Love on Lavender Lane

by Karis Walsh

  Kassidy flipped through nearly one hundred pages filled with print. “There’s quite a lot more here than what you talked about today.”

  “Yes. I put more detailed information in the proposal and just covered the three main themes today. Everything connects to them, though.”

  Kassidy ticked them off on her fingers. “Smile. Make something. Go big or go home.”

  Paige laughed, suddenly looking like herself again, even though she had reverted to the same style of clothes and demeanor she had worn on her first day on the farm. Her untouchable business uniform.

  “Thank you for summing up hours of painstaking research and contemplation so succinctly.” She stood up and carefully poured the milk remaining in their glasses back into the bottle. “This is going down the drain, although it’s thick enough to clog it. Are you satisfied with what we’ve discussed today?”

  Satisfied? Try terrified, elated, and ready to hide under the bedcovers. Kassidy just nodded, though. Eventually she’d come to terms with what she needed to do, so she’d consider that as satisfied.

  “Great. I’m officially off the clock, so I’m going to relax and enjoy my weekend. My contract only extended through this presentation, but if you have questions about anything in the proposal, you can send an email. My business’s contact information is on the cover.”

  She put her hand out and Kassidy stared at it in confusion for a moment before she reached out and shook Paige’s hand. She got a small, professional smile in return, and then Paige went back to the guest cottage and closed the Dutch doors fully behind her.

  “Um…” Kassidy wasn’t sure how to respond to Paige’s sudden dismissal of their relationship, but Paige was no longer there to hear the response, so Kassidy stopped talking and sat in a stunned silence. She had really thought they were developing a connection, but maybe it had all been designed to make Kassidy comfortable enough with Paige to listen to her advice.

  She’d thought Paige really cared about the farm, but maybe her enthusiasm for it had been an act, too, like the mask she said she wore when doing business. What had she been expecting? A hug? A kiss? Probably not the usual ways Paige concluded her presentations in the corporate world. Kassidy had been a fool to think she was different.

  She was about to get up and go back inside when Paige came out again, followed by Dante and wearing khakis and a burgundy T-shirt. Her hair was loose and mussed, just the way Kassidy liked it.

  She dropped heavily into the chair on the other side of the table from where she had just been sitting.

  “Hi, I’m Paige. I’m renting your cottage for the weekend.” She leaned back and closed her eyes. “I definitely needed to get away. You would not believe the demanding client I had this month. She was tyrannical.”

  Kassidy grinned, all her confusion fading away as she realized that Paige had made the end of their business arrangement as formal and obvious as possible. Which left the rest of the weekend open for something new.

  “I’m glad to meet you, Paige, and delighted to be opening my home to random strangers. I’m Kassidy, by the way. Your host. The one who will be making your breakfast tomorrow.”

  Paige sat up. “Did I say tyrannical? I meant delightful. A candidate for Client of the Year.”

  Kassidy shook her head, laughing as she pushed her notepaper and Paige’s proposal to one side. She would get to these projects, wholeheartedly and not timidly, starting next week. This weekend was going to be devoted to something else entirely.

  Paige smiled at her with the expression of someone with a wonderful secret to share. “I hope you don’t have a policy about not dating houseguests, Kassidy, because I would love to take you out to dinner.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kassidy went into the house to change for dinner while Paige took Dante for a walk along the paths through her lavender fields. Once she was alone, with the door closed behind her, she sat on the bed in her room without taking off her clothes or picking something for tonight. She felt shaky, and she worked through her mixed-up emotions until she could unravel the separate strands.

  Hearing Paige’s evaluation of her business had been intense, as Kassidy had expected it would be. After last weekend when she had thought Paige’s only advice would be to make some labels and fix her website, but instead had involved dragging her to the town fair, Kassidy had realized that Paige was going to expect her to stretch her boundaries for her farm. And she hadn’t been disappointed in the proposal, either in its scary attempts to push her out of her comfort zone or in the enticing possibilities it encouraged her to acknowledge. But even the really great aspects, like the thought of creating a beautiful farm-inspired cookbook, triggered nervousness because of the amount of effort and skill they would require from her. She was feeling worn-out from the process of hearing Paige’s presentation, but her present state of discomfort stemmed from more than that.

