Playing the Playboy (18 page)

Just more head shaking.

None of this made any sense. He couldn’t think of a single woman who wouldn’t assume her clothes were her personal property. She had every right to take her clothes. As far as he was concerned, she could also have taken the furnishings. He would never have assumed all of it should be conveyed with the property.

When he heard a familiar barking, his head snapped up. “The dogs are still here too?”

Agatha took a step back at his frustrated tone. “She said the dogs could stay for a time. She will take them if you want them gone.”

“I don’t want them gone,” he groaned, feeling like a bully and a monster. “But I can’t believe she would have left them for so long…” Then it occurred to him. “Where is she working?”

“At the village tavern,” Agatha said, as if she were surprised he didn’t know. “She works double-shifts so she can make enough to get a place for her and the dogs.”

Andrew was shocked and bewildered—and ended up going to see Theo, Circe, and Persephone, mostly so he could take some time to think.

He was glad to see the dogs, and he couldn’t help but feel better when all three were clearly thrilled to see him.

They had no idea what had happened.

Their happy world had been turned upside down. They probably didn’t get to see Laurel very much now.

He sat down on the ground when Theo kept insisting on trying to follow him. The dog was still limping badly on the back leg.

Andrew leaned against the wall and petted them each in turn. He knew for sure now what he’d started to suspect as he worked on the tree house. He’d been completely wrong about everything.

If Laurel was really who he’d thought she was—if she’d genuinely deceived him and played him so heartlessly—then she would have emptied her bank account, cleaned out her possessions, taken her dogs, and disappeared. She would have settled somewhere comfortable. With her looks and her skills, she could easily have found a cushy job. Or a rich man.

She wouldn’t be working for pittance at a tavern in this same town.

After he’d spent a while with the dogs, he got up and dusted off his trousers. He’d been mulling over a possible plan for the last few days, and now he was definitely going to carry it out.

***

He asked Agatha for the name of the tavern, and then he walked through the village to get there. He’d passed it before, when he was in town a few weeks earlier. It was mostly a hole in the wall but was popular with locals and tourists.

The evening was starting to get dark now, and he could see through the big window into the well-lit main room of the tavern.

There was a long bar and maybe thirty tables. The whole place was packed, with crowds around the bar and a line out the door waiting for tables. It was high season. Every restaurant in town was packed on a Saturday night.

He managed to make room between the waiting customers so he could see better in through the window. He found Laurel immediately. She was dressed in the low-cut peasant dress and apron that all the waitresses wore, and her hair was pulled into one long braid down her back.

She wasn’t smiling and flirting like the other waitresses. She moved through tables, carrying drinks, meals, and empty dishes with her normal impressive efficiency. A lot of men watched her admiringly. She was undoubtedly the most beautiful women in the room. He could almost read raunchy comments on some of their lips as they tried to get her attention. One of them actually pinched her ass in a move that made Andrew bristle.

She ignored all of it. She took requests and served plates without hesitation or mistakes. She never smiled.

For some reason, the sight was absolutely heart-wrenching.

Andrew watched for a long time. She never paused to chat—not even with the other servers or the bartender, who looked several times like he’d like to chat with Laurel. She covered twice as many tables as the other waitresses.

Most people, observing her, would assume she was just focused on work, but Andrew could tell she was miserable.

Why wouldn’t she be miserable? She’d been perfectly happy—had made something good from a hard history. Then Andrew had appeared, and now she was here.

He watched as she put her tray down on the bar and took a few steps into a corner by the bar. She leaned against the wall, flattening her back, her features twisting briefly.

Her back was hurting, he realized.

She was probably on her feet all day and into the evening. Agatha said she worked double-shifts.

Someone must have called out for her, since she straightened up immediately and grabbed her tray to go empty a table that had just been vacated.

She was in pain, and no one seemed to notice.

Andrew was angry. At everyone. At her—for being so proud and stubborn. At the people around her—who couldn’t see she was working way too hard.

And at himself. Since it was his fault she was here.

***

Laurel had been fighting tears all evening.

She thought she’d been doing pretty well for the last two weeks, as well as could be expected. She’d rented the cheapest room in the village she could find, and she was working as much as humanly possible to save up enough money for the first month’s rent and deposit on a place that had room for the dogs. The island was small, and rentals were very expensive in the high season. But she was determined to find something.

Maybe it would make more sense to move—to go back to her hometown in West Virginia or another equally rural mountain town where she could live cheaply and save up money fast.

This island had been her dream, though, and she wasn’t going to give it up, just because everything else had fallen apart.

If only her back didn’t hurt so much. If only she could stop thinking about Andrew.

She grabbed five mugs of beer for a table full of college-aged tourists and neatly avoided the hand of a pervy Frenchman at the bar who tried to cop a feel every time she passed by.

Heartbreak was supposed to get better as each day passed, but for Laurel it seemed to get worse. In the first days, she’d been hurt and indignant enough at what Andrew had believed of her that those feelings drowned out everything else.

For the last few days, however, she hadn’t been thinking as much about how she was hurting. She was thinking about what Andrew might be feeling.

She’d hurt him. She knew that much. He’d cared about her and trusted her, and she’d lied to his face. Then she hadn’t even tried to make it better when she’d had the chance.

