Love Is Nuts (3 Tales) Read Free Page A

him into a deeper awareness. Or maybe in that simple decisive act of kicking open the door to confront Mona, he’d kicked down some barriers inside himself as well.
    And maybe he was just finally starting to grow up!
    He halted briefly in front of the exit. “Hey, Gran,” he called, “Mona wants a hot soak to unwind.” The honest truth, right? Nothing suspicious there. “We’re going to check out the Jacuzzi in the Skyclad Court. Okay?”
    “Of course. What a nice idea.” Angelica beamed a sunny smile from the entrance to the balcony, her caftan billowing about her in the warm breeze. “You two run along and enjoy yourselves. It’s lovely to see you beginning to relax with each other.” She paused a moment, brows raised in mild speculation. “You are relaxing, aren’t you?”
    Danny pasted his most congenial grin on his face. “That’s what the hot tub is for.”
    Before anyone could say anything else, he hustled Mona out of the suite and down the hall to the elevator.
    She hugged herself, hanging on to her purse and her makeshift sarong with a death grip. “I feel so conspicuous.”
    “Why?” This was a seasonal warm weather resort. “Mona, people prance around here in Speedos and string bikinis. In bath towels we’re almost overdressed.”
    As if to prove his point, the elevator doors slid open to display a testosterone-endowed trio of sun-and-fun types in swim trunks. The middle one leered at Mona as the elevator descended.
    “Heading to the hot tub? Maybe we’ll see you there.” He winked.
    Danny resisted the urge to slug him. “Not if I see you first.”
    That ended that conversation.
    The doors slid open again at the ground floor, and he rushed Mona through the blossom-bedecked lobby with its decorative accents of ancient Greek art (the naughty kind), through the exit, and into the sunshine and fresh air.
    “You didn’t have to be so rude,” she fussed. “He was just trying to be friendly.”
    “But with my wife, damn it.”
    Well, she would be within the hour.
    If his plan worked.
    And if she agreed to it.
    Which suddenly looked doubtful.
    Mona skidded up short. “Your what ?”
    Danny’s recent resolve started to wither under her stare. In all his newfound self-awareness, the grand revelation of how much Mona meant to him, he’d forgotten one thing. That he didn’t mean much to her.
    “You don’t love me, and frankly I don’t love you either.” She’d said it straight to his face back at that stupid tearoom. If his grandmother hadn’t taken charge, they might never have progressed from there to here. Mona had agreed to marry him only because she was pregnant. Because she had to.
    But, hell, she’d been wrong about his feelings. Did he dare hope she was wrong about hers, too?
    “My wife,” he repeated, searching her eyes for some sign she liked the sound of that phrase. He knew he did. “Mona, I want to marry you.”
    Her gaze went wary. Now she apparently viewed him not only as selfish and callous, but also insane.
    “What happened to our great escape ?” she hissed.
    “Shh, don’t look now, sweetheart, but we’re in the middle of it.” Also in the middle of a busy resort with dozens of people strolling around, any of which might be the undercover agents Angelica had hired to watch them. “C’mon, keep walking. Act casual.”
    “No” – she dug in her heels – “not until you explain exactly what’s going on. First you want to escape marriage. Then you don’t. Then you do again? Danny, this makes no sense. You make no sense. And…and…” The wary gaze misted with tears. “You’ve never called me sweetheart before!”
    He hadn’t? Shame on him.
    “Well, get used to it, sweetheart, because you’re going to be hearing it a lot from now on.”
    And to punctuate it, he pulled her hard against his chest and kissed her long and deep – kissed her breathless – kissed her until flames crackled and he smelled smoke.
    The hell with the watchers. Let them take