Christmas At Cupid's Hideaway

“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.”

Meg could take a hint as well as anyone. Some matters were best left alone. Especially when there was a chance that bringing them up might offend one of Maisie’s guests.

“I’ll show you up to your room. I’m Maisie’s granddaughter and the chef around here. Greeting the guests isn’t usually my job, but Maisie’s a little busy.” The lie came out as smoothly as peanut butter. It stuck in her throat just the way peanut butter always did. But then, she figured a little lie was better than the big ol’ truth, especially when the truth was all about how Maisie just happened to get busy at the most inopportune times.

Like when a handsome, unattached guy was checking into the Hideaway all by his handsome, unattached self.

Like when Maisie’s stick-her-head-in-the-sand granddaughter was insisting she was doing just fine on her own, thank you very much, and that she didn’t need anyone or anything to make her make her happy or to fill that little hollow spot right where her heart used to be. The spot that had always seemed filled to overflowing when Ben was around.

Meg dashed the thought away and grabbed the brass key chain with the name of the room etched on it. She dangled it in front of Gabe. “You’re lucky there was a cancellation. This room is usually the first one to get booked.” When he didn’t respond to her offer of help with his luggage, she walked around to the other side of the desk and stepped aside so he could start up the stairs ahead of her. It took her a second to realize he hadn’t moved—and that Gabe looked as if someone had pulled the tablecloth magic trick on him, too.

“What did that say?” He pointed at the key chain in her hand. “That key chain, what—”

“There are four of them,” Meg explained. She glanced back to the desk, where the keys hung on their little brass hooks when guests weren’t using them. “One for each room. There’s Smooth Operator, our secret-agent room. And Almost Paradise. That’s sort of a tropical theme, what Maisie likes to call her Garden of Eden room. And then there’s Close to the Heart.” She made a face because although that particular room was popular with guests, it wasn’t her favorite. “Red velvet, lace, plenty of cupids,” she said, as if that would explain it all. “And this one. An experience straight out of the King’s life. Complete with blue suede shoes under the bed.” She tossed the key chain up in the air. “You’re staying in—”

Before Meg could catch it, Gabe reached out and grabbed the key chain. Staring at it, his cheeks went dark and he made a funny, choking sound. “Love Me Tender? You’re kidding, right?”

Meg grinned. “Last room on the island.”

“Right.” His shoulders slumped, Gabe stepped around a display of brightly wrapped packages and started up the winding stairs that led to the second floor and the inn’s guest rooms. “Looks like I’m stuck.”

Stuck?

Stuck was one concept Meg didn’t want to think about. Not when it came to Love Me Tender. Because when she thought about Love Me Tender and she thought about stuck, she just naturally thought about the Crawfords. And thinking about the Crawfords made her all too aware that she was studying every detail of the way Gabe’s jeans were worn and smooth over his backside.

“Not a good idea,” she reminded herself. She shook away the notion as well as the sensations cascading through her. The ones that made her feel as if she’d just gone under a Lake Erie wave and was having trouble coming up for breath.

Truth be told, she knew she’d be better off keeping her gaze on anything but Gabriel Morrison’s rear end.

Which only made her notice exactly where she was still looking.

Meg grumbled a warning to herself. If she wasn’t careful, she’d get trapped by the siren-call of lust and the heady promise of romance.

And that meant she could get stuck, too. Just like she had back in Baltimore when she refused to believe that Ben could be so heartless as to pretend to love her just so he could get his hands on her cooking secrets. She’d been blind. She’d been stupid. And until she came to her senses, what she got in return for trusting him with her heart was a mess of a relationship she should have gotten unstuck from long before.

No way.

No how.

Meg let the words echo through her head, a mantra designed to keep her fantasies at bay.

Stuck, she promised herself, was something she’d never get again.

Chapter Two

“Stuck.”

Gabe couldn’t imagine why, but when he grumbled the word, Meg’s face went a little pale and her steps faltered.

“What’s that you said?” She stopped a couple of feet away and gave him the kind of look he usually reserved for folks on the subway who talked to the empty seats beside them.

