Love on Lavender Island (A Lavender Island Novel Book 2) (15 page)

“Where did you find it?”

“In his bedroom drawer.”

“You were looking in his bedroom drawer?”

“I have trust issues.”

Adam nodded.

“Don’t nod like you understand this,” she said. “He was a jerk. He was lying to me, and sleeping with someone else, and he couldn’t be trusted. Men can’t be trusted. I’d been through this before, and that’s why I was looking in his bedroom drawer. I felt vindicated that I was right.”

Adam stared at his plate of chips.

“And we’re done with Todd,” she said too loudly. “He’s not very interesting. It’s my turn now.”

Adam looked ready to argue, but the back door swung open from the lobby, and Mendelson popped his head in. “Hey, chief. The riders are back.”

“I’ll be right there.” Adam scooted his chair back and gathered his jacket and keys. “Sorry, Paige. You can stay as long as you like. Have more sandwiches. I have to start a campfire.”

Paige watched him walk out and instantly regretted getting so worked up. She never knew when to shut up. Adam made her so nervous. Had she just admitted that she could turn into a psychotic drawer-searching lover? And that she had trust issues?

If he’d had even an inkling of an idea about letting her kiss him (just once) or maybe taking her up on that dance (just once), she was sure those thoughts were gone now. She probably looked like a lunatic. A real femme fatale. But not the gorgeous, sexy Lana Turner kind. More like the wild-haired, raging Glenn Close kind.

She ate the rest of her sandwich in silence and then cleaned up the table.

Adam was probably done with her now.

Which, really, was the best thing.

Her mom might even be proud of her.

Adam jogged out to the riders and swore at himself for being such an idiot. Was he just asking about Paige’s
boyfriends
? What the hell was wrong with him?

He had a business to sell, a prospective owner to impress, a dude ranch to run for a weekend, a staff to take care of before he closed up, and a daughter to move off the island and enroll in school in a couple of months.

Trying to learn more about Paige was getting him nowhere.

He could be friendly with her—she’d helped him out with Amanda, and he liked helping her with Helen’s place, and he liked smiling at the things she did and said—but everything had to stop there. He had to stop watching her lips. He had to stop asking about her boyfriends. He had to stop caring whether men gave her heart-shaped frames, or how long she waited to have sex with them, or how long ago they may have broken up. Those details were not his business. And no matter to him in any way whatsoever. And he didn’t even know if he could trust her—she might be striking up a friendship to get him to hand over land. Just like Ginger.

They could have a tentative friendship over the next few weeks, but that was it. He was leaving. And she was too dangerous to have meaningless sex with: she wanted something from him, and he couldn’t let himself forget that.

Although she didn’t seem the type to be manipulative. Despite her skillful mother, her goth-eyeliner past, and her love for adrenaline and adventure, she had a vulnerability underlying that bravado that was impossible to miss. And he didn’t want to hurt her. She’d obviously been hurt by jackasses in her past, like Ted or Todd, and maybe even this Dirk guy. And he didn’t need to be part of a new parade of jerks. Lord knows he could be. And maybe it was because he’d taken care of Helen and her dogs and her house all those years, but he felt oddly protective of her granddaughter. Not that Paige was like a house or dogs or property, but something about her made him want to protect her. And that meant from guys like him.

His attempts to get closer had to stop now.

The cowboys were gathered outside, with Joseph and Mendelson starting the campfire and getting the grill fired up. They usually did a cookout on the first night—it gave the guests a chance to get to know one another, and gave the wranglers a chance to assess who would be able to do what on the rides, especially the overnights. Of course, this dude group was a little different from most—MacGregor was just trying it out with his guys to assess if he wanted to take it over. He wanted the property either way, but he wasn’t sure about the dude-ranch business. Adam didn’t blame him. It was a lot of work. But he’d show him a good time anyway. And they had the bison to bring in.

“Hey, gentlemen,” Adam said, touching the brim of his hat.

The other guys greeted him and asked him to join their campfire. He didn’t usually—he typically acted as working wrangler—but in this case he was also a salesman. Joseph nodded his approval—he had the grill under control.

Adam sat down and shot the breeze with them, hearing about their first ride, knocking around some numbers with MacGregor, swapping stories with one of the others about rounding up cattle, which Adam explained was very similar to rounding up bison—only the bison were bigger and meaner. They would be doing that, too, later in the week.

“So how long have you known Paige Grant?” MacGregor asked, leaning toward him.

Hearing her name in such an unexpected way had Adam swiveling his head. “What?”

“Paige Grant. How long have you known her?”

“I, uh . . . I’ve known her family a long time. Why?”

“I want her property. If we expanded this”—MacGregor swept his arm toward Helen’s place—“we could have a whole mess hall set up over there, with the view.”

“I don’t think the Grants are interested,” Adam said.

“Oh, I know they aren’t. That’s why I asked how long you knew her. I saw her here this morning and wondered if you knew her better than I thought you did. And, more important, if you could use your influence to get her on board.” MacGregor winked and followed that with a slimy smirk.

