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

by Lauren Christopher

  Paige nodded at the litany of information she barely heard and gave a courteous pause before pressing more about what she truly wanted to know. “So where were Samantha and Amanda living?”

  He gave a defeated sigh. “Alabama.”

  “What did Amanda say when she arrived here?”

  “Listen, Paige.” They arrived at 8A, and he turned to face her. “I’m tired. You must be tired. Let’s do this another time. In the morning I’ll send Antonio over to the house to look at the points of entry the intruders might be finding. And Pedro from town is going to take a look at the electric lines. Seems a line went down from our last storm, and they did a quick fix because they thought the property was going to be donated or abandoned. But now they need to look into it deeper. They’ll get it done, though. I told Pedro you needed the electric back on in a hurry. In the meantime, why don’t you stay around here for a day?”

  “Here?”

  Adam glanced around. “Yes. Here.”

  “I can’t stay around here.”

  His scowl reappeared, with a bit of hurt lacing the edges of the irritation. “It’s not so bad.”

  “I mean, I have to get to work. I need to get into Gram’s house tomorrow.”

  He shook his head. “I need one day.”

  “I can’t spare a day.”

  The frustration was back on his face. “I need a day.”

  She shook her head.

  “Paige. One day. Let me get it secured.”

  She wanted to argue. But he looked tired, and she was tired, and he’d helped her quite a few times already today, and she didn’t want to put him through any more paces. Guilt had been rising into her throat as she’d realized that she and her mom had split up not just a teenage couple but an entire family—Adam, Samantha, and Amanda. And it had had terrible, long-lasting effects.

  Paige thought of Amanda again, how sullen she looked, how scared she must be, and how she’d just lost her mother. She’d just learned of a father she might not have even known she had. She’d probably been dropped off here on this island mountaintop, away from life as she knew it, all against her will.

  And Adam, meanwhile, was probably trying to figure out how to deal with all of this.

  Without anything more to say—except, maybe, a heartfelt I’m sorry that she couldn’t yet get out of her closing throat—Paige nodded and headed into her room.

  Paige’s head was a fuzzy haze of robin’s-egg blue and seashell pink when she came out of her restless sleep. As she moved to stretch, a strip of sunlight streamed through her window like a spotlight, catching her in the eye. The previous day’s events started to come back to her in flashes: the sweeping, the cleaning, meeting Adam at the Castle, the Dorothy Silver deal going south but having some hope. And then, slowly, the night’s events: the intruder, Adam on his horse, the hot tub, the lights going out, the splinter, Adam’s daughter . . .

  God.

  She moaned against everything—the long, emotional day, the disappointment at not being able to close a business deal, the guilt she ultimately felt at breaking up a family, the dull ache in her legs and arms from all the sweeping . . .

  She rolled over and squinted against the sun.

  What time was it?

  She snatched her phone from the nightstand. Eight. She should be cleaning by now.

  But Adam had requested she not go over there today.

  She stared at the ceiling and went through a mental checklist of the house, thinking of all the things that would need to be fixed or touched up. There was a water leak in one part of the ceiling that she realized might be coming from an upstairs sink. There was a broken closet door upstairs, a chipped mirror in one of the bathrooms, a busted toilet handle in another, a loose balustrade toward the top of the stairs, some scratches in the wood floor in one of the bedrooms, and the whole house could use a fresh coat of paint. She needed to get the interior and exterior in decent enough condition that Dorothy could come by to give them the go-ahead on the wedding. Then she’d have to jump through hoops to make the whole thing look just like the movie for the actual wedding. It was a lot to take on. But overall, it was doable.

  If she could get started, that was.

  She swung herself out of bed, unrolled her yoga mat, and spent an hour doing her favorite asana practice, ending with a long corpse pose to help stretch her muscles.

