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Prescription For Seduction
Darlene Scalera
WHAT'S THE SEXY DOCTOR DOING WITH THE TOWN VIRGIN?Studly Brady Spencer and shy Eden Frazier–a preposterous pair, you say? How else do you explain the good doctor making late-night house calls at Eden's flower shop? The self-proclaimed last maiden in America denies a dalliance, saying, "I'm still wilting away like yesterday's roses," but this reporter suspects that Doc Brady's got the cure for what ails her! There's only one problem: Like a hothouse flower, Eden's saved herself–for one man, forever–but Brady's vowed to remain Tyler's last standing bachelor….
You’re invited to…
Return to Tyler
Where scandals and secrets are unleashed in a small town and love is found around every corner.…
The unforgettable stories continue with
Prescription for Seduction
Darlene Scalera
Bride of Dreams
Linda Randall Wisdom
And don’t miss two very special Tyler prequels, available from Harlequin Historicals
Night Hawk’s Bride
Jillian Hart
The Nanny
Judith Stacy
Dear Reader,
It’s February—the month of love. And what better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with a Harlequin American Romance novel.
This month’s selection begins with the latest installment in the RETURN TO TYLER series. Prescription for Seduction is what Darlene Scalera offers when sparks fly between a lovely virgin and a steadfast bachelor doctor. The Bride Said, “Surprise!” is another of Cathy Gillen Thacker’s THE LOCKHARTS OF TEXAS, and is a tender tale about a secret child who brings together two long-ago lovers. (Watch for Cathy’s single title, Texas Vows: A McCabe Family Saga, next month from Harlequin Books.)
In Millie Criswell’s charming new romance, The Pregnant Ms. Potter is rescued from a blizzard by a protective rancher who takes her into his home—and into his heart. And in Longwalker’s Child by Debra Webb, a proud Native American hero is determined to claim the child he never knew existed, but first he has to turn the little girl’s beautiful guardian from his sworn enemy into his loving ally.
So this February, treat yourself to all four of our wonderful Harlequin American Romance titles. And in March, look for Judy Christenberry’s Rent a Millionaire Groom, the first book in Harlequin American Romance’s new promotion, 2001 WAYS TO WED.
Wishing you happy reading,
Melissa Jeglinski
Associate Senior Editor
Harlequin American Romance
Prescription for Seduction
Darlene Scalera
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
With love to my cousin, Cindy Meyer, whose compassion has become her career and whose shared giggles and excited whispers two days before Christmas are only one of many memories cherished.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Darlene Scalera is a native New Yorker who graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse University with a degree in public communications. She worked in a variety of fields, including telecommunications and public relations, before devoting herself full-time to romance fiction writing. She was instrumental in forming the Saratoga, New York, chapter of Romance Writers of America and is a frequent speaker on romance writing at local schools, libraries, writing groups and women’s organizations. She currently lives happily ever after in upstate New York with her husband, Jim, and their two children, J.J. and Ariana. You can write to Darlene at P.O. Box 217, Niverville, NY 12130.
Books by Darlene Scalera
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
762—A MAN FOR MEGAN
807—MAN IN A MILLION
819—THE COWBOY AND THE COUNTESS
861—PRESCRIPTION FOR SEDUCTION
Who’s Who in Tyler
Brady Spencer—With all his brothers finally married, only Brady is left to fight off the wily women of Tyler.
Eden Frazier—Can a twenty-seven-year-old maiden who lives with her cat transform herself into a femme fatale?
Caroline Benning—No one knows much about the new waitress at Marge’s Diner.
Cooper Night Hawk—The deputy keeps his eye on all newcomers, especially the suspicious Ms. Benning.
Wayne Donovan—The hunky express deliveryman would love to put his relationship with Eden on the fast track.
Gina Eber—She’s always on the trail of a juicy story to sizzle the pages of the Tyler Citizen.
Nadine—The Hair Affair’s new stylist knows a lot about hairdos and even more about men.
Annabelle Scanlon—The postmistress dishes out the mail—and the latest scandal.
