Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
The following day, Gage attended Thanksgiving dinner with his family alone.
Sloane had informed him via text that her headache had turned into a migraine so she wouldn’t be attending. She’d asked him to take her pie with him as he left.
He’d written out a text to argue, erased that, then offered to stay there in case she needed him. He erased that as well and decided to let her be when her words comparing him to her family echoed in his head like a sucker punch.
That was a comparison he didn’t want, and somehow he’d make his point without her citing that he had control issues and didn’t hear her.
Now he stood on Dawson’s second-floor deck, staring out at the waves in the distance. Dawson had a peekaboo view, but it was there, and like every islander, it drew Gage.
Before long, the view would disappear as the double lot next door had been sold, and rumor had it a five-bedroom, three-story house would be going up.
Why did everything have to change? Change was supposed to be good, considered to be progress, but in this case…
“What’s got you frowning so hard?”
He turned to find Mia, Alec’s wife, a few feet away. She held a small plate of pie with a dollop of whipped cream bigger than the slice itself. “Just thinking that I hate Dawson’s losing his view.”
“Hmm. Are you sure that’s all it is?” She moved closer to where he stood at the railing. “Or would it have something to do with your beautiful employee?”
He didn’t look at her, afraid of what his expression would reveal. Or that Sloane’s who will Cole tell might’ve been more a surety than a maybe. “Am I that obvious?”
“Well, she’s living in your house, and you’re working together, so you’re spending a lot of time together. Plus, you’re both single—and rumor has it you were seen about town eating dinner together. Word gets out.”
“I suppose it does.” Especially on an island.
“So? Why isn’t she here?”
“She had a headache.”
“Uh-huh. What’s the real reason? Because according to Ana, Sloane told Cole she would be here. What changed?”
He searched the peep of sea as though it held the answers. “I messed up. Pressured her.”
“To come here?” Mia asked.
He winced and shrugged. “Not exactly. I made the pie-baking thing into a contest and said… I said if I won, she had to stay on through New Years Eve.”
“I see.”
Gage turned to look down at his sister-in-law. “We haven’t hired anyone else yet. She said she’d stay and train the new person.”
His quick excuse brought out a hint of a smile. “Yeah, but have you even looked for someone else to hire?” This time, she outright laughed at whatever she saw on his face. “That’s what I thought. You haven’t done it or asked Cole to because you think she’ll stay longer if you don’t.”
“We’ve been busy.”
“Oh, be honest, Gage. You want to keep her. Like a stray puppy.” She took a bite of pie and closed her eyes in blissful foodie-ness. “Mmm. This is delicious.”
He gripped the railing tighter. That was Sloane’s pie. “I like her. Even though she makes me crazy because she’s so…closed off.”
“Some women are private. You can’t fault her for not opening up to her boss. It has to be awkward, you know? Like how awkward I felt living with Alec when I first brought Willa to town to meet her father,” she said before taking another bite.
“It’s more than that. It’s— She might be in danger, but she won’t talk about her family or her past. She doesn’t trust me.”
“Trust takes time. Do you really think she’s in danger?” Mia’s face filled with worry, the pie forgotten on the plate.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I just want her to talk to me, even if it’s as an employee.”
“Would you really be happy with that?”
He debated his answer and shifted uncomfortably. “It wouldn’t be my preference, but…yeah, if that’s all it can be. If Ky had a problem, we’d all want to help, right?” He referred to Alec’s assistant manager. “Sloane’s no different.”
“Oh, I think she’s different,” Mia said in a teasing tone. “I’m betting you haven’t kissed Ky.”
“Can nothing in this family be private,” he muttered.
“I think you know the answer to that,” she said before sobering. “Gage, I get what you’re saying, but we can all see how you feel about Sloane.”
“You can?”
“Yeah. So be honest with yourself. Maybe Sloane doesn’t trust you because you haven’t confided in her? Why do men expect women to do all the heavy lifting? If you want a woman to feel secure, you have to provide that security. It’s pretty simple if you think about it.”
Gage exhaled and tried to wrap his brain around that bit of news. “Fine. But how can I confide in her when she’s always ready to walk out the door? I mention her staying, and she claims I have control issues.”
Mia leaned her head back and laughed at his words.
“Sorry,” she said, taking in his expression. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to— Oh, Gage, come on. You do have control issues. I might be relatively new to the family, but trust me when I say, as one control freak to another, you do.”
Sometimes family could be the voice of truth, whether it was welcome or not. Still, it took him several long moments to process his “truth.” And more to search for a response.
