The calm he’d exerted started to desert him again. He felt the mushroom cloud of anger welling up from his gut.
Yet again, he wished for Paige, for her common sense, her unruffled feathers, her expertise, her reassuring influence. She gave too much already, and he had no right to ask for more. But she would know exactly how to handle this, how to put them all at ease, get them talking without Evan clenching his fists at every word out of that woman’s mouth. Paige would get the answers to all the questions he couldn’t seem to ask.
Just as he was balling his fists, straining for the control to keep from shouting—or, at this point, just plain losing his mind—his doorbell rang again.
He didn’t give Mrs. M a chance to answer. It was an excuse to get out of that room. To breathe for a few precious moments. Even if it was Whitney on the other side of the door, right now she seemed like the lesser of two evils.
But evil wasn’t waiting at his front door.
Paige was.
The woman he’d been dreaming about.
The woman his muddled mind had been begging for.
He practically yanked her off her feet as he pulled her inside. He hugged her before he could remember why that wasn’t a good idea. The press of her gorgeous curves against him and her scent filling his head simply scrambled whatever was left of his senses, and he blurted out, “My long-lost mother is here. Along with the brother and sister I never knew I had.”
Chapter Nine
Paige would have dropped her purse if the strap hadn’t been slung crosswise over her shoulder.
She’d been nervous about coming here today, especially after Evan had gone out of his way to avoid her at the wedding reception. But she couldn’t possibly pretend she hadn’t loved kissing him, hadn’t reveled in his body against hers. Or that she didn’t want more.
Even if she was setting herself up for a terrible fall, she still had to know what their kiss meant to him. What she meant to him.
Only, instead of finding him alone…he suddenly had a mother, a brother, and a sister?
In the face of this astonishing news, her nerves, her questions about what the two of them were to each other—all of that disappeared. At least for now. Although, the heat his greeting hug had flooded her with wasn’t going anywhere.
Paige knew the bare bones of his past. Evan had never hidden where he came from, but he didn’t talk about it much either. She knew that his mother had abandoned him, leaving him with an abusive, alcoholic father. The Spencers had rescued him by taking him off his father’s hands, which probably had felt like another abandonment for a preteen boy, even though his dad was violent. Then Susan and Bob had worked their loving magic, and Evan had grown into an amazing man despite his difficult youth.
“I know,” Evan said, reading her expression. “It’s a shocker.”Shocker was the understatement of the century. It felt more like the first enormous hill on the Giant Dipper roller coaster out at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, when your stomach flew up into your throat and a scream was wrenched right out of you.
And it wasn’t just the shock of his family that knocked her off balance. It was how hard she’d worked to gather the courage to confront him today…only to have to stuff it away again. Because she certainly couldn’t talk to him about their kiss now.
She looked into his eyes. Beautiful hazel-green eyes that couldn’t hide his anger, bewilderment, denial, confusion, or even his curiosity. No, her needs had to be set aside when, for Evan, seeing his mother would inevitably be a monumental trigger for all his childhood traumas.
Nothing was simple between Paige and Evan. After that kiss, their relationship had never been more complicated. But in this moment, the only thing that mattered was standing beside him and making sure he didn’t go through this alone.
“How can I help?”
He grabbed her hands. “I shouldn’t ask, because you do too much already,” he said. “But you’re here. So please. Come meet them. Talk to them.”
Mrs. Mortimer poked her head out of the kitchen hallway. “Hello, Paige, it’s lovely to see you again. I’ll bring another cup for you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. M.”
As Evan ushered Paige into the formal living room, she wasn’t surprised that he was treating them like guests rather than family, holding them at arm’s length.
The three of them were clustered on the sofa and chair, talking in furious whispers. Well, at least his brother and sister were talking. Evan’s mother was silent.
“This is my sister-in-law, Paige.”
Sister-in-law. She’d always had a designation—never just Paige, never just his friend. Always an extension of Whitney.
She’d hoped their kiss had changed everything. But had anything changed at all?
Only, now wasn’t the time to think about that, so she stuffed her own needs away—just for the time being, she told herself—as she smiled kindly. “It’s nice to meet all of you.”
“This is Kelsey and Tony,” Evan said. “And Theresa.”
She couldn’t miss how he’d used her name, rather than Mom or Mother. And she nearly shivered at the cool, unforgiving tone, so unlike him.
“Have a seat.” It warmed her that he gestured to the spot beside him on the couch.
In the few moments it took to get her coffee, add milk and sugar, and fend off the pastries, she surreptitiously observed Evan’s newly materialized family. Tony was a duplicate of Evan, though not quite as tall or broad. Kelsey looked remarkably like her brother, but Paige could also see a strong resemblance to their mother.