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

by Lauren Christopher

  “I’m, um, sorry about last night,” she blurted. “Especially if I said or did anything inappropriate.”

  He finally looked at her. His mouth quirked up at the side. “Inappropriate?”

  “The, um . . . flirting. Or trying to get you to kiss me.” She scrunched her face up. It sounded so ridiculous. Like some college coed, not an almost-thirty-year-old businesswoman. “I hope we can forget that ever happened and go back to business.” She flapped her hand around.

  As Adam stared off toward the horizon, the sun lit the side of his face. “If that’s what you want,” he said.

  “Yes.” She breathed the word more than said it. “Yes. Please. Let’s just forget that even happened. I see MacGregor showed up, after all.”

  He glanced once more at Paige with a polite nod. “He has.”

  “I hope we can still come to an agreement for the wedding? Maybe we can still work something out? I was thinking maybe the orchard—”

  “Paige.”

  She looked up at him. His amusement had slid off his face, replaced now by his familiar scowl.

  “Let me meet with him first.”

  She nodded.

  “The electricity should be back on at your place. Pedro said it would be ready today.”

  Paige nodded again and watched Adam amble away. She threw her sleeping bag into the back of the cart and took off for her new home.

  She needed to keep this situation under control.

  Adam had a busy day with the dudes. The first day was usually allowing them to get settled, giving them a tour of the property, and introducing them to the horses. They were at the stables now, getting their first lessons from Joseph, who did the horse-trail tours when he wasn’t bartending at Rosa’s.

  It was great to have something to do. It kept his mind off Paige. He’d had a lot of fun with her last night—it was the first night in a long time he’d just relaxed and enjoyed himself, and he’d thought they were even making a connection—but her abrupt 180 this morning reminded him that she was just doing business here. Much like Ginger.

  Ginger had started a relationship with his father that summer and had eventually gotten him to fall in love with her. But his father had failed to separate business from pleasure and had started signing over land to her by leading with his heart. Or other body parts. Adam still wasn’t sure. Regardless, Ginger had acquired all the land south of their house and one hundred feet of meadow before George even knew what hit him.

  Adam had to be smart. And not make the same mistakes.

  He liked Paige a lot, especially the way she was last night—so gorgeous and open. But there was no way he was going to be an idiot about this. She was here to do business. And he knew now that she saw last night as a mistake. Thank God he hadn’t actually kissed her.

  He plodded into the kitchen after finishing up in the stables and found Amanda taking up two dining chairs, sitting in one and leaning over the other with a nail-polish brush poised over her toes.

  “Hey, you wanted to go down to the harbor today, right?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Yes, you did. That’s what you said yesterday. I can take you now.”

  “I don’t want to go anymore.”

  He set his bridle down on the counter and frowned at her. “Why not? What happened?”

  “It was a onetime thing.”

  He leafed through the mail. “I’m sorry. What was the onetime thing?”

  “Nothing.”

  He frowned. It was so damned hard to talk to her. She seemed to look at him with nothing but disdain, if she looked at him at all. But then his thoughts drifted to what Paige had said last night: maybe Amanda just wanted to know how he felt about her mom. He took a long look at her.

  “Your mom used to paint her nails like that when she was about your age,” he said.

  Amanda’s head snapped up. She stared at him for about ten seconds, which was ten seconds longer than usual. “She did?”

  Encouraged, he went on. “Yeah, she had long fingernails, also, and I remember she used to have a different color on every day. Or at least it seemed that way to me.”

  It was a weird thing to remember about Samantha, but there it was. He hadn’t thought about her in years, and this was a strange place to start, but that was definitely a memory. Pink, black, blue, silver, white—she had different colors all the time. He remembered staring at her toes when they’d sit in beach chairs and wriggle their feet in the sand. She had toe rings, too. But since he’d found Samantha’s toe rings rather sexy, he decided not to mention that part to Amanda.

  “Did you like my mom’s fingernails?” Amanda put the lid on her polish and turned more toward him.

  He shrugged. “Well, I was an eighteen-year-old boy, so I liked everything about your mom.”

  Amanda smiled.

  He did a double take and couldn’t help but stare as she toyed with the bottle of polish. She’d never smiled at anything he’d said before. And here she was, smiling for a good two seconds.

  “What else did you like about her?” Amanda asked.

  Damn. His blood started racing with something that felt like joy. Amanda was talking to him. In a sweet, smile-in-her-voice way. Paige was right. She was probably craving information about her mom, and maybe just needed to know that he’d cared for her. Why hadn’t he thought of this?

  He wandered toward the fridge and pulled out some leftover apple fritters, remembering that Amanda had gobbled one up when Gert brought them over the other night. He popped two of them into the microwave.

  “I liked a lot of things about her,” he said to buy himself some time. He had to think. What could he remember about Samantha? “She was beautiful, of course,” he said, hitting the buttons.

  “What did she look like then?” Amanda asked.

