Loving Bailey (2 page)

It was his own damn fault. She’d been
dropping hints, some more obvious than others since they got back
from her brother’s engagement party. He was the one who’d kept his
distance. She was a beautiful, successful and incredibly sweet. It
made sense that other men would be interested in her, but he didn’t
have to like it.

“Trace, this is Spencer. He’s writing about
the lake.”

“The geology?” asked Trace. The guy in the
clean shirt – Spencer – didn’t look like a science geek but that
didn’t mean he wasn’t. Mountain Lake was one of only two natural
lakes in the state and its cycle of suddenly emptying and refilling
made it a curiosity for serious scientists and those with just a
passing interest in geology.

“God no,” said Spencer. “I’m not writing
about the lake itself, but my novel is set here. I came to do some
research and maybe find a little time to play.” He looked at Bailey
and smiled.

If she blushed Trace was going to be
sick.

“We were just talking about the last time the
lake drained. I hadn’t opened yet, but you were here, weren’t you?”
Bailey smiled at him, sweet and guileless. He tried to remember why
he shouldn’t drag her away from the other man and find some way to
claim her as his own.

Friends, that’s right. They were friends.
Love didn’t last, at least not the romantic kind, and he needed her
to stay his friend. Hell, he couldn’t imagine his world without
her.

She kept staring at him and smiling, and he
realized she was waiting for him to say something.

He shook his head to clear it. “In 2008,
yeah, I was here. It started to empty a couple of years earlier,
but that was the low point. It was pretty bad. There were dead fish
everywhere.”

“Really?” said the writer- Spencer – what
kind of name was that anyway? “It’s done that before, hasn’t it?”
He asked Trace the question but his gaze stayed glued to
Bailey.

Trace had a feeling he knew the answer
already, but he couldn’t figure out how to do anything except tell
him without looking like a jerk.”Yeah, six or seven times in the
last 4,200 years.”

“Wow,” said Spencer, still staring at Bailey.
“That’s amazing.”

And this time she did blush, the rosy color
making her dark eyes and curls even prettier than normal. Trace
clenched his fists and rolled his eyes. Could the guy be any more
obvious?

Bailey caught him mid-roll and deliberately
turned her attention back to the other guy.

Perfect. Just perfect.

Bailey closed the door to her apartment above
the restaurant and started the short walk up the mountain to the
lodge. It was so cool it was almost cold, but the purple blooms on
the rhododendrons towering over her head insisted it was spring.
She crested the hill and the familiar sight of the lodge came into
view. The colors were different and it had gotten a fresh coat of
paint, but the old stone hotel and guest cottages were instantly
recognizable from the set of Dirty Dancing.

She and her sisters had seen the movie during
‘80s flashback weekends on cable growing up. When she moved to the
mountain, she bought a copy of the DVD at the Conservancy along
with a Stay Calm and Pick up a Watermelon t-shirt. The movie was a
little cheesy – a coming of age love story between an idealistic
young girl bound for college and a slightly older dance instructor
– but she didn’t care. Every time they’d watched it, she and her
sisters had looked at each other and recited “Nobody puts Baby in
the corner,” along with Patrick Swayze.

For the quiet girl from the big noisy family
who always did what was expected of her, the idea of someone
turning a light on just her so she could shine held a secret
appeal. The fact it was a hot guy behind the spotlight was icing on
the cake.

There hadn’t been many hot guys in Bailey’s
life, at least not any she’d paid attention to. She dated a little
in high school, but her brothers scared off anyone who started to
get serious. By the time she’d gotten to culinary school, she’d
been too focused on her career to have much of a social life. Then
came the restaurant and for the first two years, she worked so much
she didn’t even have time to think about dating.

Besides, the only man she’d ever wanted was
Trace.

She’d been clear about her interest in him.
She dropped armloads of hints and when he didn’t take them, she
started inviting him to dinner. He always found a reason to say no.
He was too busy. Something on the farm needed his attention. After
a while the excuses got so lame, she stopped asking.

