one.” Maisie poured a mug of coffee for herself. Using sterling silver sugar tongs, she added three lumps, then enough cream to make an ordinary person’s cholesterol jump at least a dozen points. But if there was one thing Meg knew about Maisie, it was that she was far from ordinary. As if she needed further proof, Maisie grinned at Meg over the rim of her cup.
Meg had seen that look before. All twinkles and smiles. All sweetness and light. She knew it meant Maisie was up to no good.
“A man,” Maisie said. Her blue eyes glowed. “A man named Gabriel Morrison. He’s checking in. By himself.”
There was nothing for Meg to get defensive about. She knew that. Which didn’t explain why her shoulders stiffened and her stomach tensed. “So?” She sounded defensive, too, and she gave herself a mental kick in the pants. “So you’re telling me this because…”
“I’m telling you this because it isn’t often we get single men here at the Hideaway. It’s a honeymoon spot, a romantic spot. Our guests are usually couples. And when couples check in here, they usually have their minds on—”
“I know exactly what they have their minds on.” The exact same thing Meg had been trying not to have her mind on since she’d returned to the island after trying life on the mainland. Rather than explain it to Maisie, as she’d tried to explain it so many times before, she headed to the refrigerator. She counted the eggs, made sure there was enough butter, did a quick survey of the pecans, raisins and cream she’d bought to make a batch of her famous sticky breakfast rolls. Satisfied that she was all set, she closed the refrigerator and turned around.
Of course, Maisie didn’t back down an inch. She was stationed next to the marble-topped table where Meg made bread, and she had the nerve to look as innocent as the baby goldfinches that chirped their heads off in the nest right outside the kitchen window.
“What they have on their minds isn’t what I want to have on my mind,” she reminded Maisie. “I told you, Grandma, I’ve given up waiting for Prince Charming. Prince Charming has left the building. And I’m pretty sure he’s left the island, the state and the continent. Besides…” Because it didn’t look as if Maisie believed her protests any more than Meg did, she decided to change course. “Just because this Gabriel Morrison is coming here by himself doesn’t mean a thing. He might be meeting someone.”
“I don’t think so. He tried for a room at the hotel over near the park. They’re booked. Christmas in July, you know.”
“And that means he’s not meeting someone because…”
“Because he would’ve asked for a room for two. And when Janice from the hotel called to see if we had any rooms available—”
“You asked.”
“Of course I asked.” Maisie pulled herself up to her full five-foot, one-inch height and threw back shoulders that were just this side of scrawny. “It’s my duty. As innkeeper. I have to know who’s staying here. And if a man’s bringing a woman, it’s my duty—as innkeeper—to remind him that we have a wide selection of products in the Love Shack designed to please them both.”
“Yeah.” This time, Meg couldn’t help herself. She had to laugh. “Like they pleased the Crawfords?”
“They were smiling when they left here.” Maisie’s eyes twinkled. “But that hardly matters. The Crawfords were the exception to the rule.” Her grandmother glanced from Meg’s brightly painted toenails peeking out of her sandals to the curly red hair she’d wound into a long braid. “Kind of like a beautiful woman who refuses to get out and try to meet a man.”
“Grandma, I told you. I’m just not ready. Not yet. Someday maybe I will be. Someday, when I find someone different.” Although it was ancient—and best forgotten history—Meg felt the familiar pang of emptiness. “Someone who isn’t Ben.”
Before Maisie could respond and remind her, as she always did, that the past was past and the future was what mattered, the little brass bell inside the front door rang, announcing their guest. How she’d timed it so perfectly, Meg couldn’t imagine, but Maisie chose that exact moment to hurry into the wide pantry on the far side of the kitchen. She waved Meg toward the front of the inn. “Get that for me, will you?” she called.
Meg sighed and slipped her apron over her head. She knew a losing battle when she saw one. She ought to; she’d been fighting—and losing—battles with Maisie all her life. She didn’t exactly hold Maisie’s persistence against her. She couldn’t. Though Maisie could be meddlesome, she was well-intentioned. There were only three things she put more energy into than Cupid’s Hideaway: Doc Ross, the retired family practitioner she spent most of her free time with, and—now that Maisie’s only daughter and son-in-law were retired and living in Florida—her two granddaughters. Laurel, Meg’s older sister, was married now and expecting her first baby in a couple of months. She was deliriously happy with her husband Noah, and while Maisie glowed at the prospect of becoming a great-grand-other and the satisfaction of having been instrumental in bringing Laurel and Noah together, not having a romantic project to keep her occupied made the old lady chafe.
It also left her with a lot of time on her hands—a lot of time to decide that Meg’s love life wasn’t what it should be.
“No news flash there,” Meg mumbled to herself, and because she refused to think about her lack of a love life—just like she’d been refusing to think about it since Ben Lucarelli had cut her heart into little pieces as only an experienced sous chef could—she thought about the Crawfords. And thinking about the Crawfords made her think about the Love Me Tender room. And thinking about Love Me Tender naturally made the commercial she’d heard earlier that morning pop into her head.
Whenever Meg thought of a song, she couldn’t resist. She couldn’t keep the words inside.
“Love my Tenders. Love them lots. Shaped like little steaks.” Meg walked into the lobby, singing the now-familiar-to-everyone-and-his-brother words with all the enthusiasm of the comical dog in the commercial. “Love my Tenders. Eat them all. They’re not fried, they’re—”
When she saw that the guy standing at the desk—the guy who must be Gabriel Morrison—was staring at her as if she’d just strolled in stark naked, she jerked to a stop in front of the ten-foot tall Christmas tree near the front desk and stared right back at him.
And the thought that she wouldn’t mind seeing him stark naked sent little sparks of electricity tingling along her spine.
Meg cringed at the realization, but even realizations and the cringes they brought along with them weren’t enough to erase the impressions that flashed through her head.
Gabe Morrison was gorgeous enough to be a man-of-the-month: tall, broad-shouldered, hair the color of the chocolate pudding in her soon-to-be-famous (she hoped) pie and eyes that reminded her of brandy, the secret ingredient in her spinach-salad dressing.
He had the kind of face that couldn’t fail to make a woman’s heart flutter. Not as craggy as it was chiseled. Not weathered but tanned, and not a store-bought tan, either. He obviously spent a lot of time outdoors in the wind and the sun, and for the nano-second Meg needed to take it all in, she wondered if he might be a sailor. If the expensive luggage he held in each hand hadn’t set her straight on that notion, the Porsche she saw through the front window did. Most sailors, even the wealthy ones who vacationed on the island, left their expensive sports cars at home.
Good-looking or not, there was no mistaking that Gabe Morrison was worn to a frazzle. His shoulders were slumped inside a green golf shirt with some expensive designer logo over the heart. There were dark shadows almost the same color as his faded jeans under his eyes, and a crease in the middle of his forehead that told her he frowned far too hard and too often. In spite of his expensive haircut, the left side of his hair stood up on end, as if he’d been tugging at it. His jaw was square and covered with a shadow of dark stubble. As he stared at her, it went a little slack.
For the second time in just a few minutes, Meg found herself on the defensive.