Page 49 of The House on Memory Lane

He snagged her wrist after she poured herself a glass of iced tea, and she drank it as she sat in his lap. He stroked her back, his face buried in the crook of her arm.

“I’m going to miss you,” she whispered.

“I’m going miss THAT,” he teased. “And you. Is it weird that I feel like five days is a lot?”

“I had the same thought. I’ve gotten used to being together at some point every day.”

“We’ll have phone sex.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.” She twisted to look at him more fully. He hadn’t shaved, and she danced her knuckles against his stubbled jaw. “But yes, please.”

Chapter 2

It had taken no small amount of cajoling, bribing and out-right threatening, but by Wednesday morning Laney had cleared the rest of her week and booked Buddy into a kennel for a puppy vacation. A day of clinic on Friday had been a pain to cancel, but Kyle was worth it. Their relationship never took top priority in her life—her heart, absolutely, but never her calendar. It was time for an exception to that unfortunate rule of being a doctor. A quick call to the grad secretary in the Department of Education gave her the name of the travel agent who all grant-funded travel went through, and twenty minutes later, she’d booked herself a flight to Vegas and rearranged Kyle’s return flight to match hers, giving them the full weekend together in Vegas.

When he called later that day, she was on her way to O’Hare. “Hey, baby,” she said over the car’s built-in Bluetooth.

“On a scale of one to hell no, how would you feel about me going to a burlesque show?” Street noise flooded in around his voice.

Vegas was two hours behind Chicago time. “At one in the afternoon?”

He laughed. “Tonight. Willem’s at the discount ticket office right now.”

Shit. “How late would you be? I’ve got a consult after work at DermaNorth, but I was hoping we might…”

He lowered his voice. “Laney, are you asking me to give up mostly naked ladies for a totally naked you on the other end of the phone?”

She giggled. “I was planning on wearing my bunny rabbit pjs and lying to you about the naked part.”

“How can I say no to that?” He raised his voice and told Willem he had other plans. She felt a momentary pang of guilt at him passing up something that sounded like a lot of fun before she remembered that she was actually on her way to see him. And she hadn’t packed her bunny rabbit pjs.

A tight, nervous thrill blasted through her chest as she thought about what she HAD packed. A lot of lace, a black leather corset that she’d never in a million years wear in Chicago, and the matching ring boxes that had spent the better part of a year in her lingerie drawer. They didn’t need Mexico—they had Sin City and a wide variety of twenty-four hour chapels. Guilt of a different sort reared its head as she thought of her mother and sister, both of whom would lose their minds when they found out they’d missed her wedding. Kyle’s mother, too.

Tough. Kyle had wanted to elope. She’d been the one to drag her feet and worry about what others would think. Not anymore. She was all in, even if she didn’t have a wedding dress. Maybe she’d get married in the corset.

“Well, we’re going to find a cheap poker game for a couple of hours.” Kyle cleared his throat and she jerked her attention back to the conversation. “And then you and I have a date with some dirty words after dinner.”

“Counting the hours.”

“Are you in the car? You sound tinny.”

She bit her lip. It was highly unusual for her to have left the hospital this early. “I’m heading to the university for a meeting.” Little white lies in the execution of a surprise were fine. “And baby? A burlesque show sounds fun. Not hell no, that’s for sure. Just not tonight, okay?”

Kyle swirled his tumbler of cheap whiskey and stacked his chips again. Willem was chewing on his bottom lip—probably some sort of tell, or fake out, but looking at the pair of jacks in his own hand and the one on the table, Kyle didn’t really care. His brother, Ian, loved poker. Kyle liked numbers, but he didn’t get emotionally invested. And he never read his opponents. He just played the odds.

He should have asked Laney to come with him, even if she could only get away for twenty-four hours. All week he’d seen wedding chapels advertised. Sixty bucks for a license, a few hundred for the service. Then a limo and a magnum of champagne and they’d be bonded together forever. He swallowed the last of the amber liquid in his glass. In his head, he knew it didn’t matter if they were married or not. In his heart, he wanted to brand Laney as his wife.

Maybe instead of getting married he should drag her to a tattoo parlour. Stamp his name in a swirly font on her perfect ass. He pulled out his phone and texted her. How do you feel about tattoos?

He watched the text message turn green instead of staying blue. Damn. She was in some dark corner of the hospital without reception.

The odds of sexting preceding their phone call in a couple of hours were low. The odds of him winning this hand were pretty high, though. And when he did, he anted in for the next. Nothing to be done but have some fun.

He had his mind on a decent steak dinner, an excellent use for his winnings, when her return text came in. For me or you?

Maybe both. Matching ones.

What are you thinking.

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