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She paused to straighten the silver frames, which were a fraction of an inch out of line. Austin with an infant in his arms. Austin swinging a toddler over his head. The toddler alone, perched on the carousel horse. A slightly older child, her arms and legs just starting to stretch out of chubby babyhood.
But there was no photograph anywhere she could see of a woman who might be the mother of that toddler…
Paige wondered if that meant the woman’s picture was so precious that Austin was carrying it with him instead of shipping it ahead with the rest of his possessions. On the other hand, she thought, there might not be a photograph at all. If it had been a divorce…
Though surely in that case, she mused, wouldn’t it would be more likely that the child would have remained with her mother, instead of being placed in the care of a business executive so high-powered and so driven that companies across the country had competed for his services?
Too late, Paige heard the click of a key and then, as the front door swung wide, the soft purring voice of the super. “I’m sure you’ll find everything just as you ordered, Mr. Weaver,” Tricia Cade said.
Paige froze. Not yet, she wanted to say. I wasn’t expecting you till evening, till long after I’ve gone. You can’t come yet.
Her first instinctive reaction was to dart a look around the apartment, hoping to see an escape route. But the only path from living room to kitchen—and to the service exit where she’d left her belongings—led directly past the front door. For a fleeting instant, she even considered trying to huddle in the shadow of the baby grand piano and hope the coast would clear long enough to let her slip out.
But to be discovered in hiding would only make things worse; she couldn’t take the chance. And she had nothing to conceal anyway, Paige reminded herself. No reason to run away.
Maybe it would be just as well to get this first encounter out of the way right now. Even with the super as a witness, it would be a whole lot better to face Austin Weaver now rather than encounter him for the first time in public—maybe even at Sabrina’s wedding, when it would feel as if half of Denver would be watching.
Besides, though it wasn’t going to be exactly easy, facing him was really no big deal, she told herself. At least it wouldn’t be for Paige, since she was forewarned and prepared. Austin would be surprised, no doubt—perhaps even shocked to see her. There would probably be a little uncomfortable small talk. Then they’d both move on—and that would be it.
She tried to take a deep breath to prepare herself, but her chest was so painfully tight that she couldn’t seem to draw air into her lungs.
The super pushed the door wide and made an expressive gesture with both hands. “Welcome home! We’ve all done our very best to make things comfortable for you and your little girl, Mr. Weaver. And I just have to tell you what a darling Jenny is.”
Paige hardly recognized the woman’s voice; it was a husky, sweet drawl which bore no resemblance to the clipped, irritable tones she’d heard in the office downstairs just a few hours ago.
“My name is Jennifer,” said an insistent small voice, and like a magnet Paige’s gaze was drawn past the super to the child who was standing just inside the door, her hand tucked into her father’s.
Jennifer Weaver was tall for five, Paige thought. She was wearing a red parka with fur trim around the hood. The coat wasn’t fastened, and beneath it, Paige could see jeans and sneakers and a sweater with a picture of a cat appliquéd on the front. The little girl’s dark hair was tied back in a pair of ponytails, and there was a watchful, almost mulish look on her face.
Tricia chuckled and reached down to ruffle the child’s dark hair. “How formal you are, my dear. But I’m sure we’re going to be the greatest of friends.”
The child sidestepped the touch and moved away from the door and into the entry hall, where she paused, halfway out of her parka. She made Paige think of a ruby-throated hummingbird—delicate and dainty and full of motion even though at the moment she wasn’t going anywhere.
It took a moment before Paige realized what had stopped the child. Jennifer Weaver was staring at her. “Daddy,” she said, without taking her gaze off Paige. “Who’s that?”
Paige squared her shoulders and stepped forward.
The super turned to stare. “Oh, Ms. McDermott. You’re still here.” Her voice was full of disdain.
“Just finishing up,” Paige said. She was proud of herself; her voice didn’t even tremble. She looked beyond Tricia to where Austin Weaver was standing in the shadow of the doorway.
She’d caught just a glimpse of him a few weeks ago, when he’d been interviewing for the job at Tanner Electronics. Even that transitory glance had been enough to make her feel hollow. Still, with the first shock past, the worst was over, she’d told herself.
And now she’d had weeks to get used to the idea of him living in Denver. To ready herself for the inevitable. To get her psyche in shape to meet him once more…
But she had been wrong, she realized as she got her first good look at the man. That single fleeting sight hadn’t done a thing to prepare her for coming face-to-face with Austin Weaver. And a whole year of thinking about it wouldn’t have done the job, either.
Paige could feel her heart slowing until each beat was like the pounding of a gong, echoing and reverberating through her body. It wasn’t fair, she thought. The only change in his face—the only sign that he might be startled—was the slight lift of one dark eyebrow. But then, she thought, Austin Weaver had always been a poker player at heart…
His photographs didn’t do him justice, she thought. It wasn’t a matter of looks, though indeed the chiseled lines of his face were far more handsome in person than on paper, his dark hair softer-looking, his eyes almost silvery instead of the chilly gray they sometimes appeared in pictures.
