Stranded At Cupid's Hideaway

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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.

But even a guy who didn’t need a lot of sleep needed some sleep. And some sleep was exactly what Noah didn’t get in Almost Paradise.

Grumbling, he rolled over onto his stomach and took his pillow with him. He clamped it over his head, doing his best to shut out the morning light that filled the room thanks to the overhead skylight and the glass-block walls. It didn’t work. The pillow didn’t block out the funny, gurgly sound of the waterfall, either, or the now-and-again plop of the fish as they swam around in the little pond across the room. It sure didn’t do a thing to stop the memories that had kept him tossing and turning all night.

Noah knew a losing battle when he saw one and he flipped over and chucked the pillow aside, a kind of overstuffed surrender flag. There was no use trying to sleep, just like there was no use trying to forget everything that had happened since he walked into Cupid’s Hideaway, so he kicked off the blankets. Scraping his hands through his hair, he sat up and looked around.

It wasn’t just a bad dream.

The tropical plants were real. The winding paths were real. The faint background noise was real, too, a recording of roaring lions and squawking birds that must have been on a timer because he hadn’t—thank goodness—heard it during the night.

As if he needed more proof that he was smack-dab in the middle of a situation he wasn’t exactly sure how he’d gotten himself into, Noah saw the fabric fig leaf on the bed beside him. No doubt, the fig leaf was Maisie’s idea of a joke, a little prop never meant to be worn but rather to be used as a kind of trigger designed to titillate the imaginations of the couples who stayed in Almost Paradise. Like the entire Cupid’s Hideaway concept, the fig leaf was clever and bizarre and a little corny. In its own warped way, it was also very funny.

So why hadn’t he and Laurel done any laughing?

Not a question Noah wanted to consider.

Hoping to get rid of the memories as easily as he got rid of the kink in his neck, he stretched and got up, headed to the bathroom. He was done asking himself questions. It was bad enough he’d spent the night second-guessing his handling of the situation and wondering where he got off thinking he could waltz into what was essentially enemy territory and come out without being handed his head, or at least his heart, on a silver platter. It was even worse realizing that four long years of telling himself he’d done the right thing—both for himself and for his career—didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Not when Laurel was stretched out on the bed and he was lying on top of her.

Halfway down a winding path lined with flowering orchids, Noah stopped, nearly upended by the thought. He sucked in a long, slow breath, willing his heartbeat to slow down, telling himself to remember that there was more to any relationship than simply sex.

An easy enough concept to understand. Or at least it should have been. But try as he might, he couldn’t forget that in the months he’d shared with Laurel, simply sex wasn’t so simple. With Laurel, it was more like great sex. Mind-numbing sex. Heart-pounding, better-than-ever-before-or-since sex. He also couldn’t forget that in that one moment, there in the dark in Almost Paradise, when Laurel’s breasts were pressed to his chest and Laurel’s breath was warm against his skin and Laurel’s heart beat to the same manic rhythm as his, he’d wanted her again. Wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone. Or anything. At anytime. Ever.

The thought was enough to send Noah’s temperature soaring, and that was enough to convince him he was in deep trouble. He knew what he had to do. He was a man of science, one who was the first to sneer at the touchy-feely stuff so many pseudoprofessionals advocated. But this time, he knew he had to make an exception. This time, it was time to listen to his instincts.

And his instincts told him to cut and run.

He knew exactly what he had to do. Get the Golden Apple and get out of there. After all, it was what he’d come to the island for in the first place.

Even after all these years, just thinking about the prestigious award he’d been presented by his medical school graduating class never failed to stir a curious brew of emotions in Noah. Pride, sure. How could he not be proud of the fact that he’d been honored as the most successful, the most competent, the most admired student in his class? It was a mark of distinction he hadn’t been about to turn down. Not even when he found out Laurel had come in second for the award.

But there was something else tangled up with the pride, some emotion that was hard to define but impossible to ignore. Part anger, part disbelief, part baseball-bat-to-the-side-of-the-head surprise. Every time he thought about the fact that when Laurel walked out on him, she had the audacity to take the Golden Apple with her.

Four years removed from the incident and the residual effects still burned through Noah like acid. All the more reason he needed to get away from Cupid’s Hideaway. And get away fast. He’d take the ferry to the mainland. He’d get back to his life as he knew it. It was all he ever wanted.

No. Noah corrected himself. Not precisely true. Today he wanted something else, too—a long talk with the fluffy little old lady who’d played him for a patsy.

Once he was done, he’d get out of there. The sooner he was off the island, the better. It was time to put some distance—and all the water in Lake Erie—between himself and Laurel. Just the way he’d done four years earlier.

Satisfied that he’d reasoned through the problem and come up with a solution guaranteed to preserve his self-respect as well as his self-esteem, Noah stepped behind the screen of living tropical plants that served as a shower curtain. He lathered down with a bar of soap that looked like a miniature pineapple, washed his hair with shampoo that smelled like coconut. Considering all that had happened in the last fourteen hours or so, he had to admit he was pretty pleased with himself.

