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“Would I ever suggest a thing like that?” Maisie’s cheeks went noticeably pale. “It’s so…so low-class, this whole notion of women coming onto men as if that was the only way to attract their attention. You know me better than that! What you need to do is be more subtle. More discreet. Take my word for it, that will attract a man’s attention surer than if you walked through the dining room stark-naked. Well…maybe if you walked through the dining room stark naked…”
“Oh, no! I’m not going for the Lady Godiva routine.” Because she knew a losing cause when she saw one, Meg gave up the fight. She took the coffeepot out of Maisie’s hands and turned toward the dining room.
“Bet you it’s true.”
The challenge was delivered in the sweetest tones, but it was a challenge nonetheless.
Meg turned and faced her grandmother head-on. “You mean about attracting his attention? Bet it’s not,” she said.
Maisie’s lips twitched with a barely controlled smile. “Bet if you flirted with him, he’d react. Big-time.”
Meg clenched her teeth. “Bet he wouldn’t.”
“You brave enough to find out?”
Whether it meant jumping into the lake from the highest rock on the shore, swimming the farthest, running the fastest or outrunning a storm in the family sailboat, Meg couldn’t stand to have her courage questioned. It was one of the reasons she’d gotten into so much trouble as a teenager. One of the reasons she’d had her eyes on a life on the mainland and her heart firmly set on Ben Lucarelli, even when everyone who’d ever met the man insisted he wasn’t right for her.
It was the one and only reason it had taken her so long to break up with Ben. Even when she finally found out that he wasn’t as interested in Meg the person as he was in Meg the chef, the woman who could make him—and his chi-chi Baltimore restaurant—a five-star hit.
Meg had never backed down from a challenge in her life.
And Maisie knew it.
“All right. You want proof. I’ll give you proof.” Meg raised her chin in the kind of I’m-not-budging-an-inch-on-this-look she’d learned at Maisie’s knee. She put down the coffeepot long enough to pull the elastic band out of her hair and combed through her ponytail with her fingers. When she was done, she shook her curls loose and grabbed the silver pot again. “I’m going in there and I’m going to flirt with Gabe Morrison. And it’s going to get me nowhere. Guaranteed.”
“We’ll see.” Maisie nodded. “And if I lose—”
“You will,” Meg assured her.
“If I lose and he’s not attracted to you…well, I’ll cook dinner for you one night. How about that? And if I win…”
“You won’t.”
“If I win…” She winked at Meg and, reaching for her, turned her toward the door. “If I win, you win, too. Now go get him,” she said, and nudged her out of the kitchen.
“Fine. Good.” Meg paused just outside the dining-room door, fighting the sudden urge to run.
She might have done it, too, if behind her, she didn’t hear the kitchen door open just enough to allow Maisie to peek out. “Remember, be subtle. Bet he’ll fall head over heels,” Maisie whispered.
“Bet he won’t,” Meg insisted, and because she knew she’d talked herself into something she couldn’t talk herself out of, she figured she had no choice but to get it over with.
Her shoulders squared, her jaw steady, her insides jumping like a fish at the wrong end of a hook, she marched back into the dining room to face Gabe Morrison.
And her own nagging insecurities.
Chapter Three
Gabe was drawing buildings.
Again.
Shaking himself back to reality, he studied the drawing that had somehow taken shape on the legal pad in front of him while he was lost in thought.
A facade that combined classical elements and post-modernist pizzazz. A frieze on the entablature. One that completely broke the rules when it came to horizontal bands of relief sculpture, dispensing with them altogether and replacing them instead with a loose pattern of lines that was less traditional carving and more like the empty staffs in an even emptier line of—
“Music.”
Gabe grumbled the word and glanced down at the drawing that was staring back up at him.
Kind of like the other guests around the breakfast table were staring at him.
He felt their eyes before he saw them, and because he knew that doing anything else would only make him seem crazier and more conspicuous, he forced himself to look up. Six pairs of eyes were trained on him, six expressions both cautious and curious. Six people were gawking at him as if he’d been talking to himself.
Which he had been.
Gabe made a sound that might have been a mumbled excuse. Or a growl of discontent. In keeping with the peaceful atmosphere of the Hideaway and the feelings of love that were as conspicuous as the swarm of chubby cupids that decorated the Christmas tree in the far corner, his fellow guests apparently decided it was an apology.
