Love on Lavender Island (A Lavender Island Novel Book 2) (21 page)

It was better than wondering if this have-sex-in-an-airplane-hangar kind of passion was normal for him and she was just one of a string of summer women this year.
Has he done this before? Is this his usual gig? Does he meet women who visit in the summer and have brief flings and then throw them away?

She looked around for her belt.
Does he ever fall in love with them, even a little? Has he ever found someone special? Was Samantha one of many? Will he think I’m different?

She pressed her fingertips to her forehead.
Oh holy moly, no.
Absolutely no. This was not something she could let her mind drift toward. It made no difference whether she was exactly the same as any other woman he might have pulled to his chest, or as different as Venus. Because
she was not going to fall in love with him
. And he was not going to fall in love with her. She was here only briefly; he was leaving. She hadn’t even told him the truth about their pasts; they were both going to have to get back to figuring out their properties. This was just sex. And it was more than she’d ever hoped for.

She leaned down, still looking for her belt. The force of their wild sexcapade had shoved the table back a couple of inches, and the belt was wedged beneath one of the legs. She tugged at it while her mind drifted again to the other women who probably came through here, and she wondered if she was too wild for his normal taste. Maybe he liked more sophisticated Ingrid Bergman or Rita Hayworth types. Not screaming banshees like her who would have sex in a hangar and warn him of possible future calamities. Then she chastised herself again and wondered why she was torturing herself. This didn’t matter.

The belt was truly stuck. She yanked on it again with greater force, but the table was too heavy to lift alone. She bent to try to pry it out, but when she did, she noted, with curiosity, a large box shoved far underneath the bottom shelf. Its edges were puckered up around the wood from being forced there so wrongly. She walked along the other side and saw the words scrolled in black marker there, almost covered with dust: “Private.”

“Adam?” She finished buttoning the waistband of her shorts. “I think I found something.”

“Shove!” Adam croaked.

He held the table as high as he could so Paige could push the box from the other side. He got the belt out first and threw it to her so she could keep her shorts up.

Once she was pulled back together, she bent again to help. He raised the table into another forceful lift. “Again!” he said through clenched teeth. Paige shoved the box hard with both hands.

The table felt as if it weighed several tons and resented being moved. He took a few deep breaths before each boost. Finally, Paige gave the cardboard a desperate shove from underneath. Adam had the table hovering, and the cardboard monstrosity scuttled across the sawdust about two feet.

Adam let the table’s legs thunder to the floor. “Christ!” He scowled at the cardboard box and caught his breath. The damned thing looked as though it had been wedged there for a decade. He sat down and leaned against the bottom panel of the table.

Paige slid down next to him.

For a long time, the only sounds were their ragged breaths reverberating along the tinny walls of the hangar. Adam stared at the particles of dust that were swirling in the rays of the sunset.

“I didn’t mean to do that earlier—come on to you quite like that,” he said.

“What do you mean you didn’t mean to do that? You had a condom with you.”

He laughed. “Well, hope does spring eternal. I guess what I mean to say is that I’d planned to wait—to take cues from you. But I didn’t even wait that long.”

“Don’t be sorry for that.” She threw her chin out in a cute, haughty way. “Maybe I was the one who wanted you.”

A smile escaped his lips in spite of himself. He didn’t know why he didn’t give her more credit. There was such a strange contrast between her vulnerability and strength—it kept confusing him.

“And I didn’t mean for it to happen like that,” he added.

“Like what?”

“Completely out of control.”

“Damn, don’t be sorry for that. It was hot.”

He smiled and rolled his head toward her. “It didn’t bother you that I barely got your panties off?”

“No. That was hot, too.”

“How about that I took you against a dirty table? In a dusty old airplane hangar? And I acted like some kind of fumbling teenager? None of that disturbs you in the least?”

“You were out of control. And that’s okay. You looked like you were having fun. I was having fun. And that’s okay, too. You’re allowed to have fun, Adam.”

He looked away. He wanted to believe that. He supposed it was true if he thought about it cerebrally. It was what Bob had been telling him in recent years, too—that he’d aged too fast. But throughout his adolescence, “fun” had had consequences in his dad’s home. Ever since he’d been eighteen, his dad’s “fun” meant more gambling debts, more excessive drinking, then more responsibility being placed on Adam. And when Adam had tried to have “fun” himself, with Samantha, for instance, it resulted in banishment from his dad’s house and, ultimately, a daughter he didn’t know about until sixteen years later. Fun had always been trouble.