The thing was, every time he turned her down,
he’d do something nice for her. He’d bring her something special –
flowers from the farm or berries, extra fat tender asparagus. Or
he’d take her car down the mountain to get the oil changed. The
last time he brought it back it had been vacuumed, wiped down with
Amor All, and smelled like a tiki lounge, all pina colada and
tropical flowers.

He did the kind of things her brothers and
dad did. He took care of her, but he wouldn’t date her.

If he didn’t want her she could maybe let it
go. She’d hate it but she could move past it. Yet for the longest
time, she was pretty sure he did want her. She might be innocent –
a fact she was starting to despise – but she could tell when a guy
liked her. He didn’t look at her like a brother or a friend. More
than once she caught Trace watching her with something she would
have sworn was longing.

Didn’t matter, she thought, stomping down the
hill toward what was left of the lake. If he was interested, she
couldn’t get him to act on it, so it didn’t matter.

She passed the lodge and the outside pool
with its cover firmly in place and started to make her way around
what used to be the lake’s shoreline. The red roofed gazebo which
had doubled as a boat dock and where Baby had the “you disappointed
me, too” conversation with her father stood dry and exposed on
pillars growing out of what had become a field.

She walked around the edge of the lake bed,
imaging what it would be like when it filled again. Since the
remodel, the owners of the lodge had been trying to draw crowds
back to play at the place which had been a resort since the late
1800s. They hosted Valentine’s and holiday weekends along with the
occasional Dirty Dancing themed getaways, but without the lake it
was hard to see how it could be sustainable.

Putting her restaurant at the top of the
mountain was the most reckless thing she’d ever done. She’d started
to draw a steady crowd of regulars from Blacksburg and even as far
away as Roanoke. The changing menu and exceptional local meats and
produce made Seasons the destination restaurant she’d dreamed of
owning, but traffic wasn’t enough to be sustainable. She had to
sink every dime she had into the restaurant, and she still barely
made ends meet.

When the lodge filled along with the lake it
could only help her business. Because of the lake or lack of one,
she’d gotten a great deal on the building, but she’d used all her
grandmother’s inheritance to buy and remodel the restaurant. When
she’d opened, everyone assumed the lake would fill again in a year
or two. Almost six years later and it still stood empty.

Trace’s farm supplied all the local produce
she used and he never hesitated to plant something special if she
asked him. He was a big part of what made the restaurant special.
She wanted him to be part of more.

Bailey pushed through the brush to get to the
driveway at Newport Cottage and the hemlock grove. Walking under
the trees with their miniature pine cones was her favorite part of
the trail. She started across the gravel drive to the shelter of
the trees.

“Bailey!”

She turned and saw Spencer standing on the
front porch of the cottage. He’d traded the bomber jacket and soft
leather shoes for hiking boots, a blue fleece and jeans which
hugged what she couldn’t help but notice was a very nice butt. He
raised his coffee cup and motioned for her to join him.

“Hey,” she said, a little out of breath from
her frustrated walk around the lake. “What are you doing here? And
up so early?”

He laughed, a warm deep sound which rumbled
through her and caught her off guard. When he held the gate open
for her to climb onto the porch with him, her body brushed his. It
was the barest touch, a whisper of hip and shoulder, but the way
her breath caught had her tripping over her feet. His steadying
hand, warm and firm through the cotton of her T-shirt, did nothing
to quiet the pounding of her heart.

“I decided to stay for a while – longer than
I originally thought. This seemed more comfortable than a room in
the lodge. And,” he said, raising his cup. “It comes with a coffee
maker and a kitchen.”

“You cook?” She flashed to an image of him
standing at a stove, broad shoulders and tousled head bent over a
frying pan. A thin current of heat threaded its way through her
body and she swallowed. Hard.

“I heat things,” he said it with a grin,
light sparking in his blue eyes and she wondered if her face
betrayed what she’d been thinking.

“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing up
this early. It’s not even eight o’clock. I thought you couldn’t
wake up in time for the continental breakfast at the lodge.”

