Lakeshore Legend: The McAdams Series (By The Lake Series Book 2)

by Leah, Shannyn

  “You guys are like step-sister and step-brother. That’s so wrong,” she said. “And so thrilling. I would tap that. Oh how I would tap that. I would tap it upstairs. I would tap it downstairs. I would tap it...”

  “Abby,” she scolded. “I’m not kidding.”

  Abby made no promises, only stifled laughter all the way under the archway and Peyton prayed just this one time she could keep her thoughts to herself. Just through supper. Can we please have an uneventful supper?

  Chapter Seven

  Gathered around the dining table, Colt enjoyed finding his seat was across from Peyton. Okay, so he purposely waited to see where she sat then plopped himself directly across from her. That wasn’t game plan material, but they were already doing such a stellar job of resisting each other...what could it hurt?

  He was tempted to lift his leg and play footsies with her. Only he feared she might jump out of her skin, she looked so distressed.

  They were adults for crying out loud. If they wanted to make out half naked they had a right.

  However, he had an unsettling feeling that they needed to straighten out the game plan which would be a good precautionary to prevent this from occurring again...ever. For their parent’s sake it was a good idea.

  His mother sent him a continuous stream of warning, disapproving and concerned looks, he couldn’t tell the difference, all throughout supper. Apparently Peyton wasn’t the only one upset about their run-in.

  “Kate, how is your little girl?” his mother asked.

  Elaine was an expert at keeping conversation casually moving and making each person feel like the most important in the room. It was from her years of being a nurse and conversing with patients. Sometimes she had to calm them down−when they were in a panic. Sometime she had to distract them−when she was drawing blood. And sometimes she had to make them smile−after she pierced them with a needle.

  Kate and Marc were seated across from him and beside Peyton. Kate beamed while answering the question. Funny how people always did that: beamed whenever bragging about their children. He’d been cut short of having that opportunity. Don’t go there. Not now.

  “Rosemary’s wonderful. She’s spending the evening having a sleepover with Marc’s sister Violet. Her daughter Sophia is a little older, but they get along really great.”

  “She has a lot of her mother’s spunk,” Marc said, sending his wife a teasing grin.

  Love child, he remembered his mother saying. He wondered what exactly that meant.

  “I think she is going to teach Sophia a thing or two,” he added.

  Colt didn’t know the Caliendo siblings. They had gone to a private school so, needless to say, they were probably more proper than the McAdams and no doubt himself. Marc wore pressed charcoal slacks with a purple dress shirt while Colt chose denim and a plain black long-sleeved knit shirt.

  “She loves to read too, which she certainly didn’t get from me,” Kate confessed, returning a loving look to her husband.

  When Colt was married he didn’t remember sharing private moments through loving looks with his wife...they shared smiles for the camera and their stories were told to make everyone around them laugh. Was there anything true about his marriage to Lauren? Get out of this zone. Look up at Peyton she’ll pull you away.

  He did just that, looked up at Peyton and sure enough he was pulled right into a cloud of desire. Not like that!

  Elaine chuckled. “I do remember the young spunky McAdams siblings playing in the backyard season after season. The rain, the snow, the heat warnings, nothing kept you kids inside.”

  “Oh please, don’t bring up any examples,” Kate begged.

  “Oh please, do bring up some examples,” Marc teased.

  “I bet there are stories that involve you Marcus,” his mother teased.

  He laughed deeply. “Let’s skip those ones.”

  Kate laughed and hit him lightly. “No, those are the ones I want to hear.”

  Like loud thunder there was a rumble of laughter around the table.

  “Watch out for stories involving those two back in the day,” Abby warned. “It usually involved some sort of making out somewhere.”

  “Abby!” Kate cried.

  Abby was seated next to him and he heard her low giggle. She was relentless and continued. “Making out in the shower...” Did she really just glance at Colt? “Making out in the laundry room...” Oh, this girl played with fire.

