Kiss and Tell Read Online Free PDF Page A

last thing a man would think about when he looked at her was money.
    He snorted.
    "Okay, a lot of money."
    "Does your family own a liquor store?" he asked dryly.
    "A liquor store? No, why?"
    "Just an old joke." The one about the rich blonde and the liquor store required her to be mute.
    "Look, we're almost there. Conserve your energy." And give me a few moments of silence.
    She managed not to talk for a while, and he managed to block out the infernal noises she made. Jake slowed as she trailed him past the felled tree near his cabin, the one she'd sat on yesterday. The slate-colored light was now tinged with a pale yellow as dawn struggled through the thick clouds overhead. The rain had slacked off slightly.
    The dog danced around them, then raced to the front door and sat there, tongue lolling, tail thumping the wooden planks of the porch.
    The beam of Miss-Engaged-a-Couple-of- Times's flashlight wavered on the ground as Jake stepped up onto the narrow porch and opened the door. He glanced down at her.
    She looked like a drowned kitten as she lifted her eyes to his and pushed dripping strands of hair off her face. "What?"
    "After you." Jake indicated the battered front door.
    "Oh, yeah, thanks."
    She pushed it open, standing so close he could smell her evening fire on her skin. And a subtle, soft female fragrance he didn't want to notice. With her blond hair, dark with rain, molded against her skull, he could see the tips of her small pink ears through the wet strands. The green of her jacket was black with moisture, her jeans were soaked, and she was shivering.
    He prepared for her litany of complaints once they got inside. So far she hadn't bitched once, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to.
    "Nice security system you have." She glanced around as she stepped inside. "No lock?"
    "Anyone who comes up here and needs to use the cabin would break in. This way I get to keep my front door." If it looked like a cabin and smelled like a cabin...
    "Be it ever so crumble, there's no place like home?"
    He stepped around her and struck a match, lighting an old-fashioned hurricane lamp on the dusty table behind the couch. Duchess dashed behind the counter separating kitchen from living area, making herself right at home. Her nails clicked on the bare pine floor. Marnie saw her ears swivel as she nosed a cupboard in the kitchen.
    "Well, apparently she knows where the food is." Marnie slid the straps of her backpack off her shoulders but hung on to it while debating whether to remove her soaked jacket. The cottage was frigid. She gave a massive shudder as she glanced around.
    "This is...nice."
    The large single room was almost bare, just the essentials, and none too clean. A large, grimy, maybe-green tweed couch, a few sooty hurricane lamps, an empty fireplace, and a couple of scarred, banged-up tables. Roller shades, no drapes. No carpet. No pictures. A few leaves and pine needles. A lot of spiderwebs, dust, and mud.
    In the far corner a swaybacked single bed pushed up against the wood-paneled wall was spread with an old army blanket and a pillow with no slip. Just looking at the place made her itch.
    She sneezed, clutching her wet backpack to her chest. "I appreciate your coming to get me," she said politely. He hadn't done it graciously, but he had done it. It wasn't the Hilton. But it was shelter.
    She wasn't a crier, but a good weep might relieve some of this pressure she felt right now. It had been an emotional month, culminating in a hellish night. She hadn't shed a tear since Grammy had died. The loss had been too great, the sadness too deep. But now she felt the pressure of those gallons of tears like a tightening tourniquet in her chest.
    "If you could spare a couple of towels so I can dry off, I'd be happy to borrow the couch and get a couple of hours' sleep. As soon as it stops raining I'll be out of your hair."
    He narrowed his eyes. "You should take a hot shower first. I'll find you something dry to put on and then we'll