“That was probably for his own good, too. Can you imagine if he’d married her and gone to Alabama? He’d be a different person. And he wouldn’t have any of this.”
“That wasn’t your call.”
“You seem to be forgetting that you’re the one who initiated that call.”
Paige tried to swallow. That was the part she could barely admit to herself.
“Does he know that?” Ginger asked.
Paige shook her head.
“Then you’re both being dishonest.” She turned to gaze out at the sunset. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m not going to get hurt.”
Her mother glanced up but didn’t respond. Paige felt frustrated that they were at a standstill, but she’d show her mom. Ginger was frighteningly right about so many things—about MacGregor, about George, even about Paige. But she couldn’t be right about Adam, too, could she?
“I got a phone call from Dave MacGregor,” Ginger suddenly said. “He’s the one who told me you and Adam were seeing each other.”
“Dave MacGregor called you?”
Ginger nodded.
“If you knew about me and Adam, why did you ask?”
“I didn’t believe him.”
Paige sighed.
“But the other thing Dave MacGregor said was that he’d been trying to negotiate for our property and that Adam had said to go to the source and to call me directly. Did you know that?”
Paige reeled. She knew she wasn’t a very good businesswoman, but she didn’t know Adam had so little faith in her, also. She had actually thought he might be one of the only ones who did have faith in her. What was all that talk about her not being Calamity June and being strong and perfect? What was that whole pep talk about following her dreams? Did he not believe any of that? Was her mother right? Was he feeding her lines?
She shook her head.
“You can’t do business with men you’re sleeping with, Paige. I don’t know how much clearer I need to be. You couldn’t convince Adam of anything because he already saw you as soft. And now he’ll keep telling you what he knows you want to hear so you’ll keep sleeping with him.”
Tears threatened in the back of Paige’s throat. Had she botched this as terribly as her mother was laying it out? Had she been blind? Selfish?
If so, she would straighten it out.
She took a deep breath.
“I’ll fix everything.”
Adam headed out to the barn to meet a grain-feeder inspector he’d lined up.
He hated to leave Paige alone to deal with Ginger as a one-man army, but she’d said she could handle it. Plus, she was certainly used to dealing with Ginger—he knew she could do it. But he still would have liked to have helped.
He’d take his cues from her, though—it was her family, her life. He could only get involved as much as she’d let him.
And what was all that she’d said about his dad? Could she be right? Could he be structuring his life to impress a man who was no longer able to be impressed? Could he be chasing after some kind of acknowledgment he was never going to get? Was the rest of his life destined to be this futile grasp for something, unless he changed it now?
The inspector was there, peering at the grain feeders with his clipboard. Adam walked him through each one to show the faulty tubes. Just as he got to the last one, his cell phone rang. He glanced at the number. Bob. It was weird having Bob use a cell phone all of a sudden. He’d have to thank Amanda for her tutoring.
“Excuse me,” he told the inspector, turning to walk back through the barn door. “Yeah, Bob.”
“I have bad news about MacGregor.” Bob was never one to mince words.
“What is it?”
“He’s pulling out.”
“Pulling out? What do you mean? He already submitted the offer.”
“He’s allowed to do that.”
Adam let a string of swear words float though the phone.
“I know,” Bob said. “But it’s legal and true.”
“Did he give a reason?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I want to know.”
Bob sighed. “He said he was pulling out because you weren’t able to get him the Grant property, too.”
“That son of a—”
“Adam.”
“He’s an asshole. I don’t usually let feelings get in the way of business, but I’m sort of glad our property isn’t going to that prick. Were you not going to tell me that part?”
“It does leave you an option, but I wasn’t going to share it with you. I knew you wouldn’t take it. I knew you’d do the right thing.”
All Adam could think of was Amanda and what she was going to say, how disappointed she’d be. And especially how disappointed she’d be in him. He hated to let her down. He may have let his dad down, and maybe even his mom. But he wasn’t going to screw this up, too. He’d let Amanda down for sixteen years—being a deadbeat dad without even knowing it. And now he wanted to fix it. He pressed the bridge of his nose to keep his head from pounding.