Contents
Chapter One (#u046dbb7a-7d49-50e0-bf7a-26e81248d7be)
Chapter Two (#ubbea16bd-6ace-53a2-92c0-77ee2cc9ccbf)
Chapter Three (#u3a93410c-b0e7-5721-a89d-51cc3fc0951e)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Brady Spencer came to Eden only at night. When the phone was quiet, the front door locked, the last customer gone hours ago. Only the light inside the display refrigerator remained bright. The garden scents seemed stronger.
Eden studied the table before her scattered with foam, floral tape, chicken wire, ribbon, flowers. She picked up a yielding lily and when she saw her hand was trembling, she closed her eyes, feeling foolish. There was a light knock at the back door. He always used the back door. She heard the handle turning, the door opening. The door was left unlocked. Eden opened her eyes, stayed her hands against the cool Formica tabletop.
Even before he opened the door, Brady smelled the sweetness. A sweetness different from blood’s hot smell or the operating room’s white, close scent. He stepped inside, closed the door, took a breath. Heaven would smell like this.
“Eden?” His voice was low, but still heard in the surrounding quiet.
“Doctor.” She appeared in the back room’s archway. In her hand she held a thin-stemmed flower, its large petals furled back, unafraid to reveal its secrets.
“Come in.” The flower pointed the way. “I’m just finishing an arrangement for the front windows.”
Brady smiled. Eden’s lush window displays were legendary. Tomorrow passersby would stop and stare like children in front of a pastry shop.
He followed her. The dark apron that covered her had been left undone in the back, its ties hanging loosely. The shift she wore beneath it was shapeless, a long column moving down her body, unbroken except for the push of small, rounded hips. The apron’s ties swung, and he saw her body’s curves come, change with a single sway, then disappear beneath the pale print. He looked up, realizing the feminine form he’d been ogling was Eden. His interest became unease. He looked away only to see more color, shape, proportion in the tubs, watering cans and jugs of flowers and greens. Spring had just begun in southern Wisconsin, but here, it reigned endless. He breathed in, gathering the composure that had made him one of the most trusted surgeons at Tyler General.
Eden had seen the frown appear on Brady’s face as he’d looked away. She dropped her gaze to the flowers on the table, envying them their beauty. “So another order?” She broke the silence. “Who’s the unsuspecting recipient this time?”
He looked at her. Her face was without makeup, her dark-brown hair pulled tight into a ponytail that stressed the shapes of her features—broad, almost flat cheeks, a colorless mouth. It was an ordinary face on an ordinary woman. She was average in height, only she seemed smaller, swallowed by the apron hanging loose, the formless dress that stretched to the jut of her thin ankles. There mint-green socks wrinkled above dull black loafers, the kind with the wide fit and the puckered seams worn by many of his elderly female patients.
His gaze moved to her hands, pale against the perfection of the flowers. Her wrists were thin. There was a vulnerability about her that made her appear much younger than her years. There was a quiet to her that made her seem much older. Both discouraged ogling. Still he had an urge to kneel and pull up those socks until they climbed smooth up her calves, ending just below her knees that had to be endearingly knobby. His unease crept in again.
She concentrated on the table before her, her shoulders hunched, her head bowed as if she were listening to the flowers. She taped leafy greens to a thin, pointed stick, angled it in among the others, adjusted a slender yellow-and-white bloom. She lifted her gaze back to him. He saw those eyes—large, round and made even more remarkable when compared to the surrounding ordinary features. These eyes didn’t just see, they fascinated, they divined, they reminded one that miracles did exist—all through an undefinable color. Its base was purple, but darker than the frail shade of an iris, lighter than the red-purple of a grape. It wasn’t the purplish-blue of periwinkle or the pale shadow of lilac nor the strong purple prized by royalty. It was a shade that belonged only to Eden.
She smiled, the shape of her face gentling. “Or has the Flower Phantom decided to reveal his identity?”
The Flower Phantom. The name had been coined in Gina Eber’s column in the Tyler Citizen about the recent secret flower deliveries around town. There’d been other anonymous gifts—the motorized toy jeeps to take the children cancer patients to chemotherapy; the DVD players with a complete collection of Jerry Lewis films for long-term care. But it was the flowers everyone remembered the most.
