Connie Lane - Christmas At Cupid's Hideaway

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.”

He yanked open the top dresser drawer, tossed his clothes inside and went back for another handful.

“A meeting in New York in two weeks and just like always, you’ve promised them the world, haven’t you?” he muttered when he was in front of the mirror again. “Only this time, things are different.”

The hard reality of the situation nagged at him while he paced between the kitschy fifties soda fountain and the pink Cadillac.

Things were different, all right. Because whenever Gabe had promised the world before, he’d always delivered it on a silver platter.

And this time?

This time, Gabriel Morrison, the Mozart of the advertising industry, the man whose name was synonymous with catchy tunes and clever lyrics and ad campaigns that never failed to raise clients’ notoriety as well as their profits…

This time, Gabriel Morrison had a major case of jingle-writer’s block.

“DELICIOUS!”

Meg didn’t have to turn around from the stove. She knew when her grandmother walked into the kitchen from the dining room where she’d just poured the morning orange juice, she was definitely not talking about the ham-and-cheese omelets Meg was making. There was a little nuance in Maisie’s voice, a little skip in her step that Meg recognized as having nothing to do with food—and everything to do with romance.

“Nice to know your guests are enjoying themselves so much.” Meg was an expert at both cooking and ignoring Maisie’s less-than-subtle hints, and she put both talents to use. She flipped the omelets, added a sprinkling of dill and firmly refused to get hooked by the bait Maisie was dangling in front of her. “The honeymooners are happy?”

“Nonsense!” Out of the corner of her eye, Meg saw her grandmother wave away the very thought. “Of course the Kilbanes are happy. Honeymooners are always happy. Since they’ve checked in, they’ve gone through two bottles of champagne, three boxes of scented candles and two pairs of those bubble-gumflavored edible undies we have on special in the Love Shack. They’re as happy as clams. I wasn’t talking about Brian and Jenny Kilbane, and you know it.”

“The nudists?” Meg slid the omelets onto china plates and passed the plates to Maisie. “Or the spy wannabes?”

Maisie nodded her approval of the omelets, but even so, she didn’t look very happy. “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said, frowning at Meg.

“I do.” Meg reached for the pan of hash-brown potatoes that was sitting on the stove. She scooped a pile of perfectly browned potatoes onto each of the festive plates—decorated with fir trees and snowflakes—that Maisie used only twice each year, in December and for Christmas in July. “I know you’re talking about Gabe Morrison.” Finished with the potatoes, she set down the pan, wiped her hands on her white apron and gave her grandmother her full attention. With any luck, Maisie would catch on to the fact that she wasn’t kidding.

Then again, if luck had anything to do with the way things were going, Meg wouldn’t have spent the entire time since she’d checked Gabe into the inn thinking all the things about him that Maisie thought she should be thinking.

All the things Meg knew she shouldn’t have been thinking.

Meg’s spirits plummeted. Delicious was the least of her problems. When it came to their newest guest, there was also charming to consider—in those few and far between moments when he seemed to forget himself enough to allow his natural sense of humor to come through. Then there was gorgeous, available and successful. Not to mention tempting.

Meg drew in a long breath to steady her suddenly racing heartbeat. “I’m not interested,” she told Maisie. And herself. “So whether Gabe is delicious or not doesn’t change anything…” She looked the breakfast dishes over one final time. “I need something,” she grumbled.

“Of course you do.” Maisie’s expression brightened. “It’s what I’ve said all along. You need something. A little companionship. Is that such a bad thing? Or how about a full-fledged, all-out, over-the-top fling?” Maisie laughed the same throaty laugh Meg had heard from her grandmother’s private rooms on the nights Doc Ross visited. “If you ask me, sweetie, an amour would do you a world of good. Help you forget that chef of yours, the one who had oatmeal where his brains were supposed to be and nothing but ice cubes inside his chest. You know, that what’s-his-name.”

“Ben.” Still staring at the hash browns and omelets, Meg supplied the name automatically. It took her a second to realize that saying it didn’t hurt. At least, not as much as it used to, anyway. “Ben,” she said again, testing out the theory and discovering that for the first time in the fourteen months she’d been back on the island and out of the magnetic pull of Ben Lucarelli’s overblown personality and his overrated talent, the very memory of him didn’t skewer her like a shish kebab.

“And I wasn’t talking about Ben.” She looked at the door that led into the dining room where Maisie’s guests were waiting for breakfast. “Or about anyone else, for that matter. I was talking about breakfast.” She studied the plates, and the answer hit her. “Strawberries,” she mumbled and she hurried over to the refrigerator on the other side of the room. She found seven of the plumpest, reddest strawberries she’d picked just two days before over on the mainland and, in a flash, had them washed, sliced, sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar and arranged on each plate.

“Much better,” She said with satisfaction. “The muffins are already on the table?”

“I did that first thing,” Maisie assured her. “And everyone’s enjoying them.” Her expression fell. “Everyone but poor Gabe.”

Meg already had four of the plates in her hands. She stepped back to let Maisie leave the kitchen with the other three, but not before she rolled her eyes, just so her grandmother would know what she thought of her little stab at theatrics. “And I’m supposed to care, right? I’m supposed to ask why he’s not enjoying the muffins. Or am I supposed to be worried about why you’re calling him ‘poor Gabe’?”