“Ferry’s here,” Gus said from behind her. “Should be ready for you as soon as they finish unloading.”
She turned toward the dock, where a small crew was unloading crates from the stern of the vessel. Then the door at the bow opened and a couple emerged. Paige knew at once that they were Lucas’s in-laws. The silver-haired man was nicely dressed in a pair of tan pants and a sport coat, but it was the woman who really caught Paige’s eye. She wore a two-piece sweater dress, St. John Knits, if Paige wasn’t mistaken, and a pair of what her mother would call “sensible heels.” Her platinum-blond hair was swept into a perfectly coiffed twist, her makeup was refined yet noticeable, and her neck and ears were adorned with pearls Paige would bet her condo were real.
The woman smiled and shook the captain’s hand, thanking him for such a smooth journey. Paige wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting—a cross between Cruella de Vil and the witch from “Hansel and Gretel” perhaps—but this woman certainly wasn’t it. Neither of them was. The couple in front of her were a far cry from some evil villains. In fact, they seemed quite nice. So why in the world would they want to take Maddie away from her father? Paige could only assume their motives were based on the emotions they felt over losing their own daughter.
Paige never considered herself to be a very religious person, but as she boarded the ferry, she said a silent prayer in the hope that Maddie’s grandparents would see what a wonderful life she had with Lucas and realize that the important thing was the love they shared, not whether or not there was peanut butter on the banister.
Chapter 22
One Month Later
Lucas strapped the leather tool belt around his waist and tightened the buckle. The inside of the house had never looked better, but on the outside, there was still so much to do. The bulk of it would have to wait until the weather warmed up, but a few items, like the broken front step, were a welcome distraction from the feeling that had gnawed in his gut ever since Paige Parker had left the island.
He hated himself for letting her walk out the door. He didn’t even kiss her goodbye, and, damn, he’d wanted to. He’d wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her until her fingers found their way into his hair and her body went lax against his. But more than that, he wanted her to stay. He almost asked her to. But her life was in Chicago and his was with Maddie, and what would he be asking her exactly—to stay with him on a sleepy little island that only came to life four or five months a year? And as what, his girlfriend? They’d barely known each other a week. Besides, she’d made it very clear that she was never going to rearrange her life for a man. Any man.
He pried the loose board free and tossed it aside before placing the new one on the tread. It was too cold to paint it to match the others, so for the time being, the treated wood would have to remain as it was. Paige would hate it. The thought of her matchy-matchy OCD having to walk up mismatched stairs brought only a fleeting smile to his face. Because the truth was Paige would never see the mismatched stairs. She wouldn’t see that Maddie was keeping her room clean “just like Miss Paige did it” or that she’d lost her first tooth. She’d never know how surprised Jenny’s parents had been when they saw the inn. Or how impressed they were with the way Maddie looked after the puppies. She’d never know the difference she’d made in their lives. Or the place she’d taken in his heart.
He’d thought about calling to tell her all that and more, even going so far as to google her name. He told himself it was just so he could find her office number, but truth was he spent more time than he should have scrolling through the images that popped up on the screen. Most were of Paige at industry events or charity functions. She looked formal and stiff in nine out of ten, but there was one photo, taken of her and a man who, based on her description, had to be the infamous Sammy. They were seated behind a stodgy-looking speaker who was no doubt boring as hell because in the photo Sammy was leaning over whispering in Paige’s ear and she was smiling. And not a forced smile for a posed picture, but a genuine, warm smile that brought back memories of the Paige he knew. His Paige.
In the end, though, he hadn’t called, for all the same reasons he hadn’t asked her to stay.
Lucas placed a nail on the wood and swung his hammer. Hard.
Again.
Then again.
He kept hammering nails until the stairs were fixed. If only everything in life were that simple. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t get Paige Parker out of his thoughts.
When he was finished, he took a bandanna out of the back pocket of his jeans and wiped the sweat from his brow. He’d been keeping himself busy since the day she left, but sometimes, when he stopped moving, his thoughts drifted to what might have been.
Paige had been in his life for a such a short time, but that didn’t stop him from picturing her with him for the long haul. Only problem was, when his mind indulged in the fantasy, it was never in his life. No island, no inn, no beach. The backdrop for the bittersweet scenes were always blank.
Because they aren’t real, he thought.
His gut twisted. He had to stop indulging in a fantasy that had zero chance of coming true.
“Whatcha doing?” a sweet voice asked from behind him. Lucas turned to find his favorite distraction standing on the porch holding Floppy under one arm and Stinky under the other. Correction: holding Raymond under the other. Now that the teddy bear had gone for a spin in the washing machine, Lucas was forbidden to call him by his nickname. It was a hard habit to break, seeing as how he’d been Stinky for so long, but Paige had somehow convinced Maddie to let her wash him, which was almost as shocking as the fact that Stanley now lived in Chicago. Lucas never thought he’d find himself in a situation to be jealous of a toy vegetable, but when he thought of the little green bastard possibly sleeping in Paige’s bed—something he was embarrassed to admit crossed his mind almost every night—he couldn’t help but be envious.
“Hey, Peanut,” he said. To his surprise, Maddie didn’t correct him. Perhaps now that she was a mature woman of the ripe old age of five, childhood nicknames didn’t bother her anymore. “I was just fixing the front steps.”
She walked to the top of the stairs to inspect his work. “Looks good, but they don’t match.”
Lucas chuckled. Maddie might look just like her mother, but she and Paige certainly shared more than a few personality traits. “I can’t paint it until it gets a little warmer.”
Maddie nodded. “Does that mean you’re done?”
Much to her delight, Lucas twirled his hammer like a gunslinger from the Old West, then holstered it in his tool belt. “That’s exactly what it means.”
She hopped down the stairs and sat on the newly replaced tread. Lucas joined her. He watched as she arranged her two furry friends between them. When she was done, she rested her crossed arms on her knees and stared off into the distance. He wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but he was happy just to sit with his daughter, listening to the distant sound of the surf.