by Lori Wilde
“From the wonderful things Emma has told me about Cash, I don’t think he meant to upset you. I bet he thought you would secretly enjoy it.”
“Paige,” Jesse said in a quiet voice.
“Yes?”
“Why did you stop dancing?”
Why? Because Randy had ruined dancing for her, but tonight, Cash had given her the joy back. She had to admit, he’d shoved her out of her comfort zone, and she hadn’t been happy about it, but now? In the aftermath, she realized he’d resurrected the love of dancing in public she believed Randy had killed.
“Shh,” Flynn said, and lightly swatted her husband’s shoulder.
“Never mind me, Paige.” Jesse braked at the traffic light leading into Twilight, cleared his throat. “I’m a jackass too.”
“You’re not a jackass.” Flynn scooted over to nuzzle his neck. “You’re just a little clueless sometimes.”
Jesse cupped Flynn’s face with his palm, said in a husky voice, “What would I ever do without you keeping me on the straight and narrow?”
Paige forced herself not to roll her eyes. After all, Jesse could see her in the rearview mirror. And besides, as sappy as her cousin and her husband were, they were really sweet together. Jesse and Flynn had the kind of closeness she’d always longed for and had given up on having. Some people just weren’t cut out for happily-ever-after.
“I think you might be forgetting one thing,” Flynn said when the light changed and she sat up from canoodling her husband.
“What’s that?” Paige fiddled with the clasp on her purse.
“If Cash has got you this freaked out, it must mean you have feelings for him.”
“Yeah,” Paige muttered. “Feeling I wished he’d leave me alone.”
“Colton likes you.” Jesse guided the minivan through the quiet town square. Thank heavens they were almost at the marina.
“Of course he likes her,” Flynn said. “Everyone likes Paige.”
“I’m not talking about that kind of like.” Jesse turned his head to beam at his wife.
“Oh.” Flynn giggled. “Are you talking about the way you liked me in high school?”
“I’m talking about the way I’ve liked you since the first time I laid eyes on you.”
Paige coughed. Loudly.
“I think we’re getting too mushy for her,” Flynn said. “She doesn’t believe in fated love.”
“You guys could just let me out here,” she said at the stop sign in front of the Twilight Playhouse.
“Nothing doing. Twilight is a safe little town, but you’re still half a mile from home and in high heels. We’re taking you to the marina,” Jesse said. “But we’ll try to tone down the schmaltz.”
“Thank you,” Paige said, even though it wasn’t the schmaltz that bothered her, rather it was her jealousy of their closeness and she didn’t want to be that person. Just because she’d been unlucky in love didn’t mean that Jesse and Flynn didn’t deserve all the happiness in the world.
Apparently it was obvious to everyone that Cash liked her. When a musician pulled a woman up onstage, he was interested.
Or rather, he wanted to have sex with her.
Secretly, that’s what floored her. Why on earth would someone like Cash Colton, who could have his pick of beautiful, sexy women, want her? She was as ordinary as it got.
That’s where she kept hanging up. That’s why she was suspicious.
Why shouldn’t he like you? bristled the part of her that had enjoyed dancing onstage.
She might not be a drop-dead beauty, but she was a nice person. After Simone Bishop, maybe he was ready for nice and ordinary.
Um, yeah. Sure. Magical thinking much?
Jesse pulled up to the marina. “Hang on, I’ll walk you to the door.”
“I’ll be fine,” Paige said, already bailing out of the minivan. “You can see me from here. Bye. Thanks so much for the lift home. Sorry to make you go out of your way.”
“It’s no trouble,” Flynn said. “You’re family. Are you sure you don’t want to come to the party with us?”
“I’m good.” She forced a smile. “You guys have fun.”
She went into the houseboat, changed into jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers, and got out her bicycle. It was after nine, but she hadn’t seen Grammie today. She had just enough time to slip in and kiss her good-night.
“How is she today?” Paige asked Addie when she let her in the back door of the nursing home.
