Page 42 of Two Tickets to Paradise

“Does that make it hard to call your brother?”

She thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “No. Cam’s not big on phone calls or FaceTime. He’s a terse text message kind of guy.”

He didn’t want to say it, but he could see that about her brother. Vince got up and pointed at the door. “You want me to go outside so you can change?”

She yawned and lifted her arms over her head to stretch.

Vince had to work to keep his eyes strictly on her face and not the way her blouse stretched over her breasts. “Would you think I’m weird if I just wanted to put my head down on the pillow and fall asleep like this?”

He shook his head. “No. Go ahead.”

Smiling in a half-dreamlike state, Cora leaned over and put her head down on the pillow.

Vince got up and took out his sleep clothes and went into the bathroom to change. When he came back out, he put his usedclothes in his duffel and turned to look at the bed. They hadn’t really talked about who would sleep on what side of the bed, but Cora had made the decision for them when she’d laid her head down.

She was fast asleep, her arm hung over the edge, lined up along the far side of the bed.

Smiling to himself, he laid down on top of the covers knowing that he’d be too hot under a blanket.

When his head was finally on the pillow, he looked over at Cora and smiled to himself.

He might not have made it to Maine, but he was happy right where he was.

“‘Night, beautiful.”

She sighed softly in her sleep, and he was out a moment later.

ELEVEN

When Cora wokeup in the morning, it was to that scary 'falling feeling.' It was something she was used to, given that she'd always been someone who slept on the edge of her bed. When she was younger, those 'rails' were her biggest savior and even when she was older, she piled up a bunch of cushions on the floor next to her bed.

She could usually stop herself from falling all the way off, but not all the time.

The fact that she hadn't piled a bunch of cushions beside the bed said how tired she'd been the night before.

Releasing her hand from the side of the mattress, she turned over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling and the broad-bladed fan slicing through the air above her head.

It was crazy how warm it was compared to her bedroom in Chicago.

It was likely a good thing that she hadn't changed clothes and crawled under the blankets.

With the warmth in the room, she probably would have tried to kick the blankets off and that, most definitely, would have ended up with her falling to the ground beside the bed.

The creak of the mattress beside her made her tense up.

For a heart-stopping moment she held her breath before she remembered who was in bed beside her.

Vince.

Taking in another breath, she turned onto her other side and found him sound asleep beside her. She didn't blame him for sleeping so soundly. She was more than a little jealous of it, to say the least.

In the warm light of dawn she could see the stubble on his cheek and jaw, and she was hard pressed to keep herself from reaching out and running her finger along his jaw.

Vince looked a little different in the morning light from the night before beside the fire.

Kawehi and Maile weighed in on him, and Cora had a feeling that Kawehi knew that she and Vince had only just met. It was something in her eyes as she looked over at them.

Cora was fairly sure that Kawehi wasn't going to say anything to Cameron. Unlike Maile who seemed to be on edge around her brother.

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