Caught Between a Lie and True Love (Caught Between series Book 1) (15 page)

She’d have to wedge herself between Paige and the wall to get on the other side so she could reach it. And there was no way she’d be able to squeeze around her afterward, not with the woman’s body twitching, and her arms and legs flailing.

As she watched Paige work, she forgot about the hood and the grease on her hands. Because Paige actually looked like she knew what she was doing.

“Hope and Starr are all set up to paint. I’m back with the tools you need,“ Brody said as he walked into the garage, then stopped dead in his tracks. “Del, what are you doing here?”

There had been comfort in his voice and something else. Something that Delores didn’t much like. Something very close to admiration and affection.

Something that didn’t bode well for Delores’s wedding plans.

“Delores has been helping me while you’ve been gone.” She laughed and looked her way. “Proof that women don’t really need men, am I right, Delores? It’s a rumor that men started so they’ll have someone to do their laundry and cook their supper.”

Delores silently agreed with her and for a moment, she almost forgot that she didn’t like Paige Calhoun.

Until she looked Brody's way and saw the stupid smile lighting his face as he gazed at the other woman with adoration.

Delores looked up at the ceiling and sighed. What had she been thinking, that Paige wasn’t a rival for Brody's affections? God help her to avoid boys in the throes of a crush. Surely to goodness he’d snap out of it soon. He had better snap out of it soon because their wedding was at the end of the week.

She was going to need help…or a miracle.

“Funny,“ Brody said as he walked past the other woman, reached out to give a tug on her pony tail, and stopped at Paige’s side. “Glad you could stop in, Del.”

She folded her hands in front of her to hide the grease stains. “I’m here so you can get back out on the campaign trail. Matilda and that man are out campaigning. You should be too.”

“You mean Paige’s dad?”

Paige straightened from the truck. “I’ll just leave you two alone to discuss this.”

Delores watched her rival leave. God, she really hated women who looked beautiful in grease and dirt.

Brody released the hood prop and closed the hood. “So what did you want to talk about?”

A moment of sheer panic washed through her as the Fourth of July parade fantasy vanished with his words. But she shook it off quickly, leaned forward and hissed into his face. “We can’t let Jeb Calhoun win.”

“Who says we’re going to?”

“He’s a stranger to this town, Brody. So what if he was born here. He doesn’t belong in that seat. You do.”

He shrugged and turned away toward the workbench. “Can’t say I’d argue that logic.”

“There’s something odd about him,” she mused.

He slid her a sideways glance. “You picked up on that too?”

Ah ha, confirmation from someone other than her crazy inside-her-head people. Now all she had to do was prove it.

And get rid of one rival for Brody’s affections.

Delores spied the casserole and went to pick it up. “I’m going to put this in Olivia’s fridge, then go home and get changed.”
Again
.

As she left the garage, she passed Hope and the Calhoun brat coming into the yard.

“Hey, girlfriend,” Delores said with as much cheer in her voice as she could manage, especially considering that all she wanted to do was strangle the first person she saw.

“Hello, Mrs. Peabody,” Hope said with barely a glimmer of a smile.

The girls headed into the garage and Delores kept walking.

Yes, the first thing Delores was going to do when she snagged Brody was to send Hope off to boarding school.

As Delores stepped into the coolness of her house, she picked up the package the courier driver had left on her porch. She looked at the return address and squealed.

Finally
.

She set the box on the couch, pulled small scissors out of her pocket, and snipped the tape that held it closed. As she removed the lid, the white taffeta princess gown puffed up, and a sigh of unrequited love escaped her.

This was it, her dream wedding gown.

She tugged off her clothes, dropped them on the floor at her feet, and gently pulled the gown out of the box. Wrapped in clear plastic, it sparkled white in the early morning sunlight.

She carefully removed the plastic, climbed into the dress, then hurried to the hallway mirror. Twisting and turning, she examined the gown.

Fifty tiny buttons decorated the back. Delores frowned as she thought of those buttons and her wedding night. She wondered if Brody would have the patience to carefully extract each button from its delicate loop. Or if he’d tear through the buttons, scattering them to the four corners of their honeymoon suite.

