“Where’s Amanda?” he asked, breaking the spell.
“She’s, uh . . .” Her voice came out in an embarrassing squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “At, um, Bob and Gert’s. For dinner.”
She whirled away and grabbed at a few items of clothing she’d left on a chair. Mostly she didn’t want him to see her blush. Her wayward thoughts were suddenly getting more and more wayward.
“When will she be home?” he asked from behind her.
“She’s been getting home about nine.” She found a bra she’d flung onto the floor and a pair of underwear, and she wrestled with her backpack zipper to shove them in. “I think they watch a movie with her after dinner.”
She told herself to simply ignore his rugged look and all that brawny sexiness. Maybe she could bolt for the door without looking up at him.
“So, um . . . thanks for letting me stay.” She made a move, but he still stood in the doorway.
“Paige.”
Ah, that deep voice. She was a goner. She knew she shouldn’t, but she looked up at him.
“I’d like it if you would stay,” he said.
Once again, he’d rendered her speechless. He’d probably been the only man able to do that ever in her life—back when she was thirteen, and now that she was almost thirty. She tried to make sure she didn’t have a foolish, gaga look on her face. She wasn’t drooling, was she?
He seemed to misread her silence as a refusal.
“I know I look like crap,” he said. “And I probably smell worse. But if you could cool your heels for five minutes while I take a shower, I’ll make a better entrance and say thank you properly, and maybe you’ll stay for a quick dinner.”
Paige didn’t even know what the hell “thanking her properly” meant, but it sounded amazing.
“Um . . . okay.” She was so damned easy.
She tried to ignore the dimples that appeared on his face as he nodded once and ambled back toward his room.
She might be in trouble.
Adam scrubbed the dust and dirt off his body, then stood in the shower for a minute, letting the water sluice over his head and contemplating where he might want to go with this.
Or where he should go.
That made more sense.
Where he wanted to go was easy—he wanted Paige. Desperately. Under him, on top of him, didn’t matter. He wanted her in any way he could have her.
Walking up to the house, seeing Denny run toward him, knowing Amanda might be inside, and knowing Paige would be there, too, had given him the strangest sensation he’d ever experienced. As if he could imagine all of them greeting him like that, forever. But as soon as he had the thought, he dismissed it, focusing on petting Denny outside instead. Because Amanda and Denny were a given. But Paige was a strange addition to the equation. Because forever and women—even beautiful, vivacious women whom he’d been thinking about for days on the trail—were not words Adam thought of in the same sentence.
But he had to admit, he’d been thinking about her for a bizarre amount of time. Partly because MacGregor kept bringing her up, asking when Adam might start to put some pressure on her to sell, suggesting that he might do so by hinting at a promise of a relationship. “Women don’t go for simple sex like we do,” MacGregor had said, as a disgusting trail of spittle and barbecue sauce ran down the side of his face. “But if you promise them a future—a house, a baby, a dog—they’ll roll over for anything you want. Try that, maybe.”
Adam had clenched his fists, resisting the urge to pummel the smirk off MacGregor’s face. He’d told himself he just had to listen to this crap for a few more days. Once they were in escrow, he could hate MacGregor all he wanted. And then all he’d have to worry about was keeping Paige off MacGregor’s radar: Who knew what slimy tactics he’d pull with her, or if he’d pressure her to sell to him?
Over the few days, and at every mention of her name by MacGregor, Adam had ground his teeth.
She was too sweet. And vulnerable. And tough. All at the same time. She was fighting tooth and nail to fix that place. But what he admired even more was that she kept lifting herself up when things were going wrong. She came off as funny and confident most of the time, but seeing that vulnerable side of her brought out every fixer instinct he’d had. He wanted to fix her house, fix her sisters, fix any asshole boyfriends she’d had in her past, fix MacGregor’s smirk, and make life easier for her.
Then came the lascivious thoughts. Which he’d planned to avoid. It wasn’t lost on him that he’d agreed to lend her land as soon as he’d seen her cry. That made him more like his father than he cared to admit—blurring the line between business and beauty, responding to a woman who could make you feel things and do things that you might not do if you were in your right mind. The only difference was that George Mason was further mired by having sex with his women, including Ginger. And Adam wasn’t there yet. And he didn’t intend to go there. It would just complicate everything.
So to walk in and see Paige looking fresh and strong and happy to see him, filling him with hope and that strange warmth he hadn’t recognized, had simply sent him into a spiral of confusion.
Then finding out that Amanda was gone, which gave him a few hours alone with Paige, had suddenly put his libido into overdrive. And seeing Paige’s bras and panties on the floor hadn’t helped. Thank God she moved that lace out of his line of vision while he tried to cast his eyes away. Her cartoon pajamas the other night were cute, but that lace would be his undoing. He had to stop imagining what she wore to bed, although he’d come up with an entire wardrobe over the last four days. Which, in his mind, he’d stripped off every night.
Damn.
He was going to have to control himself.
He was not a slimeball like MacGregor, with barbecue sauce and spittle drooling out of his mouth. He was not a pushover like his father, able to be manipulated because he couldn’t control himself.
