Julia’s face went bright red, and she quickly went back to eating her dinner. Satisfied that she had effectively silenced Julia for a while—no small accomplishment— Catherine turned back to Karen. “You certainly have the right to invite anyone you like to your Thanksgiving dinner, but I really wish you would stop trying to fix me up with Bill. I’m just really not interested right now.”

“Since I didn’t sleep with Buzz Stewart—ew, by the way—can I ask you about Mike?” Karen asked bravely.

“No.”

“I really didn’t know you were still seeing him,” Karen said, anyway. “You haven’t mentioned him at all.”

Catherine could concede that point. She had very carefully avoided mentioning Mike to her friends. She was not ashamed of her relationship with him, she assured herself. The truth was, she just hadn’t wanted to talk about it.

“So do you have plans for Thanksgiving with Mike?” Karen persisted.

“We haven’t talked about Thanksgiving. I assume he’ll be spending the holiday with his family.” And since his sisters had disliked her at first sight, for some reason, she didn’t imagine she would be on their list of preferred guests. Not that she wanted to be included, anyway. Talk about awkward. And she and Mike were nowhere near the point of spending holidays with each other’s families.

“I’ll come to your dinner party,” she told Karen. “But I mean it, no matchmaking. Just treat Bill and me as friends and colleagues, nothing more.”

“Isn’t that what you said about—”

Catherine pointed a finger at Julia before she could finish the question. “Buzz Stewart.”

Julia grimaced and reached grumpily for her wineglass. Karen snickered, though she quickly sobered when Julia gave her a look.

Firmly changing the subject, Catherine guided the conversation into a much more comfortable direction for the remainder of the meal.

Chapter Fourteen

Mike put his truck into Park and turned off the engine, then turned to smile at Catherine. “Well?”

She looked through the windshield at the tidy little lake-front cottage to which he had driven her. “It’s very nice.”

And she still found it hard to believe she was there. That Mike had talked her into an impulsive weekend trip to a friend’s lakeside cabin an hour’s drive southwest of Little Rock.

They had left her apartment at ten o’clock on this Saturday morning before Thanksgiving, and planned to return sometime late the next afternoon. Since he had suggested the outing only a couple of days before, Catherine had found it necessary to scramble a bit to clear her calendar, but somehow she had managed.

Mike was a very persuasive guy, she thought in bemusement as she climbed out of the truck and reached behind the seat for her overnight bag. She couldn’t imagine anyone else who could have talked her into going away with him for the weekend, especially on such short notice.

The weather was cool but clear. A light denim jacket with a thin red sweater and jeans were all she needed to stay comfortable. Overhead the sky was deep blue and almost cloudless. The fall leaves were almost all gone now, but there were plenty of evergreens around, and the glittering lake was tinted with blues and greens and silver.

“It really is lovely here.”

Mike paused on the front porch, key in hand, to glance toward the lake. “It’s great, isn’t it? This place has been in my friend Dan’s family for a long time. He took possession of it when his parents retired to Arizona a couple of years ago. A group of us comes here in the summers sometimes to drink beer and water-ski and play poker until dawn.”

“I’m sure you enjoy that.”

“Oh, yeah.” He led her into the cabin and dropped his own bag on the floor so he could turn on the lights. “He didn’t mind letting us have the place tonight, since it isn’t used so much in the winter.”

He went back out to the truck to bring in the food they had brought with them after stopping at a nearby grocery store. During the few minutes that he was gone, Catherine looked around the small cabin. The open floor plan made it look somewhat larger. She stood in the main room, which was painted a warm taupe, floored in age-buffed wood, furnished in sturdy oak furniture with nubby plaid upholstery and anchored by a large brick fireplace on one side.

The back wall was mostly glass, giving a view of a wooden deck on the back of the cabin and the lake beyond. The efficient-looking kitchen was visible behind a long, granite eating bar lined with four tall bar stools. Two closed doors on the other side of the room presumably led into bedrooms and bathroom facilities. The overall effect was ultracasual comfort, a place for kicking off one’s shoes and ignoring the outside world.

Mike walked back in carrying several bulging plastic grocery bags. “What do you think?”

“It’s perfect. I’ll put the groceries away while you take our bags into the bedroom.”

He came out of the bedroom again rubbing his hands together as if in anticipation. “Want to go for a boat ride?”

She turned away from the well-appointed kitchen to ask, “There’s a boat?”

“Yeah. It’s in the boathouse next to the dock. Dan’s taking it out next week to store it for the rest of the winter, but he gave us permission to use it this weekend.”

Tags: Gina Wilkins Romance
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