Page 10 of Wake Me Up Before You Cocoa

A lump formed in Marina’s throat. She knew all about Wade’s brother and what a terrible time that had been for him. “But you were supposed to go to The Coffee Loft, not Miss Ruby Rose Antiques.”

He shrugged. “Came in the wrong door. Thought it was the coffee shop at first, then your friend Jenna led me around. Well, I’m sure you heard our entire conversation.”

“Um, yeah, I guess so,” Marina slowly admitted with a toss of her long hair.

He lifted an eyebrow, grinning at her in the way she remembered. Good grief, that a long time ago. But Wade looked exactly the same. If notbetter.

His grin turned into a soft smile. “Why are you hiding behind the grandfather clocks, Marina?”

She gulped, trying not to feel the magnetic pull toward this man she had loved so long ago; but she couldn’t let him know that. She had to save face. “Um,whyare you sneaking around my store and then giving me a heart attack by getting right in my face?”

“I knew you were here somewhere. Before Jenna came over from the coffee shop, I heard what I thought was a mousescratching in this corner. See, I was doing you a favor to find the mice and get rid of them before you returned.”

Marina widened her eyes. “Right. You are such a liar! Don’t you have someone waiting in the car? It’s probably getting hot out there, so that isn’t very thoughtful of you.”

“Nope, no one is in the car. I dropped her off before I came over here to hand off your cell phone like I promised.”

Of course. Aher. “A girlfriend—a—a wife?”Marina spoke the last words as if trying to claw them out of her throat.

He cocked his chin. “How do you know it’s not my mother?”

Marina gave him a look of disbelief. “Right. Okay. This is weird. Like really weird but thank you for bringing my phone. I was going to buy you a drink and a donut as a thank you and send you on your way, but I can see that’s now impossible.”

“Why is it impossible? Hey, I want my good Samaritan donut,” he said.

A tickle of laughter began in Marina’s throat. She tried to suppress it, but it became impossible. The next second, a strangled giggle escaped, and then a soft snort.

She slapped a hand over her mouth while her eyes widened with mortification. “Pretend you didn’t hear that! I’m soooo embarrassed, I don’t even want to look you in the face!”

Wade just gazed at her as if he was in shock. Then his lips turned up in a smile and he chuckled. “You always did have the cutest laugh. It’s been so long, I’d almost forgotten.”

Chapter Six

Wade shook his head, trying to take in the fact that his old college girlfriend Marina Cormier was hiding behind a grandfather clock in a dark corner of an antique store. Hiding fromhim.

The shock was real. Nope, that was the understatement of the year. He was blown away and having a tough time processing the fact that he was staring into Marina’s adorable face with those startling crystal-blue eyes while her blonde hair wafted about her shoulders.

Her crazy-funny laugh snapped him out of his musings with a jolt.

It was really her. In New Orleans of all places. He would have sworn that years ago, he’d heard that she married some disgustingly rich guy and lived on the West Coast. Like Santa Barbara, where you had to have a cool million just for the down payment on a regular old house. Or maybe it was Scottsdale, Arizona, in one of those communities with perfectly manicured golf courses and candlelit dinners every weekend at the country club with a party of six and a dozen bottles of wine.

“Hey,” he finally said. “Do you want to keep hanging out here on the back-corner floor—or can I help you up?”

“I can manage!” she said, obviously flustered. “Oh, no, my legs fell asleep!” she yelped when she tried to stand. Her knees buckled and she fell back to the hardwood flooring. “You were not supposed to see that, Kennedy!” she accused.

“So, you do know who I am . . .” he said quietly, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet.

But Marina wouldn’t take his hand. Wouldn’t even look at him. With awkward movements, she climbed to her feet and brushed at her clothes, eyes darting every which way but at his face. “I gotta get back to work.”

“I think store hours ended five minutes ago,” he told her. “At least your sign says so. So did the grandfather clock chiming.”

“You heard that, huh? Well—I—um—have to close out the register. Clean up the place. Restock. When you own your own business, the work is never done.”

“Very true. But you look a bit discombobulated,” he replied, trying to catch her eye. She was looking everywhere but at him.

“Haven’t heardthatword since Granny died,” she said lightly, almost flippantly.

It was obvious Wade was making her nervous, so he tried some empathy.

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