Plus, he liked Paige.
And he should protect her, as Helen would expect.
And she’d been through a lot. She needed someone to help her and be on her side.
So he was going to be a gentleman. He would make her dinner, thank her like a human being, and then help her stay or go—whatever she felt more comfortable with, given the state of Helen’s house.
He turned the shower off and told himself to behave.
And stop thinking about what she wore to bed.
And how he’d take it off her.
God help him.
Paige wished she had something nice for Adam to come home to—maybe some kind of food he liked—but she hadn’t planned to be here when he returned. While he was showering, she scoured the fridge for leftovers, then spotted the strata Amanda had made the other morning. She pulled it out of the fridge, heated it up, threw together some lettuce and spinach leaves in a salad, and set everything on the table.
“What’s this?” he asked emerging from the bedroom hallway in clean jeans and bare feet, buttoning up his shirt.
“Dinner.”
“You cooked dinner for me?”
He looked so stunned and—if she wasn’t mistaken—touched that she almost wanted to lie and say yes. But she couldn’t.
“Um . . . no. I didn’t cook it. Amanda did. She pulls together whatever you have in the house. This was bread, ham, and eggs—I guess from your limited repertoire of sandwiches and eggs. But either way, it’s here for you. You look exhausted.”
“Amanda made this?”
“Yeah. Did you know she could make a strata?”
“Not at all.” Still looking baffled, he made his way to the table, then rubbed his hand over his jaw. “So all this time, she’s known how to cook, but she’s been suffering through my attempts?”
“Maybe she didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” Paige smiled. “Here, have a seat.” She joined him at the table. “Did MacGregor have a good time?”
“I think he did.”
“Did he make any decisions?”
“Unfortunately, he still won’t commit to a sale. I think he’s playing games with me. Can you be patient for a while longer?”
Paige shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He motioned with his fork to an empty plate. “You’re going to join me and eat, too, right?”
“I wasn’t going to stay. I’ll just grab something later at—”
“Paige, really. Share this with me.”
She sighed. Sitting here with Adam, acting as if they were actually dating, or at least friends, might be painful or thrilling—she wasn’t sure which. She didn’t want to get hurt by pining after him again. She didn’t want to get close, or fall head over heels in a crush and have him not return any sentiment whatsoever. But she was older now. Maybe she could handle it. She let him cut her a slice.
“So what did you and Amanda talk about?” he asked.
“I got a chance to talk to her about her mom—any good things I remembered. And—oh! Was it okay that I took her down to the harbor every day? She wanted to go. And was it okay I let her drink coffee?”
He smiled. “Coffee was okay. I think she’s been sneaking mine. Where was she going in the harbor? She’d asked me about that, too.”
“To the Friends of the Sea Lion center. I think she was volunteering.”
“Really?”
Paige wanted to tell him about Garrett, but she didn’t want to break Amanda’s confidence. Amanda had so few people here she knew or could trust that Paige didn’t want to ruin that. Instead, she stabbed at her salad so her face wouldn’t give anything away.
“Thank you again for the use of the meadow,” she said. “I ordered the gazebo. It should be here in a day or so.”
Adam looked away and nodded silently.
“I hope you think I did a good job here in return,” she added nervously. “Amanda was great.”
Adam cut another piece of strata with his fork. “It was nice having you here when I came home.”
He kept his eyes on his plate.
Paige’s fork halted in midair. She’d always dreamed of hearing words like that from Adam Mason. Said low, just like that. In this dim lighting, just like that. Eating dinner with him, just like that. And actually hearing them was as wonderful as she’d ever imagined. A warmth curled down like smoke into her stomach. But she didn’t quite know what to do with the information. And she was now doubting she’d even heard him correctly. She put her fork down and wondered how she might get him to repeat that.
“So what movies do you think Bob and Gert had Amanda watching?” he asked. “Did she tell you?”
“Yes!” Paige felt a rush of relief at the change of topic. “They started her on the classics—Casablanca, North by Northwest, The Maltese Falcon, and Roman Holiday.”
Adam smiled. “That sounds like Bob’s lineup. He’s a big Humphrey Bogart and Gregory Peck fan. Did she like them?”
“She did. She said she loved Audrey Hepburn, especially, and that Bob had promised to rent Breakfast at Tiffany’s next.”
“Ah. Holly Golightly.”
“I told her she needed to see Last Road to Nowhere, too, since this very house is in the movie. She seemed pretty impressed.”
“Impressed?”
Paige nodded.
“We’ll have to do that, then. I think I have it here somewhere.”
“You do? I haven’t seen it in ages.”
He motioned toward another room. “It’s probably a VHS. We’d have to dig up my dad’s old VHS player.”
“We could do that!”
He glanced up, and she realized she wasn’t quite sure she was included in “we.” But then he looked over his shoulder toward the other room. “Do you want to look?”
“Sure.”
He scooted his chair out and wiped his mouth, then led her to the next room. If the kitchen seemed to serve as a bit of a community room for the resort workers, this room, behind it, through a closed door, looked as though it might have been intended as a private living room for the family. However, white sheets were thrown over the furniture, and there were no lamps or light fixtures—the room was entirely cast in darkness, as if family living was no longer practiced here.
