by Jane Porter
Or was that sound coming from below the toilet...down below the floor?
Paige listened more closely. For a moment all was silent. Nothing happened. And then suddenly the water was draining from the porcelain bowl, the muddy water making a rapid retreat, swiftly disappearing down, until it drained out with an obscene sucking noise.
Holding her breath, Paige gingerly leaned forward to look into the toilet. There was nothing left. The water was gone, the bowl totally empty.
For a second she didn’t know what to feel. Was it okay? Had she fixed it? It’d be such a relief if she had. Money was tight, credit cards still full after Christmas.
Maybe she was doing okay.
Maybe this single mom gig wasn’t so bad.
Maybe living in a small town in the middle of nowhere Montana wasn’t such a bad thing.
But if the toilet was okay, why wasn’t there any water? Shouldn’t the bowl automatically refill?
Paige leaned over the empty bowl, jiggled the handle, and then flushed to try to encourage the water tank to fill the bowl. For a second nothing happened. And then the toilet exploded, shooting filthy water and waste straight up, a geyser of sewage from the bottom of the bowl.
Paige jumped away, barely escaping the shower as dirty water sprayed in a wide arc across the fragile Victorian wallpaper. She’d loved the house for its authentic period detail—much of it still original—which is of course why nothing in the house worked.
Her phone began to ring. Again. Shaking, she answered the phone. “Yes, Flo?”
“Sorry to call so early.”
“It’s okay. I was up. What’s going on?”
“Candace never came in. And it’s bad down here. We’re slammed. People are complaining....asking for you.”
Paige closed her eyes, held her breath, picturing her kids in bed. Picturing having to wake them and drag them into the diner. “Have you tried any of the other girls?”
“All of them. No one is answering their phone this morning.”
Because nobody wanted to be out of bed this early on a Saturday. Paige ground down on her back molars, frustrated. She needed a break. A big break.
Her kids could use a break, too.
“The kids are sleeping. I need to wake them,” she said quietly. “But we’ll be there soon.”
“Sorry, Paige.”
“Not your fault, Flo. It’s my diner, my problem.”
It was just after eight o’clock on Saturday morning and Dillon’s head hurt. Bad.
How much had he drunk last night? How many shots with Reese? The fact that he couldn’t quite remember might explain the awful thumping in his head.
Queasy, he slumped lower in the booth at Main Street Diner, eyes narrowed to block out as much light as possible, hat pulled down low, as if he could muffle the diner noise.
He would have bailed on this morning’s meeting with the writer, Shane Swan or Sean Finley, or Shane Sean Finley, or whatever his real name was, if he could have found Shane/Sean’s number, but Dillon couldn’t. So here he was, at the diner, waiting for a meeting to discuss the logistics of renting out the Sheenan ranch house for the next six to nine months to the East Coast writer.
Dillon still wasn’t sure just who had told the New Yorker about the Sheenan ranch, but Shane/Sean had successfully tracked Dillon down and said he’d heard through friends that the old log cabin might possibly be vacant since Dillon was returning to Texas and Trey and McKenna lived in town, and would the family possibly consider renting it for six to nine months?
The call had come out of the blue and at first Dillon thought it was a prank call, but Shane insisted he was serious and he threw out some figures for the rent that made Dillon take notice. Even better, he’d prepay the first six months rent up front, in advance, as Shane was a writer, on deadline, and he wanted total peace and quiet to finish a book. He added that he was single, so there wouldn’t be a lot of people in the house, and he understood it was still a working ranch so he expected that there would be activity on the ranch during the day, which wouldn’t be an issue since he did most of his writing late at night.
Dillon said he’d need to talk to his brothers and hunted down Trey, who’d just finished carting hay out to one of the lower pastures, and filled him in.
Trey wanted to talk to McKenna, and McKenna was intrigued. She looked the writer up but couldn’t find anything on him, so Dillon called Shane back, and found out his name wasn’t S-h-a-n-e but the Irish Sean, and his pen name was Sean S. Finley.
