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

that he and Paige had talked one night, late, in the hangar. She might have been crying. He recalled that everyone called her Calamity June. And that she’d hated him for some reason.
    The rest was cloudy, like most of his teenage years. That whole summer had been a shit-storm anyway. It ended after the second fire, down by the stables, when Ginger and George had sat at his dining table and announced they were turning him in. They’d sent for Samantha’s parents. Her parents had taken her away. He’d been thrown in the Carmelita jail, where they held him on a jaywalking warrant, of all things, so they could buy some time, then ferried him over to the mainland, where he spent another week in the county jail. When they released him on lack of evidence, he came home on a late-night ferry to a scowling father, a suspicious town, no girlfriend, and what felt like a life filled with distrust.
    Normally he wouldn’t care that he couldn’t remember the details of that summer. He liked life that way. Forgetting could be good.
    But, for some reason, with Paige Grant here now, he felt as if he was going to remember.
    Whether he wanted to or not.
    And the fact that he couldn’t quite drag his eyes from the sexy woman who’d once been the thirteen-year-old girl who was nearly his stepsister was disturbing in ways he didn’t want to examine right now.
    Back in his bedroom, Adam peeled off his shirt to get into bed, but he suddenly thought of a better way to relieve some of his ache and fatigue.
    Within minutes, he was in a towel at the back of the resort, his bare feet thudding across the redwood deck to the Jacuzzi. With the dude group coming in a couple of days, he wouldn’t have the place to himself anymore. Might as well take advantage of it now. He snapped the lights back on, but only half—he didn’t want to wake his only resort guest—then he reset the timer behind an elderberry bush and tossed his towel on the deck. In seconds, he lowered himself into the bubbling cauldron.
    Gaaaaaaaaaaaawd, that felt good.
    His head fell back against the lip of the tub, and his arms floated weightlessly to the surface. His mind was finally able to relax. No more thinking of the past. No more thinking of the present or any of his responsibilities. No more thinking of this night. No more thinking of Paige Grant.
    About fifteen minutes into a very nice reverie regarding a pinup girl and a bathtub, a twig snapped. He jerked to attention and scouted the bushes, assuming he’d see a raccoon or opossum. But a human form took shape behind the shadows of the cypress trees.
    “Who’s there?” he barked, pushing to a sitting position, the water gently sloshing.
    Silence followed, then a rustling of bushes. As Adam watched, a very shapely shape stepped out from the shadows.
    He groaned inwardly.
    “I couldn’t sleep,” said a familiar voice.

CHAPTER 5
    Paige shoved branches aside, picked her way through the bushes in her slippers, and stumbled onto the planked wooden deck, where Adam came fully into view. She stalled right on the edge—still not certain this was a good idea. She plucked a few twigs from her hair, then gripped the elbows of her velvet hoodie and waited to get a sense of Adam’s mood.
    She’d seen him enter the hot tub from her window—she’d heard the lights clank on, then peered through the thick panes to see his waist slip into the bubbling water. The angle of her room and the dim lighting allowed her a long, guilty ogle. She’d gaped at his flexing arms as he slowly lowered his body; then she’d stared at his strong chest as he took deep breaths and dropped his head back to settle in.
    She’d enjoyed her view for five glorious minutes before pulling on her hoodie and scrounging up the nerve to pad across her patio and down the back path to the deck. She would just thank him for sending the dinner.
    Yeah, that was it.
    As she hesitated at the edge of the deck, Adam squinted at her through the darkness, the blue