Cinderella Search (6 page)

“It’s worry,” he improvised, as if she’d asked the cause of his insomnia. “About things falling through the ceiling on me. Mind if I visit awhile?”

“Have a cinnamon roll,” she said, sliding a tray of pastries toward him. “Or an apple, an orange.” A basket of fruit always sat on the counter, along with a tray of desserts from which guests could help themselves. “Maybe you’re just hungry. A little snack might help you sleep.”

He leaned on the counter. “I doubt it.” He grinned and lowered his voice suggestively, intending to remind her of that good-night kiss he’d stolen yesterday. “But I know what would.”

He loved the way she rose to the bait. Her chin came up and her eyes flashed. “So do I,” she snapped.

“Yeah? What?” he asked.

“A cup of hot milk,” she said sweetly, startling a laugh out of him.

“Hell! I expected something like: ‘A two-by-four between the eyes.’”

“Would you like me to get you one?” she asked, her face deadpan, but her eyes flickering with humor.

“A two-by-four?”

She hesitated just long enough to suggest serious deliberation—and replied with a note of regret in her voice. “No, just hot milk.”

“That kiss you gave me worked pretty well last night.”

“I didn’t give you that.”

“Didn’t you?” he asked, propping his elbow on the desk and placing his chin on his hand.

“Ooh,” she said in a mocking tone. “I bet a hundred women have told you that makes you look sexy.”

“At least a hundred,” he agreed. “Does it?”

“Absolutely not,” Lissa said, barely controlling her laughter.

Steve straightened as the outer doors swung open and three men strolled in. They were George, Jamie, and Mark Fredricks, a father and two grown sons who shared one of the inn’s large round dining tables with him and the Allendas, a pair of sisters from California.

The men, obviously three sheets to the wind, laughed uproariously over something. “Hi, Liss,” they chorused, letting the heavy doors swing shut behind them with a loud slam, despite the lateness of the hour.

“You really met your match tonight, didn’t you Steve?” George cut loose with another boisterous guffaw. “Gotta hand it to you, though. You managed to stay on your feet. A guy’d think you got thrown out of bars every night of the week.”

Steve glanced at Lissa, who was grinning. Under other circumstances, he’d have thought it a charming sight.

“You got thrown out of Chuckle’s?” He detected a certain awe, though probably not respect, in her tone.

“I merely got … hurried on my way,” he said. “I was leaving anyway, having accomplished my mission.”

Her eyes widened. “Which was?”

“A real good look at Caroline’s legs,” George supplied, swiping at the tray of cinnamon rolls, missing, then staggering back for another, more successful try. “Jase was the one who hurried him on his way,” he explained to Lissa before taking a huge bite. “What a sight! You shoulda been there. One minute Caroline was dancing on a table and Steve here was holding her hand, the next he was running out the door with Jase holding him on tiptoe.”

He gulped down a bite of his roll, turned to Steve and added, “That Jase. He’s one big bruiser, ain’t he? Took guts, asking Caroline to dance, let alone putting her up on a table.” He hiccupped.

“Thanks, George,” Steve said dryly, making a mental note to talk loudly at breakfast and clatter cutlery against china because George was sure to have a very sore head. He owed George for this. Lissa hadn’t needed any more excuses to laugh at him.

“I didn’t put Caroline on the table,” he said, but Lissa merely looked at him pityingly, as if wondering why he’d bothered offering a denial. He wondered, too, and turned to watch the younger men tote their staggering father away. After they’d disappeared at the first landing, he turned back to Lissa, who was studying a series of sketches spread out on the desk and was making notes on one of them. Each page depicted a medieval looking scene, complete with characters in costume.

“What’s this?”

She glanced up. “The plan for this year’s festival.”

“Madrona Madness? Everyone’s talking about it. The woman in the hardware store said it’s your baby.”

“Hardly,” she said. “Lots of people work on it, Debbie included.” At his questioning look, she added, “Deb’s the woman in the hardware store.”

Steve wondered what it would be like to live in a town where everyone knew everyone else and where there was only a hardware store which was also the sporting goods store, the liquor store, the post office and the video rental place.