The fresh-faced, starry-eyed honeymooners across the lace tablecloth grinned in unison. The other two couples smiled and nodded and finished their meals. Watching them eat, Gabe noticed for the first time that there was food on the plate in front of him. And he hadn’t touched it.
“That’s right. You would like music.” The newlywed groom was done eating. He stood and because he was holding her hand, his bride popped out of her chair right along with him. “You’re staying in Love Me Tender. The music room. We haven’t seen it, but we hear it’s really cool.”
“We could switch. Rooms, I mean.” Gabe sounded a little too desperate, even to himself. He knew it. He didn’t like it. He couldn’t stop. The other rooms at the Hideaway might be heavy on the lace and light on the guy-all-alone-so-what’s-he-doing-in-a-place-like-this factor, but they wouldn’t remind him of the music he couldn’t compose or the lyrics that refused to form in his head. No matter how hard he tried.
At least they weren’t Love Me Tender.
This was his chance, and it might be his only one. He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t have much to pack. I could be out in less than ten minutes. If you’d like to check out Love Me Tender for the rest of your stay—”
“No way!” The groom might be a quicker eater than his blushing bride, but it was clear from the start who was going to make the decisions in the family. “Pink Cadillacs and Elvis pictures?” She barked out a laugh. “No—thank—you. Not exactly my idea of romantic!”
“That’s not what the Crawfords thought!” Chuckling, one of the other couples got up from the table. They were apparently regulars at the Hideaway and knew something Gabe didn’t know. He didn’t care, either, not if it meant he might get them to bite at his juicy offer.
He turned to them. “If you think Love Me Tender is romantic—”
Before he could even finish, both the man and the woman were shaking their heads. “Happy where we are,” the man told him. He looped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze before they walked out of the room. “‘Smooth Operator’ is our idea of romance, and besides, James Bond never visited Graceland.”
Gabe couldn’t argue with that. He turned his attention to the only couple left.
“Not us.” The man held up one hand, instantly rejecting the plan. “We love ‘Almost Paradise.’ The plants, the waterfall, even the jungle noises piped in through the sound system. That’s romance as far as we’re concerned. Besides, I hear the bar stools in Love Me Tender have vinyl seats and frankly, vinyl and nudists…” Even fully clothed, he squirmed in his chair. As if the suggestion was too much to take, both he and his wife got up and scurried out of the dining room as quickly as they could.
“Great.” Gabe mumbled the word. Even though he was feeling anything but. “Strike three. Me and Elvis. At least I don’t have to worry about the romance.”
“What’s the matter, Mr. Morrison? You don’t like romance?”
Gabe hadn’t noticed that Meg had come back into the room. A warm rush of awareness flooded the space between his heart and his stomach when her voice snuck up from somewhere behind him. Funny, although he’d been more than aware of Meg the day before, when she’d showed him to the fiasco that passed for his room, he’d missed the husky note in her voice. Ready to answer her—except that he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say—he spun around in his chair.
And stopped cold.
He remembered plenty about Meg, all right. But he’d forgotten that she was so beautiful.
When she’d come into the room earlier to pour the coffee, he’d been too preoccupied with the empty legal pad that dared him to try and fill its pages with clever jingle material. Or-not-so clever jingle material. Or anything at all except the doodles that were the only things that managed to ooze from his pen. He hadn’t paid attention to the mossy green dress that floated around Meg’s ankles and made her eyes look smokier—and far more sultry—than they had in yesterday’s afternoon sunlight. He hadn’t seen that today she was wearing her hair down, and that it brushed her shoulders in a riot of red tones that brought out the heightened color in her cheeks and made a startling backdrop for the turquoise earrings that peeked out from the tumble of her curls.
He certainly hadn’t noticed her standing the way she was standing now, the silver coffeepot in one hand, the other propped on her waist, and her hip cocked just the slightest bit. Because if he had noticed…
Gabe braced himself against the heat that built inside him.
If he’d noticed, he didn’t think he would’ve been able to sit still. He didn’t think he would’ve been able to pay attention to…
To whatever it was he’d been paying attention to.