Addie shook her head. “Rough one.”
Paige’s chest tightened. “What happened?”
“She was really confused. Kept trying to leave her room. Saying she had to find Wayne Newton and explain why she broke things off. The nurse ended up having to give her something for anxiety.”
“Oh dear.” Paige put a palm to her mouth. “Is she still awake?”
“Yes. She’s pretty agitated. Maybe you can calm her down?”
Paige hurried to Grammie’s room. Her grandmother was sitting straight up in bed, worrying the covers with her fingers. Her hair stuck up in all directions and her eyes were wide and wild.
The minute Grammie spied her, relief washed over her face. “There you are, Emaline! Where have you been?”
Emaline was Grammie’s best friend when they’d both danced at the Flamingo in the 1960s. The friend had died a decade ago, and Paige had even attended the funeral with Grammie.
She hesitated at the door, not sure if she should correct Grammie and tell her who she was, or simply roll with the delusion. Her emotions crashed on rocky shoals. It killed her to see Grammie like this. Her stomach was a yo-yo swinging from the highs of dancing onstage with Cash to the lows of finding her grandmother in such a state.
“Come here, come here.” Grammie motioned her inside with a frantic wave.
Paige shut the door.
“Sit.” Grammie patted the mattress beside her.
Paige perched on the bed, slipped her arm around her grandmother’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Wayne,” Grammie whispered.
“Has something happened?”
Grammie reached for Paige’s hands. She interlaced her fingers with her grandmother’s. “He wants more.”
“More?”
Grammie blushed, her cheeks pinking, and lowered her eyelids. In that moment she looked like a shy young woman, and Paige saw in her the beauty she’d once been. That’s when she realized Grammie was firmly stuck in 1965.
“You know,” Grammie said, sounding scandalized. “He wants more than just kisses.”
“You mean . . .”
Grammie bobbed her head. “He asked me to spend the night with him.”
Paige sucked in a deep breath, not knowing how to tread this terrain. If she continued letting Grammie think that she was Emaline she might find out something about her grandmother she really didn’t want to know. But Grammie was so caught up in her delusion, trying to tug her back into reality could worsen her agitation.
“I like him very, very much. In fact, I think I could fall madly in love with him if I let myself . . .”
“But?” Paige couldn’t resist asking.
Grammie’s eyes met hers. They were the eyes of a woman stuck in a long ago dilemma, a dilemma that had trailed her into old age.
Paige’s heart broke for the girl that her grandmother had been and for the elderly woman dogged by dementia. She squeezed Grammie’s hands.
“He’s so famous. He’s got women chasing him right and left. How can I trust that he truly cares for me? How do I know he’s not just trying to get me into his bed? What’s to say he won’t dump me after we sleep together?” Grammie moistened her lips.
Paige had no idea how to answer that. Her mind drifted to Cash. Saw in him a parallel. She understood Grammie’s dilemma. Found herself in 1965 and slipping under Emaline’s skin. “But what if he loves you back?”
“Maybe that’s even worse.” Grammie looked frightened. “I want to get married someday and have chi
ldren. I can’t raise kids in his lifestyle. I enjoy dancing, but I can’t do it forever. I don’t want to do it forever. I can’t see Wayne leaving the bright lights of Vegas for me. Not even if he loved me. He will always love performing more.”
Paige thought again of Cash, felt a strange twist deep inside her. “What if you just had fun? No expectations. Just enjoy the time you have with him and let it be enough.”
“I don’t know how to have sex and not fall in love. If I give myself to Wayne, I will fall in love with him. I just can’t bare the pain of losing him once I love him.”
“Then you have your answer,” Paige said, placed a palm on her grammie’s chest. “It’s been in your heart all along. Wayne’s not the man for you.”
Grammie’s face softened and her grip on Paige’s hands relaxed. Her eyes lightened. “Yes, yes. You are so right. I have to break things off with him.”
