Christmas At Cupid's Hideaway. Connie Lane

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СКАЧАТЬ couple of months. She was deliriously happy with her husband Noah, and while Maisie glowed at the prospect of becoming a great-grand-other and the satisfaction of having been instrumental in bringing Laurel and Noah together, not having a romantic project to keep her occupied made the old lady chafe.

      It also left her with a lot of time on her hands—a lot of time to decide that Meg’s love life wasn’t what it should be.

      “No news flash there,” Meg mumbled to herself, and because she refused to think about her lack of a love life—just like she’d been refusing to think about it since Ben Lucarelli had cut her heart into little pieces as only an experienced sous chef could—she thought about the Crawfords. And thinking about the Crawfords made her think about the Love Me Tender room. And thinking about Love Me Tender naturally made the commercial she’d heard earlier that morning pop into her head.

      Whenever Meg thought of a song, she couldn’t resist. She couldn’t keep the words inside.

      “Love my Tenders. Love them lots. Shaped like little steaks.” Meg walked into the lobby, singing the now-familiar-to-everyone-and-his-brother words with all the enthusiasm of the comical dog in the commercial. “Love my Tenders. Eat them all. They’re not fried, they’re—”

      When she saw that the guy standing at the desk—the guy who must be Gabriel Morrison—was staring at her as if she’d just strolled in stark naked, she jerked to a stop in front of the ten-foot tall Christmas tree near the front desk and stared right back at him.

      And the thought that she wouldn’t mind seeing him stark naked sent little sparks of electricity tingling along her spine.

      Meg cringed at the realization, but even realizations and the cringes they brought along with them weren’t enough to erase the impressions that flashed through her head.

      Gabe Morrison was gorgeous enough to be a man-of-the-month: tall, broad-shouldered, hair the color of the chocolate pudding in her soon-to-be-famous (she hoped) pie and eyes that reminded her of brandy, the secret ingredient in her spinach-salad dressing.

      He had the kind of face that couldn’t fail to make a woman’s heart flutter. Not as craggy as it was chiseled. Not weathered but tanned, and not a store-bought tan, either. He obviously spent a lot of time outdoors in the wind and the sun, and for the nano-second Meg needed to take it all in, she wondered if he might be a sailor. If the expensive luggage he held in each hand hadn’t set her straight on that notion, the Porsche she saw through the front window did. Most sailors, even the wealthy ones who vacationed on the island, left their expensive sports cars at home.

      Good-looking or not, there was no mistaking that Gabe Morrison was worn to a frazzle. His shoulders were slumped inside a green golf shirt with some expensive designer logo over the heart. There were dark shadows almost the same color as his faded jeans under his eyes, and a crease in the middle of his forehead that told her he frowned far too hard and too often. In spite of his expensive haircut, the left side of his hair stood up on end, as if he’d been tugging at it. His jaw was square and covered with a shadow of dark stubble. As he stared at her, it went a little slack.

      For the second time in just a few minutes, Meg found herself on the defensive. It was a feeling she didn’t like, one she’d never been prone to feeling back in the days before her life had been whipped out from under her like the tablecloth in the old magician-pulls-the-cloth-away-and-leaves-the-dishes-on-the-table trick. Feeling it only made her more defensive. So did the barely controlled animosity on Gabe’s face.

      “What?” Eyes narrowed, Meg closed the gap between them. “Something wrong with my singing?”

      She knew the answer to her own question. Fact of the matter was, Meg Burton had a terrible singing voice. She’s been banned from the high-school choir and asked (politely) not to participate in the caroling either at the island’s real Christmas bash or at all the parties planned for this week. But though she might’ve been ready to hear a critique of her dubious talents from the people she’d known all her life, she’d be damned if she was going to put up with it from a perfect stranger. Even if perfect was the operative word.

      She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “So, you’re going to tell me my singing stinks, right? And then you’re going to ask me for a room. And I’m going to remind you that you’re only here because, from what I’ve heard, this is the last room left on the island. So if you want a place to stay tonight—one that isn’t that sweet little car of yours parked in the no-parking zone in front of the inn—you may want to reconsider. Now, let’s try again. What?” She paused just long enough to make sure he got the message. “Something wrong with my singing?”

      “Your singing is fine.” With a sigh that seemed to be torn from somewhere deep inside him, Gabe set down his luggage and stretched, working a kink out of his neck. Big points for him. Even though he was clearly trifling with the truth, he said it with nearly enough conviction to make Meg believe he was sincere. Nearly.

      “It’s not your voice,” he said and he didn’t even try to hide a shudder of revulsion. “It’s that song. That commercial.”

      “Love Me Tenders! What a hoot!” Meg hurried around to the far side of the desk. When she’d been on the mainland the day before, she’d stopped for a quick bite to eat and had sweet-talked the teenager at the drive-through window into one of the Duke the Dogs usually reserved for their kid customers. She grabbed it now from where she’d tossed it under the front desk and flashed it at Gabe. “Isn’t he adorable?”

      It was the wrong thing to say. Gabe’s face paled a little. A muscle at the base of his jaw jumped. He took one look at cute little Duke and his top lip curled.

      “Duke the Dog is spoiled, temperamental and addicted to sugar in any form,” he said from between clenched teeth. “Besides that, Duke isn’t a duke at all. That’s just a stage name. Duke’s real name is Diana, and she’s a bitch.”

      “Imagine that!” Meg leaned her elbows against the counter and propped her head in her hands. Okay, so the guy was gorgeous. He was also a stick-in-the-mud and she couldn’t help herself. She just had to tease him. She held up her little stuffed Duke and turned him so the light of the pink bulbs on the Christmas tree sparkled against his gaudy jumpsuit. “He looks great in sequins.”

      “You think?”

      “And he sings like an angel. No! Wait! Are you going to tell me—” She gave Gabe a wide-eyed look and wondered if he knew she was kidding. “Are you going to tell me that’s not really Duke singing?”

      He managed what was almost a smile. “It’s not Duke…er, Diana…singing,” he said. “Diana can’t carry a tune.”

      “Then Diana and I, we have something in common.”

      “You’re lots better-looking.”

      The compliment was so matter-of-fact and so unexpected, it almost made Meg blush. Rather than let him know it—and rather than let him know how easily he’d turned the head of a woman who, at least up until a few minutes before, had been pretty good at keeping her head on straight—she reached for the guest register and slid it across the desk toward him. He took the hint, or if he didn’t, he didn’t press the issue. At least not until he was done signing his name.

      When he was, he pushed the book back over to Meg. Was it an accident that he held on to the register? That he didn’t flinch when his hand stopped so close to hers?

      Meg wasn’t about to even consider it. Just because a good-looking guy happened to СКАЧАТЬ