“I said stuck.” Gabe rattled the brass knob on the door next to a metal sculpture that took up a good portion of the hallway wall. He knew he had the right room.

As if to reassure himself, he glanced at the artwork. It wasn’t what he expected to find in back-of-beyond Ohio. Quirky, well done, inspired—the sculpture was a one-quarter-size flamingo-pink Cadillac, complete with wide tail fins and enough chrome to make it gleam, even in the muted pink light of the hallway. In honor of the island holiday, a red sack filled with gift-wrapped packages had been tucked in the back seat.

“Love Me Tender.” He read the words painted on the trunk of the car in gleaming black enamel. “It’s the right room, isn’t it? But the door…” Just to show he knew what he was talking about, he turned the handle again and bumped the door to the room with his shoulder. It didn’t budge. “It’s—”

“Stuck. The door. The door to the room is stuck.” Meg breathed a long sigh that did remarkable things to the gauzy, hand-embroidered sundress she was wearing.

The fact that he wondered why she looked so relieved didn’t seem as important to Gabe as the fact that he’d actually noticed the way her breasts pressed against the gossamer fabric, the way her cheeks darkened to a color that nearly matched the glistening stones in her dangling earrings.

So he wasn’t completely brain-dead after all. And if the sudden fire in his blood and the fierce tightening in his gut meant anything, the rest of him was working pretty well, too.

That was enough to cheer him. He might be a man on the edge—of his patience, of his sanity and of what had once been a fulfilling, enjoyable, not to mention lucrative career—but at least all his good sense hadn’t deserted him. He still knew a beautiful woman when he saw one.

“The door of Love Me Tender always sticks.” Good thing Meg didn’t know what he was thinking. Otherwise, she might not have been so quick to hurry over to where Gabe was standing. And if she hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to breathe in the mingled scents of cinnamon and herbs that surrounded her.

“There’s a trick, actually,” she said. To get to the door, she squeezed between Gabe and his luggage. Almost close enough to touch. The air warmed and Gabe’s insides felt a little like they had on the ferry that brought him to the island.

“I should’ve warned you.” For a second, he wondered what she was talking about. Warned him? About the sensation swooping through his insides?

She smiled and pointed to the door before she gave a demonstration that had nothing to do with Gabe’s insides. And everything to do with physics. With a triumphant little smile that made her nose crinkle and brought out a dimple in her left cheek, she turned the shiny brass doorknob at the same time as she lifted it.

The door opened without a hitch.

“Your room.” Meg stood back and made a sweeping gesture toward the room and Gabe grabbed his suitcases and went inside.

“If there’s anything we can get you…” he heard her say from the hallway.

If he hadn’t been so stunned, he might have suggested an ice pack and a couple aspirin.

Gabe deposited his suitcases on the floor and glanced around Love Me Tender. What had he been thinking? That just being with a woman as vivacious and beautiful as Meg was enough to make him forget his troubles?

Well, he could forget about forgetting.

One look at Love Me Tender, one moment over the threshold, and Gabe felt…well…

“All shook up.” He didn’t think he groaned the words loud enough for her to hear until Meg stuck her head back in the room.

“All shook up? That’s over here.” She darted around both Gabe and his suitcases and stepped further into the room. Past the stained-glass window decorated with peacocks that took up most of one wall. Past a full-size, honest-to-gosh classic pink Cadillac parked in the center of the room, one that had no roof, a waterbed where the front and back seats had once been and a pair of blue suede shoes tucked near the steering wheel. Past a baby grand piano that gleamed in the afternoon sunlight and a wall covered with framed gold records. Along the far wall was a genuine fifties soda fountain, complete with bar stools with bright-blue vinyl seats. Apparently in honor of the week’s festivities, there was a miniature aluminum Christmas tree on the bar, complete with bubble lights. Above the fountain was a sign. Meg pointed to it.

“All shook up. Maisie’s idea of a joke. Shook up. Milkshakes. Get it?”