“You’ll find your true love one day,” Paige promised her.
“I have already met someone else,” Grammie said.
“You sly girl, stringing along two men at once!”
“No, no.” Grammie laughed. “I just met him yesterday. He’s working construction at Caesar’s Palace. He’s smart and funny and he’s from Midland, Texas, which is just down the road from Abilene . . .” A dreamy expression came over Grammie face. Then she blinked. “Paige?”
“Yes, Grammie, it’s me.”
She shook her head, looked confused. “I think I had one of my bubbles.”
“It’s okay.” She patted Grammie’s hand. “You’re safe.”
“When I get those bubbles . . .” Grammie flicked her index finger against her thumb. “Pfftt, I disappear into a cloud.”
“That must be scary.”
“It is.”
“Do you feel like you can relax and go to sleep now?”
Grammie’s smile was wan. “As long as you’re here.”
Paige tucked her grandmother in, sat beside her bed until she fell asleep. By the time she left the nursing home, it was after ten-thirty and she was exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally.
All she wanted to do was drop into the bed and sleep hard until the alarm went off. But there was still a mile-long bicycle ride back home.
Chapter 9
Progression: The movement of chords in succession.
The black Land Rover was parked at the marina when Paige cycled up in the dark. Was Emma’s party for Cash over already? It wasn’t even eleven yet.
She got off the bike at the metal steps, walked it down to the wooden dock leading to the boat slip. As she reached the houseboat, a shadowy figure stood up from a seated position beside her front door.
Her heart leaped to her throat, adrenaline pumped furiously through her veins, grabbing her breath in a chokehold and holding on with a death grip. Who was this?
Then he stepped forward into the glow of the security lamp.
Cash.
Her heart flopped back down to where it belonged and she started breathing again, but she still felt jacked up and jittery.
“Hello, Paige,” he said, his tone as smoky as his eyes.
“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at Emma’s party?”
“I left early.”
“Why?” Her mouth tasted of spent adrenaline, astringent and electric.
“You.” His voice drove the word like a hammer slamming into a nail. Hard. Solid. Righteous.
She locked her knees to keep them from buckling. “What about me?”
“We need to talk.”
He was standing on the gangplank between the houseboat and the dock, blocking her from the front door. But she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. She pushed her bike forward.
Cash didn’t budge.
She bumped his knee with her front tire. “You’re in my way.”
He puffed his chest, put a steel rod in his spine, and for a moment she feared he was not going to move. He studied her with serious intent, and then at last he stepped aside, waved with a flourish of his hand, but did not leave the gangplank.
To get to where she was going, she had to brush past him.
Fine. So be it.
She pushed the bike forward, trying to stay as far to the opposite side of the narrow gangplank as she could. Even so, on the way by, her hip scraped against his outer thigh. She felt the blister of contact.
He sucked in an audible gulp of air, sounding utterly vulnerable.
She didn’t look at him, kept her gaze trained ahead, kept walking.
He peeled off behind her. Following.
She could feel his energy, his heat. Her pulse spiked, erratic and forceful. She parked her bike next to the house, put down the kickstand, and squatted to chain and lock it to the deck railing.
When she straightened, he was standing directly in front of her.
“Good night,” she said crisply.
“I’m coming in,” he said in a vigorous pitch that brooked no argument.
“You are not coming in.” She was shaking, not so much because she was scared of him, but more because she was scared of herself. She liked this alpha, macho crap he was pulling.
He slapped a palm on the side of the houseboat just above her head, leaned in. “We’re having this out.”
“I asked you to leave me alone,” she said, even though a part of her was happy that he’d left the party early and waited outside her door for her to show up. She’d gotten under his skin as surely as he’d gotten under hers.
Heady stuff. Dangerous stuff.
“No, you asked me to leave you alone if I wanted to make it up for persuading you onstage. I don’t regret doing it. You were amazing.”
