Love on Lavender Island (A Lavender Island Novel Book 2)

by Lauren Christopher

  Damn.

  His sleeves were rolled up, his shirt disheveled, giving credence to the long, hard day they’d apparently both had. The falling amber light caught the lines along his face, giving his eyes an otherworldly air as he kept them focused on her. He took the porch steps two at a time.

  In the twilight, his eyes had softened to the exact color of the sky behind him. All this time, Paige had thought they were the color of a coming storm, but, in fact, they could also look like twilight, if you looked at them the right way. And if you liked him. And if you saw him with that June night sky right over his shoulder.

  He leaned into the opposite porch rail, waiting for her to say something.

  “Thank you again for the generator,” she said. “It’s been a great help.”

  “I see you’re returning the tank—do you need a fill-up?”

  “I can handle it from here—I’ll get my own tank in town.”

  “It’s no problem. I’m going to town tomorrow.”

  “I’ll do it myself.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “Suit yourself.”

  She watched him wander toward a bench and admired the languid way he moved. He took a seat to take off his boots. On one side of the bench was a wicker basket filled with firewood, and on the other, a basket brimming with pinecones. Paige had never thought of the Mason residence as particularly homey before, but with Adam manning the helm now, there was kind of a warm look to the place. Denny came out of the dog door and sat beside Adam to complete the setting.

  “There’s a gathering tonight at Rosa’s Cantina,” Adam said, interrupting her fantasies of living in an L.L.Bean ad with him. “Antonio and Tanya the bartender are getting engaged. You’re welcome to come.”

  “Oh wow. Antonio the super?” Paige was instantly happy for him.

  “Yes. Big night. The food will be good. You can come and help yourself. I’m sure no one will mind.”

  His eyes were so intense. His forearms were so sexy. “No thanks,” Paige blurted.

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she questioned their wisdom. She was starving. And it might be fun to socialize.

  She’d figured out that Rosa’s Cantina was part of an almost secret town up here. Or not a town, exactly, but a street. A dirt road, really. But it had Rosa’s restaurant, the bar, a gas station, a tiny market behind the gas station with a few basics like milk and eggs, and about two dozen small homes—the residents of which all seemed to keep the Mason ranch running, along with the resort and the airport. As a kid, she’d never noticed the dirt road back there, being about a hundred acres away. And as an adult, when she would visit, she never came anywhere near this mountain. She wouldn’t mind checking it out now.

  Yet with Adam looking this good, and her known weakness for him, and her new plan to act like a sophisticate, she wondered if seeing him in a party atmosphere might be dangerous. Throw in a couple of drinks and another few gazes into those intense eyes, and she might end up in his lap.

  “What are you going to do for dinner, then?” he asked.

  “I’ll find something. I’m just exhausted.”

  “You don’t seem to eat much.” He set both boots at the end of the bench. “Why is that?”

  She shrugged. She didn’t feel like defending her choices to him. “Women don’t eat as much as men.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says Dirk.” She practically threw her hand over her mouth. How had that slipped out?

  He lifted his head. “Who’s Dirk?”

  “He’s nobody.”

  “Well, he must be somebody if you’re listening to his advice.”

  She sighed. “My agent.”

  His frown created lines between his eyes. “What do you have an agent for?”

  “I’m an actress.”

  She could have sworn a slant of doubt moved across his face, but he seemed to dismiss the comment and went back to tending his boots.

  “Well, it has been a long day,” he said, “and I can understand that you’re exhausted, but you need to eat. If you don’t want to go to Rosa’s tonight, I could order you something and have it sent to your room again.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Did you like the enchiladas?” he asked, ignoring her protest, looking as if he just wanted to get down to business.

  “A salad would be good.”

  “You’ve got to eat more than salad. You’re working hard out there.”

  She felt herself blush. Working hard, she had the impression, was something Adam admired. “I did like the enchiladas a lot,” she mumbled.

