Free Love on Lavender Island (A Lavender Island Novel Book 2) by Lauren Christopher Page B

first-aid kit inside and looked around, as if searching for keys. “Here, why don’t you go out this way?” He indicated the door to the lobby.
    Six months ago? Paige tried to make sure her mouth hadn’t dropped open as she slid off the table to put weight back on her foot. She followed his momentum toward the lobby, hobbling along while her mind still whirled.
    “Six months ago?” she whispered up at him as she passed him in the doorway.
    He reached forward to open the next door for her. She could smell the clean, chlorine-mixed-with-sandalwood-soap scent that wafted off his T-shirt as he herded her into the voluminous lobby.
    “That must have been a shock,” she pressed.
    “Mmm.” He guided her past the lobby front desk, where he waved to a thin, balding man that must be Mendelson, then ushered Paige along the flagstone flooring, past the stone fireplace, and toward her room.
    “Where were they living all these years?” she asked.
    “I should introduce you to Mendelson. I’ll introduce you to the staff tomorrow. They can help you around here until I get your place secured. We’ll have it ready before the dude group comes.”
    Paige let him derail her for a second. “How many staffers are there?”
    “Fifteen or sixteen.”
    “What do they all do?”
    “Eight ranch hands, sometimes ten in busy seasons. A maid for the resort. A cook. Someone mans the front desk twenty-four hours. Kelly works in the daytime, a woman named Joanne works early evening, and a guy named Little fills in on days off. Mendelson works overnight. Joanne also handles the wedding planning, and Mendelson coordinates the dude-ranch visits. Little does my handiwork.”
    Paige nodded at the litany of information she barely heard and gave a courteous pause before pressing more about what she truly wanted to know. “So where were Samantha and Amanda living?”
    He gave a defeated sigh. “Alabama.”
    “What did Amanda say when she arrived here?”
    “Listen, Paige.” They arrived at 8A, and he turned to face her. “I’m tired. You must be tired. Let’s do this another time. In the morning I’ll send Antonio over to the house to look at the points of entry the intruders might be finding. And Pedro from town is going to take a look at the electric lines. Seems a line went down from our last storm, and they did a quick fix because they thought the property was going to be donated or abandoned. But now they need to look into it deeper. They’ll get it done, though. I told Pedro you needed the electric back on in a hurry. In the meantime, why don’t you stay around here for a day?”
    “Here?”
    Adam glanced around. “Yes. Here.”
    “I can’t stay around here .”
    His scowl reappeared, with a bit of hurt lacing the edges of the irritation. “It’s not so bad.”
    “I mean, I have to get to work. I need to get into Gram’s house tomorrow.”
    He shook his head. “I need one day.”
    “I can’t spare a day.”
    The frustration was back on his face. “I need a day.”
    She shook her head.
    “Paige. One day. Let me get it secured.”
    She wanted to argue. But he looked tired, and she was tired, and he’d helped her quite a few times already today, and she didn’t want to put him through any more paces. Guilt had been rising into her throat as she’d realized that she and her mom had split up not just a teenage couple but an entire family—Adam, Samantha, and Amanda. And it had had terrible, long-lasting effects.
    Paige thought of Amanda again, how sullen she looked, how scared she must be, and how she’d just lost her mother. She’d just learned of a father she might not have even known she had. She’d probably been dropped off here on this island mountaintop, away from life as she knew it, all against her will.
    And Adam, meanwhile, was probably trying to figure out how to deal with all of this.
    Without anything more to say—except, maybe, a heartfelt I’m sorry that she couldn’t yet get out of her closing