by Dani Collins
Sterling looked out at Paige, solitary in the fading sun.
“Knock her up,” Lyle urged.
“‘Cause that’s working out so well for you?”
Lyle guffawed. “Fuck, you’re an asshole. I’m gonna miss you, G.B.”
Sterling grimaced and rubbed the middle of his chest where an ache was splitting his sternum. “You’re her biggest reason for staying.”
“Oh, Christ. Invent a new one. Tell her you’ve got a problem at the factory and only she can solve it.”
Sterling shook his head. He wasn’t going to emotionally blackmail her, no matter how much he’d like to.
“She lives for being needed,” Lyle insisted. “Your problem is, you come across too self-sufficient. She thinks you can get by without her. Let her know you’d be a drooling mess if she left.”
Sterling wished he could deny it. All he managed was, “Are you still here?”
Lyle grinned, gaze knowing. “Treat her right or I’ll come back and kick your ass again.” He offered a lazy salute and walked out the front door.
~ * ~
Normally, Paige would press her firm’s date stamp onto the financial statement and sign her name, but today she only signed on the line that said ‘partner.’ She smoothed her hand over the flat, stapled, squared pages, taking a moment to enjoy the high of completion, even though her satisfaction was stained with melancholy.
“Paige?” Olinda came to the door of her office. “What did the insurance adjustor say?”
“Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just that the police haven’t finished their investigation so they’re only paying out for Lyle’s tools for now.”
“To who?”
“Lyle.”
Olinda tsked and folded her arms, glanced at the report in front of Paige. “Is that the audit? It’s done?”
Paige nodded, smiling. Proud. Pat me on the back.
“How much?”
“Olinda,” she protested, frowning.
“Well, that was the point, wasn’t it? To arrive at a figure?”
But this statement represented so much more. Now Sterling had a clear starting point and could make truly informed financial decisions moving forward. They’d housecleaned the inventory, both physically and on paper. The accounting procedures had been sharpened. New computers and software were planned before year end.
Pulling this statement together had drawn Paige into the factory’s inner workings, giving her a stake in its success. To cash in like this statement was a traveler’s check felt wrong.
Then there was Sterling. They hadn’t talked recently about how they would move forward, preferring to keep it simple. They were dating, making love, agreeing not to bring work home so they could talk about important things like whether they were going to watch sports or a movie, or whether the laundry soap went into the top load washer before the clothes or after the water finished running.
“Paige?” Olinda prompted.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Sterling and I have to talk—”
“I knew it. You’re just like your father. You’re not going to do it, are you? Did the insurance adjuster really say they’re not paying? Or are you keeping the money? Damn it, Paige! I expect better from you.”
“Whoa.” Paige held up a hand. “All I’m saying is that I like working here. Maybe instead of selling out, I’ll stay on and grow the business with Sterling—”
“He’s not going to marry you,” Olinda said bluntly. “I know that’s what you think, but get real, Paige.”
“Olinda.” She felt slapped. Attacked. She opened her mouth to protest that Olinda didn’t know how close she and Sterling had become, but how close were they? Really?
Old insecurity slithered through her.
“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings,” Olinda qualified. “I’m just saying, you’re giving the milk for free. Why would he buy the cow? If he did, wouldn’t you wonder if he was only trying to secure Grady’s share without paying for it? Sell, Paige. Why would you go back on your promise to me and your mother?”
Paige hadn’t made any outright promises, but they had been implied. And as much as she didn’t want Olinda’s words getting under her skin, they did. A lifetime of deeply ingrained insecurity hadn’t been overcome by a few fabulous rolls across a Roy Furnishings bed. She wanted to insist that Sterling loved her, but she couldn’t.
She didn’t believe that he did.
Her phone chimed. She glanced and saw it was Anthony. His new wife wanted to get into the apartment to take some measurements. She’d been ignoring him for two days, but now saw it as a timely break from the spell she’d been under.
~ * ~
Sterling peeled the Call me on my cell note from the folder Paige had left on his desk and dialed.
“Hi.” She turned down some background music. A female voice said something and Paige said, “I know. Brit just reminded me we’re almost out of service so I have to keep this short. We’re on the road to Seattle.”
“What? Since when?”
“Anthony has been bugging me to get into the apartment and Britta was able to get away for the night, so she’s driving me. I left the audit on your desk.”
“I see that.” He glanced up as Olinda came to the door. He frowned, not wanting an eavesdropper while he asked his lover when she was coming back.
If she was coming back.
“You’ll be back tomorrow?”
“Brit will be. I’m going to buy a car. Anthony’s brother will give me a deal. I—” She cut out.
“Paige?” He swore lightly and hung, glanced at Olinda. “Yes?”
“Just wondering if you want me to cut a check.”
“For?”
She nodded at the folder. “That’s the final figure, isn’t it?”
“Did Paige say she wanted you to cut a check?”
Olinda’s lips parted and her gaze shifted briefly. “No.”
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d held.
Her chin came up a little. “But that’s what we’ve all been waiting for, isn’t it?”
