The Taming of the Bachelor (19 page)

E
aster was the first Sunday of April this year, and this year in Marietta, Paige decided to close the diner all together on Easter Sunday. Java Café would be open and people could go get breakfast or a coffee there. She wanted her staff to have the day off, and for once, she didn’t want to worry about work on her own holiday with the kids.

Trey and McKenna had invited Paige and the children over for Easter dinner, but Paige just wanted to be home with Tyler and Addison and declined.

McKenna was quiet for a moment after Paige’s refusal.

“Things seem different between us,” McKenna said carefully. “Has something happened, Paige, that I don’t know about?”

Paige had been folding laundry at the kitchen table and abruptly stopped folding the mountain of small t-shirts, cord skirts, and jeans. “No. Not at all. Why do you say that?”

“Because we don’t do as much together as we used to. You used to like coming over with the kids for dinner, and it’s been months since you joined us. Did Trey say something...do something? Be honest, Paige, because I miss you.”

Paige squeezed her eyes closed, hating the pained note in her best friend’s voice. “No, I promise. This has nothing to do with Trey—”

“But there is something. Isn’t there?”

“It’s Dillon,” Paige said softly. “Trey reminds me of Dillon and it’s just...still hard.”

“You fell for Dillon?”

Paige swallowed hard. “I did.”

“You guys only went out that one night. Right?”

“He came over for dinner a night, too.”

“Paige—” McKenna broke off, exhaled, then tried again. “You hardly knew him.”

“I know. Crazy, huh?”

E
aster vacation ended and the kids were back in school, which meant back into the schoolwork-homework routine. This afternoon Paige was seated at the kitchen table with the kids, helping Addison with her homework, while Tyler worked away at his.

Tyler never needed help, but this afternoon he was barely getting his pencil to write.

“You feel all right?” Paige asked him, leaning over to touch his forehead. He didn’t feel warm. But he didn’t look like himself, either.

“Yes,” he answered, pushing away his math workbook. “But I want Dillon’s number. Will you give it to me?”

The question came out of the blue, and caught her off guard. “Why?” she asked warily, even as she encouraged Addison to write the next sentence.

Tyler shrugged. “I wanted to ask him if he thought that it mattered how fast or slow the shadow passes over the chick.”

“I don’t think it matters.”

“That’s not a scientific answer.”

“But it’s true. I think you’re making this science fair project way way more complicated than it needs to be.”

He frowned at her. “That’s because you didn’t like doing them when you were little. You told me that.”

“Yes, but—” she broke off, pressing her lips together to silence her frustration.

“But what?”

She struggled to find the right words. That Dillon might have been kind to them, and helpful when he was here back in February, but he wasn’t interested in becoming involved with them...not as a family. That Dillon had told her not just once, but twice, that he didn’t want kids. “I don’t think there is any need to bother him with something like this. Maybe you just need to test out your theories yourself.”

“I will. But I’d like his opinion, and he’s not judging the contest because he’s happy to help me.” Tyler sat tall and straight, his expression painfully earnest. “You don’t have to call him. I will. He told me I could. He told me you had his number. He said all I had to do was ask you. So do you have his number?”

She found her phone, looked up Dillon in her contacts, and reluctantly wrote down Dillon’s number on a piece of Tyler’s binder paper and slid it across the table.

Tyler thanked her, reached for the paper, and stood up.

“You’re going to call him now?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m sure he’s working, honey.”

He gave her a funny look. “Well, so am I,” he answered, before leaving the room to call Dillon on the house phone in the family room.

Paige wanted to jump up and lurk in the hall, so she could listen in on Tyler’s call. She was dying to hear what Tyler would say, and how Dillon would respond, afraid that Tyler was going to have his feelings hurt, but she didn’t eavesdrop. Tyler wanted privacy, and she was determined to give it to him.

But the entire time he was gone, her stomach felt queasy, and it was a relief when Tyler returned, ten minutes or so later, looking if not pleased with himself, then content. He sat back down at the table, and picked up his pencil and resumed his homework without uttering a word.

Paige waited impatiently for him to speak. He didn’t. “Well?” she prompted finally.

Tyler glanced up. “What?”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said that could be an interesting variable for me to test.” Then Tyler dropped his gaze and focused back on his homework.

Paige watched him another moment, frustrated, heart hammering. She was upset, and she didn’t know why. And then it hit her. She was jealous. Jealous that Tyler was able to phone Dillon, jealous that Tyler had just talked to him.

She missed him. She hadn’t expected to miss him this much, but it’d been two months now since he’d left, and her heart still ached.

She’d told herself the same thing that McKenna had said Easter weekend, that Paige didn’t know Dillon well enough to miss him. She’d told herself it was impossible to be attached to him after just a date and a half, especially as they weren’t even real dates, but maybe it didn’t matter when you had that chemistry together, and the energy had sizzled, filling her, warming her.

But he’d taken that energy and warmth with him when he left and Paige was still finding it hard to settle back into life without that fizz in her veins and that quick leap in her veins when he entered the room.