  “Kind of like you, really. She had long hair like yours. She had blue eyes like yours. She always wore sandals, like you do. Except when we were on the horses. Then she had these brown boots with flowers all over them.” He chuckled. He hadn’t thought about that in years, either, but there it was. The other kids had made fun of her flowery cowboy boots, but he’d thought they were pretty. Growing up with just his dad and brother and a bunch of burly ranch hands, he’d found everything that was feminine about girls fascinating.

  The microwave pinged. He found a towel to grab the hot plate with and walked the fritters over to the kitchen table.

  Amanda was fidgeting with her polish bottle. “How did you two meet?”

  He set the plate between them and pulled up a chair. He had to rack his brain for that one. He didn’t dare make something up: What if Samantha had already told her the story, and Amanda was testing him?

  He slid the plate over to buy some time. “Have one.”

  “I’ll have half,” she said, breaking one in two.

  He couldn’t believe she was finally eating something with him.

  “So how did you meet?” she asked again around a big bite of pastry.

  He strained for some memory. A vague image came to him, of Samantha sitting across from him at a campfire. “We were both counselors here on the island one summer. I had been doing the camp for a couple of years, but one summer she came from the mainland and joined the staff. I remember seeing her across the campfire and feeling like a lightning bolt hit me.”

  Amanda smiled at that.

  Paige was absolutely right. Amanda just needed to know that he had cared for her mom and, by extension, that he now cared for her. He reached back for any memory he could conjure. Unfortunately, most of what came up was randy eighteen-year-old boy stuff. But he tried to think of something G-rated he could share.

  “She was good on horseback,” he suddenly remembered.

  “Really?” Amanda crinkled her nose. “I can’t imagine my mom riding a horse.”

  “Yeah, we rode almost every day.”

  “Seriously?”

  Adam nodded. “I was the riding instructor, so I think she used to pretend she ne
eded lessons so I’d take her out every day.”

  Amanda laughed.

  “She liked this horse we had named Bartlett.” He couldn’t help but smile at that. He’d loved Bartlett, too. “He was a beautiful brown-and-white Appaloosa. She was great with him. She liked the trails that went along Heart’s Cove.”

  “Really?” Amanda picked at her fritter.

  “Want me to take you out there sometime? You could ride the same trails she loved.”

  “I don’t know how to ride.”

  “I’ll teach you. I’m a pretty good instructor.” He winked at her.

  She looked away, but she didn’t say no.

  She finished her half of the fritter and started playing with the nail-polish bottle again. “Did my mom have other friends here?”

  “She had lots of friends.”

  “Anyone who’s still here?”

  “I’ll think about it. I have to remember who was here back then.”

  She nodded, then scooted abruptly from the table.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to clean my room.”

  Adam knew she simply said that anytime she wanted to escape to her room, but he let it go.

  He’d thought things were going so well. But now he ate the rest of his fritter in silence.

  Paige drove back up the road in the golf cart, the wheels straining on the hill, and put her hand on her packages so they didn’t fly out. She’d decided she couldn’t go another day without a few more hardware supplies, or else too many of her projects would fall behind schedule. But she still hadn’t wanted her sisters to know she was on the island. She’d grabbed a wide-brimmed baseball hat, shoved on a pair of large Jackie-O sunglasses, and hoped for the best.

  Mr. Clark at the hardware store hadn’t even given her a second glance, and, because of her success, she’d decided to make a quick stop at the market to get a few more groceries and snacks.

  Now she jiggled Gram’s kitchen door with one hand while balancing her bags with the other.

  Suddenly she sensed a figure over her shoulder.

  She whirled into one of her self-defense moves.

  “Whoa!” Adam moved out of her elbow’s range as her bag went flying.

  Her granola bars skittered across the dirt, her orange and apple rolled off the edge into the grass, and the fresh flowers she’d bought from Clark’s fell in a heap.

  Adam put his hands up in apology. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He lunged off the porch to pick up the runaway fruit.

  “I didn’t expect anyone here.” She bent for the granola bars and then lifted and shook out the poor flowers. “I guess . . . I guess I’m still a little jittery about intruders.”

  He took two of the bags, dropping the collected fruit into one. “It is quiet at this time of day,” he said. “I usually like it.”

  He looked as good as he had that morning—still in faded blue jeans, but now with a fresh gray T-shirt that outlined his muscles. His hat sat familiarly low on his forehead, and the look he gave her out from under the brim didn’t seem as scowling. It looked curious, maybe. Confused. Probably at the weird woman he didn’t really know how to deal with. She was trying to do business with him, but also flirting with him. Now he knew she was cursed. He knew she was prone to stumbling. And talking too much when tipsy. He knew she’d had a crush on him when they were younger, and that she acted just as silly and giddy now if the moonlight hit him in a certain way. He knew she couldn’t fit through a window and that she attracted bats and insects. And that she might kiss him at any given moment.

  “That’s not all you’re eating, is it?” he asked, scowling at the granola bars.

  She turned to work her key and jiggle the door. “Is there something you want, Adam?”

  The door gave way, and she lunged inside, unloading her bags onto the dining table. Once her arms were empty, she turned to find him hesitating in the doorway. “You can come in.”

