After she brought a coffee for Mitch and a soda for Drew, she gave their lunch orders to Carl and turned her attention to the two women who walked in and took a booth near the door. Jean was a dental hygienist who worked for the town’s only dentist, who was rumored to be almost as old as the town charter. And Dana was a logger’s wife who stayed home with two rowdy sons. Both were a little older than Paige, brunettes, and interested in checking out Mitch without being obvious.
“Morning, ladies,” Paige said, giving each of them a menu and silverware wrapped in a napkin. “What can I get you to drink?”
They both wanted coffee, and she was almost back to the table with the mugs when the women giggled and she overheard part of the conversation. “There’s no way you had sex in a canoe.”
Paige slowed her steps, telling herself it would be rude to interrupt them, but really, who wouldn’t want to know who had sex in a canoe?
“We did!” It was Dana talking. “It was his dad’s and they weren’t supposed to take it, but Josh and Sean helped him carry it to the pond. Ryan would have told on him, I guess. But to make a long story short, the sex was amazing and we didn’t tip the canoe.”
Of course it was Mitch who had sex in the canoe. Who else would the women of Whitford talk about having sex with?
Since Dana chose that moment to notice her, Paige refrained from rolling her eyes and pasted on a smile as she set their coffees down. “Have you decided what you’d like?”
A few more people were wandering in for an early lunch, and Paige was grateful for the distraction. For one thing, being busy kept her from eavesdropping to see who else in the place might be reminiscing about sex with Mitch Kowalski. That in turn helped keep her from speculating, at least during work hours, on what it might be like for her to have sex with him.
She was hoping it was Drew’s turn to pick up the check but, after delivering the lunch special to a couple of guys at the counter, she saw Mitch waiting for her at the cash register.
“Yours is on the house,” she reminded him.
“I’m paying for this one.” Before she could object, he leaned closer, as if he didn’t want anybody else in the diner to overhear. “Instead of a free lunch, I want a lunch I pay for, but with you.”
There went the tingling and zinging again. “I’m sure my customers would be thrilled if I sat down and ate my lunch while they waited.”
“We’ll have a late lunch. Tomorrow. I’ll pick you up here at two, when Ava comes in.”
“That sounds like a date,” she said suspiciously. She didn’t date. No men.
“It’s a favor. And you owe me a favor, right?”
“How is going to lunch with you doing you a favor?”
“I’m going to do a little shopping, too. You can help me pick out Rosie’s Christmas present.”
That made her laugh, which of course made everybody in the place turn and look. “It’s the second week of August, Mitch.”
“I like to plan ahead. Why not do it now, when I can guilt you into helping me?”
“Guilt?”
“I changed a lightbulb for you. You won’t help me pick out a gift for poor Rosie?”
He was so full of it. “I shouldn’t encourage you.”
“But you will.” He grinned as though he’d won a door prize or something. “Right?”
“Okay, fine.” She rang up his check and gave him his change. “But make it two-thirty. I’d like to change out of my work clothes if you’re going to drag me into stores.”
“Sounds great.” He paused halfway to the door and turned back. “Oh, and wear jeans.”
He was gone before she could ask why, so she went back to work, trying to ignore the curious looks and the not-so-subtle whispering at Jean and Dana’s table. She wanted to stand on the counter and announce that she was not going on a date with Mitch Kowalski.
But he was picking her up at two-thirty to take her out to lunch. No matter what the logical part of her mind said, there was a part of her that practically trembled in anticipation.
She was going on a date with Mitch.
* * *
“I hear things are a little rocky at the Northern Star right now.”
Rose wasn’t surprised Fran had heard what was going on, and felt a pang of guilt for not telling her herself. She and Fran Benoit had been friends a long time, but there were some things Rose didn’t want to talk about. Andy Miller was one of those things. “Not for me. I’m having a nice little vacation.”
“So you’re really on strike?”
Rose laughed. “I wouldn’t call it that exactly.”
Fran shook her head and propped her elbows on the counter. Rose had made an impromptu run to the store to restock her stash of snacks, but the place was empty, so they were taking advantage of the quiet to catch up. Sometimes it took Rose three hours to pick up a gallon of milk.
“How is it that I don’t know why you dislike Andy so much?”
Because Rose didn’t want her to know, but she didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so she hedged. “It was so long ago I don’t even remember myself.”
“You’re a bad liar, Rose Davis, but I’ll let you get away with it this time. Tell me about Mitch and Paige instead. Everybody seems to be talking about them.”
That was news to her. Maybe she was spending too much time in her room. “What are they saying?”
“Oh, you know how people talk about Mitch. It’s pretty obvious he’s got his eye on her, and we all know Paige hasn’t dated anybody that we know of since she came to Whitford, so there’s a lot of speculation on whether or not they’re hooking up, as the kids say.”
“He needs to leave that girl alone.”
Fran looked surprised, either by her words or her sharp tone. Maybe both. “Most of us think he’d be good for her. You know how he is. He gives them a little romance, then kisses them on the cheek and off he goes with no hard feelings. It would do Paige good to have a little fun.”