  “I know just the thing.” He pulled a cleaner pair of boots from under the bench, and his thigh muscles tightened underneath his jeans as he tugged them on. “Are we done here, then?”

  The switch from the kind gesture to the brusque dismissal confused and annoyed her, so she simply nodded.

  He stood and moved toward the screen door. “You can come through here. It’s getting dark.”

  “I’ll go around. I’m a mess.”

  Adam watched her hand sweep across her body, but his gaze lingered somewhere around her hips, then seemed to stall at her breasts before he finally made it to her face. Once he met her eyes, he held them.

  “Dirk’s an idiot,” he said quietly.

  Her heart pounded. Having Adam’s gaze drag up her body like a fingertip was more thrilling and unexpected than she could handle right now. She turned on her heel and scurried back to her cart, fumbling with the ignition key while he and Denny stared after her.

  Finally, the thing lurched forward, and she tried to gun it across the grass back to her room.

  She’d have to weather this one.

  A storm might be brewing, for sure.

  Adam let Denny into the house and shrugged out of his jacket. He was wiped. Between pounding fence posts up by the corral, shoveling sawdust, checking on bison, cleaning horses, pumping fuel for Brunner’s plane, fixing a broken stair post in the barn, and helping Paige with Helen’s property, he was sore from the cords of his neck to the ligaments of his arches. He wasn’t in the mood to go to Antonio and Tanya’s party tonight.

  But damn, talking to Paige had perked up all kinds of body parts.

  She looked worn-out but still incredibly sexy—her honey hair escaping along the nape of her neck, her blouse open at the collar just enough to reveal a sheen of sweat across her chest. It was enough to nearly undo him right now.

  As soon as he’d invited her to the gathering, he’d questioned his sanity. Having her there and spending time with her after he’d had a few drinks probably wasn’t a good idea. His thoughts were getting not only more and more lascivious but strangely protective, too. He wasn’t sure what he’d do or say. His instincts ran from wanting to make sure she ate to wanting to pummel that idiot Dirk for making her feel she shouldn’t. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to take her exhaustion away. He wanted to unlock doors for her and save her from intruders and be some kind of hero to her . . .

  He pulled out his phone and started scrolling for Rosa’s number.

  “Amanda?” he called into the other room.

  Amanda came shuffling around the corner in her fluffy boots and slithered into a dining chair, staring up at him. She was so obedient. But he sort of wished she’d argue. Or not come. Or be belligerent. Or at least talk.

  He put his phone away. “How was your day?” he tried. It was always his sorry start.

  “Fine.” It was always her dismissive end.

  He had no idea if this ghostlike wordlessness had always been part of her personality or if it had started when her mother died, but either way it seemed sad. He wanted to fix it. He felt it was his job. And yet he didn’t know how. And he didn’t know how to ask. Talking things out was not one of his fortes in general, and talking things out with a fifteen-year-old girl was way out of his wheelhouse.

  “Did you do anything fun today?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He s
cratched Denny behind the ears and studied Amanda. With the setting June sun coming in through the window, hitting her face like that, he was suddenly struck by how much she looked like his mom. He turned to get his bearings, putting a few coffee mugs into the sink.

  “I wanted to ask you about dinner,” he said. “I’m going to Antonio and Tanya’s engagement party tonight, but it’s adults only, so I can order you something ahead of time. Or I can make you something. Mama Mendez can’t make it tonight.”

  Antonio’s mom, Teresa Mendez, was their full-time cook in the evenings, but her mother had fallen sick in Mexico, and she’d left for a month to take care of her.

  “I’m not hungry,” Amanda said.

  Adam blew out an exasperated breath. Was this a girl thing? It was one of the nine hundred or so things about women that he’d never understand.

  “You must be hungry,” he said. “It’s eight thirty and you probably haven’t eaten all day.”

  “I’ll make something later. There’s sandwich stuff.”

  “What sandwich stuff?”

  “I’ll find something.”

  “Let me order you something.”

