With This Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page B

thepart of her that didn’t want to look into her closet and always see a dress that meant a canceled wedding. Now the dress would always be associated with Nate and Andi’s wedding instead.
    Still, after ten-plus hours running around in it, she couldn’t wait to get into a pair of leggings and a T-shirt instead.
    But when she tried to pull the zipper down it wouldn’t go. She tugged and pulled at it until her index finger was scraped sore by the small metal tab.
    She desperately wanted to get out of the darn dress. Maybe, she thought, the dress was cursed. There had to be some alternative to cutting it off herself with a pair of scissors, didn’t there?
    Just then, the large window in her bedroom that looked out onto Main Street began shaking. She hadn’t noticed the wind earlier in the afternoon—in fact, it had been strangely, ominously still out on the water—but she’d come to learn that the weather changed so fast in the Adirondacks that the sky could go from blinding blue to pelting hail in seconds.
    Strangely, with some help from the moonlight she could see that the treetops weren’t blowing. And the flag on city hall was limp. But the window was still shaking.
    Stu had fixed up this suite of rooms high in the inn’s attic especially for the two of them to move into after their wedding. Sixty years ago, this bedroom had been the honeymoon suite. A few years later, for some reason that no one seemed to know, it had been converted to storage.
    Stu had insisted she move in a month ago and she’d agreed, glad to have the chance to make the rooms feel like home before the wedding, rather than returning fromtheir honeymoon to an impersonal home. But as she stood in the middle of the bedroom, she felt cold, despite having turned on the heat earlier.
    The small hairs on the back of her neck prickled and a rush of air moved over her, almost as if someone had walked by.
    Spinning around, she saw that she was still completely alone.
    Or was she?
    The truth was, she’d always had a vague sense that something wasn’t right about the bedroom. She’d even heard rumors during the months she’d worked at the inn that it had been haunted in the past. And even though she’d laughed it off, the truth was that over the past few weeks—since she and Stu had called off their wedding—she wasn’t sure it was completely ridiculous anymore.
    As goose bumps ran up her exposed arms, she suddenly wondered what on earth she was doing standing there thinking about ghosts and spirits. And as her stomach growled, she decided her bath could wait. First, she’d go back downstairs and have a snack. She knew there was leftover cake. Plenty of it. Considering she hadn’t eaten much all day—and how rough the day had ended up being—she figured she deserved a big slice of cake.
    Maybe two.
    Besides, even though she’d sent her employees home, maybe if she was lucky a guest would be awake and reading in the common rooms downstairs and could help her unstick the zipper on her dress.
    She just couldn’t stand the thought of cutting it up. Not when that would feel like giving in. Like losing.
    So the dress was staying on for the time being. Shoes,however, weren’t going to happen again tonight. The thought of putting her heels back on had her wincing.
    Her feet bare, she left her living room and walked out into the private hallway. Well, not so private anymore, since Stu always kept a small suite here for Sean’s visits into town—which had never happened until today. Not wanting to run into him again, she hurried past his door and down the stairs.
    Picking up stray things as she made her way through the inn and moving them to their proper places, keeping an eye out for stray guests to help with her zipper but seeing none, unfortunately, it took her longer than it should have to get to the inn’s kitchen. Her stomach felt like it was eating itself by the time she pushed open the door.
    At which point she lost her appetite