She rubbed her arms, chilled despite the sweater she'd pulled on over wool slacks.
What should she do?
She had plenty of time to debate her options because neither Sterling nor Walter showed until almost lunch, then it was only Sterling.
"Where were you?" he asked, grasping the top of the doorjamb and using it to stretch. He was wearing a Roy Furnishings sweatshirt over jeans. "There was an LFBA meeting this morning. Dad was speaking."
"Really? Since when did we know that?"
"Since my mother knocked on my door to collect me at eight o'clock this morning." He gave her a weary look. "I left you a text."
She checked her phone. "You did. Sorry."
"Doesn't matter." He yawned and lowered his arms. "It was just another ‘rah-rah Dad' thing that Mom cooked up. The place was packed, though. I'm impressed."
"Is he downstairs?"
"No, they're on their way to city hall, to put in his paperwork."
"Oh." So she had to wait a little longer to talk to Walter about Lyle. That shouldn't be such a relief.
"Wanna go away this weekend?" Sterling asked.
"What? Where? When?" She glanced past him to the hall, alarmed.
He rolled his eyes. "Tonight. Now. Seattle, Canada, Hawaii. I don't care."
Her mouth hung open while temptation beat in her throat. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"I have a lot to do."
His eyelids came down to a bored half-mast. "Like?"
Oh, for heaven's sake, didn't the man have any easy questions, like whether Oswald had acted alone? "Stuff. The audit." Embezzlement. Crime.
"Whatever keeps you from being seen with me?"
She shuffled her stapler around on her bare desktop, miserable. It ate her alive when he was angry with her.
She looked up at his silence, hoping for a hint of thaw, and was arrested by his profile, sculpted and evenly proportioned as he looked down the hall, watching for whoever was making the steady clip-clip noise coming up the stairs.
God, he was handsome. Genuinely handsome. Not in a long-lashed pretty way or a roughly hewn wicked way. No, it was clean lines and strong features, confidence in his bearing and intelligence in his expression that combined to make him so good-looking.
Heat slithered through her and when she thought about the things they'd done last night-hoo. A tingling pleasure flushed body-wide beneath her skin.
Then there was that tenderness he was capable of showing, the draping of a jacket over her shoulders, the lazy assumption that she would want to spend the weekend with him. It lit a sweet fire in her that went beyond mere physical attraction. Beyond even the silly infatuation she'd been struggling against. It was more encompassing.
It might be love.
Oh, no.
"Could you dig up some inventory files for me?" he said to whoever approached.
"Why do you need them?" Olinda asked, coming alongside where Sterling stood in the doorway.
Sterling's brows went up a fraction. "Because someone has to look at them, but Paige doesn't have time." He turned his attention back to her, cool. "She's in a hurry to finish her audit and leave."
"I didn't say that."
Olinda brightened. "Really? What exactly do you need?" she asked Sterling.
Sterling told her, and Olinda said, "Quinn's office or your dad's?"
"Quinn's. Dad'll be in later."
Paige bit her lip. She wanted to go away with Sterling, not confront her partner about her brother's embezzlement.
"Can I talk to you?" Olinda asked Paige.
"Um, sure." Paige glanced at Sterling, but he was walking away. She pressed her feet to the floor, wished she could follow him and make up, but Olinda came in and shut the door.
Olinda made a production of shimmying her backside into the chair, crossing her meaty calves, and kicking her two-tone-blue Payless pump, while Paige ate her heart out over driving Sterling away.
"I can't find last year's deposit book."
"I have it." Paige pulled it from the box at her feet along with the other files that incriminated Lyle. "I was going to work at Dad's yesterday before I got called in to do those interviews."
"Oh." A roll of neck flesh underlined Olinda's chin as she slouched in disappointment. "Are you really almost finished with the audit? Am I going to see my money soon?"
"Don't spend it yet, Olinda. Even when I get the audit finished, I still have to negotiate the sale."
"What about selling the house?"
Paige pinched the bridge of her nose. At least Rosie had got that job at the salon. It sounded like she was planning to stay in Palm Springs even after Grady came home.
"Dad needs somewhere to live when he gets back," she pointed out. "He's comfortable there and so is Lyle." She began emptying the remaining files from the box.
"I never should have divorced him," Olinda said on a sad sigh. "I mean, you mature a bit, you start to see a little straying isn't the worst thing you might have to put up with in a marriage, right?"
Paige privately choked. A cheating spouse was pretty freaking awful, thanks. And there was more to her father and Olinda's break up than any of them talked about.
"We all wish we could have a windfall, but at least you can count on the monthly check," she reminded. Why couldn't Olinda be happy with that?
"But I could pay off my mortgage and start investing for my own retirement. You really don't have any idea how much longer?"
"No, and I can't finish the audit until-"
"Until?" Olinda prompted.
Paige had the folder with Lyle's invoices in her hand. She knew how Olinda felt about Lyle, but maybe the bookkeeper knew something Paige didn't.
"Is there a problem with something I've done?" Olinda prompted, splaying a fearful hand over her cleavage.
"No. Nothing's come to light that I haven't already brought to your attention except-" Paige hesitated, then thought, what the hell. Maybe Olinda knew exactly what had happened here. Maybe that's why Lyle had been so blasé.
Opening the folder, she showed the contents to Olinda. "Do these invoices ring any bells with you?"
Olinda leafed through them. "Not really. Should they?"
"I just wondered if the reimbursement to the company was processed differently from the other ones."
"Why would they be reimbursed?"
"They're car parts."
Olinda drew in a dramatic breath. "He's been stealing? Is there even going to be any money?"
"It's pocket change," Paige hurried to state, rubbing a spot in the middle of her forehead where it felt like an ice-cream headache was glaciating. "Not much in the big scheme of things. It's just that I have to straighten it out before I can get back to the audit."
"Leopards don't change their spots, do they?" Olinda huffed, adjusting the flowing lace on her sleeve.
Paige held back getting into the middle of Olinda's dispute with Lyle, only said, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention this to anyone until I've gotten to the bottom of it. I thought you might have processed things differently for some reason. I'll ask Walter about them today. Follow due process." Even if it killed her.
Would it?
You won't like what happens.
No. Lyle might say mean things, and he might do some truly dreadful things to her car, but he wouldn't hurt her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
By the time Olinda brought him the inventory records, Sterling had forgotten he'd asked for them, mostly because he'd only requested them out of a desire to dig at Paige.
Nevertheless, there was the genuine problem in that the inventory numbers in the computer disagreed with the actual number of pieces counted in Paige's audit. Someone had to reconcile the variances. It might as well be him.
He dropped the records on the corner of his father's desk. One more job he'd have to complete before he could leave.
He wasn't going to be ready to go when she was. She might pound his brains out while she was stuck here pounding numbers, but the minute the audit was done, she was cashing out and leaving Liebe Falls.
The knowledge was gnawing an ache into his gut, while her rejection of his invitation to go away for the weekend corroded higher up, in his chest region. When had he handed her the power to hurt him? No woman in his life had ever been granted that privilege. He knew better.
Not after Paige had done it the first time.
So what would he do? He couldn't leave anytime soon. He had started too many projects. Every single one was necessary and he had no one to hand them off to.
Olinda cleared her throat. She was still hovering.
"Something else?" he asked, bordering on hostile. I'm brooding here.
"Has Paige talked to you about Lyle?"
He sat back. "I don't know. What was she supposed to tell me?"
"Of course she hasn't." Olinda huffed big enough to stir the layers of lace dripping off her stately chest. "Probably because she knows you'd deal with it a lot faster than she will. ‘Due process,' she said, and who knows how long that'll take. She molly-coddles him, you know."