“No.” He slid the folder aside to look at later. “We still need an appraisal.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Olinda muttered, eyes rolling to the ceiling.
“Do you owe money to thugs or something?” Sterling asked. He’d grown up under an overbearing personality, but he wondered how Paige tolerated dealing with this one.
“I—” She folded her arms, flushing as she gave a flustered shrug. “Not a lot and not to thugs, but the interest is terrible. If the insurance on the house had paid out by now, I wouldn’t care about this.” She waved at the folder.
“Did you torch Grady’s house hoping to clear that up?”
He was being facetious, but the look on her face struck like a bucket of water.
He reminded himself that at one point he’d wondered if his mother had set that fire. He’d felt pretty damned foolish once he’d realized how outlandish the accusation was.
But as Olinda muttered, “Of course not,” and skittered her fear-filled gaze from his, he didn’t feel outlandish. He felt suspicious.
She took off like her ass had been stung by a bee.
And Sterling stood there, thinking. He thought about how much Paige loved her stepmother, how angry she’d been when he’d had her brother arrested, how wrong he’d been when he’d done that. He looked down at the audit, thought about how close Paige was to cashing out.
Was she going back to Seattle to take up her job again? Find a place to live?
She couldn’t. He’d be a drooling fucking mess.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he tried to figure out what he should do.
~ * ~
“Oh my God, I needed this,” Britta said as they neared Paige’s building.
“Me, too,” Paige agreed, letting out a sigh of decompression. They’d talked all the way here about anything that wasn’t heavy: the jerk in one of Brit’s classes, the sprinkler problem her father had had in
Palm Springs, the girl at the bank who wore the super short skirts. They had laughed and sung to their favorite songs and pretended for a few hours that they didn’t have problems.
Then Britta’s cell chimed.
“Who is it?” she asked, making a turn onto a side street.
“Cam,” Paige said with a glance. “Do you want me to read it?”
“Yeah.” Britta was focused on waiting for a chance to turn left.
“Don’t do anything you can’t undo. Talk to me first. Please,” Paige read.
Britta made the turn then shot Paige a face. “What does he think I’m doing? Does he even know where I am? How?”
Paige shrugged. “Zack?”
“If that kid got himself locked up again, I’m going to leave him there.” She pulled around to the back of Paige’s building and said, “Can we hurry? I have to pee.”
A few minutes later, Paige was wandering her apartment, watering plants, pretending she hadn’t seen Sterling’s, Call me, text. In the bathroom, she could hear Britta talking on the phone. She came out with tears in her eyes.
Paige’s heart stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Britta offered a crooked smile. “He said he’s in the middle of something and couldn’t talk, but he heard I was coming to Seattle and he was worried it was for, you know, an ‘appointment.’ He said my being pregnant was a huge shock, not the way he would have chosen to start our relationship, but that he wants us to keep seeing each other. He gets that it’s a package deal and he’s okay with it. He wants to talk tomorrow when I get back.”
“Oh, Brit.” They hugged it out, Britta sniffing emotive tears.
“I didn’t want to start it this way, either, but I guess we take what we get.”
“He’s a really good guy,” Paige reminded her.
“He really is,” Britta said, moving to pluck a tissue and blow her nose.
“What about you and Sterling?”
Paige shrugged, explaining about the audit and repeating a little of what Olinda had said. “I don’t want to look like I’m only concerned about what’s best for me.”
Britta snorted. “Paige. It’s past time you put your own interests first.”
Paige shrugged that off and turned the topic to packing. She was planning to hire movers, but had a few personal things she wanted to put away herself. She and Brit decided to run out for some boxes and take-out dinner then come back to start the process.
She texted Anthony when they got back, telling him he could come by the next day, then saw that Sterling had texted again. She called him.
“Hi.” She felt unaccountably nervous, kind of like a coward for coming away without seeing him first. She missed him and wished he had come to Seattle with her. Why hadn’t she asked? Oh yeah, because Olinda had made her think he didn’t have any real feelings for her. “Sorry I didn’t call earlier. We’ve been running around.”
“You’re home now? Britta’s there?”
“Uh huh.”
“Good. I guess. I, uh, did something. You’re not going to be happy.”
She automatically reached to the back of the sofa, steadying herself. “What.”
“I think Olinda set the fire on your father’s house. I went to the police. They’ve arrested her.”
“What? You think she did it? Did you ask her? Why would you— Brit, we have to go back.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Listen,” Sterling said firmly. “I just talked to Cam. He said he can’t tell me how the questioning is going. I said that if I was full of shit in accusing her, he should just say so. He said the questioning is ongoing. They’re taking this seriously. I think she really did it.”
“But wh—” Paige didn’t have to ask why. Sinking into the sofa, she realized she knew why.
“Money,” Sterling answered. “She spends a lot of time at the bingo-plex.”
“Olinda’s been arrested for the fire at Dad’s,” Paige provided to Brit.
Britta started feverishly texting, probably to her contacts at the courthouse and her dad.