Of course, Paige was fun. Maybe that’s what her magnetic draw was. She was exactly what he denied himself. And he had to admit, he was like a man in a drought: he kept wanting to drink her up.

“You
did
have fun, didn’t you?” she asked.

He grinned at the concrete. “Damn, yes.”

“That’s not usual for you?”

Adam let out a bark of a laugh. Losing all control and taking a woman against a worktable in an old storage hangar because he couldn’t wait another second?
Uh, no.
But he bit back that thought.

“Not at all,” he said.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

He chuckled again.

The sun highlighted the dust particles like beams, and he watched the light play across her legs. Then he had the sudden, pressing thought that he wanted her again. Now. Right now.

But this should probably end. He needed to talk to her about MacGregor. And if he started talking about land right after sex, he’d be coming way too close to George behavior—so much so he’d have to throw himself off a cliff somewhere. So he nodded and held out his hand.

Paige took it and unfolded her legs in a graceful yoga move, rising to meet him. She looked up into his eyes, and he had the strangest sense of falling—into another type of responsibility, perhaps, but this one didn’t have any of the negative consequences he was used to. This one felt like something he would welcome. He couldn’t fully define it, though, so he just stared into her beautiful eyes with the long eyelashes for a few seconds too long.

“I’m making quesadillas and salsa,” he finally said.

“A new addition to your repertoire?”

“Well, the salsa was already part of it, but the quesadillas are new. You can be my first victim.”

He balanced the box up on his shoulder as they traipsed across the meadow. The meadow grasses were long where the bison hadn’t come through yet, and the sharp blades whipped around their ankles. About halfway through, the large shipments of ready-to-assemble lumber for the gazebo became visible, sitting on the line between their properties.

Paige turned toward it and stared. He stared, too. And they walked the rest of the way in silence.

CHAPTER 20

The pungent smell of cilantro filled the kitchen while Adam stood at the counter and chopped a cornucopia of vegetables for his salsa.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to look through this for you?” Paige asked from the kitchen table. She poked at the “Private” box with her foot.

He glanced over his shoulder. “No.”

She stared at the box while she listened to the chopping sounds of his knife punctuating the silence. She couldn’t believe he wasn’t at least a little curious. George Mason had left a weird cardboard box, shoved roughly under a bench for years, marked “Private,” named in his will, and Adam didn’t want to know what was in it?

“I could report what’s in it, and then you could decide if you want to look yourself,” she suggested.

“No, Paige.” His voice made it clear this line of questioning was over.

She looked around the kitchen. She felt sort of useless right now. And adrift. She didn’t know if she should suggest a “talk” and question what this was between them. She didn’t want to make it seem more than it was or scare him off. “Are you sure you don’t want me to help you chop or something?”

“Relax. Let me make this for you.”

She took that as her cue.
Relax.
She tried to settle back in her chair. “It smells great. How long has salsa been part of your repertoire?”

“Since I’ve known Mrs. Teresa Mendez,
cocinera
extraordinaire and Antonio’s beautiful mother.”

As if she hadn’t already fallen for everything about him, the way he said that Spanish word was very sexy.

“Does
cocinera
mean ‘cook’?” she asked.

“Yes. Teresa Mendez—everyone around here calls her Mama—makes the meanest salsa and the best chili enchiladas on this mountain. I’m lucky to know her. And you’re lucky,” he said, turning and waving the knife at her, “to
benefit
from the fact I know her.”

She smiled. “Where is Teresa Mendez now?”

“She’s taking care of family in Mexico, so I’ve been on my own for a month.”

“How are you handling being without her?”

“Well, now that I know Amanda can cook, I might start handling it pretty well.”

“But you’re leaving.”

His knife stilled. Then, eventually, it started chopping again. “Is it strange that I keep forgetting that?”

“No. This has always been your life. It’ll probably take some adjusting. What will you miss most?”

“To my surprise, the list is getting longer.”

“What’s in the top three?”

“Maybe Bob and Gert, my horses, Rosa’s Cantina. I could go on.”

“Feel free,” she said.

“The ranch hands, Kelly, riding, the meadow, the pond, and even the . . . uh . . . hangar is starting to become a special place.”

“Glad I could contribute,” she said.

He chuckled. “I’m realizing I liked a lot more about this place than I thought.”

Paige wanted again to talk about what was next for them. Had they both scratched an insistent itch and now were done? It had been her original plan, too, of course, but now that she was watching him across the kitchen, enjoying this relaxed, good-mood Adam—not to mention thinking back to how incredibly hot that hangar encounter was—she wouldn’t mind keeping things going for a while. She’d work hard to keep it casual. She’d work hard to keep her heart out of the way.

