Falling for You (14 page)

“No, actually, I... came here to talk.”

“Oh? About what?”

He took a deep breath. “Paige, I know we agreed we’d wait a bit before we started seeing each other regularly, so you’d have time to get settled.”

“That was several weeks ago. Five to be exact.”

He pulled back, startled. “Has it been that long?”

“Umm.” She raised one brow in a look that might have been censure. On Paige? No, he shook the notion off.

“Well.” He cleared his throat. “I think it’s time we start... you know, ‘seeing’ each other.”

“I see.”

“I mean, if that’s agreeable with you.” Her manner was so cool, he briefly wondered if she cared one way or the other.

She set her glass aside and looked straight at him. “What did you have in mind?”

“In mind?”

“For a date. I assume ‘seeing each other’ will involve dating?”

“Yes, of course.” Why hadn’t he planned something? “Um, how about a movie?”

“I’ve always preferred books to movies,” she said.

“Yes. Of course. I knew that. But I was sort of hoping for something we could do together.” His mind drew a blank. “I don’t suppose there’s anything you’d like to do.”

“Actually there is.” She brightened some as she extracted a pamphlet from her beach bag. “Stacy and I were just making plans to play tourist this weekend. Maybe you’d like to join us.”

“You mean... hit the antique shops on The Strand?” He cringed, remembering the hours of boredom his mother had put him through as a youth.

“No, something more adventurous. A flier was mailed to members of the Historical Society advertising a new boat tour.”

Chance nearly groaned at the mention of boats. If there was one thing Paige did get passionate about, it was boats. Sailboats, cabin cruisers, pontoons, or catamarans, it didn’t matter. If it floated on water, she wanted to try it out. He, on the other hand, barely knew the difference between a schooner and a skiff.

“Not your typical Galveston Bay boat tour,” she continued. “This tour stops at Pearl Island for a picnic lunch at the haunted house. The kick-off voyage is this Saturday.”

His mind snapped to attention. He hadn’t heard of this development. The property was barely in their name, and already they were offering picnic lunches? How could that be?

“So?” Paige asked, looking hopeful. “What do you think?”

He hesitated, entirely too tempted to jump on this excuse to see Aurora, but knowing he should stay as far away from her as possible.

“Come on, Chance,” Paige coaxed, handing him the flier. “It’ll be fun. And Stacy could even invite Paul to make it a double date.”

“Well...” He hedged, telling himself he needed to spend time with Paige. If this was what she wanted to do, he should indulge her. His agreeing had nothing to do with Aurora. “I guess we could do that.”

“You mean it?” Pleasure brightened her eyes.

“Absolutely.” He glanced at the flier, suddenly eager—to please Paige, he told himself, not to see Aurora. “What time do we need to be there?”

“How many reservations do we have?” Rory asked as she bounded into the tour-boat office, short of breath.

“Not many, and you’re late,” Bobby answered.

“I know. Sorry.” She placed a hand over her stomach, hoping to squelch the beginning signs of an anxiety attack. After two weeks of working themselves into the ground, the day had finally arrived for their first haunted-house lunch run—a trial run, really, to see if the idea would even work. She’d been up since dawn helping Adrian and Allison pack pasta salad, fresh fruit, and sandwiches into ice chests. They’d sent out fliers to the Visitors’ Center, the Chamber of Commerce, and members of the Historical Society. Now, if only people would show up.

“Maybe no one noticed the request for reservations down at the bottom,” she worried. “I knew I should have told the printer to make it bigger. But that doesn’t mean people won’t come, right? They’ll come. Don’t you think?”

“Hey, you’re not nervous, are you, beautiful?”

“Who, me?” She gave him a wobbly smile, so nervous she’d been nauseous for the past two weeks. “I know it’s early to be starting something like this, but we need it to take off. If Adrian’s going to be our breakfast cook, he has to be able to quit his night job at Chez Laffite. Pulling two shifts with almost no sleep would be too much. We have to build up this lunch business while we’re renovating so everything will be in place when we’re ready to open in the fall.”

“Just as long as
you
don’t quit before then.” Bobby stopped restocking the pamphlet display to give her a disgruntled look. “You’re the best tour guide I’ve ever had. I’ll never find someone else with your flair for telling a story.”

“Thank you, Bobby.” She felt so touched, she wanted to cry. But then, her emotions had been running high lately. “That’s really sweet.”

“Now, don’t get mushy on me.” He smirked. “Just promise you’ll train your replacement.”

“I promise.” She leaned over the counter and kissed his bristly cheek. “But first, let’s get through today. And hope this lunch run doesn’t bomb completely.”

“It better not, since I could be making two regular runs in the same amount of time.” He returned to restocking pamphlets, but stopped when something out the window caught his eye. “Well, look at that.”

