by Dani Collins
Evelyn Roy had paid for her education.
The knowledge churned like sour milk in Paige’s stomach. She’d walked out of the Roy house so deeply encapsulated in anger and hurt, she hadn’t really absorbed everything Evelyn had said, but now she wondered if there was room to at least rescue her father’s deal.
Paige sighed. It turned into a little cough.
Would Evelyn out herself as one of Grady’s lovers? Paige doubted it. She had protected herself this long. So would she let Paige pay off that promissory note and reinstate Grady’s share?
If Sterling—
Sterling.
Paige’s throat ached and it had nothing to do with the head cold coming on.
He’d looked at her with such blame when he’d realized his mother had slept with her father, as if it had been her fault. Sure, he’d come after her and had wanted to talk, but that was just damage control. Don’t tell anyone my mom strayed. He hadn’t come after her because he wanted to make up.
She wasn’t worth it.
Oh, hell, she wanted to be away from the whole thing, but she felt depressed and sore and wrong. It was one thing to distance herself from her father’s actions, but when her tuition became part of the equation, she couldn’t escape the sense of responsibility. It galled her to no end that Evelyn Roy had paid for her schooling.
Pausing in collecting her bathroom items, she dropped her toothbrush back into the cup. Should she have a check couriered to Evelyn? No, in this town, that would force Evelyn to make explanations. Not that Paige cared, but she wasn’t going to alienate the woman if there was a chance that handling this discreetly could net her family the proceeds from her father’s share in the factory after all. She’d have to deliver the check herself, discuss it with Evelyn. Make sure they understood each other.
Which meant staying another night.
Paige sat down on the edge of the bathtub. That wasn’t as troubling a thought as it usually was. She wasn’t up to a long drive. Besides, if she left now, she’d have to take her father’s car because hers was still on blocks in the garage. If she stayed one more night, she could call a mechanic to put her car back together tomorrow and drive it home in the afternoon.
She blew her nose. Of course there was the problem that her savings weren’t going to cover paying back Evelyn so how would she raise the money?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Sterling!”
He woke to the sound of her screaming his name.
Nice dream, Roy. Probably a cat-fight.
He lay quietly a moment, wondering if sleep would come again or if he would be tossing and turning now, throbbing with the knowledge of her absence.
Paige. God, he missed her. He could admit that to himself now that it was too late, when she didn’t want a damned thing to do with him.
Maybe he could track her down in Seattle in the morning, talk to her. Maybe he’d get up and do it now, since it was morning.
He blinked, aware he’d slept longer than he’d realized. It was growing light out. The sun was bouncing sunrise colors off the neighbor’s window, onto his ceiling.
Yet the sun had never come in through the window like that before and the clock was reading 2 a.m.
Fire.
Fuck.
He leapt out of bed, dragged on his jeans, and ran down the hall.
The plastic covering his kitchen window was a blur of orange. He picked up the landline, dialed 911, and left it dangling as he ran out of his house toward Grady’s engulfed one.
“Paige!” He bellowed. Her name clawed his throat. She was in there. He had heard her scream.
The house was pouring dirty smoke into the sky, the fire roaring and so hot his face felt like it blistered as he ran between Lyle’s cars—cars that could explode.
“Paige!”
He crossed between a pick-up and a sedan, tripped over something into the darkness between the two, landing on his elbows in the long wet grass, his legs tangled in ones that kicked back.
“I’m right here,” she said, coughing. The fire’s glow glinted off the lenses of her glasses.
He scrambled to grab her up to his chest, crushed her, felt tears of relief sting his eyes, his lips, as he buried his face in her hair.
“I thought you were in there.” He pushed her away. “Lyle—?”
“Only me. I—” She coughed again. “—jumped off the deck.”
“Can you walk? Help me wake the neighbors.”
~ * ~
By the time morning light was up, the fire was doused.
The house was a total loss. The blackened remains sent a cloud of yellowed steam into an otherwise perfect sky.
Paige stood at the fence-line between his place and hers, her T-shirt and jeans filthy, her eyes bruised behind her glasses, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion.
Sterling had had firefighting training on an oilrig once. He hadn’t suited up, but he’d stood shoulder to shoulder with the firemen dragging hose. Paige had been a trooper, too. She had helped push cars as far into his yard as they could, tearing out the last of the fence as they went. She had calmed a hysterical neighbor whose house was not being destroyed. She had hosed down his grandmother’s house as her own had been incinerated.
And she was limping. One of the firemen had wrapped the ankle she’d hurt jumping from the deck. He’d said it looked like a minor sprain, but she wasn’t putting any weight on it. Sterling was going to take her for an x-ray as soon as they caught their breath.
It was hard to look at her so he went to her, would have drawn her into his arms, but her glazed, tragic eyes stopped him. “I used your phone to make some calls. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
“The fire chief is talking arson.”
Arson? He took a moment to absorb that, but of course it was arson. How else could a house be leveled in three and a half hours?
“Who?” His lips felt numb and dry. He licked them, tried again. “Who would do that?” With Paige inside. His blood stopped in his veins. “Where’s Lyle?”