  He entered as if the house were haunted and added the other two bags to the mix, staring at them as if searching for something to say. He probably didn’t know how on earth to deal with her at this point. She should put him out of his misery.

  “Is this about MacGregor?” she asked.

  “No. That’s not why I’m here. I did talk to him today, but he’s remaining tight-lipped about his plans. He said he wants to experience the dude ranch first. So I don’t have an answer for you yet.”

  “Is this about that almost-kiss last night?” she blurted. There. That should get rid of him.

  He rubbed the side of his nose and avoided her eyes. “That’s no problem, Paige. I knew you had too much to drink.”

  She began organizing the few food items. “It won’t happen again. I mean, the blathering and the trying to get you to kiss me and everything—that won’t happen again. The having too much to drink might, if we’re being honest.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Well, I have been a problem, right?”

  She watched him squirm. This was always where her conquests usually ended. Adam would never be interested in her because she was the comedienne. The Lucille Ball. Guys found her fun to hang out with, but she wasn’t the elegant, classy woman men fell in love with and wanted to get into bed with and wanted to see again. Why couldn’t she ever be the classy, sexy Lauren Bacall?

  “You weren’t a problem,” he said. “You were fun.”

  She started slamming her groceries onto the cupboard shelves. “Even this past week—the house, the electricity, the shattered window, the bats.”

  “You’re not a problem, Paige. Fixing the house up can only help me sell, too. And I came to say thanks and ask you a favor, in fact.”

  Her hand stalled halfway to the cupboard with a jar of peanut butter. A favor? She half wanted to know what it was and half wanted to drag out the suspense for a few more minutes so she could enjoy this new Adam—this one who was perhaps a little embarrassed and damned cute. She turned toward him.

  “First, I need to thank you,” he said.

  “Thank me?”

  “For what you said about Amanda last night. You were right. She needed to hear me talk about Samantha.”

  “You talked with her about Samantha?”

  A flash of pride shot through her that he’d listened to what she’d said last night, and that he’d acted on it, and—most important—that it had worked. Paige was glad that Amanda probably got to hear a little affirmation and love. But then, as he nodded, a crushing sense of jealousy pervaded her. And, of course, embarrassment came right on the heels of that. She was happy for Amanda and didn’t want to deny the girl any happiness, but her old childish jealousies about what Adam loved about Samantha were shoving to the forefront again.

  Paige unloaded her cans of green beans.

  Adam, meanwhile, tapped his finger on the edge of the table in a distracted, erratic rhythm. “So the favor. I, uh . . .” He shrugged.

  She folded her paper bags and stared at him, waiting. Whatever it was, it might work to her advantage. If she could help him with a second thing and prove she wasn’t a complete fool, he might more seriously consider helping her with the whole Dorothy Silver situation. Even if MacGregor was planning on buying the property, maybe she could still borrow the meadow for a short time. If they timed it right, she could have the whole gazebo deconstructed again by the time he moved in. She just had to figure out how to ask Adam about it.

  “Do you know what a flatiron is?” he suddenly asked.

  The question startled her for a second, but then she remembered the conversation she’d overheard in town the other day. She smiled as she folded the last bag. “Yes, I do.”

  “Is there any chance you could help me find one for Amanda?”

  She looked at him sideways.

  “It’s for her birthday. I’m thinking you understand her, and I don’t know what I’m looking for. I know you just got back from town, but I’ll drive. And I’ve got faster wheels. I’ll even throw in d
inner.”

  She tucked the bags into the pantry. It would be nice to spend more time with him. She could maybe have a second chance at a first impression. Or was it her fourth chance at a second impression? Or her third chance at a third impression? Either way, she was trying to impress him in a business sense now, not trying to get him to notice her body. Right?

  But she shouldn’t go back into town. She’d barely gotten through town those first two times without being spotted.

  “I’d like to help,” she said. “But honestly, I’m trying to keep from being seen. I don’t want my sisters to know I’m here yet.”

  “Ah. That’s right. The long story. Maybe you can explain all that to me.” He wandered into the kitchen and looked around a little. “I can help you keep a low profile. And we don’t have to eat dinner there—we can bring something back.”

  “What about the dude group?”

  “I have three more hours while they’re out on a practice ride. We can have dinner—just us. I’ll make something at my place.”

  Paige was surprised that he wanted to spend so much time with her after her revelations last night. Maybe he didn’t think she was crazy.

  “You cook?” she asked.

  He gave her a crooked grin. “I didn’t say I’d cook something at my place. I said make. I’m thinking sandwiches.”

  “Sandwiches are part of your repertoire?”

  “It’s a pretty limited repertoire. It’s that or eggs or salsa.”

  She smiled. She felt as if she’d received a second chance. “Sandwiches sound fine. You’re on.”

  CHAPTER 13

  They rumbled back to town in Adam’s Ford F-150. Paige had to admit it felt good to be in a car with some power again, versus those wimpy golf carts. And sitting so close to Adam’s flexing forearms didn’t hurt, either.

  “I thought cars weren’t allowed on the island,” she said.

  “In town.”

  “But we’re going to town.”

  He threw her a sly smile. “We’ll park on the outskirts.”