Kiss Me Katie! & Hug Me Holly! Read online

  “Well, you are not going to catch him with your sweet tongue, that is certain,” Maria said, not very kindly.

  “I’m not going to catch a man at all, thank you very much.”

  Well, wasn’t that interesting? He’d pegged her for a definite need-a-man-in-her-life type.

  She looked at him again, quickly, but there was no mistaking the flash of uncertainty in those baby blues.

  A distinctively uneasy feeling went through him. That had definitely been vulnerability he’d seen in her expression. But Holly Stone was never vulnerable.

  Was she?

  And if he’d been wrong about that, what else had he been wrong about?

  “You are not interested in marriage?” Maria was scandalized and she stared at Riley in shock when she handed him his plate. “She’s not interested in marriage.”

  “Let’s just say marriage isn’t interested in me,” Holly said, staring down at the bubbling pot on the stove. “Now, can you teach me to make this gravy as good as you, or what?”

  The look on Maria’s face was priceless. She didn’t know whether to hold on to her resentment of the younger woman or be flattered. Watching her torn emotions, enjoying her speechlessness, Riley let out his first grin of the day.

  “What’s so funny?” Maria demanded.

  If she knew, she’d take away his food. “Nothing.”

  “It is something.”

  He bit his lip, but the laugh escaped anyway. “I was just wondering if I could learn that trick sometime, the trick of making you silent.”

  Maria glared at him and reached for the plate she’d just handed him. “You give me that, you should go hungry.”

  “You said I shouldn’t,” he said, holding tight to his food. “Remember? You were worried about me, I need my food, you said, I need the nutrition.”

  “You. You are a snake.”

  “A hungry snake.”

  Maria let him keep his food. She looked at Holly. “Okay, maybe if you like my cooking so much, I can teach you,” she said gruffly. “My gravy is the best in the world. You can pour it over biscuits. Handmade biscuits, not some store bought ones that land like concrete in your stomach.”

  Holly smiled. Not that fake one, but a real, down-to-earth smile that transformed her into…a human being.

  A beautiful one.

  One Riley couldn’t take his eyes from, even though he wasn’t the recipient of that smile. No doubt, she was still screaming “city” with every step she took, but somehow, over the past few days, it had stopped amusing him and started to actually get to him.

  Any man would feel that way, he assured himself. She wore a short denim skirt that showed off the longest, greatest set of legs he’d ever seen, and a sun-yellow tank blouse that hugged the nicest, curviest set of—

  “Are you going to stare at her all day or are you going to eat?” Maria wanted to know. “Because that dish, it’s got to—”

  “Soak.” Riley cleared his throat and concentrated on his food. “I know.”

  Holly was looking at him, shock on her face, as if it hadn’t occurred to her that he could like the mere sight of her. It was the second time he realized she wasn’t quite as confident as she wanted the world to believe. Her eyes were big, and strangely unguarded. Her hands clenched together and that lower lip, the carefully glossed lower lip he’d dreamed about, was being dragged against her teeth.

  It reminded him of the day before, when she’d looked so uncharacteristically flustered, so absolutely…adorable. That, he realized, that had been when he’d stopped being amused by her looks, and instead, had become intrigued by Holly-the-person. He suspected she hid a lot inside, certainly most of her emotions. His sudden yearning to know what they were, and why she kept them so protected startled him.

  So did the simultaneous urge to surge up, grab her, toss her on his table and follow her down. He wanted to kiss that bottom lip, wanted to nibble off every bit of the remaining gloss, then work his way over her jaw to her neck. And when he was done there, he’d work his way down, down, down—

  “Your mind is in the gutter,” Maria said, shaking her wooden spoon beneath his nose. “Eat.”

  He was still looking at Holly when he brought another bite up to his lips.

  Holly was looking at him, too, she could do little else. For the first time in…well, forever, her thoughts were not her own to control. She couldn’t stop looking at him. Dammit, he needed to comb his tousled hair. He needed to shave. He really needed to put on a shirt—it should be illegal to look that good without one. And she couldn’t stop wondering exactly what he was thinking…

  She needed a lobotomy.

  That explained it. Honestly. Because there was no reason to wonder what he was thinking. No reason at all. He meant nothing to her. More important, she meant nothing to him. In light of that, she gave Maria a shaky grin. “I’ll write down the recipe as you give it to me. Soon as I give back—” she dug into her purse “—the sheriff’s wallet.”

  “The sheriff’s wallet?”

  “My wallet?” Riley asked at the same time as Maria, rising. “How did you get that?”

  Maria grabbed Riley’s plate and put it in the sink. “Do you need a witness when you arrest her for theft, Sheriff?”

  “Uh, no. I can handle it, thanks, Maria. Great food.”

  “As always.”

  “As always,” he repeated dutifully.

  She actually gave him a small smile before turning to Holly. “If you’re not in jail, I will come to the café later.”

  If she was in jail, it’d be for ogling charges. Ogling-the-sheriff charges.

  “I will show you some things in that kitchen,” Maria added, grabbing her purse and keys. “Things other than low-fat crapola. Though I hear the spaghetti sauce smelled good. Too bad no one got a chance to taste it before you almost blew them all up.”

  Holly let that go for the more important fact. “You’ll come help me?” She could have hugged the ornery, older woman, if she’d been the hugging type. “Thank you!”

  Maria nodded her head once, regally, and left her alone with Riley.

  Alone. Please don’t make an idiot of yourself in front of him this time, she told herself.

  It would be harder than she thought. According to what Maria had told her, Riley had been up since before dawn working outside. He didn’t look it, didn’t look anything but…fabulous.

  And utterly, absolutely at home in his own skin, which by the way, was fabulous, too. “About your wallet,” she said, forcing her gaze up to meet his. “It must have happened during the gas leak.”

  “What must have happened?”

  “Well, later, in my apartment, I found the dog chewing on something and—”

  “Wait.” Riley shook his head but took the wallet, which he set on the counter without even looking at it. “Dog? The same one from yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me get this straight. You claim you don’t like animals. You also claim you don’t even particularly like people, and you certainly don’t like being out of the big city. And yet here you are, in Little Paradise, running a café where you have to interact with people all day, and you’ve adopted both a dog and a cat.”

  “They adopted me.”

  “Really?” he murmured, smiling that warm, just-for-her smile. “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s true.”

  “You could lock them out.”

  “Yes, but— Yes,” she whispered. She couldn’t tell him she didn’t have the heart. It would ruin her tough reputation. She needed that reputation, she used it like a cloak. “About your wallet—”

  “You’re here to help your parents, right? And yet they appear to—no offense—not be too concerned about you and your needs. You don’t have any friends here, and you’re out of your element. Some pretty big odds, Holly.”

  “Look, I don’t want to discuss this. I just wanted to give you back your wallet.” She tried to turn away, but he gently and very firmly set