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

first floor and eight on the second. The other side of the lobby had a door that led to the family kitchen, and behind that was the family home.
    The renovated resort felt old and new, and small and enormous, at the same time—small enough to feel cozy, but enormous in its high ceilings and oversized stones. But the dimmed lighting and silence also made it feel like a place marching toward death.
    “What’s up?” A young blonde girl—with the edges of her hair in bright blue—came around the corner in a Grateful Dead T-shirt and took her place at the check-in desk. Paige wasn’t even sure where she’d come from. A back office? The family home?
    “Amanda, where’s Mendelson?” Adam asked.
    “Not in yet.”
    Adam frowned and made a frustrated sound. It made Paige feel better that, for once, neither she nor her family was responsible for a Mason scowl.
    Amanda looked Paige up and down as she licked some kind of potato-chip dust off her fingers.
    “Can you get Ms. Grant here set up in a room, then?” Adam asked in his deep voice, avoiding Amanda’s eyes.
    Amanda glanced between Adam and Paige a few times—as if trying to assess the situation—but finally pulled out a keyboard from under the check-in computer.
    “Which room do you want her in?” she asked.
    “Eight-A.”
    She nodded as if that meant something to her. Paige wondered if that was the farthest room in the wing, as far away from Adam as possible.
    “Are you hungry?” he asked, turning toward Paige abruptly. “That cheese and those grapes couldn’t be your dinner.”
    His voice sounded more irritated than truly concerned. That indifference was what Paige needed to remember. Her hormones might be going into overdrive at the sight of him, but he’d been treating her like a veritable stranger the whole day. A pain-in-the-ass stranger, in fact. She’d do well to follow his lead.
    “I’ll be all right,” she said. “I’m mostly tired.”
    He gave a curt nod, then strode through the door that led to his own residence.
    “It’s on us,” he told Amanda over his shoulder.
    Amanda frowned at his retreating back as if confused, then focused her eyes back on the screen.
    “Nonsmoking okay?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    “One queen okay?”
    “Yes.”
    Amanda went into efficiency mode, printing a confirmation, getting a key, folding it into a map.
    The girl leaned across the counter and pointed with her pen. “We’re here. Your room is straight down that way.” Her voice fell into the rhythm of boredom that was the hallmark of teenagers everywhere. “Jacuzzi is open until . . . well, it’s closed now, but it’s normally open until ten. There’s a light continental breakfast from—oh wait, tomorrow might be the last day for that. It’s eight to eleven, but we probably won’t have it after tomorrow. If you’d like riding lessons or maps to get down to the harbor, come see me in the morning. I assume you just flew in?”
    Paige glanced up. She didn’t really feel like telling her the whole story. Not only that, but her mind kept dragging over how young this girl looked to be working in a hotel this late. Was she thirteen? Fifteen? Sixteen? The heavy eye makeup and dyed blue tips were throwing Paige off. “Something like that,” she said.
    The girl’s scrutiny swept across Paige’s clothes, yoga mat, and backpack, then seemed to drag over Paige’s ring finger. She clicked her pen several times. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
    Paige hesitated. She sort of wanted to ask some questions—like why were they closing the resort, and who normally worked this desk, and whose kitten was Click, and how old was this girl, and where did she live—but the weights on her shoulders reminded her that a good night’s sleep was in order first. “No,” she said.
    The girl’s bored nod, Adam’s quick dismissal, the hauntingly quiet resort, and the looming flagstone fireplace all made Paige feel insignificant as she dragged