Adam lifted a few sheets to look in some bookcases and cabinets, then walked back toward her.
“What is that room?”
“The living room. We closed it up when my mom died.”
“It’s looked like that since you were ten?”
He shrugged. “I got used to it. It’s always been that way.”
“It might freak Amanda out a little.”
He frowned at the room as if he were seeing it for the first time and nodded. “I never thought about that. I should fix it. Anyway, I guess we moved the VHS tapes. Maybe they’re in my room.”
She followed him down the hallway, past the guest room where she’d stayed, past the room where Amanda stayed, and into a huge room that looked as if it had been added on in the back. She glanced around, then stepped inside while he barreled toward a large walk-in closet in the back. The room was simple and clean and natural, just like him. Tan walls mimicked the color of summer California hills, while a denim comforter echoed the color of the sky. The bed held a cluster of plain white pillows. The furniture was a little mismatched, but neat and clean, and there were several prints hanging on the walls: images of airplanes and aerial views. An enormous old propeller hung from the wall nearest the light switch, the red paint rusted and chipped as if it was a historical piece. There were no personal photos anywhere—no family photos, no pictures of a day at the county fair, no nieces or nephews, no pictures of Adam with his dad or brother. A swift, unbearable ache hit Paige, suddenly and brutally, when she remembered again that Adam had grown up without a mother. Maybe, for him, life and childhood had simply been something to get through, not something to remember with photographs.
“Not here, either,” he said, emerging from the closet. “There’s one more place, but I’ll have to check later.”
She wanted to see this movie with him. The idea of curling up with him on a couch seemed wonderfully appealing. It felt like something that might solidify their friendship. “Where might it be? I’ll help look.”
“I’m thinking we might have moved that old stuff out to the hangar, but you don’t want to go out there. It’s become an old storage shack with a bunch of shi . . . llings in it.”
“Shillings?”
He smiled. “I’m trying to stop cussing. Around Amanda. And now you. Growing up here with my dad and brother and a bunch of ranch hands, I’ve developed quite a mouth, but I’m trying to be more civilized. Anyway, the hangar’s got a bunch of stuff in it. But I’ll look later myself, maybe this weekend. I’m looking for something else out there anyway. In fact, I might have seen the box of movies.”
“I can help.” As soon as she said it, she nearly regretted it. She knew that hangar. She’d been there with him before. It had been the place that had sealed her heartbreak. He obviously didn’t remember, and she didn’t need him to.
But maybe it looked different now. “I don’t have anything to do tonight,” she said tentatively. “Let’s look.”
“Are you sure?”
He didn’t look so certain himself, though probably for different reasons.
“Absolutely.” And she led the way with a confidence she wasn’t sure she felt.
CHAPTER 16
Adam lifted the lantern, undid the lock, pulled the main slider back from the hangar entrance, and stared inside. The smell of sawdust and sagebrush wafted out.
“I thought I saw a box that said ‘Movies’ when I was here earlier,” he told Paige over his shoulder.
“What were you looking for earlier?” She took a few steps into the hangar behind him.
“My inheritance.” He put the lantern down so he could search the stacks of boxes with both hands. “Apparently it all fits in a little box marked ‘Private.’”
He didn’t even try to edit the spite out of his voice. He didn’t w
ant anyone’s pity, least of all Paige’s, but spite was something that could flow free.
“George left you a box?”
“Apparently.”
“Do you know what’s in it?”
“I don’t care.”
“How could you not care? It sounds like an adventure movie.”
He glanced at her to see if she was kidding, but she didn’t appear to be. For the second time, he wished he had her spirit. He’d love to be as optimistic and happy as she always seemed. He thought he might have been that way once, back when his mom was alive. When he and Noel used to play and not have any worries. When his mom was always there for him, waiting in the kitchen, making apple pies for him or whittling her little flutes. He glanced at Paige and wondered if that might be some of her draw to him—that constant joy and hope. As it was, it felt like it might be. He liked being near her. His soul felt lighter.
And he hoped he was giving her something, too. Her relief at being able to build that damned gazebo in his meadow was a great reward. He loved being able to bring that look to her face. And he wasn’t being manipulated, as his father had been. They were just two friends helping each other out because they had empathy and respect for each other. That’s all this was.
He wandered farther into the dark hangar, hanging his hands on his hips and staring up at the boxes in the area he’d been before. He wanted to find this movie for her, too.
The boxes were marked “Spring 1980,” “Summer 1980,” and “Fall.” Those might be ranch records. Or airport records. It was hard to tell. He knew the one that said “Movies” had been over—
“I found it.” He steadied one of the lower sets of boxes and climbed up to reach the one with the movies, finally dropping it down to the hangar floor. It landed in a rattle of VHS plastic and a swirl of dust that came up into the lantern beam. When he jumped down behind it, Paige was no longer at the entrance.
Love on Lavender Island (A Lavender Island Novel Book 2) Page 17