Sean S. Finley was legit, with a website and an impressive list of books, both fiction and non-fiction, with several hitting bestseller lists and winning big awards. McKenna told Taylor, Troy’s fiancée, and Marietta’s newest librarian, and Taylor was thrilled that a big name author might be moving to Marietta and living on the Sheenan property.
Now Dillon was waiting for Sean Finley to appear so he could make sure that Sean wasn’t a crazy ax-murderer and okay to have living in the house and just wanting the meeting over so he could head back to the ranch, get the most essential chores done and then maybe catch a nap before tonight’s Bachelor Auction, because he had to show up tonight. He couldn’t bail. This was a big deal to Lindy and Molly and everyone else that cared about little Josh.
But damn that tequila.
And the beer.
And the whiskey.
And whatever else he had drunk.
Dillon winced as the skillets and frying pans continued to bang in the kitchen, and dishes clanked against the counter. Every scrape and ping of cutlery was like nails on a chalkboard, testing his nerves, making his stomach churn.
Stupid to have drunk so much. Stupid to have not eaten anything before bed.
He shifted lower in the booth, shuddering at the smell of corned beef hash and pan fried trout and scrambled eggs as a waitress flew by with steaming plates stacked up her arm, heading towards the table of newly retired Judge McCorkle, currently holding court in the corner.
Judge McCorkle was not his favorite person but at least the judge’s booming voice was less grating than Carol Bingley’s high shrill tone, and Carol Bingley wouldn’t shut up. She was in the middle of a breathless monologue about silly women from California—
Suddenly Dillon was listening and then he wished he hadn’t eavesdropped because Carol was mocking none other than her helpless, hapless neighbor, Paige Joffe, a woman who didn’t even own a toilet plunger.
Dillon was seriously tempted to go tell that horrible busybody, Bingley, to shut the blank up, but the last thing he wanted to do was create a scene in the diner, aware that it’d get back to Paige. At least Paige wasn’t here today. She didn’t work Saturdays. The weekends were her time to be home with the kids, which is why he’d agreed to meet Shane/Sean here today. Dillon only ever went to the diner on the weekends. The rest of the week he avoided the place.
Dillon frowned down into his empty cup, in need of a refill. Unfortunately, this morning Main Street Diner was packed and service painfully slow. The only waitress working was Flo and Flo might be an old pro but she wasn’t keeping up with the kitchen, or ensuring hot coffee was flowing.
Miserable, he checked his watch. Eight fifteen. Shane/Sean was late. Only fifteen minutes but late was late, and Dillon would give just about anything to be back in bed.
But it was too soon to write the writer off, especially if Shane/Sean was coming from Bozeman. There could be snow or ice or something else delaying him.
Dillon told himself to cool his heels. Be patient. Which would have been a lot easier if he’d stuck with beer, or just with whiskey, but beer, whiskey and tequila was a mistake. What was the expression? Beer before hard, you’re in the yard. Hard before beer, you’re in the clear.
“Head hurt?” a warm feminine voice asked, with just a hint of amusement.
Dillon glanced up to find Paige at his side, a steaming coffee pot in one hand and an apron tied tightly around her small waist. Her cheeks looked rosy, her blue eyes bright and with her t
hick blonde hair pulled tightly back into a gleaming ponytail she looked like a high school cheerleader. “A bit,” he admitted gruffly.
“I thought you could handle your liquor.”
“So did I.”
“What happened?”
“Stayed too late and drank too much.”
“What did you drink?”
“Everything.”
“Shouldn’t mix your liquors.”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t quite open his eyes all the way, not with the light shining into them. “But it’s good to have the reminder. Won’t do that again for awhile.”
Her lips curved and a dimple briefly appeared at the corner of her mouth. “So why not sleep it off? Or are the beds not comfortable at the Graff?”
He stared at the dimple, fascinated by it. Even hung over he found the dimple—and her—so damn sexy. Thank goodness he wasn’t Dad material. It kept him from making a move on her. “I have a meeting this morning. We’d agreed last week to meet here. Seemed like a good idea then. Now, not so sure. What are you doing here this morning? You don’t usually work weekends.”
