LITMIR.BIZ

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Jumping on the beds. Sitting in front of the fireplace wrapped in a luxurious, pure white robe, while he painted her toenails red. Walking to the theater. Taking a carriage ride through Central Park.

      Three days of barely sleeping, of living with an intensity that was exhilarating and exhausting, of being on fire with life and love... Strip away all the luxury, and it was his hand in hers that had caused her to feel so exquisitely alive, his eyes on her face that made her feel as if she had never felt before.

      Enough! Casey shook her head clear of the memories. Finally, after experiencing what she had once seen described in a poem as the “interminable night,” she felt it was safe to creep out of her room, jacket on against the cold, suitcase in hand.

      She checked the hallway. Nothing. Not a sound beyond the wheezing of an exceptionally cranky old furnace. She was pretty sure Harper slept with her owner, the innkeeper, Carol.

      Casey tiptoed through the house and out the front, where the screen door shrieked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

      She froze, listened, waited for lights to come on. It was really dark out here. Even the Christmas lights had been turned off, no doubt part of the Gingerbread Inn’s austerity program.

      Stumbling through the inky darkness found only in the country, Casey finally made it to her car, where she opted to use the key so there would be no blink of headlights or short blast of the horn when she unlocked it. She actually had her key in the door when it hit her.

      She could not let Emily and Andrea down like this. It wasn’t about her. It was about making Emily’s day the most incredible experience of her life.

      Besides, what explanation could she offer to her friends for her sudden defection? As close as she was to them, she had never let on about those three days she and Turner had spent together. Had never breathed out loud that she harbored a crush on the man, that she had waited and hoped and prayed that he would contact her again.

      The memory of that—of waiting—made her cheeks turn crimson with anger.

      She was acting like a thief! Acting as if she had done something wrong.

      It was Turner who had breathed fire into her soul in those three days that had followed Cole and Emily’s wedding. And then he had walked away, and never, ever called. Or written. Had disappeared as if they had not shared the most intense of all experiences.

      As if they had not fallen in love at first sight.

      Slowly, she pulled her key out of the car door.

      Casey was a scientist. She didn’t believe in the phenomena of coincidence, certainly did not believe in the universe conspiring to help people out. But really, in terms of her vow never to love again, could there be a more perfect test than this?

      Could there be a better conclusion than coming face-to-face with the man who had made her aware of her fatal flaw?

      It was perfect, really.

      The perfect ending.

      Not the one Andrea and Emily wanted her to believe in. No, in this story, the princess was not kissed awake by a prince. In this ending, the princess came awake all by herself. In her new happily-ever-after, Casey would walk away, sure of herself, entirely certain of her ability to be completely independent, to live with purpose and joy without being encumbered by a belief in the fairy-tale ending of love.

      Love, even love that worked, was an uphill battle with heartache. Look at Em. Look at Andrea, having to bury her husband before her honeymoon had even ended!

      Casey decided—right then and there, in the parking lot of the Gingerbread Inn, with fresh snow drifting down around her—to be on a quest, not for love, but for emotional freedom. She would rid herself once and for all of the lifelong myths and fantasies and hopes and dreams that had bound and imprisoned her.

      Her life would be about her baby. Who better than a scientist to conduct the search for a donor with the perfect qualities to give her child?

      She could make that decision about creating her own family in the way all the best choices were made. She would be measured and rational. She hadn’t got far in her research about how to choose a donor, but she hoped she would get to review photos. She would make sure the father of her child was nothing like her own devastatingly handsome father had been, or her immensely charming, but ultimately fickle fiancé.

      The man would, especially, be nothing like Turner.

      Who could turn those silvery eyes on a woman and enchant her entirely.

      No, better to look for brilliance and gentleness, physical health and even features.

      Really, she was surprised she hadn’t thought of it sooner—that science could provide her with a perfect father for her children!

      When she thought back on it, she was a totally different woman than she had been in those few long-ago days with Turner.

      She’d experienced nothing but heartache at the caprice of love. She’d buried her father, lost her fiancé to another woman and her mother to the church, attended the heartbreaking funeral of one of her best friends. She’d seen Andrea devastated by the death of her husband, and Emily by a struggling marriage. It was enough! Casey’s heart was in armor.

      She was glad that Emily and Andrea had found love. She really was. But she was concluding her mission. The rejection of romantic love would make her a better mother to her future child, devoted and not distracted. Their lives wouldn’t be in a constant jumble of men moving in and out.

      If the gods were throwing down a gauntlet in the face of her decision, she was accepting the challenge!

      And with that firmly in mind, Casey grasped the handle of her suitcase and turned back to the inn with a certain grim determination. She plowed through the growing mounds of snow and marched up the steps onto the covered porch.

      Something wet and cold brushed the hand that held her car keys. Casey dropped them with a little shriek of surprise, then looked down to see Harper thrust a wet snout into her palm.

      “What are you doing out here?” she asked the dog.

      A deep voice, as sensual as the snow-filled night, came out of a darkened corner of the porch.

      “Keeping me company.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      CASEY SHRIEKED EVEN more loudly than she had when the dog had thrust its wet, cold snout into her hand.

      She dropped her suitcase from nerveless fingers, and it landed with a thump beside her keys. The suitcase was an old one with a hard shell, and to her horror, the latch popped and the lid flew open, displaying her neatly packed underthings.

      Right on top were embarrassingly lacy garments she would no longer be needing now that she had decided to move procreation into the controllable field of science, rather than the uncontrollable one of attraction.

      The dog shoved her head forward as if about to follow her instincts and retrieve.

      Casey squatted down and slammed the lid, nearly catching Harper’s snout. The dog whined, perplexed at being thwarted, then while Casey struggled with the sticky latch, she noticed the keys.

      “Harper,” Casey pleaded, “don’t—”

      With a happy thump of her tail, the dog scooped up the keys. Holding them in her mouth as gently as she would have a downed bird, she delivered them to the shadowy figure in the darkness of the porch, forcing Casey, finally, to look at him.

      Harper sat down, tail thumping, offering him the prize.

      “Keys,” he said, in the voice that played music on Casey’s harp.

      He took them, examined them, jingling them with a certain satisfaction.

      “To the chambers of a lovely maiden? What a good dog. So much better than a newspaper or slippers.”

      It was said with

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