Stranded At Cupid's Hideaway. Connie Lane

few, electrifying moments Noah wondered if Laurel was just as interested and just as aroused as he was. Looked like he just might have the opportunity to find out.

      Noah sucked in a sharp breath, fighting to control the mixture of white-hot heat and frosty-as-ice disbelief that collided inside him like a cold front moving across the Texas panhandle in the dog days of August. The results were the same. A tornado that stirred his blood and turned what had been a well-ordered world on its head.

      He took a minute, letting the thought settle and getting used to the feel of it. Not exactly easy when he considered that he’d spent the last four years learning to live with the idea of never seeing Laurel again.

      Not that he thought there was any future in it. For either one of them. He knew some wounds were too deep to heal. Some hearts could never be resuscitated. No matter how skilled the doctor.

      It was a fact. And facts were impossible to dispute. Which explained why Noah found the whole thing so impossible to believe. It didn’t explain why the next thing he knew, he had the basket of muffins in his hand and was headed out to find Laurel.

      “I WISH I could help, Laurel. Honest. But…”

      Gilly Wilson’s face was an unbecoming shade of green. Understandable considering that Gilly was not only six months pregnant, but had the flu, as well. The fact that she’d had the energy to pack her husband’s lunch before he left the island for his job on the mainland that morning and get her three-year-old to day care on time impressed the heck out of Laurel. In spite of everything, Gilly had also managed to get her five-year-old twins to the clinic for their annual checkups. No doubt about it, Gilly was a candidate for Mother of the Year. At least in Laurel’s opinion.

      Which was the only reason—besides the fact that Gilly just happened to be her best friend—Laurel didn’t beg, plead and offer Gilly bribes not to leave the room while she examined the boys known around town as the Wild Wilsons.