“Candace didn’t show up and Flo couldn’t get anyone else in. So here I am.” She did a little curtsey. “Thank goodness I’ve grandparents close by. They let me drop the kids off with them so Tyler and Addison didn’t have to come in with me.”
“Anything I can do?”
“You want to put on one of these red frilly aprons and wait tables for me?”
“Not really.”
“Didn’t think so.” She flashed him a smile and then was off to top off the coffees at the next table.
Dillon followed her progress around the diner, her smile warm as she talked to everyone, her blonde ponytail swishing. He liked watching her. Liked everything about her from her golden hair to the lean line of her back to her curve of her hips. She had a great body, feminine. Appealing.
He’d wondered for years what she’d look like naked.
Beautiful, he bet. Not a girl but a woman. He liked women. Loved women. Women who knew what they wanted, women who asserted their rights, women who demanded to be satisfied in bed. Now that was sexy.
His lashes dropped, eyes half closing.
He really did like older women, not because of her age, but because of her attitude. Women in their thirties and early forties were interesting, confident, and open-minded. When he dated older women he discovered that they weren’t obsessing over little things, but focusing on a big picture. It made sense to him. He never understood why a woman would get caught up in what he thought of her, when she should be focusing on how she felt.
Was she happy in the relationship? Was she getting her needs met? Why make it about him?
A thunk sounded on the table and Dillon opened his eyes. A bottle of Advil stood next to his coffee cup. And then a tall glass of water appeared next to the Advil.
He looked up.
Paige smiled faintly. “Wash three down with the entire glass of water. I’ve got some toast coming. Eat that. You’ll soon feel better.”
The corner of his mouth tugged. “Thanks, Doc.”
“Just Doc? Not Beautiful? Or is last night a tad hazy?”
“Not when it comes to you.”
Her eyebrows arched, dubious.
He shrugged, rising to the challenge. “I can repeat the compliments, if you’d like—”
“Not necessary.”
“I remember every word I said and regret nothing.”
Pink color washed through her cheeks. “You’ll be all right to bartend tonight?”
“I could bartend right now if I had to, and I’ve never missed work due to a hangover.”
She gave him a long thoughtful look from beneath her thick black lashes, lashes other women acquired by gluing on additional lashes, but hers were natural. He knew because he’d checked them out last night.
“You really should have been part of the auction,” she said. “A lot of women would pay big money for someone like you.” And then she was off again, returning to the kitchen to get orders out to the customers.
Dillon was drumming his fingers on the table when Flo swung by his table a few minutes later. “Your breakfast date just cancelled,” she told him. “He said he’d tried to call you a couple times on your cell, but the call would just go straight through to your voice mail so he phoned here hoping someone could tell you. I think he wants you to call him and try to reschedule.”
So that was that, Dillon thought, reaching for his wallet after Flo walked away. He’d dragged himself from bed for nothing.
Then he caught sight of Paige, wiping a table down and resetting the silverware. She was talking to one of the old guys at the table in the corner and laughing, her laugh warm and infectious, bright like sunshine.
Maybe it wasn’t a total waste. He’d gotten to see Paige. That was something.
Paige saw Dillon rise from his table, and peel bills from his wallet. At 6’4 he pretty much towered over everyone in the diner. And then he was jamming his black felt hat on his head and buttoning up his heavy sheepskin jacket and heading out.
She allowed herself five second to watch him walk—five seconds to admire a man that was all man and so unbelievably hot he made her eyes hurt—before moving to the next empty table to gather the dirty dishes there. She was just stacking plates when Flo appeared with a dish bin.
“Don’t be fooled by his sexy-I-don’t-give-a-damn smile,” Flo said. “He’s not lazy and he’s not stupid.”
“Who?” Paige asked, lifting her head, feigning ignorance.
