Deserving of Luke

“He can’t hurt you, you know,” Penny said. “You won’t let him. I won’t let him. Not ever again.”

Warmth filled Paige. “You know, for a bratty little sister, you’re pretty awesome.”

“For an obnoxious, know-it-all older sister you’re not so bad yourself.” Penny paused, and Paige desperately hoped for a shift in the conversation. But Penny didn’t give it to her. “But seriously, Paige, how are we going to handle this?”

“We? It’s my problem, Penny.”

“The only reason you came back here is because I totally screwed my life up. I’d say that makes it our problem.” She gestured to the paint cans and building supplies that filled up the living room. “I don’t know how I’d get this place together without your help.”

And there it was, the reason Paige had returned to Prospect even though it was the last place on the planet she wanted to be. She’d skipped out of town nine years ago, pregnant and devastated. But she’d left Penny alone with their parents, and though her mom and dad treated her sister a lot better than they’d ever treated her, it still hadn’t been a cakewalk.

But Paige hadn’t cared, hadn’t let herself care. She couldn’t if she wanted to survive. So she’d cut ties with her sister completely. And though Penny had reached out to her a year ago, trying to reestablish those ties, it had been slow going. At least until her fiancé had run away from her and this monstrosity of a house, leaving Penny almost broke and in a hell of a bind.

There had been no way Paige could leave her to muddle through on her own. Not when she was between set decorating jobs. She’d built in two weeks between movies to use as a vacation, but helping her sister was going to be so much more satisfying. And if she’d had to juggle things around and work like mad in order to make that two-week break a two-month break, well, then no one else had to know that.

“Luckily, you won’t have to find out.”

“But—and don’t take this the wrong way as you know I love that you’re here—but maybe you should go back to L.A. Get Luke away from Logan as fast as possible.”

The same idea had occurred to her, oh, about every fifteen seconds since Logan had chased her down the street. “I’m afraid he’d follow me. He seems really determined to see Luke.”

Penny snorted. “Yeah, nine years too late. But even if he follows you, won’t that give you home court advantage. Literally? He’s the sheriff here and one of the town’s golden boys. Wouldn’t it be better to fight this battle in a Los Angeles court?”

“I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”

“But if it does?”

“If it does, then yes. L.A. would probably be a better venue for it.”

“Then don’t feel the need to stick around here.”

“Penny—”

“No, I mean it. If it’s best for you and Luke, I want you to go back to California. As soon as possible.”

The thought had appeal. Definite appeal. And yet— “I don’t know if that’s going to work. It might already be too late.”

“How can it be too late? You just saw the man an hour ago.”

Penny was right, Paige knew she was. But the doubts at the base of her spine told her she was already in too deep. That if she ran now, it would destroy any chance she had of dealing with Logan in a mature, low-key manner. “It just is. Trust me.” She reached for a box of cereal. “Where do you want me to put this?”

“In my hand.” Penny all but ripped it away from her and shooed her toward the back door. “Why don’t you get out of here? You’ve had a rough day. I insist you relax for a few minutes while I finish putting this stuff away.”

“I don’t want to go relax. I’m so wound up that I might be able to orbit the planet under my own power.”

“All the more reason to get out of here. A walk on the beach will help you clear your head. Then we can make dinner together, before I challenge you to a virtual tennis match.”

This time Paige’s laugh was real. “We’ve been here less than two days and you’re already as addicted to that Wii as Luke is.”

“That’s because it’s all kinds of awesome. Now go.”

Paige headed out the door, but stopped on the threshold. “You know, Mike was a fool.”

“You won’t get an argument from me. Waiting until I sank all my money into this place to make our dream come true before taking off. He deserves whatever bad karma he gets—and I hope it’s a boatload. But I refuse to spend any more time being miserable over his disappearance. Not when it brought you back to me.”

Unsure of how to deal with the naked emotion in her sister’s eyes—honest, adult communication had never been one of her strong suits—Paige cleared her throat. “Maybe I will go for that walk after all.”

Penny grinned. “You better take a sweater. It might be June, but it still gets pretty cold when the breeze rolls in from the ocean.” She tossed one toward Paige. “And don’t come back for at least an hour. You need a break before I put you to work painting.”

She left the large, decrepit beach house her sister had gotten stuck with when her fiancé had walked out, and wondered what exactly she was supposed to do for the next little while as she had, for all intents and purposes, been banished from the house. If Penny seemed to think Paige needed a walk, maybe a walk was exactly what she would have. It wasn’t as though she didn’t like the ocean, after all. In Los Angeles they lived only a few blocks from the water and she made a point of taking Luke to the beach at least once a week.

But the water in L.A. was different than the water here. Calmer, warmer. And less laden with memories.

She wasn’t going to let those memories bother her, though, she reminded herself as she descended the short flight of stairs from her sister’s yard to the rocky, isolated beach. She’d promised that to herself when she’d made the decision to come to help Penny get the house ready for guests, had promised herself that she wouldn’t let herself get caught up in the past.

Besides nine years was long enough to change her from the scared, insecure girl who had looked for affection in all the wrong places into a woman who knew what she wanted and how to get it.

The trick was to avoid getting so bogged down in what used to be that she forgot what was.

With that thought foremost in her mind, Paige slipped her shoes off and walked where the water met the sand. Though the dark blue water was cold—nearly frigid, really—she enjoyed the feel of it tickling her toes, licking at her ankles. The sand squished beneath her heels, then between her toes as the water receded, before her prints washed away with each new wave.

For a minute, she wished the past could be washed away as easily.

But, no, that wasn’t exactly true, was it? Because if she hadn’t made the mistakes she had, she wouldn’t have Luke. And without him, she never would have made it after everything that happened here. After Logan had—

She cut the thought off before it could take hold. Damn this town and all the memories it evoked. In L.A. she could go weeks, months even, without thinking about him. But here, on this beach, looking out at the choppy, wind-razed Pacific it was almost impossible to keep thoughts of him at bay. Especially when she looked at Luke, here in Prospect. He looked so much like his father that here, in all of her old haunts, nearly everything he did evoked memories she would rather forget.

No matter how hard things had been, no matter how difficult those first months and years had been after she’d moved to L.A., she wouldn’t change a thing. Not if changing things meant she lost even a little bit of what she’d worked so hard to give Luke.

Stability.

Security.

Unconditional love.

Three things she’d never had growing up with two parents who despised her. Three things she swore her child would never do without.

A large wave rolled onto the beach, soaking her to her knees and spraying up onto her thighs and stomach. Paige laughed, a gasping, sucking kind of sound as she tried to ignore the bone-jarring cold that had invaded at the first brush of the water. Because, though it was freezing, it felt good. Felt wonderful to throw her troubles into the surf and let them roll a little farther out to sea.

It was as she watched the ebb and flow of the waves, savoring the feel of the cold water against her skin, that Paige made a decision.

For the time she was here, for the two months she’d promised her sister she would help with the inn, she would live in the present.

She would forget the past, forget the mistakes she’d made and the hurts she’d both inflicted and received, and focus instead on the good things she had. Luke. Penny. A job she loved waiting for her in L.A. and the chance to use everything she’d learned on that job to make the eyesore her sister had bought into something truly amazing.

And when she was done… When she was done, she would leave Prospect for good. But this time she would do it on her own terms, knowing that she had truly put the ghosts of her past to rest, once and for all.

CHAPTER FOUR