Then he thought of Paige. And a tiny part of him was glad he’d have a couple of extra weeks with her. She was still leaving, of course, right after the Silver wedding, but at least he’d be around to say good-bye. And he could enjoy every second of her until she left. He pushed the selfish thought away as soon as he had it, though—it felt like a betrayal to Amanda—but he couldn’t ignore the way his heart pounded faster.
“So what are our options, then?” he asked Bob, trying to get back to business.
“You’d have to convince Paige to sell to MacGregor. Or you’d have to admit defeat.”
Bob was right. He couldn’t convince Paige to sell to MacGregor. There was no way. She had her own thing going on, and even though he worried he’d look bad to Amanda, his pride didn’t matter. He’d find another way.
“I admit defeat,” he said quietly.
“I knew you would.”
It felt as if a rope tightened in Adam’s chest and made him stand taller at Bob’s words.
“Of course, it’ll delay your inheritance even further,” Bob said.
“I know.”
“You’ll have to start over.”
“I understand.”
“We’ll have to get your dad’s debts paid off.”
“I get it, Bob.”
“You could consider Silver’s proposition.”
“That’s not until late August. Paige said Silver is going on a three-week honeymoon and will negotiate when she gets back. I need to get Amanda in school before then.”
“You might have to consider selling your other property, then, and fast.”
Adam ran his hand through his hair. That’s what he’d been trying to avoid. He’d wanted to hang on to the seaplane property no matter what. It was his mother’s. He felt as though it was the last thing he could do for her, and now it felt as if he was failing her, too.
But his mother was gone. And Amanda was right here in his life, needing him. And he had to take care of her now. He hoped his mother would have been proud of him for taking care of her granddaughter first.
Also, he’d suddenly had the thought that if he could give Paige some of the sale money to start her yoga studio, he would. He hated to see such a beautiful, talented woman give up on her dreams because she was too busy helping everyone else. Paige deserved to be happy, and she deserved to get the best out of life. He wanted to do this for her.
“Go ahead.” Adam could barely get the words out.
He hung up and realized, for the first time, that sometimes he did let feelings get in the way of business. When they were the right thing to do, of course.
And when they were for a beautiful blonde named Paige.
Dorothy Silver came with an entourage of about fifty people: personal assistants, private yacht captains, doctors, acting coaches, friends, at least one old lover, four cameramen, two videographers who were filming the whole thing for a documentary, and someo
ne who might have been a personal sommelier. Together, they wandered through the ranch house about four people thick. Dorothy kept touching the tendrils of hair that spiraled from her 1960s-style turban, and looked at the entire house as if in a dream.
“It’s just like I remembered,” she whispered about fifteen hundred times.
Clutching Paige’s arm as they walked behind the entourage, Ginger glanced over every now and then and raised her eyebrows when Dorothy would gush over something. They were both holding their breath over everything she said. And they were nervous about her asking about the orchard. They knew Dorothy loved that part of the ranch—it was a crucial scene in the movie, when Dorothy’s and Richard’s characters chased each other around the trees and realized by the end of the scene that they were in love, after an apple conked her on the head. It was kind of a corny scene, but Dorothy wanted to re-create it. She wanted it for the documentary and for the wedding itself.
The entourage slowly flowed outside, where Dorothy put her gigantic round sunglasses back on and gripped the arm of one of the personal assistants. Together, they wandered to the gazebo.
Ginger squeezed Paige’s arm. “She’s going to love it,” she said. “You did a beautiful job.”