“What?” She came around the counter and peered over his shoulder. The parking lot closest to them was filling up fast and several people were heading their way. Some of them she recognized as employees of the Visitors’ Center, but there were several tourists, as well. “I guess the fliers worked.”

“Guess so,” Bobby said, a bit stunned. “I hope we have enough room for all these folks.”

“I just hope we packed enough food.” She laughed even as a fresh wave of nausea stirred in her stomach. Maybe she’d caught the summer flu that was going around.

“Well,” Bobby said with a white-toothed grin, “let’s get to work.”

She hurried out the door to take up her post by the boat. Staying busy calmed her jitters. As long as she concentrated on work, she didn’t have time to worry. Or think about Chance.

No, that was a lie. Chance always lingered in the back of her mind. The memory of how they’d parted made her heart ache until she couldn’t sleep. Which made her all the more determined to concentrate on work, and get over the man.

While Bobby sold tickets, she handed out life jackets to the minors. She was laughing through her usual jokes about feeding passengers to the sharks if they didn’t obey the safety rules when the last group to board came up behind her.

“Hello, Aurora.”

Her whole body went still at the sound of his voice. A thousand thoughts flew through her mind as her heart filled with pleasure, then pain. When she turned, she saw only him. His gaze caressed her face as if he were starved for the sight of her, too. He smiled, but somehow she felt his unhappiness and it gave her hope. Then she saw the couple behind him and the petite blond holding his arm, and her blood turned to ice.

No. Not this.
She couldn’t handle this on top of everything else she had to deal with today. Her spine stiffened. “I’m not sure we have room,” she said in a flat tone, as the heat of anger melted the shock.

“Oh, but we have tickets,” the little blond said. She wasn’t a great beauty, but she had pretty eyes and flawless skin.

“Then apparently we oversold.” Rory stepped in their way, and felt like an Amazon next to Chance’s girlfriend.
So this is Paige
, she thought. No wonder he preferred this dainty debutante to her. Rory hated her on sight.

“I’m sorry,” Chance said to Paige, but his gaze remained fixed on Rory. “I guess we’re too late.”

“You certainly are,” Rory said.
Several weeks too late.

“I don’t understand.” The other man stepped forward. “Why did you sell us tickets if you don’t have room?”

Rory’s gaze broadened to take in the whole group. All four of them had the polished sort of looks that pegged them as members of the Galveston elite. It was more than the cost of their clothing and the cut of their hair. It was something in the way people from Old Money stood, the gestures of their smooth hands, the air of relaxed confidence that surrounded them. Seeing Chance with them, so much a part of them, was even worse than seeing him at the bank. She felt foolish for ever thinking she could capture the attention of Oliver Chancellor for more than a fling.

“Yo, Rory!” Bobby said, coming out of the office. “What’s the hold-up? Let’s get these people aboard and shove off.”

“We don’t have room.” She glared at her boss, hoping he would catch the message in her eyes. No such luck. Captain Bob was too busy smiling at Paige and her friend.

“Of course we do,” he said. “We always have room for beautiful women aboard the
Daydreamer
.”

“Oh.” Paige blushed rather than roll her eyes as Rory would have done. The other woman, an attractive brunette, just laughed.

Brushing Rory out of the way, Bobby stepped aboard and held his hand out to Paige. “Here, let me find you a seat near the captain’s wheel. Watch your step, now.”

“Why, thank you,” she said as she took Bobby’s hand and stepped onto the crowded boat in her yellow silk shorts set and white summer sandals. The tennis bracelet that sparkled at her wrist could have bought the
Daydreamer
with diamonds to spare.

“My pleasure. I’m Captain Bob.” He tugged on the bill of his cap. “And you would be... ?”

“Paige Baxter.”

Baxter
. Rory might not have recognized the first name, but she definitely recognized the last. Baxter Homes developed neighborhoods throughout east Texas.

As Bobby found seats for Perfect Paige and the other couple, Chance remained by Rory. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “We shouldn’t have come.”

“Why ever not?” She forced a smile that quivered a bit around the edges. “There’s no reason we have to avoid each other. And since we apparently have room, after all, grab a seat and we’ll be under way.”

Chance found space on the bench beside Paige and watched Aurora cast off the mooring lines. Seeing her again had been a mistake. He hadn’t realized how much it would tear at his resolve. But then, he hadn’t expected her to look so tired and pale. Not pale enough that anyone who didn’t know her would notice, but he wondered if she’d had as much trouble sleeping lately as he had.

Then he snorted at the thought. If Aurora couldn’t sleep, it was due to the excitement of a new business. Not because she’d been pining away for him. While she’d been upset about him not calling her the day he’d come to the docks, no doubt she’d gotten over it by now. Gotten over him.

Just as he needed to get past his constant brooding over her.

Their lives had crossed paths briefly but were moving in different directions. Still, he wanted them to part as friends so they could both look back on their time together with fond memories. And without this horrible emptiness he felt watching her.