  “Let me see,” his mother interjected like a buffer before things got out of control. She even looked a little flushed.

  Colt took the opportunity to steal a look at Peyton who was communicating in facial language with Abby, but her body looked tense. Maybe if his mother hadn’t walked in and spoiled their moment he would have been able to relax her tender shoulders, rubbing away the knots with his fingers and feeling her velvety skin beneath his fingers.

  “Okay, I have one,” Elaine said, once again honing in on his Peyton moment. A moment in which he should be no part of and yet he found himself entranced by the woman seated across from him.

  Colt forced himself to look at his mother and focus on listening while she told the story that was connecting them together as she and Kent would be a constant part of each other’s lives from now on.

  “There was this one spring day and it was raining so hard. You must have been around eleven Colt. So the girls would have been...eight.” She paused to do some quick calculating in her head. “Yes, and I glanced out the window to find the three of them clumping around the backyard in rubber boots and umbrellas.”

  At the opposite end of the table from his mother, Haylee giggled. “Mom? Out in the rain in mud?” she said with disbelief in her voice.

  “The twins were very persuasive back then,” Sydney said. “They were troublemakers.” Sydney shared a playful glare with each of them.

  Kate laughed. “Oh, whatever,” she dismissed. “You were no angel. Don’t let her kid you Haylee,” she told her niece. “Your mother was the sneaky kitten that got a hold of the toilet paper and ran until the whole thing was unravelled.”

  Sydney shook her head. “You’re exaggerating.”

  Kate laughed again. “I am not. Peyton?”

  By the disconnected look on her face, Peyton had been somewhere else. Where? Wrapped around him pressed against the wall upstairs in his bedroom? He could go there with her.

  “What?”

  “Sydney? Trouble maker?”

  Peyton nodded. “Oh yeah. For sure she was.”

  Colt laughed under his breath but it wasn’t at the banter between them, it was Peyton’s concentration and lack of convincing.

  Elaine sent him a glare. Why was he getting all the glares? He wasn’t the only one making out in his bedroom.

  “Whatever,” Sydney said. “Continue with your story Elaine. Sometimes you have to override my obnoxious sisters.”

  “And she had an attitude like that,” Kate added in a low voice.

  Sydney scowled at her.

  Haylee laughed.

  Elaine continued. “And somehow for whatever reason I glanced out my kitchen window and there they were sliding down the hill. Only their umbrellas were flipped upside down as though they were winter magic carpets. They were flying down the tiny little hill of mud.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “And mud was everywhere from head to toe, totally covered. And who did I spot at the top of that hill.” She glanced at Colt. “The leader of the pack. This one was teaching them exactly how to go down at the fastest speed.” She hitched a finger at Colt and everyone laughed.

  Even Peyton managed a smile, but not in his direction. He wasn’t sure if his mother was exaggerating the story, he didn’t remember the incident, but he was enjoying that light in her eyes as she was enjoying herself.

  “And what a mess my one little man brought into this house. I have no idea how your mother cleaned the three of you.”

  Elaine’s mention of their mother brought a round of silence to
the table. There were shared looks between the sisters which in turn made his mother shy back in her seat.

  And he thought the lust between him and Peyton was going to make this meal uncomfortable. This surely bypassed that topic entirely.

  Sydney sent Elaine a sincere smile. “I’m sure Mom was glad she enforced the back door rule when we trudged inside.”

  The rest followed suit sending Elaine a smile, an accepting smile. Colt watched his mother unwind and her smile slowly return. These girls could surely be intimidating.

  They turned back to their meals.

  “Are any of you going to the dance at the arena tonight?” Elaine asked, again very good at keeping a table chatting.

  Peyton lit up for the first time all night as though she forgot he was there. Oh, I am here. Should I reach my leg up between your legs and remind you? That was probably a bad idea.

  “All of us girls are going.” That explained that hell of a sexy country outfit she was wearing. He noticed the front buttons of her blouse seemed buttoned up higher than they had in his room.