Which didn’t explain why his mind kept wandering. Or why every time it wandered, it wandered straight to Laurel. Or why, every time it did, he found himself turning down the water temperature.

HALF AN HOUR LATER, Noah was downstairs in search of coffee. And answers. What he found instead was an empty lobby. There was no fire dancing in the fireplace as there had been the night before, no tea on the buffet. He heard some off-key singing coming from the kitchen but he knew the voice didn’t belong to Maisie, not unless her tastes included vintage Rolling Stones along with her La Bohème. He headed down the long hallway beside the front desk. The first door past the kitchen had a pink-feathered wreath hanging on it and a dainty needlepointed picture to the left of the door, one of a fleshy cherub with a naughty smile on his face. He knew he’d found what he was looking for.

“Good morning!” Maisie chirped in response to Noah’s knock. He pushed open the door and found her looking as perky as the birds that darted around the patio outside her office. She was dressed in a pantsuit that perfectly matched the last of the summer’s hot pink geraniums growing in pots around the patio door and she was bent over what looked to be a set of blueprints. When Noah walked in, she rolled up the blueprints, tied them with a red velvet ribbon and stashed them in the corner.

Maisie’s smile was as bright as the sun that filtered through the lace curtains. “Sleep well?” she asked.

“Frankly, no.” Noah didn’t need to remind himself that he was fond of Maisie. He always had been. But as much he liked Laurel’s grandmother, he couldn’t afford to be hoodwinked by that sunny smile or the old-lady act. Not again.

He crossed his arms over his chest and pinned her with the kind of look that had been known to make even third-year medical students shake in their shoes. “You want to explain what this is all about?”

“This?” Maisie’s eyes went wide, and her hand automatically went protectively to the blueprints. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you. A woman has to have her secrets.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” Noah pushed off from the door and ventured into the room that was, in its own way, as bizarre as Almost Paradise. But instead of plants and tropical bird calls, Maisie’s office was filled with cupids. There were glass cupids on the bookshelves directly across from Noah, silver cupids and porcelain cupids arranged on the windowsills. There was a candle cupid merrily burning and making the room smell like roses, a cupid carved out of wood that apparently doubled as objet d’art and door-stop and, on the table next to the brocade couch, another cupid that looked to be made of solid chocolate and had one wing bitten off.

The cupids shared table space with candles of all shapes and sizes, potpourri, bunches of brightly colored fresh flowers and more lace then Noah had ever seen at one time in one place. There was a thick Oriental rug on the floor and the kind of white-and-gold furniture he had always associated with fussy old ladies and the French bordellos he’d seen only in the movies. The walls were a color that reminded him of shrimp. The woodwork was gold, a color that was repeated in the picture frames, Maisie’s desk accessories and her old-fashioned, ornate telephone.

Refusing to get distracted—again—Noah turned. “What I mean,” he said, “is—”

“Coffee. Yes. Of course.” Like a butterfly on speed, Maisie flittered to the front of her desk and headed through a doorway that apparently led to the kitchen. She was back in a minute carrying a thermal carafe decorated with bright red hearts. She handed the carafe to Noah and disappeared again. This time when she came back it was with a tray that contained a coffee cup that matched the carafe, along with a crystal sugar bowl and cream pitcher and a porcelain plate filled with what looked and smelled like freshly baked blueberry muffins. “One lump or two?” she asked, setting the tray on her desk and taking the carafe from Noah.

“We weren’t discussing coffee.”

“We weren’t, no.” Maisie filled his cup, adding one sugar and no cream, just the way he liked it. “But I was,” she said, handing him the cup. “I’m the inn-keeper, and my guests’ comfort is my utmost concern. Especially when the guest in question is such an old and dear friend. How did you like your little piece of paradise?”

It was on the tip of Noah’s tongue to tell Maisie that one man’s paradise was another man’s perdition. He didn’t, but only because she was so sincere and so darned pink and fluffy, he didn’t have the heart. He swallowed his words along with a sip of coffee.

“I know, I know.” Maisie patted his arm. “It’s a bit much at first, isn’t it? I mean, all that beauty. It’s enough to take your breath away, and I can understand why you’re not thinking clearly. And then there’s the temptation…” She sighed. “Overwhelming.”

“Right.” As soon as Noah set down his cup, Maisie filled it. “It’s a great room, Maisie, but I—”

“That’s a given, isn’t it? Almost Paradise is…well…” Maisie giggled, and the sound reminded Noah of the bubbling water in the pond upstairs. “It’s paradise!” She leaned forward as if sharing a secret. “It’s my favorite room here at Cupid’s Hideaway, though I don’t let any of the guests who like the other rooms know that. They each have their own tastes, of course, and who’s to say that one person’s taste is better than another’s? But, you see, when I mentioned beauty and temptation, I wasn’t talking about the room.”