“Like I said, I don’t think she’s interested.”

“If she’s not interested, then I might not be, either.”

Adam hid his sudden urge to bloody that smirk right off MacGregor’s face. He adjusted his hat to get his anger under control.

Then he glanced in the direction of Helen’s house, at the meadow where Paige wanted to start preparing for the Silver wedding, and realized things were about to get a lot more complicated.

CHAPTER 14

Paige traipsed through the meadow back to Gram’s house to resume her most recent project.

But this time her thoughts kept stalling on Adam, and stayed there, swirling in confusion. She wanted to stay distant from him because it was easier to get business done, yet she loved making connections with him on a personal level. She wanted him to take her seriously, yet she loved how he smiled when she said something funny. She wanted to stay away from him so he didn’t hurt her or break her heart again, yet she loved being near him and getting to know the adult Adam.

She was a mess.

It was maybe a little dangerous how much she actually
liked
him. She wasn’t going to protect her heart this way. Even at the height of her past adoration, she’d always been aware of his arrogance, his standoffishness, and his swagger—just the kind of confidence teenage girls swooned over, but women could quickly fall out of love with. Now she saw that that old standoffishness ran deep. It was less a confidence and more of a wall he put up, perhaps to protect himself, perhaps borne of losing his mother and growing up with George instead, and then developed by having so much responsibility put on his shoulders at a young age.

Learning these things about him, though, was not helping. It was not protecting her heart. It was not getting business done. It was not helping her mother, or helping Dorothy, or landing her a high-paying part, or furthering her dreams of a yoga studio.

She unlocked the door and threw her purse on the table. Click had been hiding around the side of the house, but she now made her way in right behind Paige.

“Hey, Click.” She scooped up the kitten and carried her into the kitchen.

She hadn’t even tried the electricity earlier that day, but now that it was dark, she welcomed the new fix.

She flipped on the switch.

Nothing.

Flipped it again.

Zero.

Click squirmed out of her arms, then landed with a tiny thump and began winding around Paige’s legs, mewing.

Paige tiptoed through the darkened kitchen toward the circuit breaker, wondering what calamity she could have brought down on her shoulders now. A drip . . . drip . . . drip sounded in front of her. Coming from up high?

As the pieces started to come together for her, she frantically grabbed for Click. Just as her fingertips curled around the kitten’s belly, a loud crack sounded, then a whoosh. Pieces of wood crashed to the floor. Insulation and dust swirled at her feet.

Paige screamed and flew out of the kitchen.

Click rocketed out of her arms—through the air—toward the open door.

And, next thing she knew, Gram’s upstairs bedroom fell through the floor.

Paige and Adam stood outside the house in the cool night air, staring up at it, Adam with his hands on his hips. An emergency vehicle’s yellow lights flashed across his face.

“You’re going to need a place to stay,” he said.

Paige sighed and ran her hand down Click’s back in the crook of her arm. She would. It would take a few days to get some industrial fans out here, clean up the leak, fix the plumbing, repair the floor, and make the house habitable again. This was going to set her project back two weeks at least.

“You can stay at my place,” he said, his eyes still on the house.

“But the dudes are there now,” she said. “You gave up my room. It’s okay. I’ll find a place in town.”

“I have an extra room in the house.”

Oh no, no, no, no. 
Paige’s mind whirled through calculations of who would be hardest and easiest to avoid—Adam or her sisters. And Adam came out on the “hardest” end.

“I can’t impose on you for that,” she said.
But mostly I don’t know if I can sleep, with you in a bedroom nearby . . .

“Think of it as a favor,” he said. “I have to leave on a pack trip with the group tomorrow, and I wasn’t sure about leaving Amanda alone for three nights. She doesn’t like to be in that big house alone, out in the middle of nowhere. It might be nice if someone stayed to keep her company.”

“I don’t know.”

“C’mon. It works out for everyone.” He tried to give her an encouraging smile, but doubt flashed in his eyes, and he looked away.

Paige followed suit.

This felt a little dangerous.

Like playing with another kind of fire.

Paige sat on the edge of the bed in Adam’s guest room, staring through the window on the north side at the moon hovering over the pond.

She was truly cursed. This newest calamity was going to set her back too far, in both time and money. Her sisters were right about her, and her mother was right to worry. How on earth was she going to get all this fixed up and still plan a wedding for three hundred?

A knock sounded at the door, and she jumped.

“Paige, it’s Adam.”

“Come in,” she said, even though she really couldn’t take any more of him today—or of embarrassing herself in his presence. She didn’t want him to see her in her SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas. Or with her hair all disheveled, or feeling as if she wanted to cry. But this was his house, so she’d be polite and then say she needed to turn in.

His footsteps sounded behind her. She reached up to smooth down her hair and realized there was still plaster in it.

“Are you okay?” His deep voice dropped to a low decibel—soft, tentative, as though he thought she might break apart. And, for some reason, that was all it took: the little piece of plaster in her hair, her deep-set frustration, her growing fear, and topped with his full-of-concern voice. Her nose prickled and tears threatened.