Her breath hitched in her throat.

She hoped impatience won out.

Delores glanced down and smoothed a shaking hand over the front of the skirt. “It’s perfect. I’m perfect.”

Silence filtered through the house, and Delores took the opportunity to revel in the moment she’d been waiting her entire life for. It was all within her grasp. She just needed a wee bit more patience—

A dark smudge of something on the skirt caught her attention and she raised her hands palm up to look at the grease.

Fury snagged her by the throat, choking the breath from her body.

All she had to do was get her dream man.

But first she had to figure out a way to get rid of one Paige Calhoun.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

By day three of her return to Serendipity Island, Paige was torn between the desperate desire to pursue this thing with Brody, and the almost more desperate desire to escape the island and her family.

As she sat at the kitchen table, resigned to the fact that Jeb wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, she watched Delores exit the house next door with Brody close behind.

Dressed in a suit and tie, he was the yummiest thing she’d ever seen in her life. She shouldn’t let herself be distracted by him—and she shouldn’t distract him—but it was hard to think about anything else, especially when she fell into his arms so easily.

As they disappeared from sight, she turned her attention back to the kitchen and her family.

Gram bustled around the kitchen as though she were ten years younger. And Paige found herself wondering if there was any truth to Jeb’s claim. The elderly woman always looked innocent…except when she was giving Starr a hard time. It was like she lived for those moments—

Lisa walked into the kitchen, interrupting Paige’s thoughts.

The middle-aged woman had pushed the dark glasses on top of her head, and the bruises around her eyes had already faded to a pale yellow. With any luck, that meant she’d be long gone before she had time to work her way through those suitcases.

Lisa’s man-eating gaze swept the room, and when she didn’t spot anyone to proposition, her attention settled on Starr. “Well, who do we have here?”

With a dark look at his granddaughter, Jeb muttered, “A blackmailer.”

Paige went on mommy alert and she leaned forward. “What’s this?”

Starr slid onto the seat next to her. The teen’s smile was filled with innocence and sweetness, which upped Paige’s suspicions. “Grandpa hates it when I beat him at chess.” The teen turned the same sugary smile on Lisa. “Hello, Grandma.”

Lisa reared back as though she’d been slapped. “What did you call me?”

“Grand—”

Lisa covered her ears and turned to Paige, her lush green eyes desperate. “Tell that girl to call me Lisa.”

Paige bit back a smile and tapped Starr on the shoulder. “You heard your grandma.”

As Lisa hissed out a breath, she dropped her hands and grabbed a cup of coffee. To Olivia, she said, “It’s your fault she’s like this.”

Sticking her hands in the soapy dishwater, Gram said, “Maybe if her mother had stuck around to teach her some manners, she might be more respectful.”

Silence filled the kitchen, heavy and depressing like an early morning fog. Lisa slipped past Gram and out to the back porch where only the squeak-squeak-squeak of the old rocker gave away her agitation.

Gram snickered.

It occurred to Paige how often she’d seen her grandma manipulate people. Her dad had been about to tell her something about the elderly woman, maybe something that could implicate her in something bad.

Well, why not? No one else in her family was normal.

“Dad, can I have a word with you in private?”

“No can do, Buttercup. I promised to meet Matilda so she could introduce me to more people today.” He slid a glance toward Starr. “Want to join me on the campaign trail this morning, kiddo?”

“May I, Mom?” Starr asked. “Please, please,
please
?”

Paige gazed at her dad. How much trouble could her daughter get into on the campaign trail? It wasn’t like Starr didn’t know right from wrong. Plus, Matilda would be right there. “I suppose. But if he tries to talk you into anything that doesn’t sound on the up and up, you come right back here.”

Starr’s eyebrows shifted upward.

Jeb glared, but as he held the kitchen door open for Starr, he said, “Remember what we talked about yesterday, Buttercup. You were going to distract a certain someone.”

“Not likely,” she muttered as she pushed up from the table. Finally alone with her grandma, she went to help the old woman with the dishes and turned on the charm. “I’m really glad we came to visit you, Gram.”

