morning was his managing to get up and leave the house without running into Paige.
“Larry, watch what the hell you’re doing!” Cole shouted as the man barely missed hitting another one of the workers in the head with a board.
When Larry Martin turned to give him a questioning look, Cole immediately noticed his pallor. A ghost couldn’t have had less color. “Did you get a sandwich out of that vending machine last night like the others?” Cole asked.
Larry nodded. “We all had the egg salad sandwiches.”
“What about you two?” Cole asked, turning to the other men.
“No way, boss.” Harold Jenkins grinned. “Me and Terry had better sense.”
“Yeah, we went through the drive-through at the Moo & Cackle and got a healthy meal,” Terry Goodman chimed in. “We both had the macho man burger, a basket of chili cheese fries and a large chocolate milkshake.”
“I’m glad you didn’t decide on something unhealthy,” Cole said drily.
“I think I’m dying,” Larry complained, holding his stomach.
“Go ahead and pack it in for today,” Cole said, resigned to the fact that with the majority of his crew out sick there was no way they could get anything else done on the build. “One of you call me in the morning to let me know how many of you are able to work.”
While Harold and Terry loaded tools into the truck, Cole rolled up the blueprints. “Larry, I want you and the other three who ate from that vending machine to go to the urgent care clinic at Royal Memorial Hospital,” he said, placing the barn plans in the seat of his truck. “R&N Builders will pay for the visit and whatever medication the doctor prescribes.”
“Thanks...boss,” Larry said, sounding worse by the minute.
“But do me a favor. Don’t eat egg salad out of a vending machine again,” Cole advised.
“I don’t think...I’ll ever eat...again,” Larry moaned.
If he felt as bad as he looked, Cole couldn’t say he blamed the man. “Just get to feeling better. You can worry about what you eat after that.”
As he walked toward the house, he watched the R&N truck drive down the lane and felt first one, then another drop of rain land on his forearm. In no time, it was a steady shower and by the time he climbed the back porch steps, the sky opened up with another downpour. It wasn’t even lunchtime and the rain had already set in for the day.
Staring at the back door, he wondered what he was going to say to Paige. Would she want to talk about last night? Or would she prefer to act as if the kiss never happened?
He guessed he could come up with some excuse to make the five-mile drive into Royal in order to avoid the situation entirely, but that would only delay the inevitable. Besides, he had never been the kind of man who avoided confrontations. He preferred to hit a problem head-on, deal with it and put the issue behind him.
He opened the door, entered the kitchen and looked around. He had expected to find Paige getting ready to make lunch, but she was nowhere in sight.
“Paige,” he called, walking down the hall.
“I’m in Craig’s off...in the room I’m turning into my studio,” she called back, correcting herself midsentence.
Cole walked across the family room to the doorway of what had been the sitting room when he’d lived there. When he realized Paige was cleaning out his brother’s desk, he picked up a filled box. “Where do you want this?” he asked.
“In the den,” she said, brushing a wayward strand of her long auburn hair from her cheek. “I wanted to get the room cleared out so your men can get started on the studio whenever they’re ready. I can go through Craig’s things later.”
“I assume Craig had the accounting records and breeding registers on a computer?” he asked, picking up one of the filled boxes. “Do you need that moved, too?”
“Craig used a laptop for everything,” she said, opening one of the desk drawers to poke around inside. “I moved it into my office the week after his funeral.”
Carrying the box to the den, he realized that Paige hadn’t yet looked him directly in the eye. He hated that she felt embarrassed or awkward about something that hadn’t been her doing. He was the one who’d initiated the kiss, and he was going to take full responsibility for it.
“Paige, we need to talk about last night,” he stated when he returned to find her sifting through the contents of a small tin box.
“I’d rather not,” she said, continuing to give her full attention to the container.
He walked over to where she sat in the chair behind the desk and, moving the tin out of the way, took her hands in his to pull her to her feet. “Look at me,” Cole commanded when she kept her gaze trained on his chest.
When she raised her gaze, he hated the embarrassment he detected in her dark gray eyes. “What happened last night was not your fault,” he assured her. “I take full responsibility for it. I was the one who took advantage of the situation.”
She surprised him when she shook her head. “I can’t let you do that, Cole. I was just as guilty as you were.”
“How do you figure that?” he demanded, frowning.
“Would you have stopped if I’d asked you to or given you the slightest indication that I was uneasy about it?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation. “I’ve never forced my attention on any woman and never will.”
“Exactly my point,” she said, nodding. “Don’t you get it, Cole? I might have been a bit surprised at first, but I wanted you to kiss me. The only reason I put a halt to things was because I was frightened by that realization.” She took a deep breath. “I’m still not sure that I’m comfortable with that little bit of self-discovery, but it’s the truth.”
He had known they were attracted to each other, but hearing her tell him that she had wanted his kiss sent a wave of heat through him at the speed of light. Cole felt his body begin to tighten and barely managed to keep himself from groaning aloud.
“I don’t think my staying here is a good idea,” he said, releasing her hands to take a step back.
She stared at him a moment before she shook her head. “That’s nonsense. All the hotels and inns in Royal are still full of workers here to rebuild the town. It would be next to impossible to find a place to stay. Besides, we’re adults. There might be a lingering attraction between us from when we were younger, but surely we have enough control to be objective about it.”
As he stared at her, he had to agree that what she said made sense. They weren’t and never had been hormone-crazed teenagers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Hell, last night was the first time he had even kissed her.
“You’re right,” he finally said, nodding. “We can handle this.”
And maybe if he repeated it to himself enough, he might even start to believe it.