“You know who. And don’t think we haven’t noticed how you go out of your way to avoid him, even though once he’s here, you can’t take your eyes off him.”
“I have no idea who—or what—you’re talking about.”
Flo rolled her eyes. “Then why are you blushing?”
Paige put a hand up to her cheeks, and pressed cool fingers to her hot face. She did feel flushed, and she wished she could pretend it wasn’t because of Dillon, that she had no interest in him, but it wasn’t true.
He was attractive. Very attractive. But he was also way too young for her. Eight years too young. She couldn’t imagine what they’d even have in common.
“Got a perfect score on his SATs his senior year at Marietta High, earning him a full scholarship to MIT, before heading to University of Texas where he graduated with a Master’s in Bio-Engineering at twenty-two, while most kids were just finishing their undergraduate degree.” Flo nodded towards the door. “He’s got a good head on those big shoulders, so don’t discount him just because he’s also inherited the Sheenan charm and pretty face.”
“I’m not discounting him, but he’s too young for me—”
“That’s not discounting him?”
“Flo, he’s nine, ten years, younger than me—”
“So?”
“And he’s leaving for Austin. This week.”
“Then get to know him before he leaves.”
“In two days?”
“He’s at the Bachelor Auction tonight, isn’t he?”
“And what am I supposed to do....chase him down, corner him? Flirt with him?”
“That’s a start.”
Chapter 4
Paige must have tried on a half dozen different outfits, unable to decide what was best for the Bachelor Auction tonight.
Most of her friends would probably be in boots and jeans, but Paige was sick of jeans and boots, thick socks and heavy down coats. She’d grown up just thirty minutes from the beach in Southern California and spent the first thirty-five years of her life in short skirts, flip flops and breezy tops, and missed those skirts and silky tops, flirty flats and sexy heels. She didn’t think she’d put on a pair of heels since Lewis’ funeral.
It was time to be pretty again, and girlish and sexy. Time to feel like a woman.
Not a mom, not a business woman, not a baker or a restaurant owner. But a woman. A thirty-seven—almost thirty-eight-year-old, because Sat
urday, one week from today, she’d be thirty-eight.
Crazy.
Crazy how she’d gone from a thirty-five-year-old wife to a thirty-five-year-old widow and she’d been stuck there ever since.
Not just grieving Lewis, but grieving who she’d thought they were as a family. His death had forced her to realize that he’d never really been there all that much. He was a traveler, an adventurer, a man in love with the road and what was around the corner...
So while he explored the world, globetrotting, she hunkered down with the kids, raising them, loving them, making sure they had as many of their needs met that she could meet and it didn’t cross her mind that she might have needs not being met...
It hadn’t crossed her mind while he was alive to be frustrated, to feel neglected, to feel anything but gratitude when he returned from his last adventure... the latest jump from a plane. The latest deep sea dive. The latest reckless pursuit.
Her friends in Tustin had never understood why she was so patient with his exploits in the first place.
How do you stand it? They’d ask. How do you manage? Doesn’t it bother you that he’s never here?
But Paige had been happy for him, proud of his daring and hunger to know the world, to try all the things that she didn’t feel compelled to do...
How cool that he was who he was...how amazing he could face fear, look death in the face, take those crazy risks...?
She’d been so naïve. She honestly didn’t think anything would happen to him. But why should she? Nothing bad had ever happened to her. She’d grown up in a cocoon of kindness and honesty, and then she’d had her faith, which had allowed her to feel safe. Even if something bad did happen, she had God. She wouldn’t be alone. Things would work out.
But then Lewis died and she hadn’t been prepared for the pain, and the grief. It was hard. It was consuming.
It was hard having faith when one’s children wept at night, asking for Daddy.
Lewis’ death tested her. The suffering tested her faith. She still wasn’t sure what she believed anymore.
Paige stepped from the tall gold heels then shimmied her hips, slipping out of the shimmery gold skirt before tugging the oyster silk blouse off over her head and dropping the skirt and blouse on the chair with the other outfits she decided against.
