and pushed his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose and peered over them.

It's someone's … bottom
, he realized, and then his laughter rang like a church bell.
A backside, just floating in the water!

The round, red bottom submerged just then, followed by two green flippers, kicking and splashing. When she came up again, the sight of Liv—her red curls dark and slicked straight back from a face almost completely obscured by a bright blue mask, with a lemon-yellow snorkel extending over her head like a one-sided antler—doubled him completely over. He snorted, leaning on the back of one of the patio chairs to catch his breath.

“Whad?” she exclaimed, standing in the shallow end of the pool, her foggy mask suctioned to her face and her hand folded against her hip. “Whad’re you laughing ad?”

“I wish you had my perspective,” he replied with a chuckle.

Liv pushed the mask up over her forehead and glared at him. “I knew the minute I decided to try this that you would come through that screen door. I just knew it.”

“Listen, Jacques Cousteau,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m driving out to Naples to check on one of my patients. Are you interested in coming along?”

“Where's Naples?” she asked as she peeled the mask over her head.

“Less than an hour. But it's worth seeing, if you’re interested.”

“Okay.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then planted her hand on her hip again and raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

Liv raised her hand and flicked her fingers at him. “Go,” she sang. “Go, go, so I can get out of the pool.”

“I’ve seen you in your swimsuit before, you know,” he teased, but her fingers just danced that much faster, pointing the way toward the screen door. “All right. I’m going.”

He sauntered toward the door at a snail's pace for effect. When he heard Liv groan, he broke into a full grin.

“I’m telling your patient, you know. What a terrible doctor you are, making them wait like this.”

Jared shot her a glance over his shoulder, and Liv cried out immediately, “Jared Hunt, turn around and get off this property right this minute.”

He laughed out loud as he opened the screen door and stepped out onto the lawn.

“One hour,” he called.

“O-kay,” she sang back to him.

“Okay then.”

“Go-o.”

“Go-ing.”

“Now-ow.”

“Go-one.”

Jared walked home with that grin plastered across his face the whole way. As he poured himself a cup of coffee, he realized that his face kind of ached. No matter how he tried, however, the smile was going nowhere, and he had Olivia Wallace to blame.

She was just the most adorable creature he’d ever met. Modest and insecure, charming and funny, smart and completely disarming, Liv was what Jared would have created if given the chance to put together the perfect woman.

I’m in real trouble here
, he realized as he strode into his home office and plunked down in the leather desk chair.

He gulped from the warm cup and then set it down on the desk and leaned back into the chair.

“I’ve only known her …” he began, and then fell silent.

This is absurd. She's leaving and going back to Ohio next week. What are you going to do, propose?

Jared's gaze floated to the framed picture of Rand on the corner of the desk. His son's huge, engaging smile always pinched at his heart. When he was a little boy, that smile seemed too big for his little face but, as he grew into it, Rand learned how to master it.

If only he’d use it for good instead of evil
, Jared joked inwardly.

Rand could get just about anything he wanted in life because of that smile, and now his father wondered if that was a blessing or a curse. In fact, he could almost manage to blame that smile for the fact that a young and innocent twenty-two-year-old blonde had agreed to marry him after knowing him for only a few weeks.

He wondered what Shelby's parents had to say about the announcement, and whether they felt a little panicky when they thought about the reality of their daughter pledging her entire life to some professor with a great smile, who would be dragging her an ocean away from the life she’d only just begun to build.

Youth offered a certain advantage to Shelby and Rand that Jared didn’t have. At fifty-five, he certainly couldn’t turn his head and ignore the flags and alarm bells going off at the thought of making such an impulsive commitment, or at the thought of asking someone else to make it. Liv had a life of her own in Ohio. She had friends and a job and a home. Hallie was her best friend. She surely wasn’t going to leave her behind, uproot her entire life, and move more than eight hundred miles
on the off chance that a physical attraction with Jared would turn into something lasting. And yet, even the mere thought of it now summoned a spicy-scented hope inside of him.

Jared groaned. He tilted his head back and clamped his eyes shut and shook his head.

Get a grip, man.

For a moment, he wished he hadn’t given in to the temptation to invite Liv to ride along to see Fletcher in Naples. A couple of hours alone in the car might have been helpful just then. But ever since they’d met, Jared had been making the most of every possible interlude, inviting her to dinner and lunch, out on the boat, even stopping by with no solid reason for doing so. There was something about Olivia Wallace, and he felt uncharacteristically helpless in the fight against it.

Case in point: An hour later, when she opened her front door and stood before him in a teal-blue sundress the color of the Gulf, with her fire-red curls piled upward and an eager smile spread across her porcelain face, Jared sent a quick and silent prayer of thanks upward for the next several hours in her captive company.

