Love Came Just in Time

  “Out of my way,” Mrs. Pruitt said, giving him a healthy shove. “I’ll not stay here another minute with these bloody old ghosts ahounding me!”

  Megan watched Mrs. Pruitt disappear out into the hallway, then looked at Gideon, wondering what he thought it all meant.

  Then she did a double take. Gideon was dressed in bright yellow tights and an apple green tunic that barely covered, well, all the important parts. His sandy hair was mussed. His aqua eyes were blazing. And his tights were sagging at the knees. That didn’t even begin to address his shoes.

  Megan set down her dagger and clapped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t clap fast enough: an errant giggle escaped before she could stop it.

  Gideon’s expression darkened considerably.

  “Oh my gosh,” she gasped, doubling over and wheezing. “If your board of directors could see you now!”

  “Ah ha!” he said, striding forward and wagging his finger at her. “You do know who I am! I knew it would come to you soon enough. Perhaps you’ve seen me gracing the cover of Fortune, or clawing my way up the Forbes 4—”

  Megan put her hand over his mouth. “Be quiet,” she said, straining her ears. “I think a door just slammed.”

  “Wovwee,” Gideon said. He. took her hand away. “Lovely,” he repeated crisply. “We likely have other guests arriving and here I am, impersonating Robin Hood.”

  Megan did her best to put on a sober expression. “I don’t think Robin Hood would have been caught dead dressed like that.”

  Gideon looked at her archly. “At least what I’m wearing reaches where it’s supposed—”

  “Sshh,” she said, “listen.”

  They stood, silently, listening.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he whispered.

  “Neither do I . . .” she began, then realized he hadn’t let go of her hand.

  It occurred to her, strangely enough, that she didn’t mind. His hand was very warm. It was a comfortable sort of hand, the kind you would reach for across a dinner table or as you walked down a country road. Megan looked at her hand surrounded by his and was struck by the perfect picture it made.

  She looked up at him to find a most thoughtful look resting on his face. In fact, for possibly the first time since he’d drenched her, he was looking at her and truly seeing her. Completely. Intensely.

  It was enough to make her start fanning herself again.

  Then she paused. Other than her own heavy breathing, there was no noise.

  “Mrs. Pruitt,” she whispered. “Oh, no, Mrs. Pruitt!”

  “Wait—”

  “She’s not screeching anymore,” Megan said, pulling Gideon toward the hallway. “We can’t let her leave!”

  Gideon seemed to be struggling to keep up with her. She spared him a brief glance. The toes of his shoes were flapping wildly as he dashed alongside her.

  And then the unthinkable happened.

  His curly toes curled together.

  He went down like a rock.

  Megan left him behind without a second thought. She fled into the hallway just in time to see Mrs. Pruitt come dashing out from the library. The woman bolted for the front door, her apron strings fluttering furiously behind her.

  The front door closed behind her with a resounding bang.

  “Help!” Gideon called.

  Megan ignored him. She leaped the remaining few steps to the door like a champion long jumper and jerked it open. She clutched the door frame.

  “Oh, no!” she exclaimed.

  She heard Gideon thumping behind her. He lurched to a teetering halt on his knees at the threshold.

  “Oh, no!” Megan repeated, pointing frantically outside.

  “Oh, yes,” Gideon corrected grimly. “There she goes, pedaling her bicycle off into the gloom.”

  “No other helpers?” she asked, looking down at him as he knelt beside her, staring off morosely after their former hostess.

  Gideon shook his head. “My brother favors this inn for precisely that reason. Mrs. Pruitt is a widow and only hires in help from the village. There’ll be someone in during the week to clean, but she does everything else. The place’ll be dead as nails until then.”

  Megan looked off at the increasingly small figure of their innkeeper. “Think she just ran to the store for an egg?”

  He shook his head slowly.

  Megan looked out into the twilight and sighed. “We’re stuck, then.”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Doomed.”

  “Very likely.”

  “We’ll starve before they find us.” She looked down at him. “I can’t cook.”

  A faint look of panic descended onto his features. “You can’t?”

  “Hot chocolate is the extent of my skills,” she admitted. “How about you?”

  “I’m a powerful executive. I have a chef.”

  “Ah,” she said, with a nod. “I was afraid of that. You know, I got a job a few months ago to try to learn, but . . .” She shrugged. “It didn’t work out.”

  “It didn’t? Not even for an edible few dishes?”

  “Nope. Fast food is unhealthy. I couldn’t cook it in good conscience.”

  “Sacked?” he asked kindly.

  “As usual,” she sighed.

  He laughed softly. “Oh, Megan,” he said, shaking his head.

  Megan was so surprised by the sound that she had to look at him again, just to make sure he’d been the one to make it. And the sight of him smiling was so overwhelming, she had to lean back against the door frame for support.

  “Wow,” she breathed.

  The smile didn’t fade. “Wow?”

  “You have a great laugh.”

  His smile was immediately replaced by a look of faint puzzlement. “Do I? No one’s ever told me that before.”

  “They must have been distracted by your powerful and awe-inspiring corporate self.”

