Love on Lavender Island (A Lavender Island Novel Book 2) (22 page)

When the credits finally rolled, he leaned toward Paige’s ear. “Stay tonight?”

“I need to get home,” she said, tossing the blanket aside and looking for her shoes.

“Are you sure?” He glanced at Amanda, who’d turned toward them to listen. Adam cleared his throat. “You can stay in the guest room.”

“No.” Paige found one shoe under Denny. The other was providing a small pillow for Click. It was tempting to stay. Even just to stay in the guest room or on the couch. They could talk. They could go over their ground rules once more. But Paige sensed this would be a mistake. She needed to sleep on the whole thing. The more time she spent with him, the more she could see getting attached, and that’s not what FRED was about. She’d spent too many years trying to forget this guy who’d barely known she existed—and she was just now getting to a comfortable, confident, I-can-be-casual-with-you kind of place, complete with mutually agreed-on, laid-out rules—to backpedal now. She needed to think this through, then make a decision by morning that would allow her to best keep herself together.

“Let me walk you home, at least,” he said.

Amanda looked up worriedly.

“I’ll be back in fifteen, Amanda.”

He gave a whistle, and Denny leaped up onto the couch where Adam pointed. Amanda snuggled close to the warm dog. Click, feeling momentarily abandoned by her new friend Denny, climbed up on the couch, too, and nestled between Denny’s paws.

“You don’t have to walk me if Amanda’s worried,” Paige said. “I know the way.”

“Thanks, Paige,” Amanda said with a relieved smile.

Adam walked her to the door and helped her with her sweater. “Are you sure?” he whispered. “She’ll really be okay.”

“So will I.”

Paige stepped out onto the porch, and Adam followed, closing the door behind them.

“I want to make sure everything’s okay between us,” he said. “You’re still good with FRED?”

“Of course.”

“I’m not sure how to act in front of Amanda.”

“I think we can focus on the ‘friends’ part. We can be better role models that way.”

“Role models? Man.” The moonlight caught his smile. “Never thought I’d be that.”

“You’re doing fine.”

He gazed at her for a moment, then gently cupped her face, drawing her to him and kissing her tenderly. No craziness. No insanity. No frustrated desperation. No leading to another step or hinting at something next. No touching her body or pushing to another level. It was just a gentle, giving, yielding kiss—velvety lips saying good night, or he was sorry, or good-bye, or things wouldn’t ever be different for them—she couldn’t quite tell. When he finished, he simply met her stare.

“Thank you, Paige,” he said, low.

As she walked back across the meadow, Paige brought her fingertips to her lips.

And realized she should have made one more rule about kisses. Maybe only during sex.

Because that good-bye kiss didn’t feel very FRED at all.

Over the next several days, they fell into a routine: Paige would work on her house all day, Adam would show MacGregor around, Paige would take Amanda down to the harbor and pick her up, they would come back, and the three of them would have dinner together and watch another VHS tape from the movie box.

The box marked “Private” stayed in the corner, untouched, much to Paige’s surprise.

She and Adam didn’t have a lot of time to be alone, between the workers at Paige’s house, the ranch hands helping to assemble the gazebo, the dude group at Adam’s, and Amanda. But Adam let Paige know he’d like to be: his hand under the blanket each evening worked itself higher up her thigh until she gasped in inappropriate places during the movies.

“What’s the matter?” Amanda would ask, turning back toward Paige.

Paige would press her lips together. “Nothing. I thought he was going to pull out a knife or something.”

Amanda would look at her as if she were dense. “Why would he pull out a knife?”

“I don’t know. I must not be paying very much attention.”

Amanda would shake her head and go back to the movie while Adam would work the smile off his face.

Sometimes Adam would catch Paige by the waist in the kitchen, and he’d lay a quick, hot kiss on her lips, filled with promise and longing.

