Divided Interests

by Kelly Elliott

  As much as my folks wished I had been in Texas more, I had enjoyed traveling the world with my job, and they supported me one-hundred percent. Once I got traveling out of my system, I found myself daydreaming about owning my own little flower shop in Johnson City. It had been a long-term goal, one I’d wanted to do after I got some experience in the business world—another thing Lucas refused to understand.

  My mind drifted to the flower shops I’d visited in France. My mother loved flowers and had handed down her passion to me. The longer I worked in corporate America, the more I wanted a simpler life. The life that Lucas had once dreamed for us. The thought made my chest tighten with a dull ache that had never gone away since he’d walked away from me. I had been so angry with him. How could he make me choose? Why would he make me choose? Why didn’t he trust me? They were all questions I never got answered, and it still hurt as much today as it did back then.

  “Paige? You seem lost in thought,” I heard Lynn say, pulling me back to our conversation.

  With a neutral expression, I asked, “How is Lucas doing, besides traveling to Fiji?”

  Lynn forced a smile, and I wasn’t sure if it was for her sake or mine.

  “He’s doing really good. His career has taken off, which I think he’s happy about.”

  Lucas was a CAD engineer and worked for a large construction company in Austin, which I thought was crazy since he had been the one to state that he wanted to live in Johnson City forever and not live in a big city. His plan had always been to work for his father’s construction company based out of Johnson City. William had started the business, then passed it down to Carl, Lucas’s father. Carl also owned a cattle ranch down the road from my father’s. Lucas and I had become friends in elementary school. Way back when, he and Milo were best friends, and me and Jen were. I still kept in touch with Jen. Not as often as I would like, but we always picked up right where we left off, like we’d spoken yesterday. I loved that about Jen.

  “He’s been traveling a lot with Bianca. She likes to travel,” Lynn added.

  Ouch. That hurt more than I wanted to admit.

  He hadn’t been interested in traveling and seeing the world when I had wanted to.

  Lynn must have seen the look on my face because she attempted to backpedal. “He hates it, though. Tells me all the time he can’t stand the constant vacations.”

  “I’m happy he’s happy,” I said, hoping to ease the awkwardness. I truly was happy for him. Okay, that’s a lie. Maybe a small part of me somewhere deep in my heart felt hurt that Lucas traveled around the world with his current girlfriend. Maybe that part wasn’t small. It was big. Okay, it was huge, and it sucked. I decided I was not going to go down that path again, though, and pushed all thoughts of Lucas and Bianca out of my head.

  I couldn’t help but notice Lynn’s expression fall. Her eyes filled with sadness, and a part of me wanted to ask her if everything was okay. Then I realized her father-in-law had just died. Of course, she wasn’t alright.

  Lynn took my hands in hers. I couldn’t help but notice her cold hands, and I glanced down at them, attempting to rub away the chill. I missed my momma so much.

  “Are you happy, Paige? With your life in Austin?”

  With a nod, I replied, “Mmm-hmm.”

  Ugh. That couldn’t have sounded any less pathetic.

  I basically didn’t have a life, and I was tired. Tired of my desk job. Tired of my dull life. A part of me was ready to settle down, get married, and raise a family. I was knocking on thirty’s door. I lacked any sort of excitement in any area of my life. Maybe that was my problem. I needed to get out there, date. Go to the clubs when my friends asked me. It wasn’t surprising they’d stopped inviting me out. I turned them down ninety percent of the time.

  Linda May pulled me out of my thoughts. “Has Lucas asked that model to marry him yet?”

  Ah, yes. I could count on Linda May to bring my thoughts back to the happy couple. Bianca Howard. She was beautiful. She was rich. She was nothing like me. Lucas had been dating her for the last few years…how many exactly I didn’t know because I purposely tried not to keep up with his life.

  Fine. That was another lie.

  I had found out two years, six days, and a few odd hours ago that the man I thought I would marry someday had found himself the grand prize of a girlfriend.

  Like I said, pathetic.