The reminder was all Gabe needed. As fast as the heat built inside him, it froze into a block the size of the iceberg that had finished off the Titanic.
He glanced down at the legal pad sitting next to his untouched plate of food. For some reason he couldn’t explain and didn’t want to understand, he flipped the page on which he’d been doodling. So Meg couldn’t see it.
“I’m sorry. Did you say something?” Gabe had to give himself points. He’d recovered enough to sound perfectly normal. After all, the last thing he needed to feel on top of hopeless and discouraged was silly. “Something about romance?”
“Me?” Meg tried for a smile that she hoped looked a whole lot more seductive than it felt. It might have been easier if she wasn’t feeling so foolish. And if she didn’t know that Maisie had the kitchen door cracked a smidgen so she could watch the show. Her grandmother’s challenge still ringing in her ears, she refused to give up. Foolish or not, audience or not, she had a mission to accomplish. And right now, that mission was all about making Gabe pay attention to her.
Her steps slow and fluid, she moved across the room straight toward him. “Why on earth would I say anything about romance?” she asked.
“No reason. I guess.” He shrugged, ignoring the sway of her hips. And the hint of suggestion in her voice. He ignored it all. The cupids on the Christmas tree. The pink poinsettias that were everywhere. The picture above the fireplace that showed a sepia-toned couple in Victorian dress, the man in a top hat and tails and the smiling woman in nothing but a corset, a pair of fancy pantaloons and an elaborate red bow that had been taped to her rear in honor of the holiday.
It only proved her theory. If he didn’t notice the atmosphere in the romantic center of the universe, there was no way she’d ever get him to notice her.
A funny little sensation clutched at Meg’s insides and made her squirm. And that disproved her theory. The one about how much she didn’t care what Gabe thought of her.
Meg shrugged off the thread of doubt that wound its way around her self-confidence and choked off its air supply. If she could make the effort to be friendly, the least Gabe could do was be polite in return. Then again, maybe he’d pay more attention to her if she was a blank piece of yellow legal-pad paper.
She followed his gaze down to the empty pad and the full plate of food beside it.
“You’re a vegetarian.”
“What?” As if he’d forgotten she was there, Gabe flinched. “Vegetarian? No.” He frowned at the ham-and-cheese omelet and the pile of hash brown potatoes that was looking less appetizing by the minute. “I’m just not…” He pushed the plate away and grabbing the pen that sat next to it, tapped out a fitful beat against the tablecloth. “I’m not hungry.”
“I could fry up some eggs or throw together some pancake batter, if you’d prefer that. There’s yogurt, too, if you’re more interested in healthy things. And fruit and—”
“No. Thanks.” The comment was heartfelt and the smile Gabe gave her along with it so genuine, it nearly took her breath away.
Meg steadied herself, one hand against the table. She had walked in here thinking of flirting and fully expecting that no matter how hard she tried, Gabe would never respond. She’d figured that she’d try out a few of the come-and-get-it moves she hadn’t had the inclination or the opportunity to use in the last fourteen months, and that in spite of her best efforts, she would leave untouched—physically and emotionally. She was convinced she would win the bet and prove to her grandmother and, more importantly, to herself, that her mind was made up as far as romance was concerned, and that Maisie could stop with the matchmaking because it was just not going to work.
She hadn’t counted on him upping the ante with a smile.
Because she didn’t know what else to do, Meg held out the silver pot. “More coffee?” she asked, and this time, the breathiness of her voice was less her own doing than the fault of a heartbeat that refused to slow down.
“Sure.” Gabe held out his cup and she refilled it for him. While he drank it, she considered all the benefits of retreat.
She would have done it, too, if not for the quiet cough she heard from somewhere in the direction of the kitchen.
As tempted as she was to call off the whole bet, Meg was sure that if she gave up, she’d never hear the end of it. Not from Maisie. Not from her own ego, which had the tendency to remind her more often than she liked that she was piling up a list of failures.
She’d failed at life on the mainland. She’d failed to make a go of it in the big-city, trendy and very pricy restaurant she’d always dreamed would be the pot of gold at the end of her own personal rainbow. And even though she was self-aware enough to understand that most of what had happened between them was clearly Ben’s fault, she knew for a fact that she’d failed there, too. She should have pegged him as a loser long before he dumped her heart into his Cuisinart and took it for a slice-and-dice spin.