  Five minutes. Paige had gone into the guest cottage for five minutes after ending her presentation, and Kassidy had responded like a helpless child facing abandonment. Wondering what she had done wrong, questioning their entire relationship. How long would it have been before she had reacted like she had with Audrey and gone seeking Paige’s attention again?

  Paige hadn’t been more than a dozen yards away from her as she had acted out her playful separation of their work and personal lives. Kassidy had no doubt that Paige’s intentions had not been harmful. She liked Kassidy. Wanted to take her out. Kassidy was angry with herself for reacting the way she had, not with Paige for being a trigger, albeit a charming and funny one.

  Kassidy got up and smoothed out the covers on the bed. She felt better after analyzing her behavior and the way she had talked to herself after Paige had walked away. As long as she understood why she responded the way she did, she could get control over it. The only way she knew how to control her reaction to Paige was to stay away from her. As much as she loved spending time with Paige and laughing with her, Kassidy wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. She had her farm to worry about, with all the upcoming work, tourists, and risks it now entailed. Paige had spent a few weekends here, and now the job that had brought her to McMinnville was at an end. They both knew this when Paige asked Kassidy out and she accepted. The date was for tonight. Dinner. Sex, hopefully. Laughter, most assuredly, if Paige was involved.

  Kassidy changed from jeans to a nice pair of slacks and a blouse. She could ignore her concerns about how she had reacted since the problem wasn’t a long-term one. She would make the most of this one, wonderful night.

  They left Dante in the house with Kipper, and Kassidy drove them to Sarai’s restaurant. Paige had offered, but getting stranded on the side of the road in a nonfunctioning Tercel would put a definite crimp in Kassidy’s plans for the evening. She felt an almost desperate sense of freedom as she reached over and took Paige’s hand while she drove. She was free to be with Paige tonight even though she was concerned about how hard and fast she had fallen for her. But at the same time, the freedom came at a price she didn’t even want to consider right now. Paige would go back to Portland.

  Paige squeezed her hand and let go while Kassidy parked on the street around the corner from the restaurant. “You’re quiet,” she said. “Is everything okay? Are you upset about the proposal that jerk of a consultant gave you?”

  “Oh, she wasn’t so bad. And it’s not like I’m actually going to do any of those things she told me to do.”

  Paige smiled, but she seemed uncharacteristically quiet, too. Kassidy turned in her seat to face her. “You gave me a lot to think about, and it’s not easy to switch it off completely. I’m happy to be here with you, though.”

  “Me, too.” Paige lifted her hand, hesitated as if still accustomed to having a work relationship in the way, and then put her palm against Kassidy’s cheek. The touch was gentle, questioning, and Kassidy answered by covering Paige’s hand with hers, taking hold of it, and tugging Paige closer.

  Paige had been clear about the
change in their relationship, and Kassidy wanted to respond with a clarity of her own. She leaned forward and kissed Paige, expecting her lips to be soft against Kassidy’s and her hair to feel silky when Kassidy wrapped her fingers in her curls. But she wasn’t anticipating the way her heart would respond, even though the kiss was tentative at first and chaste throughout, unlike the first one they had shared.

  Kassidy was familiar with desire, or at least with some mild variations of attraction, but this was something too far beyond to classify with the same word. Kassidy was perfectly happy to let her body have its way tonight, but she had planned to keep the rest of herself at a distance. She pulled back and looked in Paige’s eyes and thought she saw promises of shared afternoons, secret laughter, and something building toward a future in them. But were the promises truly there or just projections of what she wanted to find?