“Persuaded?” She sank her hands on her hips. Struggled to look mad. “Is that what you call it? Try blackmail. It’s more appropriate.”
“I did not blackmail you. I coerced you. Big difference.” He was leaning in, hand still planted against the wall above her head. Power posing.
“Results were the same. I ended up onstage dancing after I told you I’d quit dancing.”
“We both know that’s not true.” He arched an eyebrow and it gave him a devilish look. “You still dance.”
“In private. Not in public and certainly not onstage as the center of attention.”
“And that’s the end of the world?”
“I didn’t want to do it. You disrespected my wishes.” She had no idea how she managed to remain controlled on the outside. On the inside she was a gooey mess, going all soft and melty by the proximity of his tantalizing mouth.
He dropped his arm then, stepped back, ran a hand through his hair, shook his head. “Look, I realized trying to coax you onstage was a bad idea halfway into it, but by then the crowd had momentum and I was stuck. What I do regret is making you feel uncomfortable. I know I screwed up. Please forgive me.”
“Really?” Paige scrutinized his face. He seemed sincere.
“It was never my attention to embarrass or belittle you.”
“No? What was your intention?”
“It was supposed to have been a romantic gesture. I was trying to romance you.”
Huh?
“Stop looking at me like I’m a lunatic.” He growled, but it was a pleasant sound, more like a tomcat than a tiger.
“How in heaven’s name was that romantic?”
“As things turned out, it wasn’t. But most women I know would be over the moon to get pulled up onstage—”
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Does what hurt?”
“Carrying around such a gigantic ego?”
“Well, when you put it that way, it does make me sound like a jerk.” His smile was full of apology and starlight.
“Look,” she said. “I know you’re used to women falling at your feet, and because I don’t, you see it as a challenge. But please believe me when I tell you I’m not impressed.”
He leaned in again, the wicked eyebrow going up on his forehead. “Not the tiniest bit?”
<
br /> “Well, I do like your music, but all that other baloney . . . girls asking you to sign their boobs, people thinking you’re a god simply because you sing and play a guitar with some level of talent—”
“Some level of talent? I’ve won a Grammy.”
“Big whoop. Awards are just popularity contests. That’s the part that doesn’t impress me the most.” She unlocked the door, opened it, and stepped inside.
“Wow.” He looked surprised and impressed by her. “Good to know.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get up early in the morning . . .” She moved to close the door.
He reached out to block her from shutting it in his face. “Paige.” Just the one word. Her name. Said commandingly. “I came here to apologize, not make you madder.”
She paused. Damn her, why did she pause?
“May I come in? Speak my piece?”
“Will you go away if I do?”
“Yes.”
“Five minutes.” She spread the fingers on one hand and stepped aside to let him in. “You get five minutes to plead your case.”
“Thank you.” He pulled his spine up tall and waltzed into the house. Stopped. “Whoa.”
“What?” Paige glanced around to see what had arrested his attention.
Three Christmas trees in the tiny living space—small, medium, large. The small one was a blue spruce with gold and silver ornaments. The medium tree was a Douglas fir flocked pink and themed with angels. And the big one, that touched the ceiling, a Leyland cypress adorned in red and white with candy cane ribbons, glittery red garlands, and numerous kitschy ornaments, from Santa flipping an omelet to Rudolph snowplowing on skis. And that didn’t include the nativity scene on the counter or the snow village on the kitchen table or the twinkling Christmas lights strung from every corner of the room.
She loved Christmas, so sue her. So had her father. The majority of this stuff she’d inherited from him. It was the one thing Randy hadn’t stolen from her.
Cash chuckled, gently poking fun. “It looks like Santa Claus exploded in here.”
Paige raised her chin and her fighting spirit. “I like it.”
“How do you keep Fritzi out of the trees?”
“He’s pretty well mannered,” she said. “Although he kept attacking the rotating Little Deuce Coupe ornament that plays ‘Little Saint Nick’ I had to move it to a higher branch.”
