Kiss of a Stranger (Lost Coast Harbor #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

house is fine for now.”
    For the first time, Gabe almost looked uncertain.
    “Just write down where you slept last night.” Her words grew clipped in her frustration. Once again, her hair began to loosen. She grabbed another pin from the desk and shoved it into her bun, holding it in place.
    The fingers on Gabe’s left hand dug into his palm. When he saw her notice, he forced the hand open, resting it flat against his leg. “Lost Coast Harbor has benches, you know.”
    She blinked, forgetting in her surprise to avoid his gaze—but for once Gabe averted his eyes. “You’re homeless?”
    His casual shrug looked forced. “No one hands you first, last, and deposit when you’re released.”
    Maddie studied the blank paperwork, considering. Whatever he’d done, no one should spend nights exposed to the bitter cold of Lost Coast in January. He’d have had better accommodations in prison.
    She weighed her options. The temperature was supposed to drop even further tonight. Anyone caught out in it might not wake up with all their fingers and toes still working. She needed to find him a place to stay, unless she wanted to offer him one herself.
    Besides, if he didn’t have enough money for a motel room, how would he make it to his first payday?
    “Wait here.” She strode to Oliver’s door and knocked, barely waiting for his muffled response before she opened it. “Gabe needs an advance.”
    He didn’t expect that. “I thought we didn’t trust him,” he reminded her, making liberal use of the word “we.”
    “We don’t. He still needs food and shelter.”
    Oliver’s brow furrowed for a second, trying to grasp the concept of needing something so basic, then he nodded. “Of course. Give him what you can from the petty cash, then call Jared for an apartment.”
    Maddie returned to her desk before either of them could change their mind.
    To her shock, Jared answered on the first ring, though he yawned through their entire conversation. It was far more likely that he hadn’t gone to bed than that he’d woken early. He mumbled something about the studio apartment above the video store being available. Maddie claimed it and hung up.
    Gabe eyes were back on her, as intent as ever, but there was something more this time. Confusion, and even a bit of humor. “You still have a video store?”
    Maddie couldn’t help smiling. “Lost Coast earned its name in a few ways. The cliffs made it too dangerous to build Highway 101 out here. When that happened, the town was pretty much cut off from the rest of the state. We’re a bit stuck in time, and that’s not an accident. Technically, this whole stretch of California is the Lost Coast, but we’re the only town that changed our name to reflect it. We chose to embrace the isolation. If you stick around, you’ll get used to it.”
    He grimaced, a reflex he tried to cover up. If the thought of staying in town bothered him so much, why the hell was he here?
    “You’ll need to see Jared at the Hastings Properties office in town, but he only shows up when he feels like it. My friend Bree has been trying to get her keys for days. He said he’ll be there for the next two hours, but I wouldn’t count on that.” She wrote the address on a piece of paper but hesitated before handing it to him. “If he’s not there, come to my house tonight. You can sleep on the couch. Bree will be there.” She added the last sentence in a hurry, so he wouldn’t think she was offering anything more than a place to sleep, then she scrawled her address below the other one and slid it across the desk.
    Gabe studied her writing before folding the paper and slipping it into his jeans pocket. Her eyes followed the movement, the way his strong hand slid across lean hips.
    Maddie almost rolled her eyes at herself. It was a freaking pocket, for god’s sake. And she had a date soon with another man, one who had plenty of his own pockets. She needed to focus on that.
    It was too bad it took her a few