  Then she settled at the room’s side table and came up with a game plan. She opened her laptop and created an Excel sheet of the projects she’d need to tackle, typed steps to get each done, and listed target dates. She spread out the landscaping blueprints on one table to study them again, then propped some photos up from the movie along one wall. She stepped back to gaze at the pictures. The place did look magical back then. The gazebo was a bit too big—much larger than a normal one—almost the size of a town-square bandstand—but it looked pretty in the middle of the meadow with its bright-white paint and flowers at its base. She remembered Adam saying it had been a movie prop, so it had never actually existed, but it was a key element of Dorothy’s wedding dreams. Paige would have to build her one. She just hoped Adam would let her build it in the meadow between their properties. If not, she wasn’t sure where she would put it.

  First things first, though. Today she’d head into town to get started on some supplies to make the house more habitable.

  And hope she didn’t see her sisters.

  And try to forget about how guilty she felt now about Adam and Amanda.

  Once she got ready, she drove her golf cart down the mountain and into town, hoping she could avoid Adam. Her emotions were all over the place, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about facing him again. The chemistry she’d always felt with him was mixing dangerously with the memories, the fantasies she’d had, the anger and frustration that he’d ignored her, the lack of forgiveness she’d carried for the last several years, and now her guilt. Everything was swirling together in a complicated storm of lust, adoration, resentment, attraction, dismissal, and obsession. It was too many feelings to have for one person, complicated with too much passing time. And now she was asking him to do a very big favor for her family.

  She turned her golf cart at the base of the mountain on N Street and puttered her way around the edge of Carmelita. Joe’s Mercantile was on one side; Karen’s Sundries was on another. There was a bookstore called Book, Line, and Sinker that she’d always loved, right next to the toy shop Once Upon a Toy. There was a little hardware store on Main Street that would probably become her best friend over the next few months. She knew the clerk there—an elderly gentleman named Mr. Clark—who always had the prettiest flowers out front, including the gerbera daisies her sister Natalie favored. Elliott routinely bought them for her each month. Natalie had told Elliott last March that she loved him so much she would be ready to take the leap when the daisies went all the way around the house. They were at three-quarters now.

  And Paige was jealous.

  This realization over the last couple of months surprised her. Mostly because long-term relationships were not her thing. She made the worst choices of men imaginable, and seemed to pick cheaters or other men she couldn’t trust—one after another. She was ready to give up and assume she’d never get married. She didn’t want children anyway. She could be one of those women she admired in the movies—like Katharine Hepburn, maybe, flitting from man to man, adventure to adventure, but never marrying. The other advantage to that lifestyle was that she wouldn’t have to subject anyone else to her Calamity June life. Paige felt as if drama followed her everywhere—car crashes, bee-sting allergies, birds falling from the sky and landing on her head. She’d nearly been hit by lightning once. And even though it had been sort of exciting as a teenager, and even in her early twenties, and everyone said they loved hanging around her because she was like a walking I Love Lucy episode, it was starting to become tiresome. And worrisome. And she was starting to think she had a curse.

  Paige spotted the entrance to the island’s onl
y market and pulled into the gravel parking lot behind the large wooden wagon filled with fresh flowers. Lavender Island was a floral color-fest, especially at this time of year. The climate was Mediterranean, and there was always an explosion of colorful flowers to highlight the Spanish-style architecture—sea lavender (after which the island was named), regular lavender, geraniums, poppies, blooming ice plant, jasmine, roses, Queen Anne’s lace, baby’s breath, bougainvillea. The island was always gorgeous and alive. The changing color was what Paige loved most about Lavender Island. Everything that stayed stagnant she distrusted.

  Paige grabbed a bouquet of irises she’d put on Gram’s dining table in the old blue delft pitcher she’d found in a cupboard, then wandered through the aisles, basket on her arm. She ducked her head when the store owner, Mr. Fieldstone, looked her way. He probably wouldn’t remember her, but she kept her sunglasses handy just in case.

  Soon she heard two women giggling by the paperback section.

  “Here’s one of my favorites,” one woman said. “Have you read this one, Marie? It’s not erotica, either, but I love it. The hero is a whale watcher, and he manages to do a little sightseeing of his own, if you know what I mean.”

  Giggles.