  “No, but she was hoping for it on this last trip! I’m afraid William might have spoiled it for her with his passing. Lucas had to cut the trip short.”

  I internally fist-bumped with William. He couldn’t stand Bianca and made it known each time I visited or talk to him on the phone that he wished Lucas and I would find our way back to one another. I had tried, once. When I moved back to Austin, I called Lucas. He hadn’t been dating anyone at the time, and we made plans to meet for dinner. But the bastard never showed. He stood me up, and I was pissed. When I sent him a text and asked if it had slipped his mind, he replied back, “I had a change of plans.”

  Radio silence after that.

  My body had pulsed with anger, and I’d vowed to hate Lucas Foster for the rest of my life. Of course, I could never actually hate him. He was my first love. My momma used to tell me that once you open your heart to love, no matter what happens, you always love that person. How could your heart honestly stop loving someone? I believed she was right. It isn’t like the feeling fades. It just gets packed away, out of sight and mind. If I wasn’t still in love with Lucas, why did hearing about him or thinking about him still hurt?

  Why had I never truly moved on? I dated a guy recently for almost a year. For the last few months of our relationship, Jeff had been asking for me to move in with him. He even hinted about maybe getting married. I couldn’t do that to him. Especially not after the day I saw Lucas in Whole Foods in Austin, and I hid behind a display to watch him. I knew I wasn’t being honest with myself, or Jeff. I went to his place that night and broke up with him. That was almost seven months ago…

  I hadn’t been on a single date since.

  Pathetic. It might as well have been my middle name.

  “What about you, sweet little Paige? Are you dating anyone?” Linda asked.

  “Not currently. I was, but we broke up.”

  Lynn gave me a smile that said she was sorry, while Linda May looked me up and down, as if to say maybe it was the five extra pounds I’d packed on that was the breaking point.

  Fine, fine. Ten pounds.

  “Linda May, if you’ll excuse us, I have something personal to talk to Paige about.”

  My eyes widened at the emphasis Lynn had put on personal. Linda May shot Lynn a distasteful look and headed back into the house.

  “Like I was saying, I need you to stop by Lou’s office before you head back to Austin.”

  “Okay. I’ll do that. Is everything okay?”

  Lynn’s eyes sparkled with mischief. Something was up, and Lynn wasn’t about to fill me in on it.

  With a wink, she replied, “It will be.”

  Paige - Present day

  I STOOD IN front of the old house and smiled. I’d always loved this place. I’d even dreamed of owning it someday, and I was positive I had mentioned that a time or two to William. The fact that he left me the house thrilled me more than I could say.

  Well, he left me half of the house. The other half belonged to his grandson. My ex.

  Lucas.

  Looking at the large, two-story white house, I took in the little details. They didn’t build houses like this anymore. The large white columns held up the second-floor roof. I remembered sneaking out of the upstairs bedrooms and climbing onto that very roof. Lucas and I would lie out there and look at the stars. It wasn’t uncommon for all of us to spend the night at William and May’s house. May was Lucas’s grandmother. They loved having us kids there. Said it filled the house with love and laughter. Jen and I would stay in one room, while Lucas and Milo stayed in another.

  My gaze wandered to the em
pty front porch. Then Milo’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “I can give you an estimate to paint the house and do a few minor repairs. You want to keep it white, right?” Milo asked, writing in his notebook as we walked up the steps, into the foyer and over to the large living room.

  It was a no-brainer to call Milo when I realized the house could use a coat of paint inside and out. I probably should have waited for Lucas, but since I hadn’t heard from him after I left him a voicemail asking him to call me, I decided to jump feet first into this project. It had awakened my soul the moment Lou told me I was part-owner. I had to admit, I wasn’t surprised when Lou told me William had left the house to both of us. The man had wanted us to get back together something fierce and hadn’t been silent on the subject for the last ten years.

  “Yes, if we could match the shade of white, that would be amazing. I also found this old picture in one of my photo albums. Do you think you could build me a porch swing? I remember the four of us swinging on it. I was hoping the old one might be on the property somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet.”