“I’m just the coordinator,” Lissa said with a shrug. “I take other people’s ideas and put them together.”

He didn’t think for a minute that was all. Besides, he wanted to keep her talking. He liked watching her animated face. “And?” he prompted. “What else?”

Again, she shrugged. “Well, I organize the different booths, assigning spaces, making sure all our exhibitors and vendors have what they need to make the weekend a success. The theme this year is Fairy Tales and Legends.”

He joined her behind the front desk, leaned forward and read some of the titles written in the sketches. “Sherwood Forest?”

“It’s where the archery contest will be run. My dad’s in charge of that, which is great, because it’s the first time in a long while he’s taken an interest in the festival.”

Steve heard happiness bubbling just under the surface of her tone, saw it shining in her eyes. She was close to her father, he surmised, with an unexpected surge of envy. “Why’s that?”

“He had a stroke a couple of years ago and for a long time didn’t take much of an interest in anything. His enthusiasm this year tells me he’s pretty much recovered, which is good because—” She broke off so suddenly he was surprised she didn’t bite her tongue.

“Because?”

She shrugged and looked away. “Because who wants their father to be ill?”

He had to admit she had a point, but something told him there was more to it than what she was willing to divulge. But what the hell. It wasn’t really his business, was it?

“I see this is labeled ‘Jousting Field’,” he said. “But it looks to me like it’s in the water.”

“It is.” She looked up at him, smiling. “We hold it at high tide.”

“How do the horses feel about that?”

Her laughter filled the air. “No horses, just logs and pike-poles. We’re simply calling our usual log rolling contest a jousting tournament in keeping with the theme.”

“Log rolling! Great. I haven’t seen one in ages. Not since I was about so high,” he said, leveling off his hand at waist-height. “I used to think I’d like to try it.”

“We have some pretty good contestants.”

He figured she was warning him off. “And this?” he said, pointing to a semi-circle of rectangles that took up a good portion of the upland area.

“The exhibitors’ booths.” She picked up a sketch that depicted a small, open-fronted building with what looked like a thatched roof. “We won’t use real thatch, of course, just a front with straw showing to give that impression. We want it to look as if we’ve created a marketplace in a castle courtyard.”

“My first impression of Madrona Cove was that it was like stepping into a time-warp.”

She grinned. “A wet one. It rained a lot the first few days you were here, didn’t it?”

He smiled back at her. “Rain doesn’t bother me. I explored. It’s a quaint town, with those little houses perched on crooked little ledges at the water’s edge, connected by all those stairs and boardwalks.”

“I know,” she said. “I love Madrona Cove mostly because it’s changed so little since I was a child—since my great-grandparents first came here, really.”

“It must be nice, having that kind of stability in your life, nothing much changing from your infancy to adulthood. Do you think your great-grandparents would see many differences, if they could come back?”

Her laughter was soft, almost teasing, and left him feeling as if a warm wind had just blown over him. “I hope so,” she said, “or all the Madrona Madness celebrations we’ve had over the years would have been for nothing. During my dad’s childhood, the community earned the money to buy the land where the park is. Since then, we’ve built a new library, a swimming pool and rec center, and now this year—”

She broke off, dropped her gaze to the floor as one of her sketches fluttered down.

He picked it up but didn’t return it. “Now?” he asked, knowing she hadn’t forgotten the subject, but was, for some reason, evading it.

She shrugged. “Whatever this year’s fundraising is used for.”

“Which will be?”

If she’d looked wary a moment ago, now she looked downright trapped. Then, as if making some kind of mental transition, she lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and met his gaze head-on. “The purpose varies from year to year, but it always benefits the whole community.”

He frowned. What was so difficult about telling me that? Instead of asking, he said, “How are those funds raised?”

“People rent booths to sell things. Visitors come from all over to attend the festival,” she said. “They camp, stay aboard their boats, some even fly in and book hotel or bed-and-breakfast rooms for miles around. The population of Madrona Cove quadruples for that weekend. We really need a bigger park to hold them all. Of course, the more visitors we get, the better we like it since we get a percentage of sales for the community fund, in addition to booth rental.

