Where the Heart May Lead: A Clean Romance (Harlequin LP Heartwarming)

by Elizabeth Mowers

  Paige twisted her mouth. “Are you serious?”

  “The color is a perfect match to your bike,” he said as he placed it on her head. After snapping the straps under her chin, he gazed at her like a man very pleased with what he saw. It made her heart leap that she was the object of his loving gaze. “And it looks good on you.”

  She balked. “I look like a bowling ball head.”

  “Nah, Freckles, you can’t look anything other than pretty. Let me take your picture and prove it to you.” He went for his cell phone but Tully had already held up his.

  “I’ll take it,” Tully said. “Lucy, get in there with the two of them.”

  When Paige saw Tully and Charlie exchange a glance, she smiled a little to herself. Very cunning, Charlie Stillwater, she thought.

  “Uncle Charlie, did you call her pretty?” Lucy said, dissolving into giggles. Charlie tried to ease a hand over her mouth, but Lucy squirmed to freedom. “You like her more than a friend, Uncle Charlie. You can’t fool me.”

  “Everybody say ‘cheese,’” Tully said, trying to interrupt Lucy. The little girl’s giggles finally subsided as she posed for the picture. Charlie’s arm slipped around Paige’s shoulders, like it should always be there.

  “I’m not posing with this thing,” she said, slipping the helmet off her head. She wished for a copy of the picture for herself and wanted to look like herself in it. She’d cherish a picture of Charlie and Lucy forever, after she’d left Roseley and returned home. She tossed her head to fluff her hair and found Charlie watching every movement.

  “You do look great, you know,” he said.

  “Thanks. I’d better get going,” she said, a sadness falling over her suddenly. The thought of leaving was sobering in the least. She strapped the helmet to the back of her bicycle. “Thanks for the helmet, Charlie, but you really shouldn’t have. I don’t like to wear them.”

  “You should wear it,” he called, helping Lucy into the back seat of the truck. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  She waved goodbye and coasted to the end of the road, hanging a left toward her motel as Charlie fired up his truck. Even with the cool night air filling her nostrils, she could still smell his scent wafting from the hoodie.

  By the time she reached her motel, her cell phone had vibrated several times in her pocket. She smiled to herself as she slipped off her bike. She imagined what Charlie would text her about their first kiss, and as she relived the sensation of cozying up to him, she wished it wouldn’t be their last.

  It took her a moment to remember he didn’t have her cell number. Digging for the phone, she trekked in the front doors of the motel and stopped short in the lobby as she illuminated the phone screen.

  “Miss? Is everything okay?” the young man behind the front desk asked. She was sure the horror on her face had startled him almost as much as her aunt’s text messages had scared her. A cold chill crept down her spine as she lowered herself onto a lobby chair.

  Call me immediately.

  Thorne was at the house.

  It’s only a matter of time.

  CHAPTER NINE

  PAIGE PACED IN front of the fabric store, picking at the skin around her fingernails. She hadn’t managed much sleep the night before after talking to her aunt. The early morning hours had dragged by from one anxiety-ridden thought to the next. She didn’t want to leave and miss out on time with Lucy, but Thorne was moving faster than she had expected. Her phone call with Aunt Joan was proof of that.

  Her aunt had been nearly hysterical on the phone as Uncle Craig’s calm, reassuring voice in the background did little to quell the squall.

  “Honey, he knows where we live. He knows where you live. A cop car was here. They’ll be back. I’m sure of it.”

  “Please calm down,” she’d told Aunt Joan. “I can’t see you in person and the way you’re rambling on makes it difficult to understand you.”

  “I’m trying but I—” Paige could hear Uncle Craig in the background.

  “Joanie, sit down. Sit down, baby.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sitting.”

  “Deep breaths, love,” her uncle said.

  Paige followed suit as she listened to Aunt Joan heaving exaggerated breaths into the phone receiver. After a few moments her aunt continued.

  “I tried calling you—”

  “I know,” Paige said. “I didn’t hear my phone. I was out.”

  “Out where?”

  Paige closed her eyes tightly and whispered into the phone as if the words were a treasure meant to be kept only between the three of them.

  “I found her.”

  Joan gasped on the other end of the line. She could imagine her aunt clasping Uncle Craig’s hand and nearly toppling out of her chair.

  “She found her,” Joan said, her voice breathy. “Is she everything we imagined?”

  “She’s perfection.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Perfection,” her aunt repeated as she broke down in tears. “I have to pass the...here, Craig... I can’t...”

  “Honey?” Uncle Craig said, taking the phone. “I’m so happy for you. Where did you see her?”

  “I met her. We talked, we played. I’m seeing her again tomorrow, and I’m making her a costume for school.”

  Now that the secret was out, it was all Paige could do to keep from running one fact after another in a hurried conglomerate of excitement.

  “You met her?”

  “She met her?” Aunt Joan squawked in the background, raising her voice for Paige to hear over the line. “How! Does Lucy know who you are?”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Uncle Craig said. “I’ll just put it on speakerphone. But you’d better not talk over me, Joanie.”