“I got it.” Gabe was also getting a little queasy. He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t suppose any of your other guests might want to—”

“Trade rooms?” So, she was the resident mind reader as well as the inn’s chef. Meg crossed her arms and stepped back, leaning against one of the bar stools. “Not a chance,” she told him. “Honeymooners in Close to the Heart and they look like they’re there for the long haul. A middle-aged couple in Smooth Operator. Regulars. Maisie wouldn’t have the heart to ask them to move. And from what I’ve heard, card-carrying nudists in Almost Paradise. Don’t worry,” she added when his mouth dropped open, “they promised to dress for breakfast.”

“This…” Gabe did a slow turn around the room. “It’s a musician’s—”

“Dream?” Meg suggested.

He was going to say nightmare. He stopped himself just in time. After all, it wasn’t Meg’s fault that he was feeling the way he was feeling, and there was no use taking it out on her or her grandmother. That didn’t stop a cold chill from seeping through him. He got as far as the piano and paused there. Before he even realized he was doing it, his hands were poised over the keys.

For one brief, shining moment, hope blossomed in his chest and some of the tension that had been tying his stomach in knots for the last couple of months eased. As effortlessly as breathing, he played a C Major chord. He smiled when the notes vibrated through him, like a second heartbeat. Lost in the magic of the moment, Gabe closed his eyes, ready to ride the wave of creativity as he had so many times before.

He couldn’t think of even one more note.

“You play?” Meg’s voice reminded him what he was doing. Or at least what he was trying to do.

As if the keys were on fire, he pulled his hands to his side.

“Nah.” Gabe backed away from the Steinway. “Used to,” he admitted. “But that was a long time ago. I’ve…” He coughed away the sudden tightness in his throat. “I’ve forgotten how.”

“Too bad.” Meg walked back to the door. Her footsteps against the green shag carpet were as light as her laughter. “We’ve got another piano down in the parlor. And I’m always up for a song.” In front of the stained-glass window, she swung around. “You’re not just saying you don’t play because you’ve heard me sing, are you?”

Not when she looked delicious enough to kiss.

Gabe’s reaction caught him off-guard and he braced himself and wondered what was wrong with him, anyway. There were more important things to think about than the Hideaway’s sexy chef. More important, sure, he told himself. But not nearly as delectable.

He wondered if Meg had any idea how incredible she looked against the backdrop of stained-glass colors made molten by the afternoon sun. The blue of the peacock’s feathers matched her summer dress perfectly and brought out blue flecks in eyes that were a shade between the spicy green of a habenero pepper and the cool color of a crisp salad. The yellow in the bird’s beak and the plume at the top of its head touched her shoulders like liquid sunshine and kissed the freckles sprinkled liberally over her arms and neck. The undulating red border around the bird turned the sun’s rays into fire that was every bit as bright but nowhere near as beautiful as her mahogany-colored hair.

Sing?

She could sing to him, all right. Anytime. Anywhere. Even if her voice did remind Gabe of a not-so-happy marriage between the sounds of a freight train at full throttle and a coop full of frightened chickens. Her singing voice might make his teeth ache and for sure it was as flat as a pancake, but the rest of her was curved very nicely.

Taking his time, Gabe glanced from the tips of her toenails with their candy-apple-red polish to the top of her head. He stopped in between for a quick mental inventory of the more interesting places, wondering in spite of himself what a woman who was bold enough to wear a brightly colored dress with her ruddy complexion and Titian hair wore underneath.

Like it or not, the idea heated Gabe clear through to his bones.

Meg could sing him to sleep after a night of wild lovemaking, he decided. She could sing him awake just so that he could scoop her into his arms and stop her singing with a kiss before they started the lovemaking all over again. She could sing through his bloodstream and she could sing through his dreams. She could sing to him like—

“Your phone.”

Meg’s voice startled him back to reality. He found her with an expectant look on her face and her eyes homing in on the right side pocket of his jeans, where he’d tucked his cell phone before he hopped out of the car. “Your phone. It’s ringing.”

Gabe shook off the momentary paralysis caused by his own wayward thoughts. That was what he got for dipping his toe in the deep waters of fantasy. Blindsided. If he wasn’t careful, he’d get drawn in and towed under and—

“Your phone is still ringing.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He plucked the ringing phone out of his pocket and bobbled it from hand to hand. At least it didn’t play Beethoven’s Fifth like it used to. Gabe had changed it back to an old-fashioned, boring, non-musical ring a couple of weeks before. But although it wasn’t loud, the ringing was insistent.