There, the entire group stopped and stared. The gazebo had been finished late one midnight—the bright-white paint finally covering the whole edifice, which stood like an enormous wedding cake in the middle of the meadow. Wooden scroll details looked like frosting, and Mr. Clark had sent forty-five flats of pansies to rim the base and create a frothy burst of color. A heart-shaped weather vane, straight out of the movie, which Paige had found on Craigslist in a miracle of fate, topped the gazebo now after Antonio had performed feats of strength to get it up there at two a.m. while she navigated from below. The weather vane now spun prettily in the wind, a cupid’s arrow racing after a heart.
The entire entourage seemed to let out a collective sigh.
Beneath her sunglasses, Dorothy let a tear escape.
Then she turned toward Paige. “It’s perfect, darling.”
Ginger squeezed Paige’s arm. Dorothy reached back to her, and Paige took her delicate hand. Being invited into Dorothy’s embrace was more than she’d ever hoped for.
“Did we talk about your debut in my movie? You have your SAG card, right?” she whispered into Paige’s ear.
Paige thought she might die from joy. But she held off answering until Dorothy had the whole story.
Dorothy gripped Paige’s arm and asked about the gazebo, the rocks, the view, and then came the question Paige had been dreading. “Will we have access to the orchard? Can we go there now?”
Paige glanced at Ginger and took a deep breath. She’d been rehearsing how she was going to say this, and she’d tried to come up with a solution for how they might reconstruct that scene without the actual orchard being part of the wedding. But before she could get the words out, she heard a yes behind her.
She whirled to see Adam jogging through the meadow.
He came up and put his arm around her. “Yes, you can have access to anything you need.”
“What?” Paige whispered.
He leaned toward her ear. “I’ll explain later. Just say yes.”
They wandered around with Dorothy, and she asked a million more questions: Could Adam take her to the orchard? Could she hold his arm? Wasn’t he handsome? Didn’t he remind everyone of Richard? Could her staff stay on the property? Could her crew stay there? Could she stay there? Could she stay with Adam?
“Paige might get jealous,” he whispered.
Dorothy giggled, and he patted her hand.
She turned and looked at Paige with a grin and another level of admiration.
They made plans for some of the staff to stay in Gram’s house, some to stay at Adam’s resort, three to even stay inside Adam’s house, and guests to stay down the hill and at the Castle.
At the end of the day, even Ginger was looking at Adam with a modicum of approval.
That evening, Adam hauled himself to the kitchen and dropped his backpack on the table. He was so glad to have been able to help Paige.
But there was someone else he needed to talk to.
“Amanda?” he called.
She didn’t come out of her room. Maybe she wasn’t back yet from the stables or the pond. Or maybe she was spending time with Rosa, who was teaching her how to make tortillas.
He wandered around the house for a minute, his eyes riveted for some reason on the damned box that still sat in the corner.
He stopped in front of it, staring the thing down.
All his dad wanted to give . . .
Adam nudged the side with his boot and stared at the writing as if it were going to change. He looked at the ceiling and ran a hand through his hair. Maybe Paige was right. This might be all his dad wanted to give. And that might have to be enough. Adam couldn’t keep chasing after some kind of acknowledgment he would never get for the rest of his life. That would make him truly a miserable, angry bastard.
He tried to get to a place of forgiveness, but suddenly the idea that he now had to sell the seaplane property and let down his mother’s legacy made anger lash up inside him again, slashing at a place behind his heart, making his chest constrict.
He took a few steps around the box.
He’d bury it. That’s what he’d do. He’d stab the damned thing with a kitchen knife, then drop-kick it into a ditch behind the house and bury it. He tore off his jacket and went back into the kitchen for a knife. He shuffled from one drawer to the next, flinging open one after another. Denny made crazy-eights around his legs.
He found the right knife on the side of the sink and lunged for it, then swiftly moved to the dining area, lifting the heavy box to his shoulder with a sharp exhale. He marched toward the back patio, one hand gripping the knife at his side. Denny nervously pattered at his feet.
“Go back into the house, Den,” he grumbled.
He didn’t need his damned dog to see him acting like a madman. But Denny just looked up at him, trotting along, not ready to abandon anyone.
