Connie Lane - Stranded At Cupid's Hideaway

“I don’t believe you.”

Laurel threw her hands up in exasperation. “Of course you don’t believe me.” She stalked over to her supply cabinet and rummaged around. “You can’t just walk back into my life and expect things to be the way they were four years ago!”

“Who said I wanted to?” Noah closed the distance between them. “Did I say I wanted to, or did I assume, since your grandmother said you wanted to see me—”

“That I was ready, willing and able to throw myself at you?”

His eyebrows slid up along with his smile. “Aren’t you?”

Of course not.

The words were there, at the tip of Laurel’s tongue. She was certain they were true. So why couldn’t she get them out of her mouth?

Dear Reader,

Heartwarming, emotional, compelling…these are all words that describe Harlequin American Romance. Check out this month’s stellar selection of love stories, which are sure to please.

First, the BRIDES OF THE DESERT ROSE continuity series continues with At the Rancher’s Bidding by Charlotte Maclay. In the delightful story, a princess masquerades as her lady-in-waiting to save herself from an arranged marriage—and ends up falling for a rugged rancher.

Also available this month, bestselling author Judy Christenberry’s Randall Honor resumes her successful BRIDES FOR BROTHERS series about the Randall family of Wyoming. Although they’d shared a night of passion, Victoria Randall wasn’t in the market for a husband…and Dr. Jon Wilson had some serious romancing to do if he was going to get this Randall woman to love and honor him!

Next, when an heiress-in-disguise overhears a handsome executive bet his friend that he could win any woman—including her—she’s determined to teach him a lesson. Don’t miss Catching the Corporate Playboy by Michele Dunaway. And rounding out the month is Stranded at Cupid’s Hideaway, a wonderful reunion romance story from talented author Connie Lane, making her series romance debut.

Best,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Stranded at Cupid’s Hideaway

Connie Lane

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Connie Lane remembers the day she got her first library card, and the first book she took out of the Cleveland Public Library: Horton Hatches the Egg. In her writing career, she’s found the perfect chance to combine her love of reading with her overactive imagination. Writing as Constance Laux, she’s published nine historical romances. As Connie Lane, she writes both category romance and single-title romantic suspense/comedy. She lives in a suburb of Cleveland with her husband, two children and an oversized Airedale named Hoover.

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

932—STRANDED AT CUPID’S HIDEAWAY

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Laurel Burton thought she knew everything there was to know about Cupid’s Hideaway. Though the bed-and-breakfast inn on Lake Erie’s South Bass Island was her grandmother’s brainchild and retirement project, Laurel spent enough time in the rambling old house to know every inch of the place and of the business.

She knew how many bottles of champagne it took to fill the ornate tabletop fountains in each of the inn’s four distinctive—and distinctively named—guest rooms and how many cases of bubble bath were used in the heart-shaped bathtubs and which of the regular guests preferred what kind of scented candles. She knew that the plants in the Almost Paradise room needed to be turned and watered on Mondays and Thursdays, that the martini bar in Smooth Operator had to be restocked at least once a month, that the red velvet drapes in Close to the Heart were a bitch to clean and that there had to be a pair of blue suede shoes under the bed in Love Me Tender. Always.

And even though she didn’t know it for sure, because when it came to profit and loss there was some information Maisie liked to keep to herself, Laurel could guess the kind of killing her grandmother made in the gift shop just off the lobby. There was a big markup on scanty lingerie. Almost as much as there was on massage oil, discreet sex toys and teas that were—or so Maisie swore—guaranteed aphrodisiacs.

Laurel knew Cupid’s Hideaway, all right. Basement to attic. Wraparound front porch to backyard garden. Front to back and side to side.

But she never knew the place was haunted.

At the bottom of the winding stairway that led to the guest rooms, Laurel’s legs froze at the same time her stomach caught fire. Noah Cunningham couldn’t be standing at the main desk chatting with her grandmother. It wasn’t possible. It had to be a ghost.

“Deep breaths, Laurel,” she whispered to herself. “Deep breaths, just like you tell your patients in labor and delivery. In and out. Slowly. Slowly.” She steadied herself and closed her eyes, sure that when she opened them again, the hallucination would be gone.

She was wrong.

Eyes closed. Eyes opened. He was still there.

Live and in living color.

Not the ghost of anything but her own past.

Laurel was carrying an armful of newly laundered, flowery smelling towels and she pressed them close in hopes of keeping her heart from banging its way right out of her ribs. Good thing neither Noah nor Maisie had seen her yet. Noah was leaning against the front desk, and his attention was on Maisie. She was too busy flittering around and giggling at everything Noah said to pay any attention to anything but him.

Laurel had the advantage. At least for the moment. She could see without being seen and she used the opportunity to regroup and collect her thoughts and her wits. It didn’t hurt that she also had a chance to size up the man she had tried not to think about for the last four years.

Noah was still as handsome as hell and twice as tempting as sin. Just like in the old days. Still the same chestnut brown hair, cut closer at the sides and shorter on top than he used to wear it back in the days when it always looked as tousled as it did when he just got out of bed. The cut wouldn’t have worked on most guys, at least not most guys of Noah’s age and professional reputation. It was a little too young, a little too cocky, a little too nonconformist. But then, she supposed that made it a classic case of truth in advertising. The haircut suited Noah’s personality, and if what she’d heard from colleagues was true—things they insisted on telling her even though she insisted she didn’t want to hear them—Noah’s way of wearing his hair had spawned a trend of sorts with the medical students he regularly lectured. Wasn’t that just like Noah? An innovator when it came to everything, even hair.