Page 12 of Puck Love

“PancakeSunday?”

“Yeah, every Sunday lunch is Pancake Sunday. Right,Emmett?”

“Right.” Emmett has returned to his seat and shovels more of the breakfast food in hismouth.

“What? Americans don’t do pancakes for lunch onSundays?”

I shake my head. “Not usually. We mostly eat lunch foods forlunch.”

Van covers the plate in his hand with the spatula. “Shhh, don’t worry, baby. She doesn’t know you like Ido.”

I can’t help but laugh, and this earns me a wink. He shoves the plate at me, so I have no choice but to take it. “Go sit your ass down, Hart. You can’t go anywhere without soaking up some of that alcohol from yourbloodstream.”

I give him a tightsmile.

“You hear that, Emmett? The girl whose picture you jack it to every night is gonna be your lunchdate.”

I blanch and stare at Van indisbelief.

“Shut up, fucker! God, Van you’re such a child.” Emmett grabs an apple from the bowl on the table and throws it at his brother. Van plucks it from midair and takes a huge bite, grinning like a fool. I’m not sure what kind of crazy I just walked in on, and I don’t know whether to laugh or go running for the hills. “Such adick.”

“Love you too, brother.” He points his spatula at me. “Syrup’s on the table,babe.”

“Er . . .thanks.”

Emmett slides the syrup towards me. It’s then that I notice there are three bottles of the stuff. One half gone in front of Emmett, another at the place setting opposite him and one right by me.Okay. I knew Canadians liked their syrup but this is . . . different. “That’s your bottle,” Emmett says, as if I’m lacking commonsense.

“Do I need my ownbottle?”

Emmett and Van just stare at me, and then Emmett shakes his head and Van goes back to flipping pancakes. Okay then. Guess that answersthat.

Van comes and sits opposite Emmett and dumps a quarter of the bottle of his syrup on the plate before cutting up the pancake and shoveling it in his mouth. He chews a couple times but doesn’t bother finishing his food before he says, “So, StellaHart.”

“Van . . .” I pause. “It’s Ross,right?”

“The one and only.” He shoves more pancake onto his fork, and I go back to studying my plate to avoid seeing his half-masticated breakfast as it rolls around inside his mouth. “What brings you toBanff?”

I’m not sure if he just sneezed or not so I say, “Bless you,”anyway.

“Emmett, you didn’t tell me she was one of those Hillsongtypes.”

“Hey, I ain’t a Hillsong anything. Not that there’s anything wrong withthat.”

“Right, except for the fact that you can’t have sex beforemarriage.”

Guess he has me there, but judging by the smirk he throws my way and the barbed comments in his bedroom, I’m betting he already knew about my seriously lacking sex life.Why wouldn’t he?I’ve made a habit of letting the entire world know about my virgin status. I even have a club. Which was certainly not my idea, but something my earliest label had pushed on me because I’d been a seventeen-year-old girl when I’d hit it big. The longer I had schoolgirls, college students, and even parents contacting me to say that they appreciated the positive message I was putting out, the harder it became to move away from that. And so, I became the official poster child for never giving it up before marriage. I’m not opposed to it exactly, but I sure wish the tag line of ‘virgin’ didn’t follow me everywhere. There is more to me than the squeaky-clean image my label puts out, but no one wants to know about that Stella. That Stella Hart isn’t someone who ran out on a stadium full offans.

“She’s blushing.” Emmett laughs. It’s true. I am blushing. Heat scolds my cheeks and I close my eyes because the butterflies are filling up my insides again, their wingbeats fan the flames of that familiar burn in my chest. They cram together, vying for room, smothering my lungs, stealing mybreath.

“Em, ease up.” Van grasps my hand on the table top. His is sticky, but warm. “Youokay?”

“Uh-huh.” I retract my hand from beneath his and fold it in my lap. I can’t breathe. I tug at the shirt collar as a cold sweat breaks out across my forehead and my cheeks turn toflame.

“Is it hot in here?” I glance at the fire and then at the glass bi-fold door on the other side of the room leading out to a deck. “I needair.”

I shoot back from my chair and stand. My head swims. I really can’t breathe. Van takes hold of my arm and guides me over to the door. I yank on the handle but it doesn’t come free. “How do you get this fucking thingopen?”

“Hey, it’s okay. Give me asecond.”

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