Eden unrolled some wire and clipped it. “Gina’s a good friend of mine, you know. In fact, she’s been stopping by the shop even more frequently.” She met Brady’s gaze.
“You don’t think she knows, do you?”
“She brought up the subject once or twice.” Eden looped a length of ribbon back and forth. “I told her that was privileged information between a florist and her client.”
He heard the unexpected jest in her soft voice. He remembered the push of her hips as she walked, the hint of curves and rounds. He couldn’t look away.
For a moment neither did she. When she finally did, he followed her gaze to the flowers waiting for her. There he saw blooms of purple. He searched for the shade of her eyes. He was a man who liked things defined.
“What color are your eyes?”
Her cheeks flushed, the deep-red seeming to alter her eye color. He hadn’t meant to make her uncomfortable by blurting out the question.
“People tell me it’s violet.” She looked down again, busying herself with the flowers. Only her blush was left exposed.
“Violet.” To most, it was a color. But he knew it as a woman’s name, a name he’d been forbidden to say since the age of eleven.
“Violet.” He said it again defiantly. Once there would’ve been no response inside him. Lately that hadn’t been the case.
He focused on the silent girl in front of him. Seeing the blush still on her cheeks, he chose his words carefully. “Your eyes…they’re unusual.”
She raised her head, not sure if she’d been complimented or diagnosed. She knew she wasn’t beautiful. Beautiful would have been divine. Nor was she ugly. Ugly would have been, at least, interesting. She was plain. Bland as unbuttered macaroni. Except for her eyes. But they were so at odds with the rest of her physical appearance that instead of rescuing her, they only served to confirm that even the gods sometimes made mistakes.
She knew all this before Brady fixed his gaze on her and offered a compliment in the same tone he might use to note the discovery of a rare disease. She also knew how ridiculous she was, imagining his presence here was for any reason other than that she had the most beautiful flowers in Tyler and several miles beyond.
“So what kind of an arrangement would you like to send?” Eden moved the conversation back to business, where it belonged.
He looked at the buckets of eucalyptus and narcissus, the stiff stalks of delphiniums, the clusters of daffodils curving beneath the weight of closed buds. “I want something exotic.” He waved the hands that healed. “Something exciting.”
She didn’t realize she’d sighed aloud until he glanced at her. She covered with a bright smile and a light voice that teased, “Don’t we all?”
His expression went from curious to uncertain. “I suppose.” He moved to inspect the aluminum shelves of vases and foam-filled containers lining the far wall.
His back was to her, yet she didn’t turn to take him in. She didn’t have to. She knew without sight his back’s strong width, his shoulders’ proud slope, the faint pink where the barber had shaved the nape of his neck. She’d had a crush on him since she was eight. She’d been crossing to the park and tripped on the curb. Instead of laughing at her like the other older boys hanging out in the square had done, he’d come and helped her up, asked her if she was all right, his face serious and already adult as he examined her knees. From that moment her heart had been his, even though her head knew her fantasies were futile.
Then he had come into her flower shop late one night over a month ago.
She heard him move. The temptation became too great, and she turned and looked at him. She’d been born without beauty, but every day she created it, surrounded herself with it, gave it to others. Most of all she knew when it was before her.
It was before her now. She looked at him and, for a moment, was adrift.
She looked away before he caught her. As well as she knew beauty, she also knew what she created often fell short of reality, what she craved could never be completely hers.
He asked about a vase. She walked to where he stood.
“This one?” She took the vase off the shelf, its weight cool against her palms. “It has lovely lines, don’t you think? And the size, the balance of the body is certainly strong enough to hold its own with the most exotic mixtures.”
He touched the vase in her hands and nodded approval.
“I hope these exciting flowers aren’t for a patient with a heart condition or high blood pressure.” She kept the conversation friendly. They were, after all, friends. It would have to be enough.
He smiled. She was pleased. He didn’t smile enough. His brows often pulled low as if weighted with worry. Two deep lines angled above his nose, creating a constant stern impression. Some nights, though, she would make small jokes and small talk, and the lines on his face would smooth.