  It sounded like Doris and Marie, two of the islanders who lived at the Casas del Sur senior-citizen apartments in the harbor. They’d both known Paige’s grandmother and were also friends of Natalie, who now worked at Casas del Sur full-time. They would surely say something to Nat if they saw Paige there.

  “Oooh, and this one’s good. This is about a rancher,” the Doris voice said.

  Paige flattened herself against a display of paper towels and began sidling into the next aisle.

  “Oh, speaking of ranchers,” the Marie voice said, “did you see Adam Mason down here the other day?”

  Paige froze. A paper-towel roll almost toppled to the floor, and she quickly caught it and shoved it back in place.

  “I did!” the Doris voice said. “I think he was looking at curling irons.”

  “Curling irons?”

  “I couldn’t figure out why, either. I can never figure him out. He’s such a quiet man. I was going to offer to help, but I’m never certain if he welcomes chitchat or not.”

  “Probably not. You’d overwhelm him with your version of chitchat.”

  Both women giggled.

  “Anyway, I wondered because I hadn’t seen him around since George’s funeral, and when I thought I saw him down here, I was relieved to see him out and about,” the Marie voice said. “He’s always been so standoffish. But I wonder if he needs help up there.”

  “Help with what?” Doris asked.

  “Help with anything. He’s all by himself. And I heard he’s moving. I’d hate to think he’s leaving just because he’s overwhelmed by that resort. He has a whole town here who would help him. Do you think he knows that?”

  “I heard he’s got a young girl up there,” a man’s voice piped in.

  Paige peered around the corner. Ugh. Kilner Kileen. He was always a troublemaker. He was a worse gossip than anyone else in this town.

  “A young girl? You mean a girlfriend?” Doris questioned. “That would be good for Adam.”

  “No. Real young,” Kilner added. “Like yay high. Like jailbait.”

  Paige resisted the urge to stomp around the corner and shove Kilner to the ground. She wanted to explain that the young girl was Adam’s daughter. She hated rumors. Especially slimy, sexual ones started by creeps like Kilner. It was one of the things that made this island deplorable. She couldn’t imagine how Natalie and Elliott and Olivia and Jon could live here all the time.

  “I’m just sayin’ he’s maybe got some funny business goin’ on up there,” Kilner added.

  Paige bit her lip. It was hard not to whirl around and shake some sense into that idiot. But this was not her information to share. She had no idea what Adam wanted the townspeople to know. And besides, she tried to remind herself that she, too, had believed much the same about Adam’s hermit ways not too many hours ago.

  “Hmmm.” Doris didn’t sound convinced.

  A silence fell in which Paige imagined the two women to be looking at more paperbacks, or maybe trying to move away from Kilner.

  Paige inched slowly around the paper towels and slid her sunglasses on as she heard the front doorbell. She really didn’t want anyone to see her here. Who knew the place filled up at ten a.m.? She spun away from the door and stared intently at whatever was on the shelf nearest her. Great. K-Y Jelly. Trojans on the next shelf. She kept sliding until she was in front of the tampons, at least.

  Kilner paid for his purchases, trying to get some agreement about his conclusions regarding Adam, but Mr. Fieldstone didn’t seem interested in feeding that fire. Kilner eventually shuffled out the door. The bell on the door handle seemed to cheerfully celebrate his exit.

  “Well, that doesn’t sound right,” the Doris voice said, lower now, presumably just to Marie. “Adam seems like a nice young man. Although there was that curling-iron thing . . .”

  A silence went on for about a minute; then Paige heard someone sigh. “I had always hoped they’d revive that apple festival,” the Doris voice added. “I guess they never will.”

  “Remember those pies Ellen used to make?”

  The women’s voices moved toward the front counter.

  “Oh yes. And remember the dunking for apples and all the fun games? So much fun.”

  As they moved farther away, Paige inched toward the back. She’d find her WD-40, her granola for tomorrow, a few pieces of fresh fruit, and get out of there with her flowers. Mr. Fieldstone looked rather distracted, and wasn’t making small talk with anyone, so she’d move quickly.