But she wasn’t sure how to bring it up with him right now.

Plus, she’d
absolutely
have to tell him about that summer and her hand in talking to George.

And she was wondering if now would be a good time to tell him what her mom had said about MacGregor’s commercial plans for the land. Maybe they should get this land talk out of the way.

She fiddled with the stack of napkins.

“Has, um . . . ,” she started. “Has MacGregor told you anything about what he plans to do with this land once he buys it?”

“I figure that isn’t any of my business,” he said. Chop, chop, chop.

“But don’t you care what he’s going to do with the dude ranch and the orchard and the airport, and everything you and your family have worked so hard for?”

“I don’t have the luxury of caring, Paige. I’m in a situation where I have to sell. Quickly.”

“I’ve already told you Dorothy Silver is willing to buy. And pay more.”

“I can’t count on that. That offer is only thoughts and words right now. And she’s not paying cash. MacGregor is here, right now, and he’s ready to buy. Which, by the way, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

“But MacGregor wants to raze everything.”

Adam stalled and turned toward her. “How do you know that?”

“I have it on good authority.”

“What authority?”

“Ginger.”

He went back to cutting. “Well, Ginger might have other motives for making me ignore MacGregor’s offer.”

“We can trust her.”

He turned again to glance at her, and suddenly the word
we
had a lot of meaning.

He walked over with a cutting board filled with chopped onions and chopped hot peppers and dumped three huge mounds into a big bowl on the table. A smile played along his lips. “So we’re back to talking about business now?”

“I guess. What kind of peppers are those?”

“Serrano.”

“What are those other green things?”

“Tomatillos. So if we’re going to make the dangerous slide into talking about business right after having sex, I meant to talk to you in more detail about MacGregor.”

She investigated the bowl and took a good long whiff of the spicy-scented concoction. She wanted to keep her mind off the way Adam said “having sex” in that slightly cold way. But she had to remember that coldness, too. They weren’t falling in love here.

She took another whiff as he walked back to the counter. “What about him?”

“He wants to put pressure on you to sell to him. Or he wants me to.”

Adam saying anything about putting pressure on her had the zing of sexual overtone. Maybe it was his deep voice. Or the way his forearms grew muscled when he chopped with the knife. Or the memory of his hands roaming over her skin a few minutes ago . . .

Maybe she wasn’t going to be good at keeping things separate, after all. Now she just wanted to flirt with him.

“He wants you to put pressure on me?” she asked. “And how are you planning on doing that?”

“I’m not planning on doing that.”

“Right.” She smiled. “You’re
not
going to put pressure on me by seducing me in an airplane hangar and giving me some of the most intense sex of my life?”

“Paige.”
He gave her a warning look over his shoulder, but he caught her smile and grinned back. “Don’t do that. You know that’s not what that was.”

She didn’t answer. She wanted to believe that, of course, but she didn’t know that was not what that was. That
was
what her mother had predicted—that he’d use sex as a bargaining tool. That he’d get her into bed but without caring about her. Not that they needed a bed.

The sound of the knife on the cutting board filled the kitchen.

“My dad was an asshole,” Adam continued. “He always mixed business with pleasure, and he never thought through the aftereffects.”

“He did that with my mom,” she said.

“I was under the impression Ginger was the user in their scenario.”

“I think they used each other. Ginger lent your dad a lot of money—did you know that?”

The knife made slow, rhythmic taps until Adam filled another small bowl with cilantro. “I think I figured it out,” he eventually said. “The other night I studied the books back about fourteen years, and I made some guesses about that time frame.”

“He paid her back by giving her pieces of land,” Paige said. “Then he left her.”

“Or she left him.”

“I think because of you,” she said.

“He told me it was because of you.”

Paige reeled a little at that, but it sounded as though it could be right. Ginger probably blamed Adam, and George probably blamed Paige. She remembered there being a lot of fights outside the door of Gram’s house right after Adam was sent away. The whole situation definitely broke up Ginger and George.

Adam walked back over to the bowl with the mound of cilantro and threw it in. “I’m not fond of Ginger, but I know my dad wasn’t exactly a saint in everything they had going on, either. I’m pretty sure they both screwed things up. Let’s just make sure neither of us is like them.”

“I’m with you.”

“I don’t want to get sex mixed up with money and land and negotiations.”

Paige’s throat was suddenly filled with cotton. Was that Adam’s way of dismissing her? They had sex once, and that was enough for him? She focused on the vegetables so her hurt feelings didn’t betray her.