  “Ah ha,” he said triumphantly, “you really do recognize me this time.”

  Megan rolled her eyes, pushed away from the door and started back to the kitchen. “Let’s go see if Mrs. P. left us a cookbook.”

  “Wait,” he said, maneuvering himself onto his backside. “I seem to have tangled my toes.”

  Megan watched him fumble with the spirals for a moment before she knelt, pushed his hands away and did the honors herself.

  “Nicely done,” he said, sounding genuinely impressed.

  “I subbed for Snow White once. You’d be amazed what trouble dwarf toes can get into.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, looking down at his feet.

  Megan looked at him and felt something in the vicinity of her heart crumble. Just the sight of this intense and (by his own admission) powerful man sitting there with his sandy hair mussed, his tights bagging now around his ankles, playing with the toes of his purple elf shoes—well, it was enough to make a girl want to throw her arms around him and hug him until he couldn’t breathe. That any man should look so ridiculous and so adorable at the same time was just a crime.

  “Too much time in ears,” she said, rising and shaking her head.

  Gideon looked up at her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I spent too much time at Disneyland,” she said. “It warped me. My judgment is clouded. My taste in shoes is skewed.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re acquiring a liking for fairy footwear.”

  And drooping yellow tights and aqua eyes and a smile that transforms your face into something even more breathtaking than usual.

  “Nah, give me Keds every time,” she said, making a grab for her self-control and common sense before they both hit the same high road her luggage had. “Let’s storm the kitchen.”

  Gideon rose, keeping his feet a safe distance apart.

  “Might I regale you with stories of my latest business coups whilst we prepare our meal?” he asked, reaching for her hand.

  Megan found her hand in his and her common sense/self-control nowhere to be seen.

  “Business coups?
” she echoed, frowning up at him in an effort to distract herself. “I don’t think so.”

  “Tales of exciting market trends and investment plans?”

  She looked at him in horror. “You’ve got to be kidding. It’ll ruin my appetite!”

  “You sound annoyingly like my brother.”

  “He sounds like my kind of guy. Maybe he’s the one who booby-trapped your computer.”

  “I’m beginning to suspect that might be the case.”

  “Well, then take your vacation. Getting fired is highly unpleasant.”

  “You seem to know of what you speak.”

  “Honey, you don’t know the half of it.”

  And she had no intentions of telling him the full extent of it. A few amusing anecdotes might make him smile, but he’d flip if he knew just how many times she had been canned.

  But that wasn’t going to happen anymore. She nodded to herself as she led him back to the kitchen. Thomas had given her a chance to be successful at something. After all, how hard could it be to get up to the castle, take a look around and tell him what he’d bought? It was a little chance, but one she had been desperate enough to take. She wouldn’t fail. She couldn’t fail. If she couldn’t even do something this simple, there was no way she could show her face at home again. They all thought she was flaky as it was. She would head up to the castle first thing tomorrow. It couldn’t be that far and it couldn’t be that hard to find. She’d send home a report, then settle back and enjoy a well-deserved recuperation.

  But first, dinner had to be made.

  “Heaven help us,” she muttered, as she and Gideon walked hand-in-hand into the kitchen.

  She stood surveying the various pots and pans Mrs. Pruitt had left simmering on the stove, then looked at Gideon. He returned her stare, looking just as perplexed as she felt.

  “Would you rather find a cookbook and read, or would you rather . . . stir?” she said, hoping a little subliminal suggestion might work on him.

  “I’m a fabulous reader,” he said promptly, commencing a search for a cookbook.

  Megan stared back at the stove. Well, at least this would distract her from the deafening clamor her hand had set up at being parted from Gideon’s.

  “Bad hand,” she said, frowning down at it sternly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Megan shoved her hand behind her back and smiled at Gideon. “Just giving it a pep talk in preparation for cooking. Find anything useful?”

  Gideon held up a fistful of scribbled notes. “I think this might be it.”

  Megan sighed.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Four

  GIDEON SAT AT the table, plowing manfully through his meal. The potatoes were scorched, the meat both raw and burned depending on what side of it faced up on one’s plate, and the vegetables were unrecognizable in their mushiness. Somehow, his deciphering of Mrs. Pruitt’s notes and Megan’s stirring hadn’t turned out the way it should have. At this point, Gideon didn’t care. He was starved enough to eat about anything.

  Once his nutrient-starved brain could function properly again, he looked over at his dinner companion. She was currently toying with her carrots, as if she thought they might provide the answers to life’s mysteries. Gideon leaned over and looked at them.

  “Don’t see any answers there,” he said, then met her eyes. “Do you?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Just overcooked vegetables.”

  “We’ll do better next time.”

  “We’ll starve to death,” she said gloomily. “Surrounded by raw ingredients we can’t put together to save our lives.”

  Gideon watched Megan’s downcast face and wondered what troubled her. She couldn’t think the disaster before them was her fault. He was as much responsible as she. Perhaps she was merely fatigued from her journey to the inn. While they’d cooked, she had told him of her harrowing experience with the thieves in London. Add that to her long walk from the village and it was no wonder she looked a bit on the peaked side.

