Stranded At Cupid's Hideaway

Beyond the point of knowing or caring if what she was about to do looked as much like a retreat as it felt, Laurel darted from behind the counter and headed for the door.

“Where are we going?” she heard Noah call from behind her.

On her way past the front desk, Laurel grabbed the first set of room keys she could get her hands on. She glanced at the name etched into the heart-shaped brass key chain. “Almost Paradise,” she told him.

Behind her, she heard Noah’s footsteps against the antique Oriental rug. She felt his arms go around her waist, holding her in place. At the same time, his breath brushed against her neck, soft and warm. “Cool,” he murmured. “I have to admit, I wasn’t really planning for that little kiss to turn into a full-scale seduction, but if you’re willing…”

This time, Laurel did screech. She screeched her annoyance and her frustration. She screeched not because of Noah’s suggestion, but because what he was suggesting sounded good to her. Way too good.

“You are crazy.” Laurel spun and darted out of his reach. She slapped the room keys into Noah’s hand. “If you think I’m going to go up to that room with you and—”

“Isn’t that what you just said?” Noah looked from the key to the stairs that wound to the second floor to Laurel. He gave her a lopsided, devilish smile, the kind that in the old days packed the magic punch that could make her do anything. “Let me get this straight. You kiss a guy—”

“I didn’t kiss you, you kissed me.”

“You kiss a guy and you’re having a really good time and—”

“I wasn’t having a good time.” Laurel set her jaw. “You’re imagining that part of it.”

“You’re having a really good time and then you make a move. Not just any move. You move quickly, conclusively, dare I say…” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Enthusiastically toward the lobby.”

“Not enthusiastically,” she insisted. “I was never enthusiastic.”

“You move enthusiastically, a woman with a mission. You can’t wait. You can’t wait to get out of the gift shop. You can’t wait to get across the lobby. You can’t wait to—”

“Oh, I can wait, all right. I can wait until hell freezes over.”

“And you grab a set of room keys and you tell me we’re headed to paradise and you mean…What?” He looked at her, his expression hovering halfway between I dare you to try and talk your way out of this one and Go ahead, make my day.

“What I mean…” Laurel moved back one step. Two steps. It was well past time to put some distance between herself and Noah. Some distance between herself and the memories he had a way of evoking, like a magician conjuring something beautiful and tempting where only moments before there had been nothing but thin air. “I mean it’s time for you to go to your room and stay there.”

“You mean…” Noah gave her the sort of wide-eyed, dramatic, smart-aleck look that told her he was going to milk her discomfort for all it was worth. “You mean…good night?”

“I mean good night. What else would I mean? How could any woman in her right mind mean anything else? I mean good night. I mean goodbye. Because I won’t be here in the morning, and that’s when you’ll be leaving.” She hurried to the other side of the front desk. At least with a few hundred pounds of solid mahogany between herself and Noah, she felt as if she stood a fighting chance. “You’ll find everything you need in your room,” she told him, using the kind of honeyed tones that seemed to suit an innkeeper. “Towels. Soap. Shampoo.” She glanced at the little pink shopping bag he’d managed to bring along with him from the Love Shack. “I see you’ve got everything else covered.”

“I do.” Noah moved toward the desk, and Laurel found herself automatically moving back. Even then, he managed to reach across the sign-in book and the room keys and the pile of mail she hadn’t finished sorting. Gently, he touched her arm. His cocky grin softened and so did his voice. “Take it easy, Laurel,” he said. “It was only a kiss.”

Only a kiss?

Laurel could hardly believe her ears. Only a kiss? That? What happened between them in the Love Shack was only a kiss like Pavarotti was only some Italian guy who liked to sing in the shower.

She shook off the thought. And the memories. And Noah’s hand. She supposed she should be grateful that he’d laid it on the line. It was only a kiss. At least to him. At least she knew where he stood. At least she knew where she stood, and where she stood was on the edge of an abyss. She could take a step forward and free-fall headlong into the void. She knew what waited for her there. For a while she’d feel as if she was floating, as if she was flying, and while it lasted, it would be awesome. Like the feeling she had the first time someone called her doctor and the buzz of Fourth of July fireworks and Christmas morning all rolled into one.