The ride to Naples flew by on wings of conversation that never once ebbed. From their marriages, their early lives, his in Chicago and hers in Ohio, to their favorite books and music, one topic to another to another. Nothing was off-limits.

“You’re kidding. You’ve been reading Josie's
Pru
books?”

“Go ahead. Mock me. But there's a depth to those characters,” she defended. “For years, Hallie has been telling me I reminded her of
Prudence the Donkey
, and I have to tell you that I kind of get the comparison now.”

“Do tell.”

“
Prudence
resists change of any kind. She's cautious and awkward and somewhat paralyzed by her own circumstances, whatever they may be.”

Jared glanced over toward Liv. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Are you kidding? I’m a mess. Pru and I were separated at birth.”

“I don’t see that,” he insisted, shaking his head.

“What, then?” she asked, her voice soft with trepidation. “I wonder what you’re seeing that no one else does.”

He made a right on Fifth Avenue Parkway and then eased into traffic as he thought that over.

“The Olivia Wallace I’ve gotten to know is sweet and hopeful,” he explained. “Maybe you strike me as a little cautious, but in a vulnerable and charming way. Paralyzed by your circumstances? Not a chance, lady.”

Liv laughed, and Jared shot her a smile as he pulled into a parking place. Even her laughter tugged at him.

“What is this place?” Liv asked.

“The trolley stops here at 11:48,” he told her. “Fletch will be on it.”

“Fletch?”

“Fletcher Banks was a patient of mine over the summer,” he replied. “He had a mild stroke while visiting his daughter on Sanibel. But she called my office a couple of days ago and said that he hadn’t been to see his own doctor since returning to Naples, and she's concerned. I told her I’d stop by and have a chat with him.”

“He lives on the trolley route?”

“Nope. Rides them. He's lived in Naples for all of his eighty-one years, and he's all about historical facts and stories. You’ll love him.”

Jared grabbed his medical bag off the floor of the back seat and led Liv to the wooden bench at the stop. They sat down, and he glanced at his watch just as the trolley pulled up in front of them.

“11:48,” he said. “Right on time.”

Jared paid the driver as they climbed aboard, and he and Liv sat down in the bench seat across the aisle from Fletcher Banks.

“Fletch. How are you doing?”

The old man grimaced, and then the light of recognition finally flicked on.

“Dr. Hunt? What’re you doing out my way?”

“This is Olivia Wallace, Fletch. She's visiting from Ohio.”

“Pleasure,” Fletcher nodded.

“I thought I’d give her a history lesson on this beautiful city.”

“You? What do you know? You’re a Yankee.”

“Well, maybe you can help me with that.”

Fletcher grinned and stared at his feet. “Rose send you?”

“She's worried, Fletch.”

The old man groaned as he pulled himself to his feet. “C’mon then.”

Jared shot Liv a smile and a nod, and the two of them disembarked and followed Fletcher across the sidewalk to the bench. Jared pressed his finger against Fletcher's wrist to check his pulse, then asked him, “Have you been taking your meds?”

“Yep.”

“Have you had any symptoms since you’ve come home?”

“Nah.”

“No shortness of breath, no racing pulse or headaches?”

“None to speak of.”

Jared produced his stethoscope and slipped it under Fletcher's T-shirt. “Deep breath.” When he’d heard enough, he asked, “What does that mean? ‘None to speak of’?”

“A couple of headaches,” Fletcher admitted.

“Fatigue?”

“I’m eighty-one, Doc. Of course I’m tired.”

Liv chuckled.

“Okay, Fletch. Here's what I recommend,” Jared said. “I’d like you to check in with your regular doctor this week. I can call and get you an appointment, but I need you to commit to me that you’re going to show up.”

Fletcher looked into Jared's eyes for a long moment and then lowered his gaze in surrender. “Yeah, I’ll go.”

“I have your word on that?”

“You do.”

“Because you know I’ll turn right back around and drive down here and take you myself, with Rose in the seat next to me.”

“All right, all right,” the old man twittered. “You tell me when, and I’ll go see Doc Jansen.”

Jared's gaze met Liv's, and she grinned at him.

“That's what I like to hear,” Jared said, tapping Fletcher on the shoulder. “Now where's the best place around here to take you and my friend to lunch?”

The moon hung low in the sky, and its reflection off the Enchanted Pond made the meadow look as if the midday sun was shining down. Some of her new friends were playfully batting around a ball of brush, and Horatio HootOwl watched them from a branch overhead.

All seemed right in the clearing that evening … until Prudence found herself face-to-face with a scowling billy goat with dark, narrowed eyes, that is.