What was missing from the photographs was the force of his personality. No camera could begin to capture the magnetic field which seemed to surround him. At a glance, it was apparent that this man not only possessed power, but that he wielded it easily and without hesitation.
It was no wonder the super was practically drooling, Paige thought. Power, money, and good looks all wrapped up in a package and practically delivered to her doorstep…she must have taken one glance and gone straight into vamp mode.
Not that it appeared to be doing her any good. Without turning his head to look at the super, Austin said, “Thank you for bringing us up, Ms. Cade.”
“Oh, call me Tricia.” The super laid a hand on the sleeve of his leather coat. “It’ll be so much more comfortable if you feel you can call on a friend for help.”
More comfortable for whom? Paige wanted to ask.
“Now I must show you through the apartment,” Tricia coaxed. “Every place has a few eccentricities, you know. Not that there’s anything wrong, because we’re very careful about maintenance here at Aspen Towers. But I’d be shirking my duties if I didn’t show you around.”
Paige wanted to applaud. Not only had the super neatly circumvented Austin’s attempt to get rid of her, but she’d provided Paige with a line of retreat, as well. The moment the two of them were out of sight, Paige decided, she’d burn a path to the kitchen, jam the flowers into a drinking glass, and get the heck away from Aspen Towers and Austin Weaver….
Coward, she told herself. Running away would only create questions that she didn’t want to answer. It would be far better to stay and act casual. As though this sort of encounter happened every day.
Though of course, she reflected, she could always say—and honestly, too—that with her work done there had been no reason to stay longer.
The child dropped her parka in the precise center of the hallway and started toward Paige.
Austin said, “I don’t see a coat hook on the floor, Jennifer.”
She grinned at him. “But it’s all new, so I don’t know where it goes.”
“Perhaps you should try looking behind that door.” He pointed. Then, without checking to see whether she obeyed, he followed the super down the hall.
Jennifer picked up her parka and opened the closet door. “There aren’t any hooks my size,” she complained and turned to Paige with wide-eyed helplessness.
Unable to resist the appeal in those big brown eyes, Paige took the parka. The soft fur trim tickled her hands as she hung it up. “This is a very pretty coat.”
“It’s new. I didn’t need a thick coat in Atlanta.”
“I suppose not.”
“I don’t like it here. It’s cold.”
“Yes,” Paige said. “It is definitely cold at times. But there are good things about Denver, as well. The mountains, for one, and the wildflowers in the spring—”
“We had a mountain in Georgia. Stone Mountain—with faces carved on it.”
“It’s true,” Paige admitted, “that none of the Rocky Mountains have faces carved on them.”
“Told you Atlanta’s better,” Jennifer said, as if there was nothing further to discuss. “What’s your name?”
“Paige,” she said reluctantly.
“You mean like in a book? That’s funny. Are you like a housekeeper?”
“Not exactly. Aren’t you going to go look at the apartment?”
Jennifer wrinkled her nose. “She’d just try to pat my head again.”
Paige tried to smother a smile. “You don’t like Ms. Cade much, do you?”
“She’s sticky.”
And that, Paige thought, was a pretty good description. Tricia Cade had certainly clung to Austin like caramel on an apple. Paige closed the closet door and started for the kitchen. There were still the flowers to deal with, and then she could escape.
Jennifer dropped into step beside her. “If you’re not the housekeeper, who are you?”
“I’m just helping put things in order so you and your father will be comfortable here.” Paige took a heavy glass mug from the cabinet. “Will you hang on to this to keep it from upsetting while I arrange the flowers in it?”
From the doorway came a quiet voice. “There you are,” Austin said.
Paige’s hand slipped and water splashed across the counter. She hadn’t heard him come down the hall, but that was partly explained when she realized that he was alone. She wondered how he’d managed to dislodge Tricia so quickly.
“Go explore, Jennifer,” he said.
“I don’t want to.”
“I don’t recall asking if you wanted to,” Austin said gently. “Your room is just past the front door.”
With her lower lip stuck out and her feet dragging, the child went off. “Not my real room,” she muttered.
Paige put a shaggy mum into place in the mug.
“So it is you,” Austin said.
Puzzled, she shot a look at him. Had he not recognized her immediately? Surely she hadn’t changed so much that he hadn’t known her—though perhaps, since he hadn’t been expecting her to reappear in his life…
And yet, he’d almost sounded as if he had expected to run into her. So it is you, he’d said, as if he was confirming a hunch.
But of course, she thought, both Sabrina and Cassie had talked to him—frequently, in fact—during the weeks they’d been looking for and preparing his apartment. One of them might have mentioned her, and if they’d done so casually, using only her first name—well, it stood to reason that Austin wouldn’t have asked pointed questions about a woman who just happened to be named Paige, any more than she’d rushed to volunteer the facts the moment she’d heard he was in line for a job at Tanner. But of course, he would have wondered, and even been watchful.