“Then, we have the community sponsored events. They don’t rent booths, but all their earnings go into the fund. Like the dunk tank, er, I mean the witch dunking stool, and—”

He laughed, interrupting her. “Witch dunking stool?”

“In a manner of speaking.” He liked the sparkle in her eyes. A second later he didn’t like the way she was eyeing him, though, as if sizing him up to see what kind of splash he’d make. “It’s what we’re calling it this year, in keeping with the Medieval theme.”

“Who gets dunked?”

“Anyone who volunteers to get soaked fully clothed.”

“You have people selling things, you have contests, you have games. I’ve got a great idea. Will you rent me a booth?”

A frown creased her brows. “What for?”

He dropped to one knee before her. “I’m thinking of running a Cinderella search.”

She stared down at him and clutched the edge of the desk as he took her warm bare foot in both hands. Her eyes widened. “Really? And what would that entail?”

He stroked his finger from her heel to her toes. It was a very appealing foot. Funny, he’d never taken much notice of feet before. But then, he was a leg-man, and while feet belonged on legs, until this week, he hadn’t spent much time thinking about them. Or looking at them. Or touching them. But he wanted, quite badly, to stroke Lissa’s foot, cuddle it on his lap, play with her pink toes, kiss the arch and—

He stopped himself, knowing what painful and unrelieved physical response he was going to suffer if he didn’t. “Discovering my secret princess,” he said

“Seems to me,” she retorted, “we’ve had this conversation before. So I suggest you get up off your knees before you do something really dumb, like proposing. That’s what happened the last time a man got on his knees in front of me.”

“And did you accept?” he asked, his voice breaking slightly.

“What do you think?” she said. “I was twenty years old. The man was on his knees, for heaven’s sake. He had a diamond ring in a little blue box. Of course I accepted.”

He had to laugh, and suddenly a tension he hadn’t been fully aware of, snapped. She seemed to have a knack for doing that to him. Feeling stupid, he hauled himself back to his feet. “Oh, well, yes, I can see how that would force an acceptance out of you.”

He ran a thumb over her ringless fingers. Touching Lissa Wilkins was like walking on hot coals. Because he didn’t believe for one second he could do it without getting burned, he likely would.

“What happened to him?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said, slipping her hand free. “We were engaged for something like three months. He liked the chase and the proposal so much he did it three or four times a year with three or four different women. He finally got all tangled up with too many fiancées and ended up with none.”

“You don’t seem terribly heartbroken.”

She flicked him with a teasing glance. “At the time, I was devastated—or thought I was. But proposals and engagements and breakups just seemed to keep happening to me over and over again until I got used to it. I got myself engaged a total of six times between the ages of twenty and thirty. Now, I know better.”

So that meant she wasn’t engaged to the man whose lap she’d sat on.

“What?” he said. “You mean if a guy ever proposes again, he gets an automatic No? Is that what you’d say if I proposed?”

Her laughter, warm and musical, seemed to wash over him like the touch of soft, stroking fingers. “I’d probably ask you if another trunk had fallen on your head.”

“No trunk ever fell on my head,” he reminded her, unable to resist stroking her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “But I seem to be going a little bit crazy anyway. At least where you’re concerned. I have a feeling that if I hang around here too long I just might find myself doing exactly that.”

Her eyes widened. “Exactly what?”

“Proposing to you.”

He couldn’t tell who his statement surprised more, her … or himself.

“Then I suggest you don’t hang around too long.” Giving him the cold shoulder, Lissa exited into the back office. He shrugged, wondering what had gotten into him.

When he got back to his room, all his clothes were back neatly on the right of the closet and every one of his dresser drawers was open. As he watched, they closed silently, one by one. She’s searching for that earring … A chill swept over his body.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he said, but the words echoed hollowly in the room. Did he, or did he not, hear a hint of faint, faraway laughter? Or maybe heartbroken sobs?

Not. Absolutely, positively not.

“No way. Forget it!” Lissa stood with her hands on her hips surveying the gathering of committee members in her father’s small trailer. “That’s Ginny’s job!”