  Either way, she was in big trouble. Those weren’t things she should want from Paige, or from anyone else. Still, she could barely get through an innocent kiss without falling into something sort of resembling love. What would she be like after a night together? She would survive, no doubt, but she wouldn’t be the same after Paige left. She clasped on to the knowledge that Paige certainly wasn’t interested in exchanging her career and life in the city for a tourist-infested rural farm.

  “We should go in and eat,” Paige said, trailing her fingertips over Kassidy’s cheek and jawline. “Have you had anything besides doughnuts today?”

  “I didn’t eat any doughnuts today,” Kassidy said, laughing even as she tried to sound affronted. “Although I did eat the bigger half of the loaf of blueberry lavender bread I made for you this morning.”

  “I should have expanded the customer service section of my proposal, but I was running out of paper.”

  “What? At least you got some of it. Most of my guests will be lucky if they get day-old coffee and a frozen waffle.”

  “Toasted?”

  Kassidy shrugged. “If I’m in a good mood.”

  She smiled as she got out of the car. Paige’s teasing always seemed to come at the perfect time, letting her know to lighten up and enjoy their time together. The kiss had caught her off guard, but she was prepared for the rest of the night now. Probably.

  Maybe.

  * * *

  Paige had eaten at Sarai’s restaurant almost every night she had stayed in McMinnville, so she and Kassidy were led directly to Paige’s favorite booth by the front window. The rest of the dining room was packed with people, and Paige figured the table had been saved for her since she had told Sarai they would be here tonight, taking a chance Kassidy would say yes to dinner. The interior was decorated in dark earth tones with gold accents, creating a cozy, den-like atmosphere, and the air was permeated with the warm, spicy scents emanating from the kitchen. The place had become as familiar to her as her own apartment kitchen.

  She already knew what she was going to order—the vegetable biryani was one of the dishes Sarai used to make when they were in college, and it was still her favorite—but she pretended to read the menu because it gave her a chance to stare over the top of it at Kassidy. In the dark room with candles as the main source of light, Kassidy’s hair glowed with an amber hue, and the play of shadows on her face emphasized her serious expression. Paige wasn’t worried, though. She could always make Kassidy laugh, and she was anxious to try coaxing some new sounds and feelings out of her tonight.

  She wasn’t in a hurry, although she had expected to be. Usually, she felt a need to rush relationships past the awkward courting stage and into the bedroom. She had never been comfortable with the getting-to-know-you phase, with all its generic questions and carefully phrased answers. What kind of music do you like? What are your hobbies? She preferred moving quickly to sex—after all, if she was dating someone, she obviously found them attractive. Once there, in what she considered to be the mildly boring phase of a relationship, conversations usually became less intense. Small talk, to fill the time until the sexual tension was played out and they were ready to move on.

  She felt like such a different person with Kassidy that those past relationships seemed like someone else’s memories. She and Kassidy had already shared details about their childhoods. She had already been involved in Kassidy’s life in a way she knew Kassidy considered to be intimate. She had seen Kassidy’s vulnerabilities and her desire for privacy. She had met her family members.

  Instead of making her want to get away or hurry forward to avoid more revelations, her friendship with Kassidy made her want more. To tell her more, to hear more, to share more.

  And to kiss more, obviously. She reveled in the knowledge she now had about the perfect way Kassidy’s mouth felt against hers. The way her hands felt strong and sure, pulling her closer as if she felt the same yearning Paige did. The kiss had been innocent, though. On her part, because as much as she wanted to devour Kassidy, she was amazed by the stillness she felt inside when she was with her. She had spent her life rushing from one activity to the next, one woman to the next. She looked at Kassidy now and had no desire to be anywhere else or doing anything else.

