Loe raamatut: «Christmas At Cupid's Hideaway»

Chapter One

He didn’t save the voice-mail messages. Why bother? The last thing Gabriel Morrison needed right now was the all-time roughest, toughest tag team of Dennis and Latoya. Instead, he tossed his cell phone down on the passenger seat of his Porsche, and, anxious to get his mind on anything but work and the office back in LA, he flicked on the radio.

Love my Tenders.

Love them lots.

Shaped like little steaks.

Love my Tenders.

Eat them all.

They’re not fried, they’re baked.

Gabe dropped his head against the steering wheel and groaned.

Bad enough he was stuck in a traffic jam that looked to be a couple miles long.

Worse that his air conditioner was on the fritz, he was almost out of gas and he was driving (or more specifically, idling) in the center lane between two eighteen-wheelers that dwarfed his car and cut off any chance of getting a breath of fresh air, even with the top down. Way worse when every time he checked, there were more and more messages from the office. More and more messages it was getting harder and harder to dodge.

And now he had to listen to the Love Me Tenders commercial?

Insult to injury.

Gabe clicked off the car radio and drummed his fingers against the dash that was quickly heating up from the intensity of the afternoon sun.

Funny, he’d always thought of Ohio as a cold place. If he was still in Ohio.

As if it would give him some connection to reality, Gabe craned his neck and looked around. He didn’t see a sign that gave him any hint about where he was, but up ahead, he did see a break in the traffic. Not much to go on, but it was something. And right about now, something was better than nothing.

The next time the huge truck in front of him started to crawl forward, Gabe waited for his opportunity. He let the space between the vehicles widen and while the truck on his right was still grinding into gear, he punched the accelerator and shot into the open space. It turned out to be an exit lane and once he was off the freeway, he took the opportunity to look for a gas station. Easier said than done. By the time he saw a familiar red-and-yellow sign up ahead, he was in another line of traffic. This one wasn’t moving any faster than the last.

At least there were no eighteen-wheelers around.

Gabe glanced over at the late-model minivan next to him. It was packed to the gills with luggage, and while the adults in the front seat seemed resigned to the fate of waiting in line for who-knew-what, the three pint-sized passengers in the back had obviously had enough. Too keyed up to sit still, they bounced in place and tossed a stuffed animal back and forth between them.

“Hey, dude!” The kid on the passenger side couldn’t have been older than seven. He rolled down the back window and waved a toy stuffed bulldog in Gabe’s direction.

Gabe cringed. He recognized Duke the Dog immediately. Then again, he suspected most people would. Whether they wanted to or not.

After just six weeks on the air, the Love Me Tenders dog-food commercial had become a cultural icon of sorts that had taken on a life, and a cult following, all its own. A lovable, cuddly Duke, star of the commercial, was available full-size in toy stores everywhere. A miniature variety was being given away in record numbers along with the kids’ meals at a popular fast-food chain.

The kids in the minivan had the Cadillac version: an almost-life-sized Duke, complete with sequined jumpsuit and black ducktail wig, the outfit he wore in the commercial as he crooned the now-famous words to a tune that was just catchy enough to have the country singing along. And just different enough from the original to avoid any nasty lawsuits.

“Hey, dude! Look!” The little boy wagged Duke in Gabe’s direction. “It’s the Love Me Tenders dog. Isn’t he cute?”

“Love Me Tenders! Love Me Tenders!” his little sisters sang next to him.

And Gabe was sure that somewhere between LA and wherever he was sitting now, he must have died. Died and gone to hell.

Not ready to accept his fate—or maybe just to get away from his own past and his own thoughts—he pulled onto the shoulder and shot past the waiting traffic. He took the first turn-off he came to and drove as fast as the state (and he knew for sure it was Ohio now because he saw a State Trooper) allowed.

A few minutes later, he found himself at the entrance to a ferry dock.

“Islands? In Ohio?” It was news to Gabe but he didn’t stop to question it. He didn’t hesitate, either. It looked like the ferry was just getting ready to leave the dock and he joined the last of the cars waiting to get on.

At this point, he didn’t much care where he was headed. Anywhere was better than nowhere.

And for the last week, he’d been headed nowhere fast.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, a new guest?” Meg Burton pulled open the oven door and drew out a tray of cookies sprinkled with red-and-green sugar. She set them on the rack she’d left on the counter in the Cupid’s Hideaway kitchen before she turned back to her grandmother. “You can’t have a new guest checking in. You’re completely booked. It’s Christmas in July week, and the tourists are everywhere. You’ve been booked for months.”

