Christmas At Cupid's Hideaway. Connie Lane
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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’?”
“Good heavens, dear.” Maisie clicked her tongue and went into the inn’s dining room. Although she didn’t have the nerve to pretend she was embarrassed, she at least had the decency to blush a shade darker than her hot-pink pantsuit. “You are so suspicious! You can’t possibly think I’m so meddlesome that…”
Her comment trailed away, and Meg supposed it was just as well. She didn’t need her grandmother to elaborate. Not about Gabe.
In the hours since she’d met him, Meg’s own imagination had done enough elaborating for the both of them.
That brought her up short, and right before she bumped the swinging door with her hip and entered the dining room, Meg paused to catch her breath. The last thing she needed were her own fantasies sneaking up to destroy her self-control. Not when she was about to walk into the dining room and come face to face with the man who’d inspired those fantasies. All night long.
Meg twitched the thought away as inconsequential, inconsistent with what she wanted out of her life and her career, and just plain old insane. She gave the door an authoritative smack and got down to business—which would’ve been considerably easier if it wasn’t for the scene that greeted her in the dining room.
Maisie was fluttering around the table pouring coffee and chatting up a storm, just as she did every morning when they had guests. The Kilbanes were holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. The nudists and the spies…
Meg glanced around the table. Because she wasn’t usually involved in the day-to-day operation of the inn outside the kitchen, she wasn’t sure which guests were the nudists and which were the James Bond fans. She did, however, know exactly which guest Maisie was referring to when she’d mentioned delicious.
Delicious was a word that didn’t adequately describe how Gabe looked early in the morning.
He was wearing khakis and an inky shirt that brought out the highlights in his dark hair, and though he was sitting with his back to the windows with their view of the lake, she could tell he’d shaved since she’d last seen him. Yesterday’s sprinkling of dark stubble was gone, replaced by a smooth sweep of jaw that was squarer—and more stubborn—than she remembered.
The impression did nothing to dampen the little thread of awareness that wound through Meg. Her mind on everything but the dishes she was placing on the table in front of their guests, she went through the motions, calling on a lifetime of experience in the restaurant industry and fourteen months’ worth of experience in the I’m-thinking-about-him-but-I’m-not-going-to-let-anyone-know-it department. She succeeded at both. By the time she got around to sliding his dish in front of Gabe, the other guests were murmuring their admiration of her presentation, nodding their approval of her menu selection and digging in.
Gabe, on the other hand, was staring into his coffee cup which, Meg noticed, was empty.
“Coffee?” When Maisie picked that exact moment to zoom by, Meg plucked the silver coffee pot off the tray she was carrying. She stepped back and waited for Gabe to answer and when he didn’t, she gave it another try.
“Coffee?” she asked again.
As if he’d been touched with a cattle prod, he snapped to attention and for the first time, Meg saw that while everyone else had been munching her island-famous blueberry muffins and making small talk, Gabe had been lost in his own world. He’d brought a legal pad down to the dining room and it was covered with doodles.
“Buildings.” She tipped her head and examined the pictures that covered the entire top page of the pad. Though she was no expert when it came to art of any kind, she knew good work when she saw it. And Gabe’s drawings were definitely good.
There was a sketch of the Chrysler building in New York on one corner of the pad. Another toward the bottom of the page reminded her of the glass pyramid at the Louvre. In between was a building she didn’t recognize, one with broad lines and a bold silhouette.
“You’re pretty talented,” she told him.
“No. I’m not.” Gabe frowned at the drawings before he ripped off the page and scrunched it into a ball. He glanced around as if he didn’t know what to do with it and Meg held out her hand. “I’m just doodling,” he told her, dropping the ball of paper into her hands. “Passing the time. Doodling.”
“Whatever you say.” Meg stuck the paper in the pocket of her apron and held out the coffeepot, trying again. Gabe finally took the hint. He held up his cup for her to fill and she had another chance to look at him. This close, she saw that there were still dark smudges under Gabe’s eyes. He was just as on-edge as when he’d arrived at the Hideaway. Just as tired-looking.
As if she’d seen it, too, Maisie stepped in. “I do hope you slept well, Mr. Morrison.” She offered him one of her patented smiles and an expectant look that told him whether he liked it or not, she was about to draw him into the conversation. “The Kilbanes here…” She tipped her head toward the honeymooning couple. “They were just saying that the bed in Close to the Heart is the most comfortable they’ve ever been in. For sleeping or for…” Maisie’s gentle laughter rippled around the room. “Well, they are on their honeymoon, after all!”
The other guests nodded and smiled, and one of the other men (either the nudist or the spy) raised his orange-juice glass and proposed a toast. Gabe didn’t say a thing. He drank some of his coffee and held the cup out for Meg to top off. When she was done, she backed away from the table and returned to the kitchen. Better to hide out with the dirty dishes and the greasy pans than to stand here and listen to Maisie’s barefaced attempts at drawing Gabe out of his shell and into a heart-to-heart.
Once the door was safely closed behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief.
The reprieve didn’t last long.
“I think it’s going very well.” Maisie breezed into the kitchen with the empty orange-juice pitcher, a smile on her face and a purr of satisfaction in her voice. “He’s fitting right in, don’t you think?”
“I think,” Meg told her, being careful to keep her voice down, “that he’s sullen and in a world of his own. Can’t you see that, Grandma? The man obviously has problems, and I don’t think your attempts to introducing hearts and flowers into his life will help. He’s worried.”
“He needs someone to help him not worry.”
“He’s crabby.”
“Who wouldn’t be if they were all alone?”
“He’s not interested.”
“Did I say anything about him being interested?” Maisie’s silvery eyebrows rose nearly as far as the sweep of fluffy white hair that touched her forehead. “Really, Meg, I think you’re way ahead of me here. You’re having ideas I haven’t even thought of. Do you want him to be interested?”
“I’m—” Meg grumbled her displeasure. Of Maisie’s shameless tactics. Of her own inexplicable reaction to Gabe. “It doesn’t matter whether I want him to be or not,” she admitted. “He’s obviously not.”
Maisie leaned against the countertop, head cocked, eyes sparkling. “How do you know?” she asked.
“How do I—” Too restless to stand still, Meg tugged her apron over her head and threw it on the countertop. “Did you take a good look at him?” She pointed toward the closed door and the dining room beyond. “How can the man be interested in anything? He’s preoccupied. He’s troubled.”
“Pish-tush.” Maisie tossed her head. “I