She flinched, hugged herself into a tight column. “He’s the first person I tried to call, but the clinic wouldn’t confirm if he was registered.”
“What clinic?”
“Zack said he was going into rehab.”
“Paige!” The male shout, so jagged, lifted the hairs on the back of Sterling’s neck.
“I’m here,” she called, stepping around Sterling, meeting Lyle as he raced across the backyards to reach her.
Lyle pulled her into a crushing hug. The terror, relief, and open grief reflected in his expression made Sterling feel ashamed for what he had begun to think.
Tilting back his head, Sterling tried to cleanse his lungs with the smell of the damp cedar boughs above him, tried not to feel petty jealousy toward a man who thought his sister might have been killed and needed to hold her as badly as he, Sterling, did.
After a moment, Lyle swore, wiped his face with his forearm and let Paige go, but he kept his hand on her shoulder. For a second he glanced at Sterling, then angled his body away, hiding tears.
“Were you at the clinic?” she asked.
“Fucking bastards weren’t going to tell me. Said the stress was liable to set back my recovery. Like coming home after two weeks to a fucking barbeque wouldn’t be a reason to drink yourself blind. How did it happen?” Lyle’s voice was clipped with anger, sober anger, as he stared at the damage.
“They’re talking arson.” Paige curved her arm around him.
Lyle sent a questioning look back to Sterling as his arm settled more protectively around Paige.
“I don’t know any more than that,” Sterling said. He wasn’t disappointed that Lyle hadn’t started the fire. He never could have protected Paige from someone she loved. She was absolutely blind where her family was concerned, but he had wanted this to be easy. Now he’d have to start thinking about someone else hating Paige enough—
Someone Else. Shit.
“I have to run out for a few minutes. Take her into my place and make her some coffee or breakfast or something,” Sterling said to Lyle. “I’ll be back to take you for an x-ray,” he promised her.
They both hesitated, looking at each other as the reality of their loss sank in. They had nowhere to make their own coffee or breakfast or anything.
Paige’s lip trembled. She looked so small. She had to be cold without a jacket, had to be as exhausted as Sterling felt. She had every reason to climb into Lyle’s truck and disappear to Seattle or wherever the hell she wanted to go.
Sterling was petrified she would.
“The police’ll want to talk to you, Paige. You might as well get some sleep, too. We’ve been up half the night,” he added to Lyle, hoping the man would see sense and put her to bed.
Lyle glanced once more at the devastation, visibly shaken, then looked down his nose at his sister. “That how the fire started, Pigeon? You two were burning up the sheets?”
“God, you’re an asshole.” Her indignant laugh turned into a cough, then tears. Lyle hugged her to his chest as she buried her face. Her shoulders began to shake.
Sterling wanted to take her in his own arms then, but Lyle jerked his head. Go on. Lyle’s eyes were wet. His face was tight and Sterling realized Lyle needed to release some emotion too.
So he left. To question his mother.
~ * ~
Sterling glimpsed her through the window in the back door and entered without knocking.
She wore yesterday’s clothes with an apron, no make-up, and her hair wasn’t brushed. She was setting strips of bacon to fry in the non-stick pan.
Distantly he was aware of disappointment, realizing only then how badly he had wanted her not to be here. He wanted her to have chased his father out to the lake house, proving she was marginally sane.
He let the door slam behind him.
“Sterling! You’ll wake the entire neighborhood. Why are you so filthy? Not another fight?”
“No, Mom. And the police sirens are going to wake the neighbors. You set a fucking fire?”
She was already at the cupboard, reaching for a coffee mug. She halted, turned a frown his way. “Mind your language.”
“You set a fucking fire,” he repeated, softer now. “You could have killed her, Mom. Me! What if I’d been sleeping with her?”
His father appeared in the doorway, tucking and buttoning, his hair wet and combed to the side, as if he were going into work, even though it was Sunday. His frown of confusion matched his wife’s. “What’s this about a fire?”
“Grady’s house burned to the ground last night,” Sterling clarified, faltering now because his father was here. “Did you set the fire, Mom?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sterling. Is that why you look like you’ve been in a war zone? A fire? Good God. Walter, fetch a clean shirt for him. Are you all right?”
“Fine. You really didn’t burn down Grady’s house?”
“Of course not. Honestly, Sterling.”
Sterling automatically looked to his father.
His father shrugged. “She brought supper out to the lake house. We’ve only been home long enough for me to shower.”
And now that he was thinking a little more clearly, Sterling could see a certain relaxation in his father’s demeanor that hadn’t been there for a while. Had they—?
Ugh. That was more information than he required. And what the hell was wrong with his old man that he had welcomed her back? Had come home with her.
The only woman he had ever loved.
Sterling rubbed his chest where he’d taken a spark and it felt like it was still burning.
“Was anyone hurt?” his father asked, looking genuinely concerned.
Sterling shook his head, kind of dazed. “No, the house is a total loss, but Lyle was away and Paige got out in time.”
“That’s a shame,” his mother said.
Sterling shot her a look.
“About the house,” she clarified.
His father sat down. “But you weren’t there with her.”