“It’s me.” She felt incredibly foolish for not being able to think of anything else to say.
Austin folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the counter. “How have you been?” he asked genially. “And what have you been doing with yourself in the last…let me think, how long has it been, Paige? Six years, I suppose—since our divorce?”
CHAPTER TWO
PAIGE’S voice sounded so taut that Austin wouldn’t have been surprised if it had cracked under the strain. “Seven,” she said. “It’s been almost seven years since the decree was final.”
“Has it really?” Deliberately, he kept his tone lazy. “How time does get away.”
“When one is having fun, I suppose you mean to say?”
He moved across the kitchen and perched on the edge of a tall stool pulled up to the breakfast bar. Besides being more comfortable than standing, the seat had the advantage of being a safe distance from the counter where Paige was arranging flowers. The downside was that from the breakfast bar he could see three of her—the real one and two hazy blonde reflections in the highly polished stainless-steel doors of the refrigerator.
She didn’t look much different, really, than the last time he’d seen her all those years ago. She didn’t even look older. Her face was a bit thinner, the fine bone structure more prominent. But perhaps even that change was simply the result of her hairstyle—shorter than he’d ever seen it before, like a fluffy mane that looked as if she could run her fingers through it in the morning and be done with it for all day.
How typical of Paige that would be, he thought, with her almost-Puritan practical streak. While she’d always taken care to look neat and attractive and feminine, Paige had never put much emphasis on the glamorous extras.
He almost laughed at the understatement. In fact, he thought, she’d practically gone out of her way to avoid them…
It seemed to him that outlook of hers hadn’t changed in the least, despite the passage of time. Her attitude showed not only in her hairstyle—for flattering though it was, the cut had obviously been chosen for convenience as well as looks—but in her manicure. He watched her slim fingers as she worked with the flowers. Even from across the room, he could see that though her nails were evenly trimmed and buffed to a shine, they were completely innocent of polish.
She’d always avoided bright nail polish, he remembered. He’d told her once it was a shame not to emphasize the delicate grace of her shapely hands by painting her nails red, but she’d simply shaken her head and said brilliant nails were a waste of time, requiring almost constant care and upkeep, with attention to each minuscule chip or scratch.
Yes, he thought, she was the same old Paige….
He drew himself up short. She wasn’t the same old Paige, he told himself. If anything, she was probably even more set in her ways than she’d been seven years ago—and he’d be wise to remember it.
She stabbed another stem into the mug. “I should have thought our divorce would be an easy date for you to remember.”
Austin frowned. “I don’t celebrate it, if that’s what you mean.”
“Of course not. I’m certainly not saying that our divorce is important enough for you to recall it for its own sake.”
She’d gotten better at sarcasm, Austin reflected. More controlled, far more subtle. It flicked him on the raw nevertheless.
“But you can surely remember how old your daughter is,” Paige went on sweetly, “and how long it was before she was born that you met her mother. From there it should be no step at all to recall—”
“How long I’d been free at the time. I see what you mean now. If we’ve been divorced nearly seven years, and Jennifer’s soon going to be six…You’re quite right, Paige.” He let a congratulatory note creep into his voice. “It was very nearly the same time as when you filed for divorce.” He saw her tiny, almost-concealed shudder. “What’s the matter? Are you jealous because I moved on with my life, and you haven’t?”
“Of course I’m not jealous. Your choices have no significance for me. Besides, why would you think I’m stuck in a rut somewhere?”
“Your name, for starters,” he said. “The super called you Ms. McDermott—just as you asked of the judge in the divorce petition, when you got tired of being Paige Weaver.”
She shrugged. “I made the mistake of giving up my name once, when I married—and it was terribly untidy to get it back. Perhaps the next time around I was just wiser.”
“And perhaps,” he said curtly, “if you were talking about the truth instead of vague possibilities, you’d be making definite statements instead of subjective ones.”
She tilted her chin up. It was a gesture he remembered well; in the old days it had usually meant she knew she was on less-than-solid ground. “All right, so I haven’t married again. At least I learned my lesson.”
“Meaning what? That I didn’t?”
“What other conclusion is there? You got yourself mixed up with a woman while you were on the rebound—”
He picked up an apple from the polished fruit bowl on the counter and rubbed it against his sleeve. “You’re giving yourself quite a little credit there, I see.”
“If you’re talking about your bad choices, they’re not my responsibility.”
“No. I mean your assumption that I was on a rebound from you,” he said gently, and watched with slightly malicious pleasure as the dart hit her dead center. He bit into the apple with a satisfying crack.
Irritation flared in her big hazel eyes. “Oh, come on, Austin. Even bad marriages—especially bad marriages—have aftereffects. People do crazy things after a divorce, no matter how much they wanted to be free.”
“You sound as if you’re speaking from personal experience. What crazy things did you do?”
