Not in Her Wildest Dreams(4)

Her hand was shaking, making him realize that for all her bravado, she  was deeply rattled. Which shook him, making him feel even more of a  bully when he was the injured party.

"I didn't even know you were coming over," she reminded. "How could I have arranged for Dad to show up right then?"

Sterling didn't know, and he didn't want to believe her. If she was  telling the truth, it meant he'd been wrong. Worse than wrong.

 … made me think you liked me.

If she hadn't been setting him up, she might have been genuinely carried  away that night. Didn't that blow a man's mind? If their necking had  been purely natural reaction, they'd been positively volatile.

His heart took a few staggered, clunking steps as he absorbed that.

All this time, he had been telling himself she had felt nothing for him,  but what if she'd been attracted in the same hormonal way? He'd not  only rejected her, refusing to return her call, he'd been downright  cruel, not caring about her shredded reputation. He'd been so busy  wallowing in resentment that it had taken years for him to notice that  the debacle had brought about the best thing that ever happened to him:  Harvard and a life beyond Liebe Falls, Washington.

While the seventeen-year-old virgin had been fielding offers for horizontal work.

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

Really?

Judging by the filthy looks she was sending him, yeah, really.

How long had it taken Grady to figure out what was going on and put a  stop to it? At least six months, because Paige had still been here when  Sterling had come home for Christmas. She'd been hollow-cheeked and  defensive looking when they'd pretended not to see each other in the  grocery store. She'd been buying no-name spaghetti while he'd been  picking up cranberry sauce and a pecan pie for his mother.

Oh, Christ.

She pulled a tub of margarine from the fridge, dropped it and swore.

Fortunately, the lid stayed on. He bent and handed it to her. "Are you okay?" he asked, realizing how pale she was.

"No. I get clumsy when my blood sugar is low. I was going to eat at this  café on the way to Seattle, but-" She sighed and turned to set the  margarine on the counter, then took out a plate and a butter knife.

He took in her bowed shoulders. Her delicate build. He wanted to brace her, set soothing hands on her shoulders.

"Are you diabetic? Christ, you're not pregnant, are you?" He was not a bully. Didn't mistreat women. Ever.

"No," she said, mouth curling disdainfully. "Just a stress case who  drinks too much coffee and forgets to eat. And my reluctance to get  pregnant is the reason my divorce was finalized last Monday. It's been  quite a week. You. This delightful conversation? It is such sweet icing  on top of everything else, I can barely stand it." Bitter loathing  coated her voice.

"Are you serious?" She was divorced? That news cold-cocked him so thoroughly, his mind blanked for a full three heartbeats.

"About what? That talking to you is icing? No, that's sarcasm." Her  knife scraped over the toast as she buttered, then she pushed a corner  into her mouth and bit, slapped the cold pack onto her face again and  turned to regard him, the light in her eye defiant, but sad at the same  time.

"I hadn't heard about your divorce," he said, really, really thrown. Divorced.

Not married.

Available, a sick voice whispered deep in his brain.

Fuck, what was it about her?

"Don't beat yourself up." She brushed crumbs from her lips. "You've only  been in town an hour. You haven't caught up to your mother yet. Be sure  to tell her about this little ménage a trois when you do." She jerked  her head toward the bedroom where Rosie slept.         

     



 

Sterling hung his hands on his hips, tipping his head back to send a  humorless laugh at the stained ceiling. So bitter. Freshly divorced,  too. Did any woman hate men more?

"Dad's never getting that company back, is he?"

"I don't know, Sterling," she said tiredly. "I agree. My dad should retire, but..."

"But?"

She only bit into her toast and hitched her elbow at the other slice, offering it to him.

He was hungry enough to want it, but shook his head, something else  occurring to him. Did her divorce mean she was moving back here?

"Are you thinking about exercising the option clause?"

"To take over from him? God, no. I don't want to be here today. Why would I move back here for good?"

"I hear that," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck, "But?" he prompted.

"Dad and I have talked before about his retiring early and it always  looks like it will cause more problems than it will solve. For instance,  if he leaves Roy's, does Lyle get to keep his job?" She looked him  right in the eye, like she was demanding an answer she already knew.

Sterling kept his teeth firmly clenched against saying, Not if I have anything to do with it.

Paige's pained smile told him she knew what he was refusing to say aloud.

"If Lyle doesn't have a job, his support payments to Brit dry up. Dad  cashing out means he could pay off some of his own debts, but then what?  He needs something to live on. So, honestly? My reasons for encouraging  him to sell or not to sell will have nothing to do with you. That's  what you want to hear, isn't it?"

"No, I want to hear that you'll sell."

She smiled without teeth. "And you always get what you want, don't you? I've always envied that."





Chapter Three

I didn't get you.

That's what he should have said, Sterling thought, as he climbed into  his rented SUV. Because he had wanted Paige back in the day. Badly. He  just hadn't let on because she had been The Wrong Girl.

And he was still feeling robbed because he didn't have the reassurance  he'd come for when he'd rearranged his schedule to make this trip. In  fact, he could safely say he was doing more damage than good here. At  this point, the best way to help his father get the company back would  be to leave town as soon as possible.

He pulled out his phone to check messages- Oh, they had to be kidding.

His father had been home long enough to pick up his mother and they were  headed to the factory. There was a security problem and they wanted him  to meet them there.

Right. He sighed. So much for staying away from that black hole.

He took his time, reacquainting himself with the town in the gloom of  late afternoon rain, admiring the way the clouds hung against the  forested hills on the far side of the valley, and checking out the apple  trees with their few unpicked fruits falling off their branches.

Eventually he caught up to his parents at the end of the short driveway  onto the factory grounds. His father was locking the sliding gate and a  van with a security company logo was pulling away.

"The gate wasn't shut properly when they came by on their rounds."  Sterling's mother, Evelyn, had her blue cardigan buttoned all the way to  her neck. An invisible button twisted her lips into a pinch of  importance. She held onto her looks, though. Minimal wrinkles marred her  skin and if there were any gray hairs among her brunette permanent,  only her hairdresser saw them. "They said it didn't look like anyone had  broken into the buildings so your father's locking up."

"You're not going to check inside?" Sterling looked around the quiet yard. "Did they check everything?"

"Sometimes Lyle comes in to work when the machines are down, but I don't see his truck. I'm sure it's fine."

His father was carrying more weight than he used to, edging toward  unhealthy. His hands, as he tugged on the gate lock, looked shiny and  pale. Old. It wasn't just the signs of age that disturbed Sterling,  though. It was the glumness hanging over him like the September sky. Not  a strong advertisement for the joy to be found in running Roy  Furnishings.

"I'll check it if you want to take Mom home, Dad."

"It's not necessary. Your mother has supper on."

"It's in the slow cooker, Walt. It can wait. If Sterling is showing an interest in the factory, we should encourage him."

Here we go, Sterling thought, while his father muttered, "It's not clarinet lessons."

"Take the keys," his mother urged Sterling. Keep them.

"Fine. We'll look around." His father reopened the gate with a beleaguered sigh.         

     



 

"You don't look dressed for checking alarm doors, Mom. Do you want to wait in the car?"

"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist visiting the factory. No, I'll walk with you."

She rode with him down the drive and he half-smiled as he walked to the  entrance and held the door for her. "Did you sneak down here and unlock  the gate yourself, so I'd have to walk through with Dad?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Sterling."

He didn't think it was ridiculous. She'd been known to do worse in her  effort to get him back here, but leading the life he had mapped out for  himself was what this trip was supposed to be about. If he helped put  the company back into his father's hands, he could quit feeling guilty  about refusing to fall into the trap of family tradition and  expectation.