  “Okay. I’ll do the enchiladas, I guess. Can I be excused?”

  He sighed. He had no reason to say no. He could beg her to stay, beg her to talk, beg her to eat a snack, or eat with him, but she’d only do it with that sullen look of hers, staring at him through that thick makeup while moving food around on her plate. He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  He heard the chair legs scrape and then the shuffle of her slippers as she headed back to her room. Where she’d stayed for hours. Days. Weeks. But then suddenly she stopped and turned toward him.

  “Can I go down to the harbor?” She tilted her head and threw her hand on her hip.

  He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Damn. She really did look like his mom. And she hardly ever asked for anything. Now that she had, it was something he couldn’t give her. At least not right now. His heart felt heavy in his chest.

  “It’s kind of late now, and I have to go to the party. How about tomorrow? I can take you then.”

  “I can find my way.”

  “You don’t drive.”

  “I’ll take a cart.”

  “The hill’s too dangerous in a cart. Especially at night.”

  “Paige does it.”

  He blinked back his surprise. He hadn’t expected to hear Paige’s name spoken by Amanda, and it felt like worlds colliding. Without thinking, he glanced toward the porch, where he’d last seen his little role model.

  “Well, Paige is a grown woman, and she can do what she wants,” he said. “You’re fifteen. And you can’t. I’ll take you tomorrow.”

  “I’m almost sixteen!” Amanda gave him a good, old-fashioned eye-roll and huffed through a dramatic pivot. Then she stomped away, back to her room, where she slammed the door.

  Adam stared after her, blowing out his breath, and then turned toward Denny, who was staring up at him, cocking his head to the side.

  “How the hell did we get into this mess, Den?”

  Denny gave him a good bark that had just as much male confusion wrapped in it.

  Adam pulled his phone back out of his pocket, made his call to Rosa’s, and ordered two enchilada meals, then stared out his kitchen window at the hangar.

  Now there was another wall of frustration. He had some cleaning out to do.

  The hangar was old, filled with dusty boxes stacked high on one wall and along shelves at the top of another. The domed ceiling ran about fifty yards back, and was once used to house some of the fire planes after World War II. But these days, only his and Noel’s Cessnas and the one fire plane stayed on the property permanently, and none used the hangar. He kept them tied outside, for easy accessibility. And they had several ties they rented out to others who wanted to fly in privately. The hangar, therefore, had grown to be an enormous storage shed since the 1950s. There must be 170 boxes in there.

  He trudged across the meadow. He had about a half hour until the takeout would be ready, so he’d get started on this now, then come home and get ready for the party.

  He wandered inside across the hangar’s dusty floors and started looking up at the boxes piled along the sides. He was specifically looking for the box marked “Private” that his father’s will said would be there.

  He wasn’t really interested in finding it. It was just on his list of things to do. It didn’t intrigue him in the least that his father had a private box. And if it so much as dared to have some pathetic letter of apology for being a terrible father, or for not “being there” for his sons and all that bullshit, Adam was going to have to hurl it against the wall and blow the place up.

  But he looked anyway. His eyes roamed over the cardboard: “Logs 1950,” “Logs 1960s,” “Winter,” “Movies,” and one box marked with a big fat pen with the scrawl, “OIL.”

  He saw nothing that said “Private.”

  He gave it a half hour, scouring one entire side, but then gave up. He’d have to start hauling these boxes into a moving van at some point and find storage for them once the place sold until he could go through this crap.

  But his half hour was up. And no luck. He’d head over to Rosa’s.

  And he’d start thinking about something much more pleasant, like Paige Grant.

  He wondered if it would be weird if he delivered her meal in person.

  Paige unloaded her belongings into the corner of the room and crashed on the freshly made bed. She stretched her arms over her head and rubbed a new knot out of her left shoulder as she allowed herself to play back her porch encounter with Adam.

  About fifty times.

  The way he’d looked at her was something she’d never experienced. At least from him.