“You know how Alec and I came to be,” she said, referencing the fact she’d shown up on Alec’s doorstep with his daughter by Mia’s sister. “I wanted to do what was best for Willa, but I hated my feelings for Alec. It was odd and weird and… Well, you understand what I’m saying.”
He nodded. Mia had fallen for her half-sister’s baby daddy and wound up in a marriage of convenience with him that had thankfully turned into a real marriage with time. But they’d all had that moment of—baby mama’s sister? Seriously?
“What I’m trying to say is I can identify with Sloane’s position. She’s staying with you. Dependent on you and that’s a very vulnerable position to be in. A tightrope. Maybe take some time to try and see things from her perspective.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded and managed a smile. “I don’t want her feeling obligated in any way or thinking that I’m taking advantage.”
“Good. So my next question is whether the feelings you’re feeling are mutual?”
Yeah, wasn’t that the million-dollar question? “That’s the thing,” he said in a low voice. “They are. I know they are, and she’s— I’m not imagining things. We mesh in a good way. A way that makes me see things differently.”
“That’s certainly a good start.”
“I think so, too. I’d like to see where things might go but…”
Mia didn’t speak, and he turned to see her staring up at him, looking more than a bit bemused. “What now?”
“Nothing,” she said, smiling. “It’s just I’ve never seen this side of you. Oh, come on, that can’t come as a surprise. You’re always all about work and the next project and making more money. So driven. I’ve never seen this…softer side. It’s nice, Gage.”
She hadn’t seen it because he wasn’t sure it existed before now. Before Sloane.
Gage looked around at those gathered inside and out and sucked in a low breath, realizing just how much he’d missed due to the hustle and grind he’d held himself to. His nieces and nephew were growing up, and he was missing it all. “How did Alec finally win you over?”
He’d heard bits and pieces of the story during the last couple of years, but he’d never really listened. It was about time he did, before he looked up one day and realized his nieces and nephew were fully grown and he was an old man with nothing to show for his hard work but money.
“You mean besides kidnapping me?”
He blinked at the words. Wait, what? Had he heard about that? “Kidnapping you?”
A laugh bubbled out of her, and she set the plate aside to lean down and pluck up her daughter, settling the little girl against her side with one leg draped over her pregnant belly.
“You really haven’t been paying attention, have you?
Your older brothers have been up to no good.
Alec, Brooks and Elias have made use of the whole kidnapping and romancing thing to win us over.
It’s become a joke among us girls, wondering who will be next. ”
She went on to explain about how his brothers had all had a falling out with their significant others and gone overboard in an attempt to win them back. And it had worked. In time, anyway.
“I don’t think that would go over well with Sloane.” Not with her trust issues. “She’d see that as the ultimate act of me trying to control her again.”
“Mmm. You might be right,” Mia said, kissing Willa’s head. “So instead, maybe you need to lose control.”
“Meaning?”
“Do the complete opposite of what you’re doing and let go. Tell her how you feel and give her control. Let her decide. What’s the saying about if you set something free and it comes back to you? Do you know it?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard it.” But the advice wasn’t what he wanted to hear at all, and he certainly wasn’t sure he could follow through on it.
“She has to choose you, Gage. And don’t forget that you deserve to be chosen as much as you’ve obviously chosen her.
You’re a good guy. Maybe a little too laser focused at times,” she said, flaring her eyes wide as if to emphasize her point, “but a good guy. Look around you. Look at all the love that’s here today.
You deserve someone who wants you as much as you want them. ”
Willa began fussing, wanting a drink, and Mia flashed him a smile before carting her daughter away. Gage turned back to the view, feeling more than a few sets of eyes on him as he thought over her words.
He pulled his phone out and was about to send a text to Sloane to check in and ask about her headache when a hand clamped over his shoulder. Cole tugged him into a one-armed hug with a head-rub the way only older, bossier brothers could do.
“Mia get you set straight?”
He tucked his phone away and shook his head. “Figures you’d tell Ana what I told you.”
“Wasn’t me. I’m pretty sure Alec picked up on you and Sloane early on. And even I’ve caught you stealing a kiss at work. That’s all on you.”
“Yeah, well, there is no Sloane and me.”
“For real? Is that why she’s not here? Please tell me you didn’t tick off the best employee we’ve found so far. Did she leave town?”
Gage glared at the view and the change that it represented and equated it to the woman who’d appeared, sucked him in like a riptide and then was about to disappear out to sea like she never existed. “Which pie did you like better?”