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.