LITMIR.BIZ

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get the message!” Noah laughed and held up one hand in surrender. “I’m sorry. Honest. I wouldn’t have kissed you if I knew it was going to make you so nervous.”

      “I am not nervous.” Laurel tucked her hands behind her back before he could see that they were shaking. She forced herself to look Noah in the eye. “I don’t get nervous,” she told him. “Not about things as inconsequential as that.”

      “Of course not,” he agreed. Looking at her looking at him, the smile faded from his face, and he glanced away.

      That was a first. Laurel made a mental note. Noah was never the first to back down from anything. Interested, she tipped her head and watched him shift the shopping bag from one hand to the other. Was it her imagination, or had a little of the swagger gone out of Noah? It must have been a trick of the soft pink lighting. She could have sworn he looked as disconcerted by what had happened in the Love Shack as she was feeling.

      “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression,” he said. “I don’t want you to think that I was expecting that you—”

      “No!” Laurel jumped in to interrupt as quickly as she could. She didn’t need Noah to spell it out for her. She didn’t need him to detail exactly what he’d been expecting. She didn’t want to think about what he’d been expecting. Or what she’d been expecting in return. Or what she’d been expecting him to expect.

      “I mean, I don’t want you to think that I thought I could just waltz in here after four years and—”

      “Of course not.” Laurel decided it was better to agree with him than it was to risk further discussion. Kissing her former fiancé within minutes of running into him after a long separation and a nasty breakup was not the kind of thing a woman wanted to discuss in detail. At least, not with her former fiancé.

      Laurel wasn’t prepared for the stab of regret that followed fast on the thought. She could take the surprise and the anger that was part of the package of seeing Noah again. She could deal with the embarrassment she felt at losing her head and giving in to the potent pleasures of his kiss. But regret…

      She pulled in a slow breath and let it out.

      Regret used to be her best friend. It was one friend she didn’t want to get chummy with again.

      Holding fast to the thought, she raised her chin. “Good night, Dr. Cunningham,” she said.

      For a second, it looked like Noah wanted to say something. She watched his lips part and his eyes spark, the way they always did when he was headed into some particularly interesting discussion. He apparently changed his mind. Hanging on to the shopping bag, he headed to the stairs. “Good night, Dr. Burton.”

      Laurel didn’t watch him go upstairs. There was something just a little too twisted about enjoying the sight of that nice, tight rear of his.

      “Don’t need it. Don’t want it,” Laurel mumbled to herself. Maybe if she said it often enough, one of these days she’d finally convince herself it was true. Before she could forget it, she moved to the front of the desk and hurried through the routine Maisie had taught her to follow each night—check to make sure the fire was out, check to make sure nothing was cooking in the kitchen, check to make sure the doors were locked. When it was all taken care of, Laurel grabbed her car keys off the counter in the kitchen and her jacket from where she’d tossed it over one of the kitchen chairs. She thought about stopping to say good-night to Maisie and Doc Ross and decided against it. Something told her they had other things on their minds.

      Things she refused to have on her mind.

      Laurel headed out of the kitchen and across the lobby. She’d left her car parked in front of the inn so she decided to go that way and lock the front door behind her. On her way through, she flicked off the overhead chandelier and flicked on the couple small stained-glass lamps Maisie left burning all night. She slipped into her lightweight jacket, turned toward the front door and ran headlong into Noah.

      “What are you doing?” Laurel pressed a hand to her heart and jumped back a step. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

      He gave her a small smile of apology. “What I’m trying to do,” he said, “is get into my room.” He jingled his key at her. “Doesn’t work,” he said.

      “Doesn’t work?” Laurel plucked the key chain out of Noah’s hand and held it up to the light. “Almost Paradise.” She read the room name on the brass heart. “Are you sure you were at the right room?”

      “I can read signs,” he said, a bit of sarcasm creeping into his voice. “And I’m pretty good at unlocking doors. One of life’s basic skills. But I’ve been trying the door for the last five minutes, and it’s not working. I didn’t want to bother you, but…well, I don’t think the place will ever get a five-star rating if you leave your guests sleeping in the hallway.”

      He was right. Or at least it looked as if he was right. Laurel gave Noah a quick once-over, as if the assessment would tell her if he was telling the truth. “You’re not trying to trick me, are you?”

      “Scout’s honor.” Noah crossed his heart. “Besides, what would I possibly be trying to trick you into? Get you up to the room? Lock you in? Take advantage of you?” He laughed, and Laurel bristled at the sound. Was there something so ludicrous about the thought of him taking advantage of her? Before she could answer the question, Noah gave her a friendly pat on the back. “Lighten up, Laurel,” he said. He leaned a little closer and grinned. “It was only a kiss, remember?”

      “Right.” Telling herself not to forget it, Laurel led the way up the stairs. Almost Paradise was the first room on the left, and she stopped outside the door. Maisie had opened the inn eighteen months earlier, and by now, Laurel was used to the place. She was used to the wacky decor and the titillating gift shop, used to her grandmother’s sometimes screwy, sometimes explicitly suggestive gimmicks for adding a little romance to the lives of the people who came to stay there. But of course, Noah wasn’t. While Laurel tried the key, Noah eyed the sign outside the door, the one that looked like it had been carved from a tree branch. The words Almost Paradise were engraved into the wood in undulating letters. They were partly obscured by the fat, satisfied-looking snake wound around the branch. Above the wooden snake on a second branch was a bright red apple.

      Noah didn’t comment. It was just as well. If he thought the sign was bizarre…

      Laurel set aside the thought and turned the key in the lock. It worked just fine. But the door didn’t open.

      “That’s funny,” she said. She wrinkled her nose, thinking through the problem. “This door never sticks. The door in Love Me Tender, now that door always sticks. But this one…” She tried turning the handle again, lifting a little this time, thinking that might help. It didn’t.

      “The key works.” She locked the door, then used the key again to show Noah there was no problem there. “But the door…” She put her shoulder to the door and pushed. “It’s stuck.”

      “Here. Let me help.”

      Before Laurel could decide it was a bad idea for Noah to step up right beside her and lean against the door with her, he was already doing it. “On three,” he said. “One…two…three!”

      They pushed together, and the door popped open. Unfortunately, neither Laurel nor Noah was ready for it. They staggered into the room together, and Laurel fought to regain her footing. It would have worked nicely if someone hadn’t left one of the tropical plants that should have been by the window in the middle of the floor.

      The force of opening caused the door to slam against the wall, then swing shut behind them. Even though two of the walls in the room were floor-to-ceiling glass blocks, it was past sunset, and they were facing the lake. The room was dark. Laurel saw the plant at the last second. She sidestepped it, pivoted. She would have been fine if she hadn’t tripped over her own feet. She heard herself let out a yelp of surprise, felt herself falling. She braced her arms to stop herself from hitting the floor and

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