“She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who just has a little fun. I think she had some sadness before she came to Whitford and she’s really thrived here. If Mitch breaks her heart, it’ll change her.”
“I don’t think you’re giving her enough credit.”
“It’s got less to do with her than with him. You know I love that boy like he’s my own, but he’s not a man I’d ever want a woman I care about to get involved with. He’s got no intention of settling down, so it’s best for Paige if he just leaves her alone.”
“I say a little bit of no-strings fun is good for a woman. Especially one Paige’s age. She’s too young to forget what good sex is like.”
Rose nodded. “I agree with that, but there are plenty of nice men in Whitford who’d love to have good sex with her. Men who are part of the community and want to settle down.”
“Well, I told Mitch he should go for it,” Fran said stubbornly.
“You’re becoming a meddling old woman.”
“And you’re not?”
Rose laughed. “Not yet, but I’m going to have to start if I ever want babies around, I think.”
“I’m telling you, I think it’ll be Mitch and Paige.”
Rose wasn’t up for arguing the point any further, so she simply shrugged. But Paige was a nice girl and she was smart enough not to get mixed up with a guy like Mitch. That relationship would only lead to heartache.
Chapter Nine
Paige was going to have to learn to nail down the specifics where Mitch was concerned. “You didn’t say anything about a motorcycle.”
“It’s a beautiful day.”
What was beautiful was the man sitting sideways on the seat of his big Harley-Davidson, with his arms crossed so the blue T-shirt was pulled tight across his shoulders, and his ankles crossed, which emphasized his long legs.
“You said we’re going shopping,” she reminded him, flailing for excuses, because she was afraid getting on that bike was going to be the beginning of the end for her resistance.
&nbs
p; “It has the saddlebags. And I’m not planning to buy her a pony or anything. It’ll work. Hell, if we find the perfect thing and it’s too big, I’ll go back in the truck or have them ship. And I have two helmets.”
She was out of excuses, except one, and she didn’t really want to tell him she wanted to take the truck so she could keep a safe distance between her body and his body. There was no distance on a motorcycle.
“Give me a minute,” she said before going back into her house.
She rummaged through her purse and put her keys in the left front pocket of her jeans. Then she slid her license and debit card into her back pocket. The rest of it she left on the table, since a purse on a motorcycle was possible, but not practical. Then she ducked into the bathroom and took a few minutes to pull her hair into a French braid, which was the only method she knew to combat helmet hair.
Mitch was still in the same position, looking like the poster child for slightly naughty boys-next-door, when Paige walked back out and locked her door behind her.
“Where are we going?” She took the helmet he handed to her and put it on, thankful she knew how to buckle it already and wouldn’t have to feel his fingers brushing along her jaw.
“Thought we’d cruise the back roads into the city. More lunch options and places to shop.”
And more miles with her thighs wrapped around his ass. “Okay. Do you have any idea at all what you want to get? Christmas being so close, and all.”
He laughed and stood up straight so he could turn and straddle the bike. Short of clapping her hands over her eyes like a child, there was nothing Paige could do but watch and try not to drool. Then he fired the engine and kicked the stand out of the way. Once he had it balanced, he gave a little come on gesture with his head.
Taking a deep breath, Paige threw her leg over the short sissy bar on the back, settled on her part of the seat and set her feet on the back pegs. Then she faced the big dilemma. Hold on to the bar behind her, which become awkward and uncomfortable fairly quickly, or hold on to Mitch, which would also be awkward and uncomfortable, but immediately.
He started to walk the bike forward, cutting the wheel to miss her car, and Paige realized it had been a little longer than she thought since she’d been on a bike. As he rolled out onto the street, she put her hands on his hips out of sheer nervous reflex and, when it didn’t seem to faze him at all, left them there. He gunned the engine a bit heading through town, showing off, and she hoped the helmet hid her face well enough so the entire population of Whitford wouldn’t know within five minutes she was on the back of Mitch Kowalski’s motorcycle.
All it took was a few miles of open road to make her forget all about whether or not people knew what she was up to. It was a beautiful day, with the sun warm on her back, but the rushing wind keeping her cool. She watched the scenery go by in a way she never got to from the driver’s seat of her car, and breathed in the scent of fresh country air.
Her nerves had settled, but she kept her hands casually rested against Mitch’s hips. She could put them in her lap—she’d ridden with one of her mom’s boyfriends almost every day and he hadn’t even had a sissy bar—but she liked touching Mitch and he didn’t seem to mind being touched.
He turned his head a little so he could be heard over the wind and the bike’s engine. “You okay back there?”
“I’m better than okay,” she yelled back. Because she’d leaned forward so he could hear her, her breasts pressed up against his back and heat flooded her body, making her even more aware of the way his hips pressed against the inside of her thighs.
And that was why she shouldn’t have gotten on a motorcycle with Mitch. Because after two years of being fairly content to live her life without a man in it, she was once again aware of her inner thighs in a context other than wondering if they’d rub together if she made another run at the movie-night snacks. Damn him.
