Romancing the Holiday Read Online Free PDF Page B

that day?”
    “Meeting with Uncle Ned. Apparently he was auditioning me for taking over and I unwittingly said I’d love to be a part of the campground and that it should stay open. Sight unseen, which appears to have been a great plan on my part.” The sign on cabin fifteen picked that moment to crash to the porch. Spence’s eyes widened. “You didn’t come over and check out the resort first?”
    “We all need to stop calling this...” she swept her arm in a wide arc across the overgrown landscape, “...a resort. I’ve been to resorts and they aren’t this.”
    He chuckled. “Good point.”
    “I’m not sure transients would stay here in this condition. It sure didn’t look like this when I was last here.”
    “When was that?”
    “More than a decade ago. Probably more than fifteen.”
    He blew on his bare hands again. “Any chance we could go inside and finish this conversation?”
    The last time she combined a small space with Spence the result was horizontal mattress time. Still, she was starting to lose feeling in her big toe. And in the glass-half-full department, if there was a critter behind the door, maybe Spence could annoy it enough to make it leave.
    “Sure.” She turned back to the cabin. Rather than engaging in a bit of comfortable silence as they walked, she picked a question at random from the long list she wanted to ask him. “So, why did you end up at the hotel on that weekend?”
    “I needed to get away.”
    She didn’t realize he’d finished his explanation until she was left listening to the wind as it tunneled around the cabins and whistled past her. She paused in her steps. “That’s it? You’re done with your answer?”
    “Yep.”
    He clearly thought the past was off limits and they were moving on. She disagreed. “That’s not really an explanation.”
    “I already apologized.”
    “You’re such a guy.” A red light flashed in her brain. She ignored the snap that came after the creak when she put her foot on the first step to the cabin and turned on him. “Oh, man. Please tell me you aren’t hiding a wife and ten kids or something. Because, honestly, I will hit you with a rock and bury your body in the woods if you made me the other woman in your marriage.”
    His eyes widened. “That’s the third threat of violence in ten minutes.”
    It was her turn to hold up a finger. “Put one woman on my jury and I walk.”
    He blinked a few times. “It’s a little disturbing how easily these attack plans come to your head.”
    Little did he realize that one was G-rated. She wondered what he’d think if he heard the really bad ones. “I’ve been working on it since Austin informed me he was Austin and you weren’t.”
    Spence held up a palm as if making a solemn pledge, this one much more convincing than the apology. “For the record, no wife or kids or anyone else you’d need to commit homicide over.”
    A sharp crack, as if a tree fell somewhere close on the property, echoed around them but she kept her attention on Spencer. This was too important not to nail down. “Really?”
    “Promise.”
    She was annoyed at how light and giggly that information made her. “Then you get to live.”
    “I’m relieved to hear that.” Testing his weight before planting his foot, he made it to the cabin door without falling through the rotted porch wood. “Tell me about your plan for this place.”
    She welcomed the conversation diversion. It was easier than dwelling on the whole him-being-single thing. Her stomach continued to tumble at that admission. It was hunger. Had to be.
    “I guess setting the buildings on fire to collect the insurance money would be too obvious,” she said, only half kidding.
    “Unfortunately, yes.” Something thudded in the distance. Something that sounded suspiciously like the collapse of a roof. His gaze moved behind her for a second then returned to her. He made a face as air hissed through his teeth. “But maybe not.”
    She froze with the