  “I can talk to Carl. He’d be the best person to build it, since he probably swung on it too, and might enjoy building it,” Milo said with a wide smile, before it faded. “Paige, have you talked to Lucas yet?”

  “Nope,” I said, popping the P and holding up a swatch of paint colors against the wall in the living room.

  “Don’t you think y’all should decide which half the house is yours and which half is his?”

  The humor in his voice wasn’t lost on me.

  “My plan is to buy Lucas out.”

  Milo’s eyes went wide, and then he laughed. When I didn’t laugh, he stopped. “Wait, you’re being serious?”

  “Of course I am. Lucas doesn’t want this house. I’m pretty sure that his girlfriend doesn’t want to move to Johnson City. Besides, he has a home in Austin.”

  “So do you!”

  “Not anymore. I put my downtown loft on the market and moved into this farmhouse this morning…right after I quit my job.”

  He looked around, a stunned expression on his face. “Where’s all your stuff?”

  “Fresh start, Milo. On everything.”

  “Okay, but this house belonged to his grandfather. You don’t think he’s going to want to keep it?”

  I laughed mockingly. “Please. He’ll want to be rid of it simply because I’m a part of it now.”

  He frowned. “I don’t think so, Paige. He has asked about you a number of times in the past. Either to me or Jen.”

  I stared at him. Jen had never once mentioned Lucas asking about me. I decided to ignore him and keep talking. I’d have to deal with that bit of information later.

  “I intend on bringing this house back to its glory days. When William told me he had a storage unit outside of town filled with furniture, I knew he wanted it to be put back the way it was when he was little.”

  “When did he tell you that?”

  With a shrug, I said, “When I would visit him, he would talk about how the house used to be. And, he wrote it in a letter for me, telling me about the storage shed.”

  Milo looked around the house. “But there is already furniture in this place. And he has a storage shed full of it?”

  I nodded. “Maybe his parents’ furniture? Things he and May wanted to keep over the years. I haven’t made it over there yet to look at it.”

  “Does Lucas own part of it, as well?”

  With a smile that might have been a little snarky, I replied, “Nope. Just me.”

  Needless to say, when Lou told me William had left me fifty percent of his home here in Johnson City, I thought he was kidding. Then he handed me the letter William had written, and my heart nearly exploded. I felt in my pocket and smiled when I touched the faint outline of the folded-up paper that mentioned the storage shed and its contents being all mine.

  “What did he say in the letter?” Milo asked, standing behind me as I stood on the stepladder.

  “Just that he knew how much this house meant to me, how I had always dreamed of owning it. He wanted to make that dream come true.”

  “Okay, so where does Lucas fit in with all of this? Not to mention his hotter-than-fuck girlfriend?”

  I rolled my eyes, then stepped off the stepladder, only to have Milo hold onto my hips and look at me with a funny expression.

  “Thanks, I’m good,” I said. He dropped his hold and took a step back.

  “Sorry, force of habit.”

  I shrugged, not thinking anything of it.

  “The way I look at it, William felt obligated to leave Lucas half the house. He is, after all, his grandson. They were very close.”

  Milo rubbed his chin. “And you think Lucas won’t want to move in here?”

  This time I laughed for real. “Oh please, Milo. He lives in Austin in a mansion of an apartment with his…what did you call her? Hotter-than-hot girlfriend. I seriously doubt he wants to move her back to the country. I’m positive Bianca doesn’t want to live here.”

  “I said hotter than fuck.”

  I scowled.

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I can’t see that. Betty said Bianca does nothing but bitch whenever they stay there.”

  “Why don’t they stay at Carl and Lynn’s place?”

  Milo’s cheeks went red. “Well, according to Betty, Bianca is a screamer when they have sex.”

  I crinkled my nose. “Gross. I didn’t need to know that.”

  He shrugged. “Plus Lynn can’t stand Bianca, and she knows it. Lucas told me his mom has slipped a few times and called her Paige.”