She leaned back as far as she dared and turned her head to the other side, checking out the roadside foliage, in an effort to discourage any further conversation.
As the miles passed, though, she relaxed again, and when he leaned back and turned his head to ask her where she wanted to eat, she didn’t bother freaking out over the close contact.
“You choose,” she hollered back to him.
After a while, he pulled the bike into the parking lot for a restaurant that was a little more upscale than what she was used to. She’d been there once, for a baby shower, but it wasn’t the kind of place she’d eat on a regular basis.
“Not really dressed for this place,” she said after he’d shut the bike off and they’d removed their helmets.
“You look fine and they don’t have a dress code.” He must have seen something in her expression, because his face softened. “Look, the service here is top-notch. You’re on your feet most of the day doing this, so let’s let somebody wait on you for a change.”
“Okay.” She wanted to point out it was a little expensive, but he obviously knew that if he was familiar with the service.
She had to admit, once they were seated at a table under subtle lighting with music piped in at just the right volume, that it was nice to relax and not be the one running back and forth to the kitchen for a change.
“When you go to a restaurant, do you spend the whole time comparing it to yours?” Mitch asked after the server had taken their orders.
“Not really. I don’t get out to other restaurants often, for one thing. And the Trailside Diner works well for me and for the town. That’s all that matters.” She took a sip of her iced tea, watching him over the glass. “When you go to a restaurant, do you spend the whole time wondering how you’d blow it up?”
He laughed and shook his head. “The last thing I do when I’m sitting across the table from a beautiful woman is mentally demo the building.”
Paige felt the heat spread over her cheeks and hoped the lighting was dim enough to hide it. “How did you end up destroying buildings for a living, anyway?”
“I’d always had an interest in buildings and engineering. During college I got a part-time job with a demo company. Small stuff, mostly. But I had an eye for it—the ability to see how any action would impact the structure. After I got my degree, I signed on with a good company and built up my résumé and my skill set until I could get the loan and backing to go out on my own. I get to secretly be a math and science geek and still have the coolest job in the room.”
“Do you still have to travel as much yourself, or do you have enough people now so you can relax and delegate?” When his expression changed—became a little more guarded—she replayed her words in her head and realized he might think she was fishing for signs he was heading toward settling down. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll reach the point where I can hire a morning waitress and I can just be the owner. Or if I even want to.”
“I’m barely surviving this so-called vacation. It seems like I’m calling or emailing the office or Scott every half hour.”
“But you don’t have to, right? They’re doing okay without you, so you could take more time for yourself.”
“I don’t want to be hands-off. Northern Star Demolition doesn’t leave me a lot of time and energy for anything else, and I like it that way.”
Point taken, even if that’s not what she’d been going for. “How are things going at the lodge?”
He shrugged, but she noticed the lines in his face relaxed a little. “Hard to say. We can slap paint on it and fix broken boards all day long, but we haven’t sat down and figured out how to make it sustain itself financially. Or if it even can.”
“The economy will swing around again.” She gave a nervous laugh. “And here I am grilling you about work stuff when we’re in a fabulous restaurant.”
“You can talk about whatever you want, as long as you keep talking to me.”
Thankfully, their server chose that minute to show up with their food, because she had no idea what to say to that. She wasn’t even sure she could say anything, s
ince everything inside her had melted a little.
She was in so much trouble.
* * *
Mitch wasn’t going to make it through the day without kissing Paige. He wasn’t sure how he was going to pull off the kiss, though. If there was one thing he’d figured out about Paige Sullivan, it was that moving fast would be like stomping his foot at a skittish cat. She’d flee and it would be a good long time before she let him get close again. But he wasn’t going to have a minute’s peace until he kissed her.
It hadn’t been his intention when he’d asked her to lunch. He’d seen Jean and Dana giggling together like idiots at the diner, and he’d seen Paige hesitate as she’d approached the table. No doubt Dana had trotted out the old sex-in-the-canoe story.
It burned his ass a little, to have Paige have to hear that crap about him. He’d been sixteen at the time and they hadn’t actually had sex. They’d rounded the bases in good style, but he hadn’t slid into home, so to speak. But that didn’t make for good lunch gossip twenty years later.
He’d made up his mind right then he was going to get Paige out of Whitford. It didn’t matter if it was only for a few hours—he wanted to spend some time with her away from the grapevine.
Now he had her, in the romantic lighting with the soft music, and he never wanted to take her home. They talked about music and books and movies, though television shows didn’t go far, since she didn’t have cable and he didn’t watch much TV.
He didn’t care. She could talk to him about the weather or floral centerpieces and she’d have his full attention. Away from the diner and the people who knew everybody’s business, Paige was totally relaxed, and he liked her that way.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Paige said, pausing with a forkful of strawberry cheesecake halfway to her mouth.
He’d suggested the cheesecake mostly as a way of prolonging lunch, but he was glad he had. Watching the expression on her face as she slid the fork out of her mouth made him wonder if she’d gone without fine desserts as long as rumor had it she’d gone without a man.
All He Ever Needed Page 10