“You were almost killed in that fire, Paige,” Sterling said. “I couldn’t not go to the police. You see that, don’t you?”
Her lips were trembling as the magnitude of this news began to penetrate. “She thought I was gone,” she excused.
“It could have spread. She put the whole neighborhood in danger.”
“But—” Olinda had been the one to point her toward accounting, telling her it was a solid profession. She’d been the one to coax her past feeling self-conscious about her feminine curves and had never judged over the Sterling debacle and she’d listened to all her problems in Paige’s marriage with a sympathetic ear.
“Why does everyone I love let me down?” she asked, catching the flash of guilt in Britta’s expression.
They hadn’t talked about the way Britta’s attitude had sent Lyle to parts unknown. Paige had learned long ago not to get between those two. She sublimated the blame and resentment because she loved Britta and saw her side of it as clearly as she saw Lyle’s.
“Don’t drive back tonight,” Sterling said in her ear. “You’re too upset and Britta’s probably tired. Get some sleep and we’ll talk about it when you’re home tomorrow—”
“Why would I come back there?” She realized tears were gathering like rain clouds in her sinuses, making her sniff and blurring her vision. “Half my family already left. Zack graduates next year and goes to college. Apparently Olinda is going to jail. I should move Mom here and quit that stupid town for good.”
“Paige. I knew you’d be mad at me for calling the police, but she almost killed you.”
“That town almost killed me. That factory and trying to please everyone and—” She sniffed, starting to drown in her own self-pity. “Just buy out Dad so I never have to go back there again.”
“Paige—”
“Hey.” Britta slid close, took the phone in one hand and hugged Paige with the other arm. “We’re going to need some time to process here, Sterling. Paige will call you back later, ‘kay?”
Britta hung up on him and wrapped both her arms around Paige. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, rocking Paige like a baby. “I’m sorry we all let you down.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sterling found himself heading out to the lake before it was light. His insides were so knotted and heart so wrenched he didn’t know what else to do. That’s where you went when the woman you loved crushed your soul, right?
Then he missed the turn and kept going, passing the sign that gave him the mileage to Seattle and kept driving, thinking, Fuck it. He wasn’t his father who let this shit happen to him and he wasn’t his mother, letting a Fogarty go because their lives happened to be messier than he liked.
He was the guy so deeply in love, he was a drooling mess and would be until he got Paige back into his life.
~ * ~
Paige was nothing but chapped eyes and a hollow soul when Anthony buzzed to come up the next morning. Early, of course. Jerk.
His new wife had leased out her own apartment down the hall when they’d moved in together which was why he wanted this one so badly. It was a great building in a great location. Also, the layout in this one was better, but Paige was not in the mood to see how happy they were.
She hit the button to release the downstairs door, not ready to try her voice. Britta had left an hour ago after reporting that all her contacts were keeping their lips buttoned about the investigation into Olinda setting the fire.
“That means it’s serious, Paige. If the charges weren’t holding water, they’d say so.”
What was left to say?
She propped open the door and moved to continue flicking through her tablet for a two bedroom apartment with a decent commute to her office. Something with a community center nearby for her mom. The move would be hard on her, but...
“Do you understand how these building security systems are supposed to work?” Sterling asked.
<
br /> She looked up, stared with a lack of comprehension, baffled by his presence here. “I thought you were Anthony.”
“I could have been a serial murderer for all the precautions you take.”
“Go back out and we’ll try again,” she muttered, dropping her gaze to a picture on her tablet that didn’t make sense. Her brain was nothing but static.
“You’re mad. That’s fair. Maybe if you’d been there to talk to, I might have discussed it before calling Cam. But maybe not. Because, quite frankly I might have been afraid you’d be too lenient. We’re talking about arson, Paige.”
“I don’t know if I’m mad or sad or disgusted or feeling like a sucker! I do know I’m tired of feeling all this angst and turmoil. Anthony used to accuse me of being addicted to it. Maybe I was, but it has to stop. I’m the one who has to quit going back to Liebe Falls expecting things to be different.”
“So you’re serious about not going back.”
She shrugged, realized how weak that was and made herself say a firm, “Yes.”
“Then it’s a good thing that audit is done. Soon as we get the place appraised, we’ll see if we can find a buyer.”
She straightened, frowning. “What do you mean? You can’t sell.”
“Watch me.”
“No. Sterling, the whole town depends on that factory.”
“Do you hear yourself? Screw the town that has screwed you, Paige. If you don’t want to be there, I don’t want to be there. I want to be here. With you.”
“Are you trying to guilt me into coming back there?”
“No.” He shook his head, like she was something peculiar he didn’t understand. “Stop trying to save the world. We can do good things there, we can, but so can someone else.”
“I don’t understand.” She really didn’t. Her body was reacting like she’d woken up somewhere unfamiliar. Her pulse was unsteady and her brain grasping at facts and sensations and details, only coming up with how the sun glinted in his hair and his eyes looked tired and he was in her apartment, which was really weird. Maybe she was dreaming?