The feisty old lady turned on her, suspicious. “I’m old, girl, not stupid. You’ve been skulking around here all morning, watching me as if you expect me to disappear like a magician’s assistant. Spit it out. What’s on your mind?”

Oh yay, no trying to wheedle the info out of her. Channeling Starr’s innocent expression, she asked, “How did you support yourself before you married Grandpa?”

Gram plunged her hands into the soapy dishwater. “Why do you want to know?”

Paige sighed. Might as well be direct about it. Gram always sensed when someone had a hidden agenda. “Because Dad implied that you have an unsavory past.”

“He did, did he?” She washed the cup in her hands, rinsed it off, silent and contemplative. As she put it on the dish rack to drip, her voice turned quiet. “We all do things we’re ashamed of. Have you told Starr about your teenage escapades?”

“No but—”

“Some things are better left in the past. I suggest you leave mine alone.” Gram drained the sink, ignoring the dirty dishes at the bottom, and pulled off her apron. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an errand to run.”

Paige finished the dishes by herself, then headed out to the back porch where she encountered Lisa. The dark sunglasses covered her eyes and she had her head back as though she were sleeping. But when Paige tried to tiptoe past her, Lisa’s voice stopped her.

“I always wondered about your grandma, too.”

Paige eyed her mother, who had pulled the glasses down on her nose so she could look over them, and noticed an intelligence there that she’d failed to see before. Maybe there was more to the woman than big breasts and naked screen shots. “Did you ever learn anything?”

“Only that her past starts the moment she disembarked on this island with your grandpa.” She shrugged, and lifting her face to the sun again, closed her eyes. “If you’d like, I could do some digging. No one pays attention to me anyway.”

It took only a second for Paige to make her decision. She shook her head. “Gram’s right. Sometimes the past is best left alone. Thank you anyway, Lisa. I appreciate your offer to help.”

As Paige headed out to join Jeb and Starr on the campaign trail so she could keep an eye on her dad, she realized that this woman who’d given birth to her had feelings, too.

And like the rest of them, quite possibly regrets for some of the decisions she had made.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Brody was out on the campaign trail. Hope had refused to come, playing the
I’m grounded
card, which was totally unfair. He kind of wished he had someone to ground him too, so he could stay at home.

Harry and Delores were flanking him as though at any moment, they expected him to bolt.

But he couldn’t because right now, someone was asking him where he stood on outside business development on the island. And he realized that he hadn’t given it a single thought, but maybe he needed to.

“Brody?” Delores poked him in the ribs with her very sharp elbow.

How did he feel about the tourist industry growing and possibly ruining the natural beauty of the island?

More importantly, how did the people who lived here year round feel about it?

The Judge pounded him on the back, which sent him rocking up on his toes, then back on his heels. “Sorry, folks. Brody's been working on his campaign non-stop.”

Delores jumped in. “Lack of sleep must have finally caught up with him.”

Brody knew that wasn’t true and judging by the skeptical expressions on the faces of the people around him, they knew it too. They all knew that he’d been dealing with Hope and helping Olivia and trying to make a place for himself on the island.

What they didn’t know was that Paige’s arrival had distracted him from everything, and he hadn’t given a single thought to the election.

The Judge cleared his throat. “Let me tell you where our candidate stands.”

Brody put his hand on the Judge’s shoulder and interrupted. “I can handle this, Harry.”

He turned to the crowd, studied the faces fill with expectation, and knew he couldn’t lie. “To be completely honest, I haven’t given it any thought.”

A collective gasp of disappointment and shock came from the small gathering.

He spoke slowly, formulating his thoughts. “I know I haven’t been back on the island for very long. But you all know I grew up here. We’ve kept our gates closed to tourism, but being away, then coming back, I see it has slowly infiltrated the island.”

He leaned slightly forward. “And that’s the way of our future, whether we like it or not.”

The Judge grabbed his elbow. Brody ignored him. “If we don’t accept it and grow with it, soon all of our children will have left the island for more exciting opportunities. And we’ll be left to die alone.”