  Peyton looked around the table at guilty sets of eyes. Her smile fell.

  Kate started. “Marc and I decided to spend the evening at home. Since Rosemary is with Violet we thought we would stay home and have some quiet time.” That meant sheet tangling.

  “I’m not going,” Abby said matter-of-factly. “I was all pumped for country and then I realized, oh, it’s country, so I’m out.”

  Peyton’s eyes fell on her last sister. “Sydney? You’re a full-hearted country girl.”

  “I’m dropping Haylee off at a friend’s then I’m swinging by the Cliff House to see how Jake is managing.” That was the bar and grill that Jake and Sydney’s mother-in-law Joan owned and where Sydney had been working her whole life. She was bailing on Peyton too. “It’s super busy with all the family day cottagers up for the weekend,” she explained.

  They were all ditching her. The horrified look on Peyton’s face made him grin. He may have even chuckled out loud. Peyton’s glare confirmed he’d let a rumble escape.

  Peyton arched angry eyebrows at him with a sassy look. “What about you Colt?” Her cowering away from him vanished as her shoulders squared and her back straightened spitting his name out like it was poisonous. “Are you allowed to go out past dark with your bail conditions?”

  Completely inappropriate and everyone around the table quietly gasped into another round of silence.

  Here she went. Honestly, she was mad at him because her sisters didn’t want to hang out with her. Maybe it was her attitude they were running from.

  Yeah he had gotten himself charged after a short brawl with that wife-snatcher. It was common knowledge. It was out there, but did she really have to bring it up? His mother was having a hard enough time dealing with that stress he had caused her with his accident and run-in with the law that Elaine didn’t need to hear it from Peyton.

  Colt stayed calm even though he was a little ticked off that she was so selfish. “Past dark is alright. But no drinking.” That was the truth. Since he’d been drinking during the altercation they’d banned him from alcohol, which was how he spent every night so that had been a bit of a kick in the head.

  “That’s a big surprise,” she murmured ignorantly. “Are you sure you would be able to resist alcohol? It seems to be your staple lately.” She turned back to her food as though that would be the last word.

  Prickly. So his track record wasn’t perfect. He wondered how perfect her track record would be if it was displayed all over the internet for people to pick at.

  Besides, he hadn’t said he was going to the dance anyway. Why the hell would he want to go and listen to a bunch of people he didn’t care about go on about crap he had no interest in? That’s when his bottle of vodka sounded like a better night.

  “I guess it’s a date then,” he said just to add more flames to the fire.

  Her head snapped back to him. “What?”

  “You can be my sober buddy.”

  “No.” That hadn’t fazed her much. She turned back to her food dismissing him and his notions.

  Maybe this would faze her. Colt leaned toward Abby. “She can’t get enough of me,” he whispered, but loud enough the entire table could hear.

  Abby laughed−of course she did−and almost spewed her mouthful of water across the table.

  Peyton’s mouth dropped open in horror and every head turned to face her.

  Victory.

  He could be inappropriate too. However, the only person this inappropriateness hurt was herself, he wasn’t being selfish and including her dad like she had with his mother.

  “That’s not true.” She could hardly get the words out without a stutter.

  Triumph surpassed his anger. Oh, he had smart little know-it-all Peyton McAdams stuttering.

  Colt coolly took a bite of his food, chewed and swallowed watching the reactions of everyone. And he was getting reactions. His mother was going to skin him alive when she got him alone.

  “Ask my mom, or Abby. Even Kate I think knows since...”

  “Colt!” Peyton almost screamed. That was the reaction he wanted. Maybe she would think next time before saying things she didn’t know anything about, like his bail, his charges, and the impact such statements and reminders had on his mother.

  Abby’s giggle heightened, which flared another glare from Peyton.

  “Oh,” he set his fork down dramatically as though he had forgotten something. “Do you have a husband?” he asked Peyton.