He was probably back in England now. Maybe he’d taken up his old habits, chasing women and having fun. She didn’t have internet access at the moment, so she couldn’t look up his gossip site. She wouldn’t have done so anyway.

If he’d turned back to his old ways, it would be in defeat—because he’d concluded he couldn’t make the fresh start he’d wanted. And that would just be wrong. He could be so much more than anyone believed, so much more than he believed of himself.

Maybe she was the one who convinced him it was hopeless.

Her eyes burned as she thought about him, and her back hurt so much now she couldn’t move very easily.

It had been getting a little worse every day. She knew the signs. If she didn’t consciously rest when it felt this way, it would go out completely.

She hated her damned back. She hated the way it made her weak.

And she hated her damned heart just as much.

Finally, when she couldn’t stay on her feet any longer, she told the bartender she was taking her break. She’d been hoping to last long enough to serve the table of six that had come in a few minutes ago. They were middle-aged tourists. They all wore very expensive shoes, and the women had designer purses. They would have tipped really well.

But she just couldn’t make it.

She usually went outside to get some fresh air, but she went back to the storage room instead. There was a big old trunk they stored liquor in, and it was about the right height and length for what she needed.

She eased down until she was lying on top of the trunk. Pulling up her knees to brace her heels on the edge, she tried to flatten her back.

She couldn’t immediately—the muscles were too tightly clenched. She breathed slowly, deeply, consciously tried to loosen her muscles.

It took her ten minutes until she was finally able to relax her back.

She only had a fifteen minute break.

She had two more hours on her shift.

She loved Andrew and she hated him and she hated herself even more.

She felt a sob rising in her throat, but she forced it down. She had to twist her face with the effort, and her shoulders shook anyway. She felt tears slipping out of her eyes but didn’t have the energy to wipe them away.

She needed to get up. Her break was over. She took a deep breath and straightened her legs.

Her back caught so painfully that all the muscles clenched back up protectively. She let out a sharp cry.

She still had to get up, though, and she felt a flare of panic as she realized she was trapped in her position. She couldn’t sit up. Even the slightest move in that direction hurt like hell, and she couldn’t brace herself enough to roll over to her side.

She was trying to work through the irrational panic and groping for something to hold onto for leverage when there was suddenly a strong arm beneath her hand. She used the stability instinctively to roll over on her side, and from there she could push herself up.

It was only when she was sitting that she fully processed what she’d intuitively known.

The man was Andrew. He was wearing jeans, a green golf shirt, and an utterly serious expression. He was so handsome and so dear that she choked back another sob. “What are you doing here?” she managed to ask.

“I had business to take care of at the inn. I’m interviewing for new staff later this week and trying to get started on the renovations.”

That didn’t answer her question, but she responded anyway. “I thought Harrison or someone else would do it.”

He shook his head. “I’m doing it.”

He looked at her with an intense kind of scrutiny. It wasn’t angry or accusatory, but there wasn’t a hint of a smile on his face. Not even the faintest tilt of his lips.

She missed that smile so much. It hurt.

She tried to stand up but couldn’t do it. She had to grab Andrew’s arm to support some of her weight, and when she let go the pain was so sharp she had to grab at him again.

“You need to lie down,” he murmured. “I’ll help you back. Where are you staying?”

“I’ve got two more hours to work.”

“That’s ridiculous, Laurel. You can barely stand up. You can’t work anymore tonight.”

She was still holding onto him, and his body was lean, warm, and so familiar. She wanted it to always be so close. That wasn’t going to happen, though. That obviously wasn’t why he was here.

This wasn’t some sappy reconciliation scene. Miracles like that didn’t happen to her.

“I need the money,” she said matter-of-factly, not wanting to sound reproachful or bitter. She took a deep breath and let go of his arm. This time, she could stand on her own.

“You can’t possibly work when you’re—”

“I’ll walk it off. It just clenched up because I was resting.”

“Laurel,” Andrew gritted out, for the first time looking annoyed. “Would you stop being so foolishly stubborn? You need to lie down. I’m not going to let you—”

“You don’t get to make this decision.” Her voice was sharp but not angry. She didn’t have the energy. “If I want to be foolish, then I can be foolish. It’s my decision to make.”

He looked like he wanted to object. In fact, one hand came up as if he were going to put it on her back to help her walk. But he restrained himself. He didn’t say anything as she walked slowly back into the main room.

Unfortunately, he also didn’t go away. He maneuvered a small table in the back corner, and he sat there with his back to the wall. He ordered a beer, and he accepted a refill when it was gone. He got a third beer as well, but this one he only occasionally sipped. She assumed he’d gotten it so they wouldn’t kick him out of the table.

She worked with as much focus as she could, and she didn’t look over at him except to check the state of his glass. She could feel him watching her, though.

It could have been creepy, but it was more confusing than anything else. She didn’t know why he was here at all. She didn’t know if he still hated her, if he wanted some sort of closure, or if he was just as lost and bewildered as she was.

The two hours were the longest of her life. Her back was so bad she would have gone home early if Andrew hadn’t been there watching, but some sort of irrational stubbornness prompted her to stay to the end of her shift. Her feelings were in such turmoil that she miscounted change twice and brought someone coffee instead of ouzo.

The two hours finally ended. When she limped out the back door of the tavern, Andrew was waiting for her.

She accepted the supporting arm he offered, mostly because she so desperately needed it. He didn’t say anything except to ask where she was staying.