Page 22 of The Christmas Eve Delivery

This time, I was really blushing because it was very clear how much he was enjoying that slice of dessert.

“You know,” he started, “We could always hike out to the waterfall later if you were so inclined.”

I shook my head. “I have a new employee who would tell everyone they knew that their boss hired them to watch the front desk so she could take guests into the back. There is no way in hell I’m going to let that happen.”

“But you’re okay with my being there tonight?” he asked.

“I am okay with your being there tonight. I’m okay pretending to check you into a room if that’s what I have to do, but I’m not okay with parading you past the front desk in the middle of the afternoon. This is a very small town. Let me try to keep some secrets.”

“I’m a secret, am I?” he asked.

I felt my insides twist up in a moment of panic. I hadn’t met to insult him, but I also wasn’t so free with my affections that I didn’t care if other people knew what I got up to in my own time.

“Does that bother you?” I asked.

“Does it bother me that I’m your secret?” A smirk crossed his lips and he narrowed his eyes at me in a sexy smolder. “Not really,” he answered with a slight shake of his head. “Can I ask? How many secrets do you have out there?”

I sat back, placing my hand across my collarbone in feigned shock. “I have no secrets. I’m an open book.”

I cleared my throat, continuing the farce of my delicate constitution that Miles has so roughly besmirched. “How could you ask that of me?”

Miles continued to narrow his eyes at me. I could tell he wanted to laugh. I was being overly dramatic on purpose.

“But seriously,” I started. “I don’t have those kinds of secrets other than you,” I admitted. “I’m not going to ask you how many secrets you might have back in the city.”

Miles sat back and took a long drink of coffee. He set the cup down with a satisfied exhalation of air. “I don’t keep secrets. If I am seeing a woman, I don’t try to hide her away. If I had you in the city, I would take you out and show you off.”

“Well, enough people have seen us sitting in the front window of this place. I’m sure that’s more than enough eyes and loose tongues to start the rumor mill around here,” I said.

“So what you’re saying is we’re some kind of open secret?”

“What I’m saying is the next time you leave town, I will be answering a lot of questions.”

“Like what?” he asked.

I had to think about it for a minute. What would I say if Evie came charging over demanding to know who that man was that I was eating with in the diner? I didn’t really know much about Miles other than he was from New York City and he kept coming up to Brookdale for some reason, and that there was something that I couldn’t identify between us. Something stronger than attraction, or maybe it really was as simple as that? I found him incredibly sexy and by some stroke of luck, he seemed to think the same of me.

“I would probably say that you’re a handsome stranger who got stuck during the snowstorm and rerouted from the hotel by the freeway, and that you were particularly clever with your hands.”

Miles chuckled as he pressed both palms against the Formica table. “Let’s get out of here.” He stood and reached into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet as he crossed the floor to the old-fashioned bronze cash register sitting at the end of a long dining counter.

I waited for him just on the inside of the double doors.

“What would you like to do first?” I asked.

“If you’re willing to indulge me, I would really like a local perspective of town.”

“You really do want me to play tourist guide and drive you around?”

Miles shrugged. “Seems like a reasonable place to start unless you really want to show me this spot in the local cemetery where the kids all drink beer and smoke pot.”

“Who said anything about drinking beer and smoking drugs at the local cemetery?”

I chuckled. “I grew up in a small town, and you said it was where the teenagers liked to party. I seem to recall that was the very definition of partying when I was in high school.”

“I think we’re both a little too old for that to be appealing anymore. At least I am,” I said. “I would be happy to show you around Brookdale. There’s not a lot here, but what we’ve got is so charming and lovely.”

He held his elbow out to me. “It sounds like you really love it here.”

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