  Gasping, I covered my mouth. “She has not!”

  Milo laughed. “She has, and Lucas said she does it on purpose, to piss off Bianca.”

  With my lips pressed together, I smiled. I always loved Lynn.

  It was time to change the subject. “When do you think you can get a crew here to paint?”

  “You don’t even want to know how much it’s going to cost, Paige.” He folded up his notebook and slid it into his bag.

  “Of course, I do, but I know you’re not going to rake me over the coals, right?”

  He winked, and I couldn’t help but give him one back. Milo had always been good looking. Not as handsome as Lucas, but good looking. It was nice to have a man do something as simple as wink at me. He’d recently divorced the woman he’d met in college. Brought her home to Johnson City and thought she loved it. She loved it alright; she loved screwing the high school’s assistant football coach—who happened to be Milo’s brother. They were currently living together, which was a huge scandal for the small town of Johnson City.

  The divorce was final about six months ago, or at least that was what Jen told me.

  We started walking back to the front door. “I’ll get you a quote in the next day or two. Once you narrow down the colors for the inside, I’ll have a better price.”

  “What if I helped paint the inside? That would save some money, right?” I asked as Milo stepped onto the front porch.

  “Of course, it would. I can buy you the paint at cost, then you can knock out as much of the inside as you can. You’ve got the time now, especially if you quit your job, which I still can’t believe you did.”

  “Want to help in your free time…off the clock?” I asked, with a hint of flirting in my voice.

  He raised a brow and smiled. “Are you flirting with me, Paige Miller?”

  I smiled. “If I am, does that mean you’ll help me paint the inside and not charge for the labor?”

  “Will there be beer and pizza included in this arrangement?”

  “Yes, of course. Do you not know me, Milo?”

  He laughed. “Consider it done. I don’t have much free time, but I’ll come over a few nights and help you.”

  I was about to hug him when a familiar voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “Well, isn’t this cozy. Ink isn’t even dry on the divorce papers, Milo.”

  Lucas.

&nbs
p; Milo turned and let out a laugh. I—on the other hand—shot Lucas a dirty look.

  One, because he looked so freaking handsome standing there it was totally unfair. Especially since my body instantly reacted at the sight of him. I let my eyes move down his body and then chuckled when I found fancy dress shoes. Gone were the days of cowboy boots for Lucas Foster. In their place, preppy shoes that looked uncomfortable and so damn out of place on this property and in this town. Not to mention the khaki dress pants, which he was filling out quite nicely, if I was being honest. But this look wasn’t Lucas. At. All.

  “Holy shit, Lucas Foster, the prodigal son has returned.”

  Lucas’s eyes turned from Milo to me. I tried to hide it when my breath hitched. Just the sight of him made my insides quiver. I hated that he still had such a hold on me. He, on the other hand, didn’t have a single reaction to seeing me. Well, except for the scowl.

  “I’m only in town long enough to settle up a…real estate issue.”

  My arms folded over my chest as I narrowed my gaze on him. Looks like those ten extra pounds were not helping me in the sexy department because Lucas looked like he was sick simply at the sight of me.

  Jerk.

  He looked away, totally unaffected. If it didn’t hurt so much, I’d ignore him. But I knew how I would handle all of this. Later tonight I’d lie in bed for far too long and analyze every single second, starting with that look. Then I would compare myself to that stupid girlfriend before I finally snapped out of it and realized I may not look like a super model, but I did have a nice body. Even with a few extra pounds on my frame. I could still get guys to flirt with me. Take Milo, for example. Men asked me out at the office all the time. The answer was always no because I didn’t want to admit I still had feelings for a man who had walked away from me over a decade ago.

  God. Again, pathetic. I really needed to dig deep and pull out my inner badass woman. The part of me that said, “Fuck Lucas Foster.” I knew what I was worth, and it had been his loss, not mine.

  But still, the stupid heart wants what it wants. Ugh.