But sooner or later she’d land, and when she did, she knew she’d land hard. There was nothing waiting for her but a rocky pit and nothing as sure to make her forget the good times as the bad times.

She had to choose and she had to do it right here and now. She could take the step and start on a dizzying trip that was sure to end with nothing but heartbreak. Or she could convince herself that Noah was right. It was only a kiss.

“Only a kiss, huh?” Laurel congratulated herself—she sounded nearly as nonchalant about the whole thing as he did. “That wasn’t only a kiss, Noah. That was an aberration. A deviation. An anomaly. A freak of nature, like two-headed snakes and those fish that live deep in the ocean where there’s no light so they have these antenna things…” She wiggled her fingers over her head. “And these sort of little lightbulb thingies that flash so they can see where they’re going and—”

“I get the message!” Noah laughed and held up one hand in surrender. “I’m sorry. Honest. I wouldn’t have kissed you if I knew it was going to make you so nervous.”

“I am not nervous.” Laurel tucked her hands behind her back before he could see that they were shaking. She forced herself to look Noah in the eye. “I don’t get nervous,” she told him. “Not about things as inconsequential as that.”

“Of course not,” he agreed. Looking at her looking at him, the smile faded from his face, and he glanced away.

That was a first. Laurel made a mental note. Noah was never the first to back down from anything. Interested, she tipped her head and watched him shift the shopping bag from one hand to the other. Was it her imagination, or had a little of the swagger gone out of Noah? It must have been a trick of the soft pink lighting. She could have sworn he looked as disconcerted by what had happened in the Love Shack as she was feeling.

“I don’t want you to get the wrong impression,” he said. “I don’t want you to think that I was expecting that you—”

“No!” Laurel jumped in to interrupt as quickly as she could. She didn’t need Noah to spell it out for her. She didn’t need him to detail exactly what he’d been expecting. She didn’t want to think about what he’d been expecting. Or what she’d been expecting in return. Or what she’d been expecting him to expect.

“I mean, I don’t want you to think that I thought I could just waltz in here after four years and—”

“Of course not.” Laurel decided it was better to agree with him than it was to risk further discussion. Kissing her former fiancé within minutes of running into him after a long separation and a nasty breakup was not the kind of thing a woman wanted to discuss in detail. At least, not with her former fiancé.

Laurel wasn’t prepared for the stab of regret that followed fast on the thought. She could take the surprise and the anger that was part of the package of seeing Noah again. She could deal with the embarrassment she felt at losing her head and giving in to the potent pleasures of his kiss. But regret…

She pulled in a slow breath and let it out.

Regret used to be her best friend. It was one friend she didn’t want to get chummy with again.

Holding fast to the thought, she raised her chin. “Good night, Dr. Cunningham,” she said.

For a second, it looked like Noah wanted to say something. She watched his lips part and his eyes spark, the way they always did when he was headed into some particularly interesting discussion. He apparently changed his mind. Hanging on to the shopping bag, he headed to the stairs. “Good night, Dr. Burton.”

Laurel didn’t watch him go upstairs. There was something just a little too twisted about enjoying the sight of that nice, tight rear of his.

“Don’t need it. Don’t want it,” Laurel mumbled to herself. Maybe if she said it often enough, one of these days she’d finally convince herself it was true. Before she could forget it, she moved to the front of the desk and hurried through the routine Maisie had taught her to follow each night—check to make sure the fire was out, check to make sure nothing was cooking in the kitchen, check to make sure the doors were locked. When it was all taken care of, Laurel grabbed her car keys off the counter in the kitchen and her jacket from where she’d tossed it over one of the kitchen chairs. She thought about stopping to say good-night to Maisie and Doc Ross and decided against it. Something told her they had other things on their minds.

Things she refused to have on her mind.

Laurel headed out of the kitchen and across the lobby. She’d left her car parked in front of the inn so she decided to go that way and lock the front door behind her. On her way through, she flicked off the overhead chandelier and flicked on the couple small stained-glass lamps Maisie left burning all night. She slipped into her lightweight jacket, turned toward the front door and ran headlong into Noah.

“What are you doing?” Laurel pressed a hand to her heart and jumped back a step. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

He gave her a small smile of apology. “What I’m trying to do,” he said, “is get into my room.” He jingled his key at her. “Doesn’t work,” he said.