  Peyton stared at him, furiously abandoning her food and crossing her arms across her middle. “No,” she answered through clenched jaw.

  “A fiancé? Boyfriend?” he pressed.

  She didn’t answer so Abby ran off double no’s.

  “Okay good. I wouldn’t want to add another jealous assault charge to my rap sheet,” he joked but it was laced with a warning that two could play this game of touch the flame.

  Slamming the guy outside the restaurant had nothing to do with jealousy. Colt couldn’t even remember if jealousy even crossed his feelings. Betrayal had been his top emotion.

  That flustered Peyton. “He’s kidding. He wouldn’t get jealous over me.”

  “Why not?” He could see himself getting very jealous if another man touched Peyton McAdams. Where did that come from?

  “Because there is no reason for you to get jealous of me,” she snapped.

  “I get very jealous when I like a girl,” he said it in a smooth drawl.

  Peyton was enraged because of his confession and she began to clarify to everyone that Colt didn’t like her Colt found himself continuing to boil the water that was her rage against his better judgement. “You know what. Now that I think of it, I better go take my anger management pills before we go.” He stood up. “I wouldn’t want another episode.” He didn’t have any pills.

  Peyton stood up too. “While you’re at it grab the ones that tone down your ego.”

  “My ego? What about you little Miss Perfect? Must be all asshole Colt’s fault. It wasn’t like you were in that shower too!”

  “I didn’t have some tramp on my arm the very next day!” She slammed her fists on the table and everyone jumped. The hardness in her face fell as she glanced around the table.

  Peyton flushed.

  Tramp? His arm? What was she talking about?

  “Alright children,” Elaine said. “Let’s sit down and finish our meal.”

  Reluctantly they both resumed their seats staring at the other all the way down.

  “Sometimes my son can be quite the joker of bad humor,” Elaine said with no humor in her tone.

  “Sometimes my daughter can be quite outspokenly rude.”

  “Although I haven’t seen him in such high spirits in quite some time.”

  Colt frowned at her. “Mother, I’m right here. I can hear you. You don’t have to talk in the third person.”

  The table was quiet as everyone registered what Colt had been
hoping to avoid by presenting the game plan before the sight of Peyton plucked it from his mind and tossed it along the shore side to get swept up in the waves and forgotten.

  Abby waved her hand in the air across her face. “Whoa, I’m all hot after that heat fest.” She pulled the front of her blouse and waved it as if fanning herself.

  Colt couldn’t help but grin.

  “Seriously I thought you were going to take her right here on the table.” This time Abby’s voice was low enough no one else heard but they could imagine.

  “So Kent did you clear the driveway for my mom this winter?”

  ***

  When supper ended they all retired to the family room for a slice of his mother’s home made apple pie before heading home or to the dance.

  Colt had snuck into the front office to catch a few rounds of the game before he joined them. As he was heading toward the kitchen to refill his water bottle...his mother had completely cleaned the house of alcohol in which he was now discovering was for Kent’s presence as much as his own...he caught Elaine and Kent escaping out the front hallway like criminals. They were looking awfully mischievous.

  Colt quietly made his way down the hall sneaking up on them like the security guard. They were rushing into their shoes and jackets quietly giggling amongst themselves.

  Colt cleared his throat. They both jumped but his mom laughed when she saw him.

  “I will meet you out there,” she told Kent and he gave her a kiss on the cheek before leaving. She turned to him and he was ready to get a strip ripped right out of him. Surprisingly she looked like she was holding in a grin. “That was quite the show,” she said.

  “I aim to entertain.”

  “That was quite entertaining. I didn’t know that you and Peyton had become so...close.” Her eyes begged him to define their relationship. How could he define something he didn’t understand himself?

  “Where are you two sneaking off too?”

  She looked disappointed he wouldn’t give her an explanation but the highlight of her departure overwhelmed her. “The dance. Sorry but Kent and I wanted some alone time before we got to the dance. Just the two of us.”