She wasn’t about to fail again.
She returned smile for smile and dropped into the chair next to Gabe’s. “That is the idea, you know. The romance, I mean.” She leaned closer. “Is it working?”
It wasn’t.
The words reverberated in Gabe’s head like the echoes of amplifiers at a rock concert.
The cupids weren’t working. The fussy, pink decor wasn’t working. Even the semi-suggestive picture over the fireplace wasn’t working. Nothing could possibly make him think about romance. Not when his head was filled with the knowledge of how empty his imagination was. And his stomach went cold every time he thought about the Tasty Time Burger people and the knock-’em-dead ad campaign he had promised to deliver to them in just two weeks.
Nothing. Until Meg showed up looking like a vision straight out of a dream. Not until she leaned closer and the perfume of strawberries tickled his nose.
“It’s not supposed to be working,” he admitted. “I’ve got other things to think about. Other problems…” He tapped his pen on the legal pad. “And then you come in here and you’ve got me thinking about things I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about.” The whole situation was absurd, yet Gabe didn’t feel like laughing. “Then again, how could anybody not think about romance in this place?”
“The Hideaway always has this effect on people,” she told him, and from her tone, he wasn’t sure if that was good news or not. “Young or old, it doesn’t matter. I think there’s something weird going on. You know, maybe Maisie built the house over a Native American burial ground. Or it’s a regular stop on the UFO express lane to the universe. Or it might be hypnotism.”
Gabe wasn’t buying Meg’s rationalization but he sure liked listening to her explain. He liked the way a little V of concentration crinkled the spot between her eyebrows when she was deep in conversation and how she worked her bottom lip with her teeth while she was collecting her thoughts. He liked the way she made him feel and the way thinking about the sway in her walk and the purr of seduction in her voice made him think maybe there were more important things in the world than empty legal pads.
He liked the kick of awareness that buzzed through every inch of his body and he really liked the fact that when he leaned a bit nearer, Meg didn’t back off.
“I’m thinking it’s more physical than anything else,” Gabe said. “At least what I’m feeling is.” He paused for a moment. “Tell me, is there anywhere on this island where a man can take a woman? You know, on a date?”
She tipped her head, thinking and her hair spilled over her arm like a silky curtain. “There’s the bait and tackle shop,” she said and when his expression soured, she controlled a smile and went right on. “Then there’s the hotel over near the marina. They have a great buffet most nights and karaoke on Tuesdays but, of course, that’s a few days off. Let’s see…where else…There’s big doings in town tonight. Because folks can’t easily get to the island in December, we have our Christmas celebration in the summer. I hear there’s Bingo at City Hall. And free rides on the carousel in the park. It’s fun, but the ride only lasts a couple of minutes, and I don’t know…She gave him the once-over, her look so thorough and so frank, it actually made Gabe squirm. “Something tells me you’re the kind of guy who likes to take his time.”
“Think so?” Gabe liked a woman who knew what she wanted. “Glad you noticed.”
“I notice a lot of things.”
“Like…”
“You have impeccable taste,” she said immediately. “And you don’t mind showing it. Especially with clothing. You like fast cars and you’ve got a hair-dresser I’ll bet you’ve been seeing for years because he really knows how to handle your hair, even though it’s thick and probably not easy to cut.” She let her gaze flicker away for a moment before she settled it again on Gabe’s eyes. “You like to indulge yourself when it comes to life’s little luxuries,” she said. “Or did the expensive pen come from Latoya?”
“She spoils me shamelessly.”
“That must mean you’re a good boss.”
“I’m good at a lot of things.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I could show you.” There wasn’t much room between them but somehow, Gabe managed to close the gap. Meg’s hand rested on the lace tablecloth and he set his a fraction of an inch from hers. “You pick the excitement. I’m game for anything. That is, if you’re not busy here with lunches and dinners and—”
“There’s a reason it’s called a bed-and-breakfast.” Meg laughed and the sound of it shivered up Gabe’s spine. “One meal a day. That’s all we provide. You found that out last night, didn’t you? I hear you sent out for pizza.”
“It wasn’t nearly as good as your cooking.”
She called his bluff. “And you’d know that how?”
