Marooned With a Marine

“Cozy?” she repeated, staring through the rain-swept windshield. “It looks like it’s a hundred years old.”

“Good. Just what we need.”

“Huh?”

He parked in front of the office and turned off the engine. Facing her, he shrugged and said, “If it’s that old, it’s survived a lot of hurricanes. It should make it through this one.”

Sure, Karen thought, but the question was, would she?

Three

She watched him through the windshield. Waves of rainwater made his image blurry, as if this was all a dream and she was really safe at home in her own bed, with her mind tormenting her with visions of Sam.

But, as the motel owner stepped up behind the counter, scratching his dirty-tank-top-covered hairy chest, the dream notion was shattered. An older man, he had a well-rounded stomach that looked as though he hadn’t missed many meals, and his gray hair stood out in spiky tufts all around his head. He grinned at Sam and turned the registration pad toward him.

“Oh, this place is obviously the Ritz,” Karen muttered as their host picked at his teeth with a thumbnail. Her gaze briefly strayed from the dimly lit office to the motel itself. It looked like something out of a fifties horror movie. Dingy block walls, stained with years of traffic exhaust and neglect. A solitary tree stood in the center of the parking lot and was now bent almost completely in half as the wind pushed and shoved at it, trying to rip it right out of the small patch of earth it claimed. Here and there a lamp gleamed from behind threadbare draperies, and the cars that huddled side by side looked forlorn and abandoned.

“Okay,” she told herself firmly, turning back to keep her eye on Sam, “now you’re getting weird. There’s nothing wrong with this place that a nice little A-bomb wouldn’t cure.”

In the office, Sam shook the other man’s hand and the two of them shared a jovial laugh. “Hmm. A meeting of the minds,” she said wryly.

A moment later, Sam was sprinting through the wind and rain toward the car. He opened the door, jumped inside and shook himself like a big dog coming out of a lake.

“Whew!” he said as Karen wiped droplets of water off her face. “Man, this storm’s really something.”

“So I noticed,” she said, and took the registration paper from him when he handed it to her. “Where are our rooms?”

He sniffed, scooped one hand across his militarily short black hair and turned to look at her. “Well, that’s the thing,” he said.

“What?” she asked warily as the broken vacancy sign blinked off and the motel owner disappeared into his own room.

“Jonas says it’s been a busy night.”

“Jonas?” Good heavens, had he really had time to bond with the man?

“Yeah. Jonas.” Sam looked at her and shook his head before reaching for the key and turning it. The engine leaped to life, and he dropped it into gear and steered the SUV down past the line of parked cars. In the last available slot, he pulled in, parked and turned the engine off again.

Rain hammered at the car and the wind shrieked around them as she waited for him to finish. She didn’t have long.

“Anyway, he only had the one room left,” Sam told her.

“One room,” she repeated.

“Yeah,” he said, and, wincing slightly, added, “and, since this is a small southern town and since I didn’t much like the things Jonas had to say, I, uh…”

“You what?” Karen asked, giving him a wary look.

He shrugged. “Look at the registration slip.”

She tipped the paper up toward the stingy light of the dashboard and read it. Amazed, she read it again. Then, turning her gaze on Sam, she accused, “You registered us as Gunnery Sergeant and Mrs. Paretti?”

Well she didn’t have to sound so damned insulted, Sam thought. He hadn’t intended on registering them as man and wife, but seeing the leer in the motel owner’s eyes had decided him. He wasn’t about to let a guy like Jonas turn his sleazy imagination loose on Karen.

And what did he get for his protective instincts? A woman appalled at even pretending to be his wife.

Perfect.

“Relax, Karen,” he said tightly. “It’s not like I’m asking you to love, honor and obey.”

“I know, but—”

“It’s no big deal, all right?” Sam looked at her. “It’s a simple lie to make things easier.”

“For who?” she asked.

Frustrated now, he asked, “What happened to our truce?”

A long minute passed before she nodded and said, “Okay, you’re right. Truce. After all, how long can a stupid hurricane last, anyway?”

As she gathered her chocolates and her purse, Sam actually thought about that for the first time and realized that he and Karen would probably be together…alone…for the next three days. And nights.

Oh, man.

He had a feeling this hurricane was going to make boot camp look like a Tahiti vacation.

The inside of the place lived up to the promise of the outside.

Karen stood just inside the door and stared at it all in mute fascination. The walls were painted a soft orange and the rust-brown shag carpet set them off beautifully. Two lamps were bolted to tables on opposite sides of the one double bed. A closet with no door boasted three wire hangers on a bent rod, and the bathroom just beyond it looked small and seafoam green.

She plopped down on the edge of the mattress and heard the bedspread crunch beneath her. What did they make those things out of, she wondered, and gave the garishly flowered spread an amazed stare.

“Well,” Sam said, dropping her bags just inside the door. “It’s dry.”

“Mostly,” she said, and pointed to the far corner where a water stain had already begun to pool and spread across the ceiling.

He squinted up at the spot. “I can fix that.”

Naturally, she thought. That was his attitude about everything. If it was broken, Sam could fix it. Like he’d tried to fix what had happened between them. But that was the one thing no one could fix.

“Okay,” he conceded, “House Beautiful it ain’t. But it’ll stand up to the hurricane, and that’s all we should be worrying about.”

She looked up at him, and as her gaze locked on his strong jaw and slightly curved lips, she knew damn well that the hurricane wasn’t all she should be worrying about. Sharing a tiny motel room—and its one bed—with a man who could turn her inside out with a single touch scored pretty high on the worry meter, too.

He looked down at her, and it was as if he could read her mind. She saw the flash of desire spark quickly in his eyes, then disappear behind the wall of hurt she’d put there two months ago.

“This is only temporary, Karen,” he said, his voice gruff with an emotion she didn’t want to identify. “A few days of togetherness and we’ll be back to our separate lives. Just the way you want it.”

“A few days?” she asked. Good Lord.