“Doesn’t work?” Laurel plucked the key chain out of Noah’s hand and held it up to the light. “Almost Paradise.” She read the room name on the brass heart. “Are you sure you were at the right room?”

“I can read signs,” he said, a bit of sarcasm creeping into his voice. “And I’m pretty good at unlocking doors. One of life’s basic skills. But I’ve been trying the door for the last five minutes, and it’s not working. I didn’t want to bother you, but…well, I don’t think the place will ever get a five-star rating if you leave your guests sleeping in the hallway.”

He was right. Or at least it looked as if he was right. Laurel gave Noah a quick once-over, as if the assessment would tell her if he was telling the truth. “You’re not trying to trick me, are you?”

“Scout’s honor.” Noah crossed his heart. “Besides, what would I possibly be trying to trick you into? Get you up to the room? Lock you in? Take advantage of you?” He laughed, and Laurel bristled at the sound. Was there something so ludicrous about the thought of him taking advantage of her? Before she could answer the question, Noah gave her a friendly pat on the back. “Lighten up, Laurel,” he said. He leaned a little closer and grinned. “It was only a kiss, remember?”

“Right.” Telling herself not to forget it, Laurel led the way up the stairs. Almost Paradise was the first room on the left, and she stopped outside the door. Maisie had opened the inn eighteen months earlier, and by now, Laurel was used to the place. She was used to the wacky decor and the titillating gift shop, used to her grandmother’s sometimes screwy, sometimes explicitly suggestive gimmicks for adding a little romance to the lives of the people who came to stay there. But of course, Noah wasn’t. While Laurel tried the key, Noah eyed the sign outside the door, the one that looked like it had been carved from a tree branch. The words Almost Paradise were engraved into the wood in undulating letters. They were partly obscured by the fat, satisfied-looking snake wound around the branch. Above the wooden snake on a second branch was a bright red apple.

Noah didn’t comment. It was just as well. If he thought the sign was bizarre…

Laurel set aside the thought and turned the key in the lock. It worked just fine. But the door didn’t open.

“That’s funny,” she said. She wrinkled her nose, thinking through the problem. “This door never sticks. The door in Love Me Tender, now that door always sticks. But this one…” She tried turning the handle again, lifting a little this time, thinking that might help. It didn’t.

“The key works.” She locked the door, then used the key again to show Noah there was no problem there. “But the door…” She put her shoulder to the door and pushed. “It’s stuck.”

“Here. Let me help.”

Before Laurel could decide it was a bad idea for Noah to step up right beside her and lean against the door with her, he was already doing it. “On three,” he said. “One…two…three!”

They pushed together, and the door popped open. Unfortunately, neither Laurel nor Noah was ready for it. They staggered into the room together, and Laurel fought to regain her footing. It would have worked nicely if someone hadn’t left one of the tropical plants that should have been by the window in the middle of the floor.

The force of opening caused the door to slam against the wall, then swing shut behind them. Even though two of the walls in the room were floor-to-ceiling glass blocks, it was past sunset, and they were facing the lake. The room was dark. Laurel saw the plant at the last second. She sidestepped it, pivoted. She would have been fine if she hadn’t tripped over her own feet. She heard herself let out a yelp of surprise, felt herself falling. She braced her arms to stop herself from hitting the floor and waited to feel the impact.

It never happened.

From behind her, she felt Noah’s arms go around her waist. He caught her so fast, he knocked the wind out of her, and while she struggled to catch her breath, he lifted her, held her. And completely lost his balance.

“Hang on,” she heard Noah warn, but by that time, it was too late. Fortunately for her bones, she landed on her back on the bed. Unfortunately for the rest of her, Noah landed on his stomach right on top of her.

Above her, she heard Noah try to catch his breath. She saw him smile. He adjusted his weight against her. “You folks have a great way of making guests feel welcome. Is this what you call room service?”

“This is what I call annoying.” Laurel tried to squirm out from under him. It was a bad plan from the start. Squirming only made her breasts scrape against Noah’s rock-hard chest. Squirming only made her legs tangle with his. Squirming brought her hips in direct contact with his, and direct contact told her more about the situation than she wanted to know. Noah hadn’t changed. He’d always told her that she could arouse him at the drop of a hat. There were no hats dropping at the moment, but that didn’t seem to make much of a difference.

