Read Online Kiss and Tell by Cherry Adair - Free Book Online

and methodical man. There was no margin for error in his line of work.
    Of any kind.
    Skeptical eyes grazed the cottage. "Yeah, right." She poured coffee into another chipped cup, took a sip, and shuddered in distaste. Then she glanced back at him. "See ya."
    Jake slammed the door behind him and strode into the deluge, her dog prancing at his heels.
    Great. Just great.

Chapter Four
     
    I t was a good thing Marnie rarely got boxed. She set her sketch pad down beside her on the couch and stretched cramped muscles. There was nothing of interest in the cabin. She'd wandered around aimlessly after Jake stormed out. There was no point sleeping now.
    How on earth anyone lived without creature comforts, even for an odd weekend, baffled her. Her little house in Sunnyvale was filled with things . Mementos of her life. Photos of her family, friends, and places she'd been. The stuff one collected without realizing it.
    Jake Dolan's cabin was the clean slate of a man with no past and no future. Despite the dirt, everything about the cabin seemed sterile, scrubbed of character. Sanitized. It looked, Marnie decided, choreographed, like a stage set. Abandoned cabin in the woods. The play was obviously not a romance, she thought wryly, glancing at the narrow single bed against the far wall.
    During his absence she'd done several intricate, detailed sketches of Jake. Most of them were conjured more from imagination than based on reality. She'd had to do some serious imagining to sketch Jake smiling, laughing, looking out of the pages with love, not just heat, in his eyes. She had a great imagination.
    And while this attraction for a dangerous stranger hadn't exactly been in the cards, she wondered at the timing. Marnie pictured Grammy on a fluffy white cloud, chuckling as she manipulated her granddaughter's fate.
    It didn't matter how unlikely and illogical her heated response to him had been. The fact of the matter was that she felt something. Something she'd never experienced before.
    It was more than physical, although God help her, there had been that. Something greater than physical allure called to a part of herself she was still discovering. It was as though by seeing herself through his eyes, she would come to learn who the real Marnie Wright was.
    The least the dratted man could have done was stand still and cooperate so she could fully explore the possibilities.
    The rain had stopped an hour ago. Jake had been gone for almost three. She didn't need to be hit over the head with a two-by-four to know he didn't want her anywhere near him. And it made no difference that she knew her feelings were irrational. She'd known him for less than twenty-four hours. It was inconceivable she felt so strongly while he felt nothing in return. His lengthy absence made it pretty obvious he wouldn't return to the cabin until she'd left.
    Was he out there somewhere, watching, waiting for her to leave? She stood in the middle of his dusty, inhospitable cabin and weighed her choices. Foolishly, her heart wanted her to stay and see what would happen in the next round. Eventually he'd have to come back.
    Her brain told her to pack up, put on her coat, and go upriver in the hope the other bridge was passable.
    But what about Duchess? Marnie suddenly smiled. Unless Jake planned on kidnapping her dog, he'd be back. They'd have to see each other at least once more.
    Her coat had dried in front of the fire. She put it on, wrote a brief note on a page from her sketchbook, and left it propped up on the breakfast bar where he couldn't miss it.
    *
    A frigid breeze ruffled Marnie's hair and stung her cheeks. She dug into her pocket for her red knit cap, then pulled it on to cover her cold ears. Leaves and branches swayed and mingled their music with the sound of her Timberlines swooshing through leaves. There'd been no sign of Jake and Duchess along the way.
    It didn't take long to walk down to her grandmother's cottage. Or what was left of it. A hard knot of sadness