  Part of her wondered if she could use that to her advantage: if he liked her, maybe he would be more likely to cooperate about the wedding.

  But as soon as she had that thought, Paige batted it away. Damn. Maybe she was becoming more like her mother every day. That would be Ginger’s plan. And while Ginger would highly approve of heavy flattery and flirting to get a deal done, Paige was not that kind of person. Ginger thought of it as guerilla-warfare tactics—all was fair in love and business—but Paige could never quite get on board with those methods. Of course, that was probably why her mom was a successful businesswoman while Paige was barely able to pay her bills.

  She rolled off the bed and limped her way into the bathroom, where she started a hot shower, then peeled off her clothes. She thought she might have heard a knock on her door, but she ignored it and crawled into the steamy shower, letting the droplets wash away the dirt, the dust, the day.

  When she got out, she saw a rectangular piece of paper slipped under her door that almost looked like a bill, but when she opened the door, she saw instead a napkin and a tinfoil meal sitting in her hallway. The napkin read, “For you. From Adam.”

  She walked the meal back to the table in her room, laid it down, and stared at the napkin for an unreasonably long time.

  And tried to ignore the fact that her heart was not hardening. In fact, it was pounding crazier than ever.

  CHAPTER 10

  Adam slid his chair toward the table and fingered the pale-green napkin that lay on the pink-and-lace tablecloth at Rosa’s. He and Bob had decided to come to the party early so they could grab a real meal and have time to talk. The rose that had been tucked inside the napkin fell out, and Adam hastily shoved it back as he glanced across the table at Bob.

  “This is very romantic,” he said drily.

  Bob smiled, creating lines like parentheses around his eyes. His bushy white eyebrows—which matched the snowy tones of his hair—bent in the middle as he studied the table and flickering candle. “Want to eat in the bar?” he asked.

  Adam shoved himself to his feet before Bob even got the entire question out. They flagged Tooey, the headwaiter, to let him know he had an extra table available.

  Rosa�
�s bar was even darker than the dining room, with shadows cast across the wooden floor. Silver nut bowls lined a mahogany counter that ran the length of the east wall, and a full-length mirror lent a Wild West look. Two pool tables took up one side, and a jukebox stood on the other. Rosa had put up white streamers across the front of the bar with paper bells hanging from them.

  Adam studied the scotch selections as he dragged the bar stool up.

  “How’re the horses, Joseph?” he asked the bartender.

  While Adam helped himself to the bowl of nuts, Joseph filled him in on the new pony, born two months ago, and asked if he could bring it to Nowhere Ranch’s corral in a month to train with Kelly. Adam started to say yes before remembering he might not even be there in a month. He ordered a Glenfiddich neat and changed the subject.

  After they studied the menu, Bob leaned on his elbow.

  “So Ginger wasn’t the one to arrive, huh?” he asked.

  “No, it’s one of her daughters.” Adam took a long swig of scotch.

  Bob took a sip of his own drink and winced at the burn. “Which one? I think I’ve met them all.”

  “I had, too. But I barely remembered her. This is Paige. The youngest?”

  “No, Natalie is the youngest. I remember Paige, though.”

  Adam nodded.

  Bob’s eyebrows rose, and a smile spread across his face. “She’s probably a hard-ass now, right?”

  “Well . . . I wouldn’t use that term exactly.” Adam recalled his reluctant appreciation of Paige’s ass in the window the first day he saw her and realized he’d call it something other than “hard.” Maybe “round,” “tantalizing,” with that perfect curve at her back . . .

  He cleared his throat. “She was at the fire,” he said instead.

  “Ah, that’s right,” Bob said. “She’s the one who saved you, right?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  “Seems everyone else did.”

  Adam shrugged and took a sip of his scotch. He couldn’t think about that now. He could hardly admit to himself that Paige was the same girl at the fire, the same girl who’d sat at his dad’s dining table, the same girl who might have been his stepsister if things had gone differently, and the same woman now who was rattling him in ways he didn’t understand.