“Not couldn’t, wouldn’t. Danishes in the
lobby weren’t enough to make me want to get up early.”

“So what did you have for breakfast this
morning? What was interesting enough to drag you out of bed at
seven something?”

“You said you walked here every morning. I
thought maybe I could go with you?” He smiled that broad smile, all
warm and welcoming, and ran a hand through his hair, pushing the
sandy brown waves away from his face.

The honesty of his words and the intensity of
his gaze took her back a step and she stuttered over her response.
“Um, sure. Okay.”

“Do you want coffee first?”

“No thanks. I’m a tea drinker.” But the
thought of following Spencer and his snuggly fleece covered chest
inside the cottage held definite appeal.

“Sorry, I don’t have tea. Or anything else
for that matter.” He smiled sheepishly and a tendril of pure lust
uncoiled inside her. “Maybe you could suggest a good grocery store
at the bottom of the mountain?”

“It’s a bit of a drive, but Blacksburg has a
nice Whole Foods and some specialty shops.”

“Sounds good.” Spencer set his cup on the
railing and gestured her back through the gate, following
behind.

“And,” she said, going out on a limb. “The
farmers’ market is Tuesday. I go to it every week.”

“I thought that farmer guy brought you your
produce,” he said, catching up to walk beside her. “Wasn’t that why
he was at the restaurant last night?”

Trace. She didn’t think she could think about
Trace and make plans with Spencer. If they went to the market
together Trace would see them but it would serve him right. Maybe
it would make him move at something other than his normal glacial
pace.

And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t given him
plenty of chances.

“Yes. He delivers what I need on the weekend
or when I’m too busy to make it down the mountain. But I usually go
to the farmers’ market, too.” She jumped across the empty creek bed
and waited for him follow. When he was safely across and they were
standing in the shadow of one of the enormous rhododendrons, she
turned away so she wouldn’t have to see his expression if she
misread the situation. She was getting pretty damn tired of being
rejected. “You could come along if you want.”

She wove her way between the huge boulders,
blocking the path, but Spencer caught her arm and turned her to
face him before she could duck under the overhang.

“I’d like that,” he said, sliding his hand
down her arm to catch her fingers. “I’d like that a lot.”

The simple touch made her heart race and she
had to fight to keep her hand in his. She was long past the age
when just holding hands should have that kind of effect on her. She
was long past the age to have done a lot of things. Maybe she could
finally change that.

Trace ran his scissors over the thick carpet
of lettuce, cutting the baby mesclun just below the place where the
tiny leaves rounded out. As long as he left the growing bud
attached to the plant, it would continue to send out new leaves and
he could harvest the greens several more times from the same
planting. It was late enough in the day to make the sun feel warm
on his back and early enough in the season to keep it from being
too hot. Back bent, hands in the earth. It should be the perfect
day.

It wasn’t turning out that way.

Instead of the normal peace which filled him
when he harvested something he’d grown, he kept seeing Bailey
smiling at that guy. Spencer, the writer with the clean work shirt
and even cleaner fingernails. He cut the lettuce and she laughed at
something Spencer said. He dumped the handful of tiny greens in the
tub filled with water and she blushed, her cheeks rosy and eyes
shining, at the stupid writer.

Instead of peace, Trace wanted to pound
something.

He’d wanted Bailey since the first time he’s
laid eyes on her. He’d finished making a delivery at the lodge and
stopped to see who had finally bought the Coleman place. She’d been
standing on a ladder working every inch of her five-foot-four frame
to reach the ceiling with her paint roller. There had been a thin
strip of exposed skin above the waistband of her jeans where her
shirt rode up.

He’d stood in the doorway, hypnotized by the
curve and swell of her breasts under the thin T-shirt and that
strip of skin as she stretched to paint the ceiling. He’d already
started to move towards her to help when three big guys, who he
learned later were her brothers, came in from the other room,
yanked her off the ladder and took over the painting. The men had
scowled, but Bailey hit him with the force of her smile, open and
sweet, and he lost his heart.