  “She has no idea,” Paige said. “But I met her uncle. He and I have been talking and spending time together. He’s so kind and funny. The past couple of days have been so... I mean, I’ve been feeling...”

  “You have feelings for the uncle?”

  “I don’t... I don’t know.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Paige rolled her eyes in an embarrassed smile. “Charlie.”

  Uncle Craig muffled a chuckle. “Charlies are usually good people.”

  Aunt Joan’s voice was louder now. She imagined her nearly hovering over the phone speaker. “Have you told Charlie who you are?”

  “How can I?”

  “That is sticky territory,” Uncle Craig said. “What was it like meeting Lucy?”

  “It was like looking in a mirror. Her hair is nearly black, and her complexion is fairer, but her green eyes are a spitting image of mine.”

  Aunt Joan let out a whoop and a holler. “She has our eyes! Are you sure this Charlie fellow isn’t going to suspect anything?”

  Paige began to shake her head, then stopped. She hadn’t considered that anyone would notice how strikingly similar their eyes were. She’d gotten her eyes from Trudy, who had gotten hers from Grandma. Aunt Joan’s eyes were a green-hazel, not quite as bold as theirs, but still similar. She’d always loved how her eyes had been like a telltale sign of where she belonged, even when things with Trudy had been tumultuous. Deep down, her green eyes had felt magical to her, like they could help her survive whatever situation Trudy dragged her into.

  But she’d never stopped to think that what she’d always considered her biggest asset could jeopardize her time with Lucy. Even Charlie had noticed a connection she felt with Lucy. If he began to suspect...

  Paige shook out her worry, at least for the time being, and directed them back to the matter at hand. “Tell me what happened with Thorne.”

  “I’d better tell you,” Craig said. “Your aunt is furiously scrubbing the cabinet under the kitchen sink.”

  “It’s filthy under here!”
she called. “How have I not noticed this before? Where’s all the bleach, darn it.”

  “Take me off speaker,” Paige said.

  “I already did, honey.”

  “She’s unraveling. Should I come home?”

  He sighed. “Not until we know what Thorne knows. It’s no use coming home and walking smack dab into his trap. The best place for you is probably anywhere but here.”

  “Did you talk to Thorne?”

  “I didn’t see him. I was sleeping when he came to the door. Joanie silently watched both him and a police officer through the peephole but pretended no one was home. He and the police officer talked for a minute and left, but she’s worried he’s casing the place.”

  “I’m surprised he was only accompanied by one person. I’ve never seen him without a clan.”

  “Your aunt says he looks the same—ratty long hair and coal-black eyes.”

  Stone-cold eyes, Paige thought, as goose bumps rose along her skin. She knew a person couldn’t possibly have jet-black eyes, but every time she had ever looked into his, all she could see were two large lumps of coal leering beneath hooded eyelids. Time wouldn’t have changed them. When her aunt had punched the gas ten years ago, speeding off into the ink of night, Paige hoped it would be the last time she’d ever have to see those eyes again.

  “She should stop calling us,” Joan called. “The police could trace it.”

  “They’re not going to tap our line, Joanie. They need a warrant for that.”

  “We can’t be too careful! That’s all I’m saying!” They’d ended their call after that.

  Now, Paige wandered back and forth along the curb in front of the fabric store, Pleats and Patches. Her aunt’s words had been ringing in her ears all morning. To keep Thorne from finding her, she really couldn’t be too careful. Any calls made to her aunt and uncle might put her location in Roseley at risk. As unlikely as it was, it was still possible. With as careful as the three of them had been for the past decade, she wasn’t about to start slipping up now. For the time being, she needed to cut all ties and buy a disposable phone.

  Pulling her cell phone from her purse, she held it in her hand, deciding if she was ready to trash it. She gently placed it on the ground and stared at it for several moments before crushing it with her heel. It took many stomps before she could convince herself the phone was completely broken. Scooping up the pieces in her hand, she glanced around for the nearest trash receptacle and spotted Charlie striding up the sidewalk.

  The sight of him made her skin prickle with anticipation. After their kiss the night before, the sight of his perfect lips made her nervously lick her own. In faded Levi’s and a distressed red-and-black Roseley High School T-shirt, he moved toward her with a casual cool. The corners of his lips curled as he got closer and found her watching him.

  “Hey, there.”

  “I take it you’re a Roseley High School alum?”

  “Go, Falcons.” He glanced down at her hands. “What do you have there?”

  “I dropped my phone in the road and someone drove over it.”

  “Maybe we can fix it...” Charlie began until she opened her hand to reveal the pieces. “Nope. That thing is destroyed. You know, if you don’t want to give me your cell number, just say so. I can take a hint. You don’t have to crush your phone.”

  Paige smiled at his teasing as she tossed the pieces in the trash. “Where’s Lucy?”

  “She and Mara had to take Leapsters to the vet.”

  “Leapsters?”

  “Her British shorthair cat. He hasn’t been eating well so they’re getting him checked. That leaves just the two of us on fabric duty. Mara told me to thank you profusely and give you this dress pattern. She also borrowed Miss Jenkin’s sewing machine for you, which I have in the truck.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” Paige said. And the truth was, part of the pleasure was that she was doing something normal. Something her own mother had never done for her. Something family did for each other. It really was a true pleasure.