“No,” Sterling said, sitting too, able to acknowledge the true depth of his horror now, feeling damned close to tears as the last of his adrenaline dissipated. How nuts did it make him that he wished he had been in there with her? She had almost died.
“I’ll have to prepare some casseroles. I’d best get on the phone to the Ladies Auxiliary. Maybe go through your closet, hmm, Walt? Would anything of yours fit Lyle? I suppose they’ll stay with Connie?”
“I’m going to ask them to stay with me,” Sterling said.
His mother paused in scanning her personal telephone book, opened her mouth to say something.
Sterling gave her his coldest stare, daring her to cross the line one more time.
She clamped her lips shut, confining any protest she might have made to a barely audible sniff as she dialed the phone.
“She really drove herself out to the lake house?” Sterling asked his father.
“I took the promissory note out there and burned it,” she said, then into the receiver she’d shouldered, she said, “Barbara! Have you heard? Oh, you did? Well, I haven’t listened to my messages yet. We just came back from the lake.”
“She burned it?” Sterling asked his father.
His father lifted his coffee cup, watching his mother with quiet contentment. “She’s quite reasonable when she wants to be. We discussed your taking over the factory. I think she’s right, son. It makes sense, especially once I’m elected.”
The factory. Paige had almost died, but it was time to host a post-mortem on whether or not his mother had been right about the factory, like there was ever any question how that vote would go. Sterling dug his fingertips into his itchy stubble in the softest part of his throat.
His mother hung up. “Barbara has the phone tree organized. She’s calling Shirley. Shirley’s quite close with Connie, you know. Now let’s see. I’ll scramble some eggs for you both, then I need my bath. I’m meeting Barbara at the church to see what’s in the basement for clothing and linens.”
Sterling stood. “No eggs for me. I have to get back.”
“But you must be hungry.”
“Starving. But I want to get back to Paige.” Now that he knew his own mother hadn’t tried to murder her, he could look her in the eye.
Someone had almost killed her, though. He would be riding Cam’s ass until the police figured out who.
“Listen, son,” Walter said, stopping him as he reached for the knob on the back door. “Use your influence and see that girl doesn’t say anything about the promissory note. We’ll settle fairly when the time comes.”
“Call her by name and I’ll think about it.”
~ * ~
At home, Paige was asleep, curled on her side on the sofa, the feather quilt from his bed thrown over her.
He sat down on the coffee table, watching her, and felt the bliss of sleep calling him. How would she feel, he wondered, if he scooped her up and took her to his bed so he could sleep holding her?
Footsteps sounded in the hall and Lyle came into the parlor. “Wanna tell me what you’re planning in here?” He pointed back toward the bathroom.
Sterling went with him to the door, surveyed the disaster it had been for over a week, since he’d pulled up the carpet then started to rebuild the subfloor.
“Everything,” he answered. “You could have surfed on the waves in the plywood, and look at the mildew in that grout. It heckles me every time I shower. That sink has to go and the toilet needs a new seal.” He would have ripped out the works, but only had the one bathroom so he was working in stages.
Lyle walked across the new sub-floor. It squeaked. “Throw a few screws in this, and you’ll lose that noise.”
“I’ll try to fit it in between saving your sister’s life and running a factory.”
Lyle gave him a look. “Just trying to be helpful.”
Sterling realized his exhaustion was showing. “I’m n
ot in the mood for renovations right now.”
Lyle nodded, pushed his hands deep into his pockets. “I could do it.”
“There’s a jar of screws in the garage. Knock yourself out.”
Lyle nodded again, rocked his weight to find the noise again. “You have beer in the fridge,” he stated.
“A few,” Sterling agreed, ire rising.
“Wanna get rid of it?”
“Look.” Sterling searched for a civil tone. “I was going to invite you and Paige to stay, but if you’re going to be drinking—”
“I mean, would you get it out of the house so I won’t drink it. I’m on the wagon until my court appearance.”
“Oh. Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thanks. I’ll wait here.” Beads of sweat showed on Lyle’s brow.
Sterling nodded and started to turn away, paused and turned back. “I’m, uh, not rescinding the offer to stay, but my mother thought you might want to go to Connie’s.”
“Jesus, no. It’s one bedroom and she plays religious music.”
Sterling would have walked away then, but Lyle moved on the floor, making it squeak again. “The rehab clinic would keep me sober, but they nag worse than a wife for conversation. I’d rather keep busy with something like this.”
And stay close to Paige, Sterling thought he meant, because she wouldn’t have brought that quilt out for herself. The way Lyle had hugged Paige in the yard said a lot. Sterling acknowledged that he might have misjudged the man. Paige had tried several times to tell him. He just hadn’t wanted to hear it.
“There’s a light fixture in the garage too,” Sterling said.
“Will do.”
Sterling went to the kitchen where he found a paper sack for the beer, then reached into the cupboard for his near-empty bottle of bourbon. It wasn’t precisely where he’d left it, as though someone might have taken it out and put it back. An empty tumbler sat on the counter, but when he sniffed it, it was clean.
“Yeah, that was a close call,” Lyle said, pausing on his way to the garage.
What did you say to an addict when they were struggling to quit? “Good thing you hate me enough that you can’t bring yourself to drink my booze.”