Maisie Templeton breathed in the aroma and gave the cookies an approving smile. “I was booked,” she said. “The Crawfords.” Maisie was the least inhibited person Meg had ever known. Her grandmother was over seventy, but that didn’t stop her from pursuing her life’s passion: Cupid’s Hideaway, an island bed-and-breakfast inn known for its unique decor, its loyal clientele and the fact that the fluffy little old lady who owned it didn’t just encourage romance, she aided and abetted it.

But at the mention of the Crawfords, even Maisie’s cheeks went a little dusky under the coating of pink blusher she wore. “You remember them. They visited last summer, around this time. They were the ones who—”

“The ones we had to call the police about!” Meg rolled her eyes. She remembered the Crawfords, all right. So did everyone else on South Bass Island. The Crawfords and their exploits were already legendary in the annals of island gossip. Medium-aged. Mediumsized. Medium-temperament people. Bland as TV dinners. Or at least that was what Meg had thought when she’d seen them arrive.

Who would’ve guessed that a little game they’d been playing with a pair of furry handcuffs and a bottle of peppermint-flavored massage oil—which they’d purchased from the Cupid’s Hideaway gift store—would result in not one but both Crawfords getting stuck in the closet of the Love Me Tender room?

Meg stifled a laugh, but only because she remembered how upset Maisie had been by the whole incident. Not that she was embarrassed. It would take a whole lot more than Mary and Glenn Crawford’s wild imaginations to embarrass Maisie. No, her grandmother had been honestly distressed. After all, she believed that as innkeeper, it was her duty to make sure her guests enjoyed their stay at Cupid’s Hideaway. And the very idea that they’d had to call not only the island police but half the volunteer fire department just to get the Crawfords unstuck….

Meg hid a half smile by turning back to her cookies. She tested the temperature with one finger and carefully lifted each one off the cookie sheet with a spatula. “What, they got arrested somewhere for something they were up to?”

“No. No. Not arrested.” Behind her, she heard Maisie pour a cup of coffee. “They had to cancel. Something about appearing on a TV show. ‘Life’s Most Embarrassing Moments.’”

“More power to them.” Meg finished with the cookies and wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing. She leaned against the counter, accepting the china mug of coffee Maisie offered. “So how many more for breakfast tomorrow?” she asked.

“Just one.” Maisie poured a mug of coffee for herself. Using sterling silver sugar tongs, she added three lumps, then enough cream to make an ordinary person’s cholesterol jump at least a dozen points. But if there was one thing Meg knew about Maisie, it was that she was far from ordinary. As if she needed further proof, Maisie grinned at Meg over the rim of her cup.

Meg had seen that look before. All twinkles and smiles. All sweetness and light. She knew it meant Maisie was up to no good.

“A man,” Maisie said. Her blue eyes glowed. “A man named Gabriel Morrison. He’s checking in. By himself.”

There was nothing for Meg to get defensive about. She knew that. Which didn’t explain why her shoulders stiffened and her stomach tensed. “So?” She sounded defensive, too, and she gave herself a mental kick in the pants. “So you’re telling me this because…”

“I’m telling you this because it isn’t often we get single men here at the Hideaway. It’s a honeymoon spot, a romantic spot. Our guests are usually couples. And when couples check in here, they usually have their minds on—”

“I know exactly what they have their minds on.” The exact same thing Meg had been trying not to have her mind on since she’d returned to the island after trying life on the mainland. Rather than explain it to Maisie, as she’d tried to explain it so many times before, she headed to the refrigerator. She counted the eggs, made sure there was enough butter, did a quick survey of the pecans, raisins and cream she’d bought to make a batch of her famous sticky breakfast rolls. Satisfied that she was all set, she closed the refrigerator and turned around.

Of course, Maisie didn’t back down an inch. She was stationed next to the marble-topped table where Meg made bread, and she had the nerve to look as innocent as the baby goldfinches that chirped their heads off in the nest right outside the kitchen window.

“What they have on their minds isn’t what I want to have on my mind,” she reminded Maisie. “I told you, Grandma, I’ve given up waiting for Prince Charming. Prince Charming has left the building. And I’m pretty sure he’s left the island, the state and the continent. Besides…” Because it didn’t look as if Maisie believed her protests any more than Meg did, she decided to change course. “Just because this Gabriel Morrison is coming here by himself doesn’t mean a thing. He might be meeting someone.”