  The chemical scent of new fibers met them at the entrance. Bolts of multicolor fabrics, stacked three shelves high, lined the rows on either side of the shop.

  “I can’t say I’ve ever been in here before,” Charlie said.

  “I love little places like this, though I haven’t sewed anything in ages.”

  “Good afternoon, Charlie.” A voice nearly sang to them from over the tops of fabric bolts. Paige recognized the violet-gray hair before the face.

  “Hi, Ms. Mitchell,” Charlie said. “Are you sewing something?” Dolores shuffled around the bolts while holding out a handful of fabric swatches.

  “Charlie, you’re old enough to call me Dolores, for heaven’s sake. And yes, I’m sewing new curtains for the tea shop. I want something a little brighter. I can’t afford a complete renovation, but maybe a few small changes will be enough of a face-lift.”

  Charlie began to motion an introduction, but Dolores waved him away and embraced Paige in a gentle hug.

  “We already met on the trail. Paige, you need to come by my tea shop while you’re in town. You too, Charlie. Come after you’re done shopping.”

  Paige glanced at Charlie. “Maybe. Thanks, Dolores.”

  “Toot-a-loo, dears,” Dolores said, making her way for the door.

  “For someone who doesn’t have any friends, you certainly can make them easily,” Charlie said. “Would you mind introducing me around town?”

  “She was with CeCe the other day.”

  “Ah, CeCe. She makes it her business to know everyone and everything.”

  Paige nodded, taking mental note. As she checked the price tag on a pink paisley print, he leaned close to her ear, dropping his voice to a whisper.

  “I feel a little out of place here. Every customer and employee is female and in the fifty-to sixty-five-year-old range.”

  Paige rose to her tippy toes and scanned the store. He was right.

  “I’m sure you can find a way to use that to your advantage.”

  “I’m great on scoring free sandwiches, but I’m not sure I can manage a discount here.”

  She stretched out an arm’s length of amethyst-colored fabric. She knew the color would complement Lucy’s fair complexion.

  “Perhaps you only need a little motivation. We could put a wager on it.”

  Charlie leaned against a concrete pillar. “You’ve got my attention, Freckles. What did you have in mind?”

  “I came up with the idea. Do you need me to come up with the terms too?”

  He chuckled. “I wouldn’t dream of putting you out like that.”

  Paige grazed her fingers over the selection of purple spools of thread. She selected a few, along with some buttons.

  “It can’t be that difficult,” she said, breezing past him toward the cutting table. Charlie slid up beside her and lowered his voice even though they were alone.

  “If I can’t get a discount on this order, I have to take you out for dinner tonight—my choice of place.”

  “Define discount.”

  He thought for a moment. “Twenty-five percent.”

  “Seventy-five.”

  “Fifty.”

  “And if you do get a discount?”

  He placed a palm on the cutting table and leaned down to look her square in the eye.

  “You have to start wearing your bike helmet.”

  Paige cocked her head and let out a snarl. “You’ve got to be kidding me. No way.”

  “You’re that convinced I’ll win, huh?”

  “No, but I—”

  “If you can’t take the heat, Freckles—”

  “Going out for dinner is grossly different than agreeing to—”

  “Taking your safety seriously?”

  An employee, a drab-looking woman named Flo, lumbered
behind the cutting table and spread out the fabric.

  “Three yards, please,” Paige said. Flo barely flinched her facial muscles in reply before smoothing out the fabric and taking to it with scissors. Paige turned to find Charlie’s eyes on her.

  “Deal or no deal? And may I remind you that betting was your idea.”

  “Only because I believe you are overly confident and in need of a little humbling, I will agree.”

  Charlie’s face spread in a satisfied grin.

  “A little humbling? I’ll remember that in a few minutes when I’m gloating.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Ma’am,” he said. “Do you have any sales or promotions going on now for that fabric?”

  Flo didn’t acknowledge that she’d heard the question. Several long seconds passed before she uttered something under her breath.

  “You’ll have to check our mailer.”

  “I don’t get the mailer. I’m a new customer.”

  Flo scanned the price of the fabric and printed Paige an order slip. She slid it across the table to her.

  “Anything else?”

  Paige shook her head, pleased. “All set. Thanks, Flo.”

  Charlie followed Flo as she began to lumber away.

  “Flo, do you give any discounts to new customers?”

  She shook her head. “Not anymore.”

  “What about if I download the store app to my phone? Any coupons for signing up?”

  “It takes forty-eight hours to process.”

  “Forty-eight hours? That long?”

  “That’s what I said.” Flo didn’t wait for a follow-up before turning for the aisle she had previously been working in. Charlie glanced back at Paige, who pantomimed a mock cheer for his efforts. But because he looked so determined to win with the only payoff being she’d have to wear a safety helmet, she had to admit he was quite sweet. She still wouldn’t wear the helmet if he lost, but the effort he was going to for her made her smile difficult to suppress.

  “What if I open a store charge card? Or sign up for the mailing list?”