He was everything she didn’t think she wanted or needed—exciting, handsome, young. But somehow he’d made her feel exciting and attractive and young, too.

But he was gone, she reminded herself, leaving the table to check the scalloped potatoes in the oven. They were just starting to bubble and brown. She closed the oven door and then prodded the pork chops still brining, her heart and mind warring, far too aware that Dillon had no plans to return until Troy and Taylor’s wedding this summer.

So she would see him again—Taylor had asked Paige to be a bridesmaid—but August was still a long, long time away.

A
lthough Dillon had found his return difficult in February, by mid-April he was settling in. The house was working out. He loved his car, enjoying the twenty-minute commute each day because it gave him a chance to drive it, and Austin had a great progressive vibe—different from any other Texas city—which is probably why some of the most creative, interesting and innovative people in the country lived here.

He felt at home here, too, and should he crave a break from urban life, he only had to drive thirty minutes, and he’d be in Texas’ beautiful Hill Country. So far he hadn’t taken advantage of the Hill Country or any of the other fun activities. He was working seven days a week, ten to fourteen hours a day, but at least the long hours also saved him from dwelling on Paige.

It was hard thinking of her because he always had this nagging feeling that he’d somehow failed her. That he hadn’t been there for her. He believed she and the kids needed someone in their lives someone to care for them, and help provide, as well as teach the kids things they needed to know to survive in the world.

He knew Addison had Paige, but what about Tyler? Tyler needed a role model that would show Tyler how to navigate the male world. Or at the very least, how to protect himself. To put up those hands and protect the face and give a good fight.

No, it was a good thing Tutro was in such dire shape because it forced Dillon to focus, and immerse himself completely in work, arriving early at the office and staying late, rarely leaving before nine or ten. Some evenings he stayed even later, working at his desk until midnight before taking the freeway home to his house on Sam Houston Circle.

He’d leased a large expensive home in a luxurious neighborhood. He had the money, as he’d made a fortune when Tutro went public, and Dillon had sold most of his stock several years ago when the shares were still trading high. With Troy’s input, he’d invested in several start-up companies. One had tanked, two others had prospered, and he’d doubled his capital while working the Sheenan ranch in Paradise Valley.

The truth was, he didn’t have to work. He was a very wealthy man by any standard, and yet, Dillon couldn’t imagine not working. He had to use his brain. He needed to do something meaningful in life. He needed to be challenged.

That’s why he’d returned to Tutro. For the challenge. And when he was at the office, he was one hundred percent focused on work. But it all changed once he pulled out of the parking garage in the evening. At night he was starting to unplug now, switching off at least mentally from the business. He’d drive home with the convertible top down, the warm night air blowing, music playing. It was during those blissful minutes behind the wheel, he’d forget Tutro, and he’d just relax. During the twenty minute drive he’d feel free.

As he left the freeway for his neighborhood, to his glass and stone house perched high on a bluff overlooking Lake Austin, he’d travel dark quiet streets lined with oak trees, the moonlight filtering through the trees’ gnarled branches, dappling the road with white light, Johnny Cash turned down low.

He was forced to slow on that curving drive that led him home, and it was there, on that last quarter mile that his thoughts inevitably turned from Austin to Marietta, and he would be back there with her.

It was all so clear that sometimes he felt as if he could reach out and touch her....

He, sitting on a barstool at Grey’s, with Paige taking the barstool to his right, her golden hair spilling across her shoulder, her lips curling up, her blue eyes smiling at him.

And then they were there in front of the bar, stomping their feet from the cold, trying to decide where to go after the auction ended.

He could see them in her diner, having coffee and homemade pie at the counter. He heard himself telling her about Tutro and she shared with him about Lewis. And then they were in the diner’s kitchen, and he couldn’t keep his hands off of her. He wanted her, wanted to touch her and he reached for her, kissing her.

Even now, months later, he could still remember how she tasted of sweet tart cherries and vanilla ice cream, and it was impossible to forget how she’d felt against him, how well she’d fit, how right she’d been. Holding her was the most natural thing in the world. With her in his arms, he couldn’t imagine another woman there.

And so each night he began to associate the drive home with Paige, and he looked forward to that time. It was when he could just think of her, the moonlight washing the road in shades of gray and white, and desire would ache in him. He wanted her. Still. He wanted her in a way he’d never wanted, or needed, anyone. She made him crave a life he’d never known. Seeing her with her children made him realize what he’d lost as a child when his mother had died. Seeing her struggle on her own, made him realize how important it was for children to be raised in a strong, healthy marriage.

Lewis hadn’t meant to leave her, but he had.

And Dillon had left her, because he could.

He told himself he was doing her a favor. He told himself he wasn’t the right one. But to be honest, he was no longer sure of anything. The only thing that remained real and true was his emptiness without her. And so he’d drive, weighted with longing and regret, making that late night drive home, poignant, and bittersweet.