Once, when the dude group was off in the distance, Adam tugged Paige into the grove of trees by the pond and ran his hands along her body in one long, sweltering kiss behind the tallest oak tree—just long enough to remind her of what he could bring her to and hint at what might come next if they could find a couple hours alone.

Another time, he snuck her into the horse stables before the other wranglers came back and managed to make her come against a haystack with just his hand and a few clever kisses.

One afternoon, as she was starting to paint the baseboard in the downstairs powder room, her cow doorbell mooed, and she opened it to find Adam leaning in the doorway.

“I have an hour off. I came to say hello.”

“Ah. Great. Well, hello. Is that the only reason you came?” She smiled.

“And to see how you’re doing with the work, of course.” He looked over her shoulder at the interior.

“Of course.” She stepped back to invite him in. “Let me give you the tour.”

There were workers moving about upstairs and outside, and Paige managed to show Adam two whole rooms before he had her behind a closed door and pressed her against it, kissing her neck and running a hand up her leg.

“Adam! The workers are still here!”

“I don’t care,” he murmured. “They’ll get the picture.”

“The locks don’t work!”

“We’ll take our chances.”

“Adam!” She pushed at his chest.

He gave her a long-suffering look and then stepped out into the hallway. “Antonio!” he bellowed.

“Yeah, man?”

“Don’t let anyone come up here.”

“Got it, chief.”

Adam came back into the room, a wolfish grin on his face, and closed the door. “How quiet can you be?”

They were like two teenagers, sneaking around the premises, and Paige loved every minute of it. The serious, scowling Adam she’d initially encountered the day she got stuck in her grandmother’s window had turned into another man. He was now a winking, dimpled Adam, always looking for the next adventure. As much as she’d been crushing before, she had doubled down now.

But she still had to talk to him.

She still had to come clean.

If she could just get up the nerve . . .

CHAPTER 21

The dude group left on a Sunday.

Adam couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

It was great to know he was sliding toward a sale, but nerve-racking having MacGregor hanging around inspecting everything. When MacGregor had seen the gazebo going up in the meadow, he’d barked to Adam, “What the hell is that?”

“A gazebo.”

“I hate it,” he’d said.

“I don’t care.”

“I’m not buying this property with that monstrosity on it.”

“It’s on Paige’s property.”

“It looks like it’s crossing a line.”

Adam turned and ran his hand over his jaw as if he were inspecting it. “Mr. MacGregor, you have fifty acres of land to play with here. If you don’t like the twenty square feet that the gazebo might be taking up, you can probably talk Paige into razing it anytime after August 7. How’s that?”

“You’re talking me out of buying your property, son.”

“I’m doing no such thing. I’m trying to help you be neighborly.”

MacGregor had just growled. He was already pissed that Paige was waiting on Dorothy Silver’s offer rather than taking him up on his, and doubly pissed that Adam couldn’t sway it.

But Adam had kept him away from Paige. He hated the way the man stared at Paige’s property or, worse, Paige herself. He’d wanted to take him out on at least twenty occasions.

And now he was gone—he’d flown back to Tennessee and said he’d be in touch. The ranch had quieted down, the bison were back in the wild after their week of vaccines and injections, and things felt normal for the first time in ages.

In fact, things felt good.

Adam didn’t quite want to admit that to himself. The feeling was foreign. Even if he let himself acknowledge how good he felt, he’d have to follow up with the knowledge that Paige was part of the reason, and he couldn’t completely wrap his head around that, or the fact he’d be leaving her soon.

Besides, maybe it wasn’t Paige.

Maybe it was about being free.

And his plans were in motion.

As things should be.

And there was no stopping everything now.

He caught sight of Paige’s golf cart coming around the side of the resort—her hair lifted on the wind as she threw her head back and laughed with Amanda. As they bounced down the road toward town, they looked over at him and waved.

An incredible warmth filled his chest. And something that felt like joy. He didn’t even really know what it was, but
joy
was the word that kept coming to his mind.