“Of course”—Adam leaned down toward her ear—“I’m not sure I can give you up just yet.”

Her heart skipped a beat over his husky delivery and sexy sentiment as she watched him walk back to the counter.
Damn.
She didn’t want him to have such control over her emotions, but she didn’t know how to stop it.

She nodded slowly until she could get her heart rate down. “We could come up with ground rules,” she squeaked out.

His knife went back to its rhythmic sounds. “I’m good with that. You name them.”

Her fingers found the napkins. “We agree this is only temporary.” That was obvious. They would both be gone by the end of the summer.

“Perfect.”

“We don’t trade info about land or money or trade any other kind of favor for sex.” That’s the one that had gotten her mom in trouble. Ginger thought she was helping for love; George thought she was helping for sex. They both ended up angry and disappointed.

“That’s good.”

“We never talk about land or deals with our clothes off.”

Adam walked back to the table with a board full of onions and smiled. “That’s actually a nice visual. But you’re right—I’m good with that.”

“And we stay FRED.”

“Fred?”

“It’s sort of like friends with benefits, only it’s got an end date—Friends Ready to End in Divorce.”

He scraped the onions into the bowl and thought that over. “All right. FRED.”

“See? We’re already light-years ahead of George and Ginger.” One of the napkins was in shreds, so she moved on to another. “They didn’t talk, and they weren’t honest with each other.”

“You’re nothing like Ginger,” he said.

She took a deep breath. She hoped not, but she wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to harden her heart the way her mother had, especially toward men. She knew she’d been leaning that way, especially with her mother’s warnings through the years, but she wanted to trust. She wanted to trust people. She wanted to trust men. She wanted to trust herself and her own decisions. And, especially, she wanted to trust this particular man.

“Thanks,” she breathed out. “You’re nothing like George.”

His mouth quirked up. “I appreciate that more than you know. And, more important now, I don’t want to be like him with Amanda, either.” He headed back to the counter.

“What do you mean?”

“Cold. Yelling. Terrorizing. Arbitrary rules.”

Paige shook her head. How could Adam think he was like George? It broke her heart to think he was so hard on himself. “You’re not like that at all, Adam. Although . . .”

He looked back sharply. “What?”

“Amanda and I were driving today, and she did say one thing that I know will upset you. But it’s good you know her thoughts. I know you have only her best interests at heart, and you can work this out with her.”

“What?”

“She thinks you’re hiding her up on this hill because you’re embarrassed of her.”

“
Embarrassed
of her?”

“That you see her as a mistake from your past and don’t want the townspeople to know about her.”

His jaw muscle danced. “That’s not even
remotely
—”

“I know—I know.
I
know it’s not remotely true. And
you
know that. I’m just telling you to give you a chance to make sure
she
knows that. Sometimes the way teenagers’ brains work can be mystifying.”

He stared at her, his scowl murderous. But, finally, he seemed to think it over and then nodded. The knife came back up to the counter, and the chopping continued.

About a minute later, he walked back to the table with a huge mound of tomatoes on the cutting board. “Thanks, Paige,” he said softly.

He pushed the tomatoes into the bowl and tossed the concoction with his knife. “And wait. Can we back up a minute? I thought I heard you say something earlier.”

She reached for a diced tomato and popped it in her mouth. “What?”

“Did you say a couple minutes ago that that was the most intense sex of your life?”

“
Some
of the most.” She gave him a saucy grin. “In the top four.” She pretended to inspect the chilies.

His eyebrow raised as he slowly finished scraping the last of the seeds off his cutting board. Eventually his mouth quirked at the corner. “I’ll have to investigate this.” He gave her one last glance before returning to the counter.

She ignored the heat that rose up around her cheeks and snuck a few extra glances at him.

Being FRED with Adam was going to be a heady ride.

The door banged open, and Amanda stepped through. Paige reached up to cool her cheeks.

“Hey, Amanda,” she said.

Amanda smiled, threw her backpack into the corner, and went into the kitchen to watch Adam finish chopping.

She waited for Amanda to leave so they could continue their talk, but Amanda stayed in the kitchen with them until dinner. A half hour later, the three of them were enjoying salsa and quesadillas at the dining table, talking about what foreign language they’d each learned in high school, and telling funny stories about the worst teachers each of them ever had. After dinner they went into the family room so Amanda could select another movie to watch.

They sat together on the sheet-covered couch, but this time Adam positioned himself so he could rest his hand under a blanket on Paige’s thigh.

Goose bumps ran up her arm through the entire movie.