“I’m fine,” she choked out.

He walked around the side of the bed and stared at her for a minute, as if she were a wild animal he wasn’t sure what to do with. “Can I sit down?”

Afraid her voice would betray her if she spoke, she nodded. Her fingertips brushed the first errant tear from her cheek.

The bed creaked under his weight. A silence stretched between them. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands in front of him.

“Listen, Paige, I know you’ve been through a lot with that damned house, but I want you to know that I’ll help with whatever you need when I get back. I already called Pedro to get his ass back out here ASAP, and I have two of the best plaster guys I know coming out tomorrow to lend you a hand. Okay? When I get back, we’ll get it fixed up.”

She sniffled and wiped at her face again. “Thank you for arranging that. You didn’t have to. It’s not your responsibility.”

“I know. But I see you trying, and I admire how you keep picking yourself up and going, even when things aren’t going your way. I want to help.”

“I told you—I’m cursed.”

“You’re not cursed, Paige.”

“When I’m here on the island, I’m cursed.”

“The bats and the birds and all that?”

“Well, electric problems, too. Car accidents. Fires. Floods. You don’t want to get messed up with me.” She tried to give her voice some levity, but it wasn’t coming out right. Instead, tears sprang forward again. And as soon as she thought about the truth of what she’d said, the tears burst out in an ugly cry, and she turned away.

“Oh, hey.”

She sensed he was going to reach out to her but then seemed to change his mind. She probably looked like a terror.

“Hey, don’t cry. We’ll get it fixed up. I promise. I’ll fix it for you.”

The sweetness of that, combined with how pathetic she felt, made her want to cry even more, but she tried to pull herself together.

“What else do you need help with?”

She glanced over at him. What she needed was the meadow. But could she say that now? Would that make her too much like her mother? Or would she just be being honest?

“I did find the perfect gazebo for the ceremony,” she said hesitantly.

He nodded slowly. “And?”

“I wondered if I could order it and start putting it up in the meadow?”

A thin veil of suspicion dropped over his features as he nodded and stared at the ground. “You do know that some of the meadow is in your family’s name, right? My dad signed it over to your mom.”

“I did know that, but I wasn’t sure how much.”

“About a hundred feet from your side door.”

Paige nodded. From what she could tell in the movie, the gazebo sat more like two hundred feet away, right in the center of the meadow.

“If you overshot your mark less than fifty feet, I think I could overlook that,” Adam said. “And I could probably talk MacGregor into it.”

“Really, Adam?” Paige breathed out a sigh of relief. It wouldn’t be exactly like the movie, but Paige could alert Dorothy to it and suggest enough angles to take pictures that no one would be able to tell.

He nodded but still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “So no worries tonight, okay?” He rose.

She gave a chaotic nod.

“Stay as long as you like. Make yourself at home. I’ll see you when I get back?”

She was relieved he was leaving. Her nose started to drip, and she didn’t want him to see her looking any worse than she already did. She gave a quick nod to whatever he said and let him escape out the door.

As soon as he was gone, she flung herself onto her pillow and let herself sob, half with relief that this setback might not be as disastrous as she’d thought, and half with worry that she was more like her mom than she wanted to believe.

The next morning, Paige straightened her pajamas and shuffled into the kitchen to find the coffeepot. Her eyes were puffy, her throat was sore, and she felt spent from crying into the night. But she was at least relieved not to have to face Adam in this ugly state—she’d heard the entire group and their horses leave at four thirty.

A rustling sounded behind her. She whirled to see Amanda.

“So are you Adam’s new girlfriend now?” Amanda continued into the kitchen and reached for a coffee cup. “You’re making enough for both of us, right?”

“I, um . . .” Paige hit the “Off” button and quickly added enough for a second cup. “Sure. Your dad allows you to drink coffee?”

“I don’t think he notices. I just drink the second cup he leaves in there.”

“Okay. Well. Then.” Paige wasn’t sure how to handle this. She wanted to take her part of the bargain seriously about staying with Amanda, but Adam hadn’t gone over any rules to follow. A cup of coffee wouldn’t hurt a sixteen-year-old, right? Paige was pretty sure she was drinking coffee at that age. Probably doing exactly what Amanda was doing—sneaking the last cups out of a parent’s machine.

Amanda fetched the extras—the creamer from the fridge and then a box of sugar from a cupboard. She seemed to know what she was doing. And thank goodness for the sugar. Amanda readied everything along the counter and then stood next to Paige, watching the coffee finish up.

“So are you?” Amanda asked.

“Am I what?”

“His new girlfriend?”

“Oh. No. Definitely not. I’m just a family friend. My gram used to own the house across the meadow. I used to spend summers here on the island. When I was about your age, in fact.”

“Really?”

Paige gave a halfhearted, not-yet-induced-by-caffeine nod. She tried to duck her head to hide her puffy eyes. She might have to find some cucumber slices or tea bags or something.