“It’s delicious,” Paige said, after taking a bite.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” he said, playfully feigning insult. Then he laughed. “Actually, I’m a bit shocked myself.”
The conversation flowed easily from talk of Maddie and her desire to ride without training wheels before her fifth birthday to Samuel and his desire to star as the first gay Bachelor before his thirtieth.
They had nothing in common, yet everything.
When they finished eating, she helped him clear the table and, despite his protests, clean the kitchen. He washed and she dried, and in no time they were down to the last plate. Lucas handed it to her, then leaned one hip against the counter, watching her as she dried it.
“I have an answer for you,” he said.
Paige folded the dish towel and placed it on the rack. “An answer for what?”
“Do you fold dirty clothes too?” he teased.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Very funny,” she said. “And that was a question, not an answer.”
“My answer,” he clarified, “is to a question you asked me last night.”
Paige flicked through her memories but couldn’t recall a question he had left unanswered. “When we were playing Twenty Questions?”
He nodded. “You asked what I would take if the house was on fire.”
“And you said nothing. So technically you did answer.” Jeez, Parker, do you have to be right about everything? “Unless… Has your answer changed?”
“No. But I want to explain it. I wouldn’t take anything because none of it matters. People matter.”
“Well, you’re right, but you’re sort of missing the point of why I ask. I’m trying to reduce the things people—”
He silenced her protests by pressing a finger against her lips. “What if you had nothing, Paige. Would your life still have meaning?” He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and let his fingers trail along her cheek. When he spoke again, his voice was low and husky. “Seems to me you don’t need all of your stuff perfectly organized. What you need is one special person to share the mess of life.”
He stepped closer. Close enough for her to smell the woodsy scent of his soap, to see his eyes darken, and to hear his breath quicken. His gaze dropped to her mouth, setting a flurry of butterflies loose deep down in her belly, and then he dipped his head, pausing just before his lips touched hers.
And then…
…the shrill sound of a phone rang right next to their heads. Paige jumped back. What the hell? Honestly, who even had a landline anymore?
Lucas reached for the phone mounted to the kitchen wall. “Hello,” he said, never taking his eyes off Paige. “Okay. Sure. Thanks. I’ll let her know.”
Let her know? Was he talking about her? Probably, seeing as how it was unlikely a four-year-old had friends calling the house. But who even knew she was there?
“That was the harbormaster,” Lucas said as he hung up the phone. “The storm clouds are clearing, and the ferry should be up and running by morning. He figured you’d want to know ASAP. Said you were anxious to get off the island.”
She was. At least she had been. But that was then, and this was…what exactly? Paige didn’t have the answer to her own question. All she knew was that the news she’d been waiting for hadn’t brought the happiness she’d expected. In fact, it was quite possibly the worst news she’d had all week.
Paige stared up at him, searching his expression for any clue to what he might be thinking. A moment ago, she knew exactly what he wanted, but that moment was broken. In its place was nothing but an awkward silence.
Lucas put his hands on his hips. “So, I guess you’ll be heading out in the morning.”
I don’t have to, she wanted to say. But she didn’t. She didn’t tell him that she wanted to stay for the rest of the week, or that she wanted to finish their game of Twenty Questions, or that she wanted him to take her in his arms and kiss her like nothing could touch them.
“Guess so.”
He hesitated for a moment, then gave a tight nod. “Right, then,” he said. “Better get some sleep. The sun will be up before we know it.”
Paige couldn’t speak. Instead she merely watched as Lucas turned toward the stairs and headed up to bed.
Chapter 12
Paige kept her eyes closed, trying her best to ignore the sunlight streaming in through the window. She wasn’t ready to wake up. Not when her dreams brought images of Lucas, bathed in the soft glow of the fireplace. Like they had been the day before, his eyes were lit by the reflection of the flickering flames, but in this version, he wasn’t wearing a supersoft black sweater. No, Paige’s subconscious preferred him just as she’d first met him, bare-chested and wearing only a pair of faded jeans and a few days’ worth of stubble. She had wondered how it would feel beneath her fingertips, against her cheek, or even between her thighs. But unlike in real life, where her fantasies remained on the pages of romance novels, dream-state Paige was brazen, bold, and wanton. She reached out, her fingers tracing the outline of his jaw. His gaze darkened as he leaned closer, so close she could feel his warm breath against her cheek like a ray of sunlight on a cold winter’s day. Her lips parted in anticipation…
Wait.
A ray of sunlight?
What the…
Her eyes opened, and as they did, her sexy carpenter vanished like a genie being sucked back into his bottle. She groaned, as much from the bright sunshine as the evaporation of another near-kiss.
Paige’s hands flew to her face, shielding her eyes as she rubbed away the last remnants of sleep. She didn’t want to wake up. She wanted to stay in a dream world where cloudless skies and ferry boats didn’t mean the end of something that had barely begun.
Leave it to her to find herself plopped into a Hallmark movie where the storm clears too early.
No sense putting off the inevitable, she thought.
Paige rolled over…
…to find a small child beside her bed.
“Uh, hello tiny human.”
The little girl giggled as though someone had tickled her toes. “Hello, large human.”
Large, eh? Paige had always heard that kids were brutally honest. Then again, maybe she meant as compared to her size, not to humans in general.
“And who might you be?” Paige assumed she was Lucas’s daughter, but still, introductions were in order.
“I’m Maddie.”
Paige held out her hand—did you shake hands with a child?—but it didn’t matter because without hesitation Maddie placed her small hand in Paige’s.