“I don’t think so. He tried for a room at the hotel over near the park. They’re booked. Christmas in July, you know.”

“And that means he’s not meeting someone because…”

“Because he would’ve asked for a room for two. And when Janice from the hotel called to see if we had any rooms available—”

“You asked.”

“Of course I asked.” Maisie pulled herself up to her full five-foot, one-inch height and threw back shoulders that were just this side of scrawny. “It’s my duty. As innkeeper. I have to know who’s staying here. And if a man’s bringing a woman, it’s my duty—as innkeeper—to remind him that we have a wide selection of products in the Love Shack designed to please them both.”

“Yeah.” This time, Meg couldn’t help herself. She had to laugh. “Like they pleased the Crawfords?”

“They were smiling when they left here.” Maisie’s eyes twinkled. “But that hardly matters. The Crawfords were the exception to the rule.” Her grandmother glanced from Meg’s brightly painted toenails peeking out of her sandals to the curly red hair she’d wound into a long braid. “Kind of like a beautiful woman who refuses to get out and try to meet a man.”

“Grandma, I told you. I’m just not ready. Not yet. Someday maybe I will be. Someday, when I find someone different.” Although it was ancient—and best forgotten history—Meg felt the familiar pang of emptiness. “Someone who isn’t Ben.”

Before Maisie could respond and remind her, as she always did, that the past was past and the future was what mattered, the little brass bell inside the front door rang, announcing their guest. How she’d timed it so perfectly, Meg couldn’t imagine, but Maisie chose that exact moment to hurry into the wide pantry on the far side of the kitchen. She waved Meg toward the front of the inn. “Get that for me, will you?” she called.

Meg sighed and slipped her apron over her head. She knew a losing battle when she saw one. She ought to; she’d been fighting—and losing—battles with Maisie all her life. She didn’t exactly hold Maisie’s persistence against her. She couldn’t. Though Maisie could be meddlesome, she was well-intentioned. There were only three things she put more energy into than Cupid’s Hideaway: Doc Ross, the retired family practitioner she spent most of her free time with, and—now that Maisie’s only daughter and son-in-law were retired and living in Florida—her two granddaughters. Laurel, Meg’s older sister, was married now and expecting her first baby in a 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 be (maybe) coming on to her didn’t mean she had to melt like a pat of butter in a hot skillet. Just because he was (maybe) unattached didn’t mean she was anything close to interested. Just because she (suddenly) couldn’t catch her breath didn’t mean anything. Not anything except that it was going to be a warm day and that the Ohio humidity was headed from sticky all the way to downright sultry.

Just because Gabe (definitely) let his gaze slip from her hair to her face and from her face to her neck and from her neck to her breasts and then back up again, didn’t mean she had to feel self-conscious about the smear of flour on her cheek, or the freckles sprinkled across her nose like cinnamon, or her electric-blue, sleeveless sundress, the one cut just low enough to show a little more skin than any guest had a right to see.

When he got around to looking her in the eye again, she was ready for him. “Are you done now—” Although she’d watched him sign his name, she glanced down at the guest register anyway. It seemed like a better option than drowning in those brandy-colored eyes. “—Mr. Morrison?”

“You can call me Gabe.” One corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. “And I can call you—”

“Meg.” It was a better answer than anytime. Which, for some unaccountable reason, was what she was tempted to say. In fact, she was tempted to say a lot of things. Like how tired he looked and how stiff his muscles seemed and how—once long ago and far, far away—she’d been known as the best sore-muscle massager on the east coast.

Like it or not, thinking about Baltimore and massaging sore muscles made Meg think of Ben. Sore muscles, sore egos. And that brought up a whole lot of memories that had been and still were a sore point.

Rather than risk even the remote chance of adding more painful experiences to her history, she decided it was smarter to keep the conversation on safer subjects. “How do you know all that stuff, anyway?” she asked Gabe. “About Duke and Diana. Was it in the latest issue of People or something?”

“Actually…” For just a second, she saw the weight of the world lift from his shoulders. As if he was used to receiving compliments and the rewards that went along with them, he stood tall and flashed her a smile so devastating, she found herself catching her breath. Just as quickly, the expression dissolved and he was back to looking tired and worried. “People? Yeah, something like that.”