Paige and Amanda both trusted him. And relied on him. And liked him. And he liked them. They’d let him take them horseback riding a few times when he could break away from the dude group, and he’d never remembered having such great days. He’d laughed and felt entirely relaxed—Amanda had proven to be a fast learner, and Paige could hold her own. Amanda seemed fascinated by the trails her mom had taken. And Adam had simply felt “at peace,” if that was a real thing.

These two women were changing his life in ways he couldn’t even comprehend.

He took a deep breath and looked away.

He didn’t want to think about what he was giving up.

Paige went the usual way up the back road to the Friends of the Sea Lion center.

“I think he’s just not into me,” Amanda said.

“Maybe he just doesn’t know how you feel about him.”

“Or he’s just not into me.” Amanda gave a wan smile.

They’d been discussing Garrett on their drives, Paige trying to encourage Amanda to be herself and not worry about Garrett too much. If it was meant to be between them, Garrett would come around.

“Sometimes boys can be a little slow,” Paige said. “You have to stay true to who you are. And if he likes you, he’ll eventually show interest.”

“Is that what happened with you and Adam?”

Paige blinked back. “What?”

“It’s not like I don’t know. Jeez. I see you two looking at each other. I’m not dumb.”

Paige didn’t know how Amanda was going to feel about that, given her mother and all, so she fumbled for the right words. “I had a crush on him when I was a teenager—about your age,” she admitted into the sage-filled air.

“Was it when he was dating my mom?”

Dang.
Teens were perceptive. “Um. Yeah.”

“I was starting to figure that out.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I guess it’s okay.” She shrugged.

Paige couldn’t bring herself to tell Amanda the whole story—that she’d been instrumental in breaking the couple up—and didn’t know if she’d ever be able to admit that. She could barely admit it to herself, definitely couldn’t admit it to Adam, and now certainly couldn’t admit it to Amanda, either.

“Did your mom ever talk to you about Adam?” Paige asked.

“She never told me his name. She just said that she and my father were teenage sweethearts, and that her parents and his parents broke them up, but he never fought it. So my mom took that as a cue and left him for good. She said he never really cared about her. And that he lived in a terrible place that she never could have gone back to anyway. And he had a terrible father. And a terrible stepmom. That’s all I knew.”

Paige reeled a little from that. Ginger was probably whom Samantha perceived as stepmom. And those things she’d said—many were lies or exaggerations. But Paige couldn’t tell Amanda any of that without calling her mom a liar. So she bit her tongue.

“But I don’t get the sense that Adam was ever that bad,” Amanda said wistfully, staring out at the canyon trees as they rolled by. “Maybe my mom just said some of that because she didn’t want me to feel like he left both of us.”

Paige couldn’t believe it. “You’re a very smart girl, Amanda.”

The following week, while they waited to hear if MacGregor was going to make an offer, Paige was invited to dinner again. Adam asked Amanda at dinner if she wanted to have a party for her birthday.

“A party?” Amanda asked, dinner fork halted.

She glanced at Paige. Paige shrugged.

“A small thing,” Adam said nervously. “You know, a few friends. Me and Paige. Bob and Gert. Maybe some of the ranch hands, Antonio and Tanya, Kelly and Joanne and Mendelson. But you can invite a couple of friends from the harbor. We can go to Rosa’s Cantina, and they’ll close off the bar so it’s just family and friends, and maybe play pool and listen to the jukebox?”

Amanda stared at him.

Paige suppressed a smile. He didn’t want Amanda to feel as if he were hiding her up here, and he was determined to find a way to make sure she understood that.

He glanced at Paige. “Is that uncool now?” His uncertainty about teenagers was endearing.

“No, it’s cool,” Amanda said.

Relief crossed his face.

“They have a band that comes in at eight thirty,” he went on. “They might be country, though. Do you hate country?”

“I can deal with country.”

More relief. He was trying so hard. Paige wanted to melt.