Noah hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he saw the muffins. He had one in his hand, and he stopped and glanced over his shoulder toward Maisie. “Not talking about the room? Then what—”

The answer struck with all the subtlety of a meteor crash landing, and suddenly a muffin didn’t seem like such a good idea. He set the muffin on the plate and brushed his hands together, getting rid of the bits of sugar that had stuck to his fingers. He wished it was as easy to brush off the disturbing images of Laurel that Maisie’s comments had conjured. Laurel’s beauty was enough to take his breath away. And as for the temptation…

Noah braced himself against the memories and reminded himself that Maisie was the last one who needed to catch on to the fact that thinking about Laurel left him feeling as if he’d been plugged in to a two-twenty line. Correction. Maisie was the second last one who needed to know.

Noah was determined to keep to the subject he’d come to discuss in the first place. “Look,” he said, “why you decided to lie to me about Laurel being on the island is your business.”

“Lie?” As if he’d spoken in another language, Maisie peered at Noah, her eyes narrowed. “I’d never do such a thing. I said she was—”

“On a cruise.”

Maisie clicked her tongue. “Not precisely, dear. I said she was cruising. Two entirely different things.” Looking more than ever like the bunny in the battery commercial, Maisie scooted to the other side of her desk, going in her own direction in spite of how Noah tried to keep the conversation on track. “And wasn’t it a nice surprise to see her again?”

Noah set down his coffee cup a little faster than he realized. Coffee splashed over the side and onto the silver tray, and he wiped it up with the napkin that had been left next to the plate of muffins. “It was a surprise, all right.”

“And I do so like surprises!” On the other side of the room, Maisie bustled around, opening cabinets and closing them again. By the time she was finished, she had a linen cloth in one hand and a basket with a handle in the other. She put the cloth into the basket and piled the muffins into it. “And Laurel likes surprises, too.” Smiling, she held out the basket to Noah. “Which is why she’ll be so pleased when you show up at the clinic with breakfast.”

“Oh, no!” Noah stepped away from the basket of muffins, the twinkle in Maisie’s eyes and her ridiculous suggestion. “I’m not here to renew old acquaintances,” he reminded her. “You know that. I told you that when you called yesterday.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost ten, and the way I figure it, there’s got to be a ferry over to the mainland soon. I’m going to be on it.”

“Yes, yes. Of course you are. I can understand that. It’s just that…” Maisie chewed the shocking pink lipstick off her lower lip. “Well, I hoped you’d take these muffins to Laurel. She doesn’t always remember to eat—”

“Laurel’s dietary habits are none of my business.”

“—and she doesn’t always keep sensible hours—”

“Neither are her work habits.”

“—and she did mention that she hoped she’d see you again before you left.”

“She did?” The simple statement caught Noah completely off guard and started a kind of buzzing in his bloodstream. He knew why. It was all the fault of Almost Paradise. He knew that for a fact. If it wasn’t for the wacky room with its heady, earthy scent, its winding paths and the plants that were where plants weren’t supposed to be, he and Laurel never would have ended up tumbling onto the bed together. And Maisie’s announcement wouldn’t have left him feeling so weak-kneed.

But they had tumbled on the bed together, and in those few, electrifying moments Noah wondered if Laurel was just as interested and just as aroused as he was. Looked like he just might have the opportunity to find out.

Noah sucked in a sharp breath, fighting to control the mixture of white-hot heat and frosty-as-ice disbelief that collided inside him like a cold front moving across the Texas panhandle in the dog days of August. The results were the same. A tornado that stirred his blood and turned what had been a well-ordered world on its head.

He took a minute, letting the thought settle and getting used to the feel of it. Not exactly easy when he considered that he’d spent the last four years learning to live with the idea of never seeing Laurel again.

Not that he thought there was any future in it. For either one of them. He knew some wounds were too deep to heal. Some hearts could never be resuscitated. No matter how skilled the doctor.

It was a fact. And facts were impossible to dispute. Which explained why Noah found the whole thing so impossible to believe. It didn’t explain why the next thing he knew, he had the basket of muffins in his hand and was headed out to find Laurel.

“I WISH I could help, Laurel. Honest. But…”

Gilly Wilson’s face was an unbecoming shade of green. Understandable considering that Gilly was not only six months pregnant, but had the flu, as well. The fact that she’d had the energy to pack her husband’s lunch before he left the island for his job on the mainland that morning and get her three-year-old to day care on time impressed the heck out of Laurel. In spite of everything, Gilly had also managed to get her five-year-old twins to the clinic for their annual checkups. No doubt about it, Gilly was a candidate for Mother of the Year. At least in Laurel’s opinion.

Which was the only reason—besides the fact that Gilly just happened to be her best friend—Laurel didn’t beg, plead and offer Gilly bribes not to leave the room while she examined the boys known around town as the Wild Wilsons.