LITMIR.BIZ

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had just placed two mugs of hot chocolate on the coffee table, when she came out of the bedroom. He hadn’t known what to expect, considering the shape she’d been in when she arrived, but surely not this….

      No way she could’ve been taller than five foot five. He knew, because when she’d slunk past him to get inside earlier, the top of her head had barely reached his shoulder. Somehow, she looked even tinier in his bulky sweatsuit.

      Her hair had looked darker, straighter, when it had been all plastered to her head by the rain. Now, thick waves that fell almost to her waist gleamed like a new penny in the firelight.

      “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you have a phone way out here….”

      “Cell phone,” he said, “but the battery is dead.”

      “Seems to be a lot of that going around lately.” Then she noticed the mugs. “Oh, wow,” she said, smiling. “Hot chocolate, my favorite.”

      The smile put a deep dimple in her right cheek at exactly the same moment as a loud, gurgling growl erupted from her stomach. She placed a hand over it. A very tiny, dainty hand, he noticed.

      “Hungry?”

      Her cheeks turned a rosy red. “Well, I hate to put you out. I can make myself a sandwich, make one for you, too…if you have the fixin’s.”

      “You just sit there by the fire and get warm. I’ll whip us both up a bite to eat.” He headed for the kitchen. “Do you like grilled cheese?” Standing at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, Adam picked up a can of tomato soup, opened his mouth to offer that, too, when she spoke up.

      “Do I!” She sat on the hearth, hugged her knees to her chest. “Only way I like it better is with a bowl of tomato soup.”

      “Well, then. We have two things in common.”

      Well-arched brows disappeared behind wispy, coppery bangs.

      “An aversion to being cold and wet, and grilled cheese with a side of tomato soup.”

      Either she hadn’t heard his response to her unasked question, or chose not to respond, for his surprise houseguest was leafing through a copy of Architecture Today. He wondered which house had her wrinkling her nose that way. Hopefully, the ridiculous-looking one the magazine had decided to feature on the cover. Adam didn’t know why, especially when his own house was a glass-and-wood contemporary in Ellicott City, Maryland, but he’d never been overly fond of modern-looking houses. Give him an old Victorian, like his grandma used to live in, and—

      “I could never live in one of these.”

      “One of what?”

      “These houses that have more windows than walls.” She met his eyes. “Where’s a person supposed to hang pictures?”

      He’d been trying to butter the bread when she said it, and buttered his hand, instead. After wiping it clean on a kitchen towel, he stirred the soup and shrugged. He didn’t have anything on the walls at his place, so the question had never occurred to him.

      She stood, returned the magazine to its pile, then bent to make a tidy fan shape of the stack. “So,” she said, walking toward him, “mind if I ask you a question?”

      “Fire away.”

      “Actually,” she added, sliding onto a stool, “it’s more like a couple of questions.”

      What was it with women? Did they all need name, rank, and serial number before they could carry on an ordinary conversation? “Name’s Adam Thorne,” he began dryly, adjusting the flame under the frying pan. “I’m thirty-two, unattached, and practice medicine for a living.”

      “Whoa.” She held up a hand, traffic-cop style. “A doctor without a phone? How will your patients get hold of you in case of an emergency?”

      “My partner takes over when I’m away, and when he’s gone, I do the same for him.”

      “I didn’t see a car out front—”

      “Friend dropped me off.” As if it’s any of your business, he added mentally. “He needed to borrow my pickup and—”

      She stopped his explanation with a weary sigh.

      “Sorry,” Adam said, “but it’s too late to hike out of here tonight, especially with this weird weather—”

      “When will your friend be back?”

      He grinned at her interruption. “First thing tomorrow morning.”

      She straightened her back, tucked her hair behind her ears and bobbed her head. “Oh, well…” she said, shrugging.

      He liked her grit. For all she knew, he was a madman. Yet there she sat, pretending not to mind that the wind had blown her into a stranger’s house.

      “…lemons and puckers and all that.”

      He would have asked what that meant…if he hadn’t looked into her eyes. Adam couldn’t help noticing how big they were, how long-lashed, how green. And then she smiled, and he had to add beautiful to the list.

      There was something about her, though, something vaguely familiar….

      He set the thoughts aside when she made a thin line of her mouth, slid the pucker left, then right. “What I really wanted to know was, what are you doing way out here in the middle of nowhere, all by yourself?”

      Man, but she was cute! Adam cleared his throat. “I come up here every other weekend or so. You know, the old ‘get away from it all’ routine.”

      She nodded. “How in the world did you ever find this place? I mean, it’s so…” Fingers drawing little arcs in the air, she hummed the tune to an old Beatles’ song. “It’s so nowhere, man!”

      Chuckling, he said, “Inheritance. The property belonged to my grandparents.”

      “They lived here?”

      Adam shook his head, biting back the sadness the thought aroused. “Not exactly. Theirs was a traditional farmhouse, swing on the porch, potbellied stove in the dining room…. Unfortunately, it burned to the ground a decade or so ago.” He swallowed as the flash of memory prickled his mind. “I had this one built a couple of years back.”

      Another nod, another glance around. “I like it. I like it a lot.”

      So now I can go to my grave a satisfied man, he thought, grinning. Adam sliced each sandwich in half, poured the soup into two deep bowls.

      “I feel like a lazy oaf, just sitting here while you do all the work. Let me set the table, at least.” She hopped off the stool. “Where do you keep the silverware? And the napkins?”

      Adam opened a drawer, saw her eyes widen and her mouth drop open. “What?” he asked.

      Blinking innocently, she said, “O-o-oh, nothing.”

      “Seriously, what?”

      “Well, if you hadn’t already told me you were single, I’d have figured it out after poking my nose in there, that’s for sure!”

      What was she rambling about?

      “How do you ever find anything?”

      “I just dig ’til I come up with what I went hunting for.”

      She bobbed her head from side to side. “Makes sense, I guess.” She pointed at the contents of the drawer. “You need a license to hunt in there, ’cause it looks dangerous.”

      If she hadn’t punctuated the comment with a wink, he might have taken offense. But then, it seemed he took offense at just about everything these days. Adam put the food on the counter, topped off her hot chocolate with more. “Now then—”

      She held up a hand to forestall the question. “I know, I know. Turnabout is fair play

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