“It’s only a bed,” Laurel told him, the emphasis on only.

“Uh-huh.” Noah settled himself more comfortably, his hands on either side of her. “And it’s only a little physical contact.”

“You bet.” Laurel hoped the breathy voice she heard wasn’t coming out of her. It was hard to be sure when she was feeling so light-headed. Hard to get her bearings when her heart was pounding so violently she was sure the entire island could hear it. “Only a little physical contact,” she agreed. “And it’s going to stop right now.” She braced her hands against Noah’s chest and pushed, and when he sat up, laughing, she thanked her lucky stars and whatever guardian angels watched over doctors with more lust in their hearts than they had brains in their heads.

Laurel tugged her sweater into place and sat up. She knew Cupid’s Hideaway as well as she knew her own house in town and she knew there was a lamp close by. She leaned forward, reaching for the lamp on the bedside table. “Let’s get some lights turned on,” she said, and even to her own ears, her voice sounded too tight and her words sounded a little too rushed and formal. “Then you can get settled for the night.” She turned the switch on the lamp, and nothing happened.

“What the heck?” Laurel tried again. “The bulb’s burned out,” she grumbled. Moving carefully in the dark, she stood. “Maisie keeps more lightbulbs in the bathroom,” she told Noah. “You stay here. I’ll just go…Ouch!” Her shin slammed into a second potted plant, one she swore wasn’t in the middle of the floor the last time she’d been in the room. She rubbed the spot where she knew there would be a bruise by morning. “I’ll get a bulb.”

Carefully, Laurel negotiated her way through the room. Even in daylight, finding a path through Almost Paradise could be a challenge. The room had been designed by Maisie and brought to life by an architect who was skeptical at best. Not a romantic and not possessing Maisie’s imagination or her fondness for fantasy, he didn’t understand why a room needed winding paths covered with carpet that looked like grass and bordered with tropical foliage. He didn’t understand about the waterfall, either, and listening for the gurgle so she could maneuver around it, Laurel headed into the bathroom. She hit the light switch at the same time she heard a splash. Noah barked out a curse.

Laurel spun around just in time to see him ankle-deep in the pond that took up one corner of the room.

She fought to control a smile. “I told you not to move,” she said.

“You told me not to move. You didn’t tell me there was a lake in the middle of the room. Damn!” Noah lifted up one foot and watched water drip off the leg of his expensive trousers.

“You didn’t hurt any of the fish, did you?”

He glanced at the water, then at Laurel, and even though the room was bathed only with the light that seeped from the bathroom, she could see the flush of anger and embarrassment that stained his face. “The fish are fine.” He shook one leg and stepped out of the pond. “I don’t suppose you could toss me a—”

“Towel.” Laurel already had one in her hand. She lobbed it to him before she turned to look for a lightbulb in the vanity below the sink. Retrieving one, she headed into the bedroom.

“What the hell kind of place is this?” She found Noah looking around the room, his expression as incredulous as his pant leg was wet.

Smiling, Laurel got rid of the old lightbulb, screwed in the new one and flicked on the lamp next to the bed. The light brought the room to life, and just as she expected, Noah looked more amazed than ever.

Not only were the walls made out of glass blocks, the ceiling above the bed was a skylight. There were tropical plants everywhere, and as Noah had already discovered, a small pond in the corner, complete with a waterfall and a family of goldfish.

One eyebrow raised, Noah glanced Laurel’s way. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not me.” She smiled. “Maisie. And Maisie’s never kidding. Not when it comes to Cupid’s Hideaway. This is her version of paradise.”

“More like—” Noah didn’t finish the comparison. He didn’t have to. He untied his wing tips, stepped out of them and poured the water that filled his right shoe into the pond. He peeled off his sock and laid it on the rocks that surrounded the pond.

“I didn’t bring a suitcase, remember?” He undid his belt while he gave Laurel a beseeching look. “I don’t suppose you folks have bathrobes or something for guests to use.”