  Gideon couldn’t deny that no matter how she looked, she still made him pull up short. There was something just so open and artless about her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d encountered another human being who didn’t have some sort of agenda where he was concerned. Even his father, useless bit of fluff though he was, managed to tear himself from the races long enough to give Gideon a lofty earlyish order or two. The only person who called him anymore without wanting something was his mother.

  Megan didn’t seem to have any expectations of him. She had no idea who he was and, distressing though it was to him, seemingly couldn’t have cared less what he did. Not even blatant boasting about his title and manor hall at Blythwood had fazed her. She did, however, like his laugh.

  He was beginning to wish some of her nonchalance would rub off on him. Just the sight of her left him with his head spinning. Having her undivided attention was almost more than he could take. Though he certainly wasn’t having any of the latter presently. Her vegetables were enjoying far too much of her scrutiny.

  Perhaps she was still put out with him? He’d apologized thoroughly for having splashed her. Secretly, he was relieved he hadn’t plowed her over. He’d been trying to fix the blasted fax machine in his car. Another one of Stephen’s insidious little assaults, no doubt.

  Perhaps, then, she wasn’t looking at him because she found the company dull. He frowned. He could be entertaining. Perhaps he should try out some of those skills he’d learned in that Don’t Alienate Your Partner seminar his mother had coerced him into taking the year before. He’d done it to please her, because she asked so little of him, though he hadn’t seen the point in it. He never alienated anyone unintentionally. Yes, he would trot out his hard-won skills and see if they were worth the sterling he’d paid for them.

  “Tell me more about your family,” he said. There, he was off to a smashing start. People loved to talk about their families. And there he was, fully prepared to listen to her. It was a foolproof plan. “You mentioned a brother? The one who sent you over here?”

  “Thomas,” she said. “He bought the castle up the way. He wanted something that had originally belonged to a McKinnon. He’s always been big on the ancestral stuff.”

  “And he sent you here to study the terrain, as it were?”

  She sighed and stuck her fork into a mound of carrots. “It was a charity gig. You know, after the mouse debacle.”

  “Poor Dumbo and his ever-lengthening ears.”

  “He kept pinching my tail. He deserved every bit of whiplash he got.”

  “Oh, Megan,” he said, unable to do anything but shake his head and smile. Megan McKinnon was a business disaster.

  “The rest of them are just like Thomas: all successful, all the brightest of stars, all settled into their careers and forging ahead, the obstacles be damned.”

  Everyone except me. Gideon didn’t have to hear her say it to know it was exactly what she was thinking. He had no frame of reference for that. Everything he’d put his hand to had turned to gold. Schooling, sports, business. He’d never once been sacked, never once been told he wasn’t good enough, never once questioned his direction or his purpose. He could hardly believe such things had happened regularly to the woman across from him. Surely there was something she’d done that was noteworthy.

  “How did you fare at university?” he asked.

  “I quit. I didn’t like them telling me what to study.”

  Gideon mulled that one for a moment before turning to another possibility. “Your mother’s clothing business—”

  “Baby clothes are cute, but not for a life’s work.”

  “The theater?” he ventured.

  “I’ve done it all. Sewn costumes, painted scenery, worked lights, acted, danced, forgotten my lines. All in my sister’s theater troupe.”

  Gideon looked at her in horror. “She didn’t sack you, did she?”

  “I did the honors myself.”

  Gi
deon reached over and took her hand before he knew what he was doing. And once he had ahold of it, he found he didn’t want to let go.

  “You just haven’t found your niche,” he stated firmly. “Something will turn up.”

  She looked at him and her eyes were bright. Gideon suspected it might have been from the tears she was blinking away.

  “Do you think so?” she whispered.

  “I’m certain of it,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze

  And then he understood what had been troubling her, why she’d said half a dozen times while stirring supper that she hoped the weather changed so she could pop up to the castle first thing. She needed a success.

  And then a perfectly brilliant idea occurred to him. He would help her fix her career. His Don’t Alienate instructor had specifically listed the fixing of partners on his list of Don’ts, but Gideon was certain that didn’t apply to him. If anyone could fix Megan McKinnon’s life, it would be him. And he would, just as soon as he had pried her away from her veggies so he could have her full attention.

  “Let’s escape to a tidier room,” he suggested, rising. “We can talk more comfortably there.”

  “I can’t leave the kitchen like this—”

  “It will keep,” he said, pulling her up from the table. “Maybe you can tell me a little about your career interests.” He knew he was pushing, but he could hardly help himself. Business was his forte, after all.

  “I don’t have any career interests.”

  Gideon froze. “You don’t?”

  “Not in the sense you probably mean. I hate dressing up for work.”

  “You hate dressing up for work,” he repeated slowly. “Yet . . .”

  “I hate the corporate thing. Don’t own panty hose. Don’t want to own panty hose.”

  He lifted one eyebrow. “But wearing mouse ears and a tail didn’t bother you.”

  “I didn’t have to wear panty hose.”

  “I see.”

  “I think you do.”

  Gideon smiled at the way she looked down her nose at him. She was so adorable, it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms and kiss the freckles right from that nose.