  And stop thinking about Adam.

  And Amanda.

  And rumors.

  She didn’t need to take all this so personally. These were not her battles to fight. Adam and Amanda were not her family to defend, and Nowhere Ranch was not her business.

  She needed to keep her heart safe and out of the way, and just get business done here.

  CHAPTER 7

  Adam took careful note of the morning’s crosswinds and shifted his frame in the Cessna, adding a few extra knots of airspeed as he glanced at the ocean whitecaps and made his way back to his airport.

  It had been a rough night. He hadn’t slept well, and he’d been up since daybreak to fly this charter. Now that his client was safely landed in LA, Adam could enjoy the flight back and take a few deep breaths.

  And try to get his mind off everything.

  It wasn’t easy. As if fixing the place, finding a fast buyer, and getting Amanda back to Alabama in time for the start of art school weren’t enough to worry about, he now had Paige Grant in his line of vision. And he didn’t know why she was rattling him.

  At the beginning of their hot-tub conversation, all he’d been able to see was the young girl who’d caused so much trouble for him that one summer. And the one who, like him, had been blamed for those fires. Those were the rumors anyway. Half the town thought she’d done it, and half thought he had—Calamity June or Adam. His dad had gone with Adam. And had him thrown in jail, after Ginger threatened to report him if he didn’t. It was the beginning of the end between him and his dad, their trust forever severed since that day.

  So he didn’t have great memories of that time. Or of Ginger. Or of Paige. But the more he’d talked with Paige last night, and the more she’d sauntered around the side of the tub, coming closer and closer, the more he’d started to see her as a different person.

  She’d grown up. Obviously. He’d struggled to reconcile her sexiness in the velvet pantsuit—the way her curves made the color change and made him want to reach out and touch—with the young girl in the goth makeup. It had been easier to keep his eyes closed so his body didn’t betray him underwater. He needed to separate the two images of her. This new Paige was here to do business. This new Paige seemed smart and shrewd. Although she’d started out her n
egotiations with silly, romantic notions about wildflowers and gazebos and elaborate weddings, he could see now that she meant business and planned to get things done. And—especially interesting—this new Paige was someone he could relate to. Her stories about being a rebellious teen in Ginger’s world had made him smile. And reminded him of himself. And, frankly, of Amanda. He wondered if he and Paige Grant had met at a different time—and under different circumstances—they’d have been friends.

  Although if she’d looked that good in velvet, maybe not.

  He dipped his wing slightly. Out the window his island came into view, and he felt the usual peace that brought him. Though now the familiarity was tinged with an ache in the back of his throat. He hated to lose his mother’s family’s airport. He’d always felt as though he was his mother’s keeper—responsible for her and her memory—ever since he’d lost her. His dad had not cared about her family’s airport, so Adam had taken it on. His brother, Noel, had moved to Phoenix a year ago, and there was no way Adam was going to lasso him back to the island. Noel had made his escape, and Adam was happy for him.

  And now, with Amanda here, he wasn’t going to tie her down, too. She wanted to leave. He understood that. Amanda had been embarking on her own dreams right before her mother died—she’d told him she’d been accepted into a prestigious art school she’d always wanted to go to in Alabama. And Adam wanted to give her a chance there. After losing her mother, he couldn’t let her dreams slip away, too. He’d be letting go of his mother’s legacy—and might never forgive himself for that—but he couldn’t screw up his new daughter’s life. Guilt and failure were warring with guilt and failure.

  And guilt and failure were winning.

  He dropped his wing deeper into the wind and searched for his visual cues. The recent May rains had left the Southern California island interior beautifully green, and he enjoyed the view as he tracked a herd of bison moving together through the center. There were three herds of free-roaming bison here on the island, initially brought here in 1952 for Dorothy Silver’s movie and never removed. His family had been contracted to help with herd control for many years, helping to ship bison off the island to the Dakotas, where they were allowed to roam free. But his dad had started drinking during those years, and eventually the Lavender Island Conservancy took over, implementing a new birth-control shot to manage the population in a simpler but equally humane way.