On the patio, Adam threw the box onto the wooden planks. His fingers clenched into fists, giving him a grip on the knife handle that felt like expertise. He could already feel the knife thudding through cardboard. He could predict the spent feeling of anger it would unleash.
But he glanced again at Denny, who was looking at him with sad brown eyes, and suddenly, inexplicably, Adam stopped.
He dropped the knife. Landed on his knees. He pressed his hands into his thighs and let out a throaty sound that started as one of his favorite cusswords and then ended in some kind of anguished moan.
“You bastard. You’re not winning this one.” A pressure surprised him as it came from behind his eyebrows, and his eyes suddenly filled with tears.
His gaze landed again on the knife, and he picked it up gingerly this time. He used the flashing edge to lift the corner of the box. He was not letting his dad win anymore. He was going to accept this lame gift from his father, then stop feeling anything toward him at all. He was going to stop going after an acceptance that would never be his. Then he was going to be his own man. Dad: fifteen thousand. Adam: one.
The packing paper came out in fistfuls, which Adam tossed on the patio. Beneath the paper was a huge stack of letters, wrapped in red ribbon. Ribbon? Good Lord. Why would his dad tie letters in a ribbon? As he pulled the stack out, turning it over, witnessing the carefully tied bow, his hand became increasingly unsteady. His breathing shallowed. He leaned heavily into his thighs, afraid to take another item out.
This wasn’t his dad’s box.
It was his mother’s.
He took a few more breaths, glancing out at the meadow to make the tears retreat, then looked deeper inside. He missed her so much. He could suddenly remember her scent, her soft hands, her voice. His hand shook as he pushed aside more packing paper and saw his mother’s whittling tools, one of the flutes she liked to make out of birch bra
nches. He gently moved them aside and saw a box of medals her father had earned in the war, and a framed photograph of his grandfather shaking hands with FDR in front of the little airport in 1935. The glass was cracked across their faces.
Adam had to look up again, until the tears went back. He couldn’t see a goddamned thing. He shoved the balls of his hands angrily against his eyes and then reached in until his fingers wrapped around a plastic bag. It was filled with yellowed photographs. There were about seventy, shuffled like an old deck of cards, the corners turning up. One by one, Adam drew them out, barely breathing, laying each one on the porch next to Denny, who sniffed at them.
“Son of a—” he whispered to Denny.
His eyes stilled on a shot of himself as a young boy—posing in his pajamas, beaming from the kitchen table. Another was him sitting on the porch eating popcorn, grinning from atop a brand-new bicycle. There were some of Adam and his father, his dad making him laugh, lifting him in the air. There were a couple of Noel as an infant, and several of both boys with their mother, which Adam suddenly remembered his dad taking. There were some with the old horse they used to have, Tilly, and some of Adam as a five-year-old, fishing in the pond, his dad right behind him, showing him how to hold the rod.
He put the stack down shakily. His breaths were coming short and fast, rasping through his chest. He hadn’t remembered those better times, but there they were, in Kodak, corners curling. The bad times had always come to his mind easily, shoving everything else from view, but there were good times, too, with his father. Now he remembered. He remembered the way his father had taught him to fish, even after his mother died. How he’d showed him how to throw popcorn in the air and catch it in his teeth when he was a teenager and they’d been cracking up on the back porch. How his dad had gone with him to the May carnival because he’d won an award in high school. How his dad would lift him in the air when he was a kindergartner and say, “Pretend you’re a pilot, Adam. You’re going to be a flyer. Just like your mom.” How his dad had laughed with them. How his dad had taught him to ride that bike in the photo.
He looked at another handful of pictures of him and his dad and Noel. Farther down were stacks of little cards, written out in his mother’s handwriting. His chest gave a painful tug as soon as he saw her familiar scroll, but he read on. They were recipes. For his mother’s pies. The ones she used to make at the harvest.
Love on Lavender Island (A Lavender Island Novel Book 2) Page 26