The request echoed in Laurel’s head. She might have been listening to it if she wasn’t so busy watching Noah. She’d forgotten how sure and capable his hands were. He unfastened his belt with the kind of quick economy of movement he used to do everything else. His fingers were long and tapered, the kind of fingers she’d always thought would be better suited to a surgeon or a musician than they were to a professor. She’d forgotten that, too. Too bad she hadn’t forgotten the little thrill she’d always felt as she watched him get undressed. Or the tiny flickers of desire that always followed when she thought that Noah getting undressed usually meant her getting undressed. And when they were both undressed…

Laurel yanked herself back to reality. Just in time to keep herself from succumbing to too many vivid memories. Not in time to keep Noah from knowing exactly what she was thinking. He’d stopped what he was doing—thank goodness—and he was looking at her, his eyes sparking a suggestion and his lips quirked into a smile that told her the suggestion was suggestive.

The very thought was intriguing. And as bad an idea as Laurel had ever had.

Apparently, Noah felt the same way. At the same time she pulled herself from the brink, he turned his back on her to unzip his pants.

“Bathrobes. Check.” Before she could convince herself there was any merit in doing anything else, Laurel darted into the bathroom. Maisie was especially proud of the Hideaway’s bathrobes. She didn’t scrimp when it came to the Hideaway, and the bathrobes were a perfect example. They were thick and comfortable, and each one had a cute little cupid embroidered over the heart. They were supposed to be for her guests’ use while they were at the inn, but more often than not, her guests purchased them before they left.

The bathrobes were always hung in the same place, on hooks behind the bathroom door. Laurel reached behind the door and grabbed what was hanging there. She knew from the start that what she’d retrieved wasn’t a bathrobe. It wasn’t big or heavy or plush enough. In fact, it was positively tiny. But she was already on her way to the bedroom before she realized exactly what she had in her hands.

Under normal circumstances, Laurel didn’t embarrass easily. But ever since she’d walked into the lobby and found Noah at the front desk, her life had been anything but normal. She looked at what she was carrying, and her cheeks shot through with heat. Her stomach clenched. Her heart pounded once, twice, and she swore it stopped.

“I’m wet and cold,” she heard Noah say. “Hurry up with that bathrobe, will you.” He glanced at her over his shoulder, and before Laurel could tuck it behind her or make up an excuse that sounded even a little adequate, he saw what she was holding. Noah’s mouth dropped open, and he turned. His belt was on the bed next to him, his pants were already unzipped, and a hint of green-and-white checked boxers showed at the fly. He held up his trousers with one hand and pointed at Laurel with the other.

“That’s not—”

Laurel squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to take a deep breath. That might have been a whole lot easier if the breath didn’t wedge against the ball of panic in her throat. “No bathrobes,” she told him. “At least not that I can find. This is the only thing here for you to change into.” She held out the bit of green fabric. “I can’t say for sure. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one before. I think…” She looked again at the triangular wedge of fabric. It had straps sewn to it, like a thong, and it was embroidered to look like—

“I think,” Laurel said, “it’s a fig leaf.”

She didn’t wait to see how Noah might respond. She didn’t want to know. Her cheeks on fire, her heart in her throat, her knees as wobbly as if she’d run a couple miles, Laurel thrust the fabric fig leaf into Noah’s hands and headed for the door. She bolted into the hallway and slammed the door closed behind her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Laurel caught sight of the wooden snake carved into the sign. Its grinning face and flashing eyes told her it knew exactly what had happened inside the room. Exactly what she was thinking. Exactly how close she’d come to ignoring all the good advice she’d given herself over the past four years.

“What are you looking at?” She glared at the snake right before she pushed away from the door and headed downstairs, far from Almost Paradise and all the temptation that lay just on the other side of the door.

Chapter Four

Noah didn’t need a lot of sleep. Which was a good thing for a guy with a schedule as hectic as his. More hours in the day—and the night—allowed him time to travel, lecturing at all the medical schools that were chomping at the bit to get the hottest internist in the country on their schedules. More hours in the day—and the night—allowed him to catch up on his reading and the lecture notes he was usually preparing and afforded him the opportunity of meeting with his students, his colleagues and reporters from medical journals who were, more and more lately, requesting interviews with the doctor many other doctors considered to be one of the most gifted instructors in the business. More hours in the day—and the night—gave Noah the luxury of having a social life, too. Not that he was a wild man. He knew his limits—physically as well as emotionally. He also knew that even a doctor with a reputation as good as his and a future as bright as any, needed to blow off a little steam now and again.