“Do you want me to set it up, then?” he asked, stabbing his dinner now. “You invite your friends from the harbor, and I’ll do the rest.”

Amanda looked at Paige. “Is this for real?”

“I think it is.” Paige smiled.

The night of the party, everyone assembled at Rosa’s Cantina.

Paige greeted the same group from last time: Antonio and Tanya, Joe, Little, Tony, Jen, Sherryl, and Kelly. Joanne and Mendelson were there. Bob and Gert came, of course. Gordon and Gabe came by with three of the new wranglers, whom Amanda seemed to know. Amanda had invited Garrett from down the hill.

“Is that Garrett?” Adam asked, leaning into Paige’s ear as the country band started up. “He was the only one she ended up inviting from the harbor.”

“Yeah. He’s the brother of Gordon and Gabe.”

“How exactly does Amanda know him?”

Paige stiffened. She wanted to tell him about Amanda’s crush, but she didn’t know if she could give up Amanda’s confidence in favor of Adam’s, especially since Amanda had so few confidantes.

“You should ask her about it,” she said. “Hey, don’t you still owe me a dance?” She whirled so she was in Adam’s arms.

“Do I? You have a long memory, Paige Grant.”

“And you have a short one, Adam Mason.”

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her. “Could that be my excuse for why I can’t dance? I can’t remember the steps.”

“I think you can learn. We’ll start with something slow. But for now, I’m leaving you here because I want to line-dance.” A number was starting behind them, and Paige glanced over her shoulder.

Adam lifted his eyes to the crowd. “Thank you for not making me do that.”

“No problem.”

Paige headed out to the dance floor, surprised that even Amanda was out there, laughing with the others and participating in country line dancing with her goth chained boots, Grateful Dead T-shirt, lighter makeup, and growing-out dyed hair. Paige was proud of her for trying a little of everything. She was finding her own way.

Rosa brought out a cake around nine, and Amanda seemed shocked. Everyone sang to her, and she wiped a tear away before she opened presents. She loved Adam’s flatiron—he even got a public hug out of that—plus, he gave her an envelope that had something in it that made her tear up again before she quickly brushed at her cheeks. Paige knew that Adam had been staying up the last few nights writing out that card.

Bob and Gert gave Amanda some baking trays and kitchen gadgets, Kelly gave her eight free riding lessons, Tanya and Antonio gave her a vinyl of the Grateful Dead, and others gave her books, movies, and iTunes cards.

Garrett looked stricken when she started opening gifts and turned to say something to his brother. When he made his way around the room toward Paige, he leaned toward her. “I didn’t know it was her
birthday
.”

“It’s okay. She’s not the type to care. If she didn’t tell you, that means she didn’t want you to get her anything.”

“I feel bad.”

“She won’t mind. I promise.”

He didn’t look appeased.

“You could offer her a dance, though,” Paige added.

He lifted his eyebrow.

“You’re the only one she invited up here from the harbor, you know.”

He looked around at the crowd as if that hadn’t occurred to him. “Really?”

“A dance would be special.”

He seemed to put the pieces together at once and started nodding his head. “Okay.”

Paige smiled. Boys could be so dense sometimes.

She looked at her own teenage crush and realized she was getting to do that all over again.

After cake and presents, the dancing started up again, and Paige waited for a slow song. Once one started, she found Adam, who was sitting with Bob and Gert, and drew him out of his chair.

“He still owes me,” she told Bob, who laughed.

As soon as Paige led him to the dance floor, he pulled her close. “Is Amanda going to notice that we can’t keep our hands off each other? At least I can’t while we’re dancing.”

“Is that a pathetic ploy to get out of this dance again?”

“It might be.”

“It won’t work. Besides, speak for yourself. I can keep my hands in appropriate places plenty.”

“I challenge you to do so for the next hour.”

She slid her hands toward his shoulders and stepped back a few inches.