“You’re not going to answer it?”

Good question. He didn’t even stop to consider it. He tossed the phone over on the bed and watched it shimmy on the water-filled mattress.

It kept right on ringing.

“That’s it?” Like a rubbernecker at the scene of an especially gruesome accident, Meg was staring at the phone. “That’s how you answer the phone?”

Gabe poked his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “That’s how I answer the phone.”

She slid him a sidelong look. “Woman?” she asked.

Maybe it was his imagination. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. He could’ve sworn that waiting for his answer, she tensed a little.

“Worse.” He marched over to the 55 Cadillac, picked up the phone and shoved it under the pillows in their pink satin cases. It was still ringing, but at least now the noise was muffled. “Secretary.”

Imagination again. It had to be. Meg looked…relieved.

She glanced toward the bed. “Determined little devil. Must be some secretary.”

“Oh, she is. The best there is on the Left Coast. Way smarter than me. More organized than the dictionary. Has the scheduling talents of those folks at NASA who can make a camera do a fly-by of some planet a million miles away.”

“She is a paragon.” Meg nodded. “Can she leap tall buildings in a single bound?”

“Never seen her do it, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Latoya is also—” It wasn’t until the phone abruptly stopped ringing that Gabe realized his thumbs were tight around his fists. He flexed his fingers. Forced the muscles in his neck and shoulders to relax. Unclenched his teeth.

When an entire minute went by and the ringing didn’t start again, he let out a long breath. “She is also persistent.”

Meg swung her gaze from the bed to Gabe. “Which would make an ordinary person wonder about what Latoya’s being so persistent about.”

Maybe because he’d dodged another Latoya bullet, Gabe felt unaccountably pleased with himself. Or maybe it was the shimmer in Meg’s eyes, the impossible blue of her dress, the surprising way his blood buzzed when she flicked her tongue over her lips. Whatever the reason, he stepped just a little closer and lowered his voice. “In most cases it would,” he said. “But you haven’t known me long enough to find out that I’m far from ordinary.”

“Wrong, Mr. Morrison.” As if the statement didn’t make her very happy, Meg’s bottom lip puckered and her eyebrows dipped over her eyes. She shook her head and though she moved as gracefully as a dancer, Gabe couldn’t help noticing that when she spun around and headed into the hallway, it looked more like a retreat than a well-timed exit. “I realized that,” she told him, closing the door behind her, “the moment I saw you.”

For what seemed a very long time, Gabe stood staring at the closed door, feeling as if the world had tipped on its axis. Crazy reaction. But then, he suspected there was a lot about Meg that would cause the kind of peculiar humming he felt in his bloodstream.

It took a couple of minutes for his thoughts to settle and a couple more after that before his heart rate throttled back to a beat that was even close to normal.

Cupid’s Hideaway might be—as the lady at the local hotel where he’d first stopped for a room had informed him—the most romantic spot east of the Mississippi. But romance and the racing heartbeat that went along with it weren’t on his agenda.

He twitched away the idea and hauled his suitcase on to the couch. He unzipped it and flipped it open, looking for a change of clothes.

Better to leave the romance to the honeymooners and the nudists, he told himself. All he wanted was a place to lie low. For as long as he could get away with it.

Sooner or later, he’d have to fess up and admit the truth. To Latoya. To Dennis. To the Tasty Time Burger folks.

Even to himself.

Did he really think hiding out on an island in the middle of Lake Erie would buy him some time?

“Damn straight,” he grumbled.

He grabbed a handful of clothing and walked over to the dresser across the room to put it away, stopping to glare at the reflection frowning back at him from the mirror.

“Gabriel Morrison,” he mumbled, addressing the worried-looking man in the mirror. “World’s greatest jingle writer. The guy who’s got more awards piled up in his office than even Latoya knows what to do with. Aren’t you the guy who’s never at a loss for clever words? The one who can write music in his sleep? The clown who unleashed the Love Me Tenders commercial and Duke the Dog on an unsuspecting and gullible public? Good going, Morrison.”