The motor rumbled to life with a coughing belch of smoke, and they pulled slowly away from the pier. Aurora moved to the front of the boat and picked up a mike. “Good morning, everyone. Welcome aboard the
Daydreamer
for our first Haunted House Lunch Cruise. For you visitors to Galveston, I’ll be pointing out several historical landmarks on the way. If you have questions just give me a shout.”

Taking advantage of the excuse to openly watch her, Chance sat back and drank her in. The wind whipped her white uniform shirt around her body and the sun backlit her hair, turning it to fire. The rest of the world faded as the pontoon boat wove its way around tugs and barges.

Seagulls dove and begged in the wake of an incoming shrimper.

“Right now,” she continued, “we’re entering the main shipping channel of Galveston Bay, which as you can see carries a lot of commercial traffic. Before the Houston ship channel was dug, Galveston was one of the largest ports in the South. It also has one of the most colorful histories as the home of notorious pirates such as Captain Jean Laffite. In fact, the cove where we’ll dock during lunch is one of the possible locations of Laffite’s famous missing treasure.”

“Mom said we’re gonna go right over a shipwreck,” a young boy chimed in.

“We certainly are,” Aurora responded with suitable enthusiasm. “But I’ll wait until we get closer to Pearl Island to tell you the story, since we have a lot of other neat stuff to see on the way, okay?”

“Okay,” the boy agreed, smiling at Aurora as if she were the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. Chance felt a tug of sympathy as he remembered his own crush on her in his youth. It had been painful and intense. And he hadn’t outgrown it yet. He was beginning to fear he never would.

“So,” Captain Bob asked Paige as Aurora resumed her talk on the history of Galveston. “Where are you from?”

“Hmm?” Paige turned to answer the man while Chance continued watching Aurora. “I live here in Galveston.”

“Oh, yeah?” The boat driver sounded especially pleased with that. “And where have you been hiding that I’ve never seen you before?”

“I’ve been at college the last few years,” Paige answered politely. “Even when I’m home, though, I don’t get down to the commercial piers very often.”

“You don’t like boats.”

She laughed. “Actually, I
love
boats! My father does, too. Currently, we own a cabin cruiser and a thirty-two-foot sloop. Do you sail?”

“Honey, I used to be king of the Corpus Christi regattas.”

“Really?” Paige responded, clearly impressed.

“Oh, no.” Stacy laughed from her seat across from them. “I think we just lost Paige for the day.”

“Fine with me.” Paul smiled at his fiancée. “Now you’ll pay more attention to me.”

Chance glanced at Paige to be sure the overly friendly captain wasn’t bothering her. She’d turned fully toward the man, so he couldn’t see her face, but he heard the excitement in her voice as she and the captain fell into a discussion on sailing. Deciding she didn’t need rescuing, he turned his attention back to Aurora.

Half an hour later, they pulled into the cove at Pearl Island and he got his first glimpse of the house. So much had been done in such a short time, he could hardly believe it. Where storm shutters and boards had been, now glass gleamed in the mid-day sun. They’d also torn down the chain-link fence and laid sod on the slope down to the private beach, creating a blanket of emerald-green grass. A path of white oyster shells lined with crape myrtles and azaleas led from the beach to the house. The shrubs were small now, but would form an eye-catching trail as the plants matured.

It seemed odd that they would have landscaped so quickly, but he supposed they’d needed to do the outside first for the lunch run.

Aurora had just finished her story about Marguerite and Captain Kingsley when the boat bumped up to the dock. “And now for lunch.” She turned off the mike and leapt out to secure the lines. “Everyone, watch your step,” she cautioned as she helped passengers disembark.

“Oh, isn’t it lovely?” Paige said as they rose and waited for their turn to step onto the dock. Her eyes sparkled as she linked her arm through his. “I’ve anchored in this cove before, and have always wanted to see the house up close.”

“Do you think it’s really haunted?” Stacy asked in a hushed tone.

“Don’t worry,” Paul said, pulling her snugly against him. “I’ll protect you... from everything but me.” Stacy giggled as Paul kissed her neck. The giggles increased at something he whispered in her ear.

Paige cast them an envious look, then turned away. “The new owners appear to have fixed the house up quite a bit.”

“Yes, they certainly have,” Chance muttered, surprised by a twinge of resentment. After all the work he’d put into helping the St. Claires with their business plan, it didn’t seem right that he should be left out of the execution.

When they stepped onto the dock, he hesitated long enough to catch Aurora’s eye. “Have you decided what color you’ll paint the trim?”

“Actually, we haven’t,” she answered without looking at him. To the passengers at large she called, “Just follow the path on up to the house. Lunch will be served on the veranda.”

The brush-off wasn’t unexpected, but it rankled nonetheless. He brooded over it as he and Paige started up the path.