A Bride Until Midnight / Something Unexpected: A Bride Until Midnight. Sandra Steffen
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wondered if the river minded that it was no longer of use to anybody. Kyle knew the feeling.
Rumor was he’d sold out an informant. The proper terminology was that he was being investigated for revealing a source. He hadn’t revealed anything, and he sure as hell hadn’t taken money for it. But he couldn’t prove it, and it had broken down the line of trust he’d worked so hard to build. And an investigative reporter without leads wasn’t an investigative reporter for long.
He probably should care about that.
He had it from a good source that he was burned out. He wasn’t burned out. And he wasn’t experiencing writer’s block, whatever the hell that was. He was just tired of fighting for meaningless front-page stories while the real news was given a two-inch spot after the obituaries.
Last night he’d slept more than he’d slept in weeks. It hadn’t lasted. Already fatigue was engulfing him.
He turned his back on the view and glanced around the room. Sloping ceilings, painted wood floors, a slip-covered sofa, mismatched lamps, and a bathroom too small to turn around in. He sank to the bed, because the accommodations didn’t matter, either.
He laid back. And was asleep before he’d closed his eyes.
Summer’s footsteps were quiet as she climbed the stairs to the third floor. At the top, she adjusted the stack of linens in her arms and finger combed her hair. She didn’t really expect to see Kyle. After all, it had been three hours since Harriet had returned after showing him to his room. Although Summer hadn’t heard the purling of the front door chimes or seen him leave through the kitchen where she’d been working this afternoon, it didn’t mean he hadn’t slipped out.
Just in case he was inside, she tapped lightly on the door. Placing her ear close, she listened. She didn’t hear music, voices or the TV. There was only silence.
She hadn’t spent much time in the third-floor apartment since Madeline had moved out two weeks ago. She’d given the place a thorough cleaning, but that was all she’d done. Since Kyle would need these towels before he could shower, and she wanted to make the bed up with fresh sheets, she knocked again. Her apartment off the kitchen and this one on the third floor were the only doors that required actual keys anymore. She had a spare key with her, but first she tried the knob. Surprisingly, it turned.
She’d have thought that somebody who’d lived in L.A. and New York and half a dozen other bustling cities would have locked up behind him. Obviously not.
She would just run in, put the towels in the bathroom, freshen up the bed, then leave. She pushed the door open and instantly felt the gentle breeze.
The natural light slanting through the small windows on either end of the space left the center portion in shadow. Her hand was on the light switch when she saw Kyle lying on the bed across the room.
Shirtless and barefoot, he was clad in low-slung jeans. His face was turned toward her, his lashes casting deeper shadows on his cheeks. She saw no movement whatsoever, no fluttering of his eyes, not even a rise and fall of his chest. She thought about the pallor she’d glimpsed before he came upstairs and wondered—
She didn’t like what she was thinking.
There were times in her life when she’d felt as if she were being steered toward a blind curve by an invisible hand pressed firmly against her back. Today she was being pulled toward it as if by an invisible cord.
As she crept steadily closer, she automatically categorized the space. She didn’t see Kyle’s duffel bag anywhere. His shirt lay half on, half off the chair beside the bed, his shoes lined up neatly beneath the window. The man was a study in contrasts. Somehow she’d expected that.
She hadn’t expected him to be dead to the world. Cringing at her terminology, she saw no liquor bottles or sleeping pills on the nightstand, or anything else that might have explained his comatose appearance.
She leaned slightly over him. Now that she was only a few feet away she could see his chest rise and fall shallowly. He was breathing. Thank heavens.
Okay, he was simply sound asleep. The voice of reason told her to stop looking at him, but my oh my oh my, she wasn’t listening.
A man’s chest really was his most attractive physical attribute. No man wanted to hear that, but it was true. Kyle’s chest was muscled, the skin taut and tan and darkened with a sparse mat of fine, brown hair. His ribs showed, suggesting a lanky, wiry build. His waist was lean, his abs tidily halved by a narrow line of hair that disappeared beneath the closure of his CK’s.
She had no idea how he kept in shape, but he was every woman’s fantasy and had a broad appeal that could have been an advertisement for anything from blue jeans to sports cars to European vacations. His legs were long and lean, too. Shame on her for allowing her eyes to linger at his fly.
Summer took a step away and let her gaze glide back along a safer path—waist, abs, ribs, chest, shoulders. His jaw was darkened with whisker stubble. His mouth was closed.
And his eyes were slightly open.
She froze like a deer trapped in the glare of headlights. He was looking at her.
Or was he?
She looked closer and realized she was wrong. His eyes were open a slit but his pupils weren’t focused. He was still sound asleep.
And she was getting out of here before he woke up and caught her watching him or worse. But what could be worse? He could accuse her of liking what she saw. She couldn’t have refuted it, for she evaded the truth when necessary, but she didn’t lie.
She scurried to the door on tiptoe, leaving the towels and sheets on the table where Kyle had left his keys. She backed out the door, her gaze on his prone form, an image that was going to be nearly impossible to get out of her mind.
Kyle was aware of two things when he wandered downstairs. His brain was fuzzy despite his quick shower, and he was starving.
He wasn’t wearing a watch, and he’d left his cell phone charging next to the stack of towels he’d discovered by his door, so he couldn’t be certain of the time. He’d missed lunch. From the look of the activity of other guests at the inn, their work was over for the day.
Two men in blue jeans and work boots stood on the portico, their voices carrying through the screen door. Three others sat around what appeared to be an old game table in the front room off the foyer. A kid who didn’t look old enough to shave was eating fast food in the dining room. The aroma of greasy fries had Kyle’s stomach growling all the way to the kitchen.
He hadn’t known what he was looking for until he saw her. Summer.
She stood at the counter, her back to him. She was whipping up something with a wire whisk, her actions slowing each time she glanced at the recipe book open in front of her. Her light brown hair swished between her shoulder blades and her hips swayed to and fro with every repetition of that metal whisk.
She must have had ultra-sensitive hearing, for she glanced over her shoulder. Stilling momentarily, she said, “You’re awake.”
He sauntered the rest of the way into the room, letting the door swing closed behind him. “Jet lag’s a b—a bear.”
“I see you found the bath towels,” she said, resuming whatever it was she was doing.
So, she’d noticed his damp hair. Obviously he wasn’t the only observant type in the room. He stopped at the kitchen table and said, “Until I spotted the towels, I thought I’d imagined seeing you in my room.”
She stopped stirring. “You saw me?”
“I’ve got to tell you, it was a relief finding evidence that you’d been there. Chronic insomnia and an insatiable hunger are bad enough. Hallucinations would have been a lot tougher to ignore.”
She smiled at his dry wit. He found he liked that, too.
“I thought you were dead,”