  Kassidy seemed tense, though, and Paige didn’t think it had anything to do with her business proposal. Rather, she had seemed excited about some of the prospects and accepting of the others. Her change in mood had happened after Paige had asked her out. If she had been uncertain about Kassidy’s attraction to her, the kiss would have reassured her. Something else was on Kassidy’s mind, and Paige had a feeling she knew what it was. Anyone who had been through the emotional neglect Kassidy had faced as child would be determined to protect themselves from having it happen again. As far as Kassidy knew, Paige was leaving McMinnville tomorrow and never returning. Paige had to do her best to make sure Kassidy understood what she would do to keep them in contact until they decided where their relationship was heading.

  Sarai came over to the table with a woven plate of warm chapatis. She gave them each a hug and sat down next to Kassidy.

  “The kitchen is crazy tonight, so I’ll only stay a minute. I’m not trying to barge in on your date.”

  “It’s great to see such a big crowd already, so early in the season,” Kassidy said, reaching for a chapati and smearing it with Sarai’s fig and lemon chutney.

  “I know. Paige has been doing her part to keep me in business by eating here all the time, but it’s a relief to have more than one table filled. Maybe some of them will be better tippers than she is.”

  “Maybe they will be, if the food you serve them is better than what you’ve given me,” Paige joked.

  “Oh, now you’re a food critic?” Sarai leaned toward Kassidy. “I used to cook my own food when we were roommates in college. She used to sit on her bed and watch me with those big Dickensian eyes until I offered her some. I believe she graduated without knowing where the dining hall was located.”

  Kassidy laughed. “She is a mooch, isn’t she?”

  Paige nudged her ankle under the table. “Says the woman who just admitted she ate most of my breakfast this morning.”

  “I hope all my guests won’t be so demanding.” Kassidy shook her head at Sarai. “I think calling the place a bed-and-breakfast leads to too many expectations. I’m going to rent out the cottage as a Bed Only.”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Sarai said. “My parents will be visiting in June, and I’ll want to rent your cottage for a week for them. I’ll get the dates and a deposit to you this week.”

  “I’d love to have them.”

  Sarai disappeared into the kitchen again after a brief visit, and once they were alone, Paige reached across the table and squeezed Kassidy’s hand.

  “Good for you. You got your first reservation. Besides me, of course.”

  Kassidy took a big gulp of water. “I know. It’s already getting out of hand. Do you think they’ll mind a bag of potato chips for breakfast?”

  “That’s what all the fanciest B and Bs serve.” Paige smiled, glad to see Kassidy kidding around
again. Well, she hoped she was kidding.

  “What were you like in college? Aside from begging for food?”

  Paige put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands, for once in her life not minding when the conversation turned to her. “Busy. I only had a chance to spend time with Sarai at meals. If she hadn’t been cooking such great smelling dishes, I’d probably have barely known her. I’d have grabbed something from the cafeteria on my way to class or practice or the library.”

  Kassidy paused while the waiter set their dishes on the table. “Did you do all the same activities in college as high school?”

  Paige shrugged. Her parents had seemed both thrilled and jealous when she had gotten accepted to Reed. They had been raising a toddler when their friends went off to college. She had privately wondered why they never made the effort to go back to school or join a sports team instead of expecting her to continue to live out their dreams, but she never spoke the questions out loud. She had heard the We would have done this if we hadn’t gotten pregnant story since before she was old enough to grasp the concepts involved and she had always understood what her role was in the family, even though she hadn’t had time to figure out what her purpose was in the outside world.

  “I did most of the same things in college, but it was more difficult. Everything required more from me, whether it was practicing to get to first string or doing homework to get good grades.” Paige paused, thinking back to the fair when she had first told Kassidy about her school experiences. “You asked before if my parents had actually done all these things, and I said they hadn’t because of me. Part of me always suspected that they wouldn’t have been involved in those activities even if they hadn’t had me. I think that made it harder, because I was trying to live up to their fantasies, not their realities.”

  She took a bite of her food before continuing. “I shouldn’t complain, though. My parents had a kind of self-centered agenda, but they were there for me. Playing ball or making class projects. I sometimes felt smothered, but I imagine it would have been much harder to be left alone.”