Page 10 of Definitely (Maybe) Dating
Even with fifteen thousand feet and a ladder to separate them, he’d managed to track her down as if she was wearing a homing beacon. Now he watched her with growing amusement. Piper did her best to block him out—which was difficult since Josh was the kind of guy whose sheer size and energy expanded to fill whatever space he entered.
Piper focused on setting up her equipment in the atrium. Located on the west side of the Belle Mont House, the fifteen-foot-tall dome shaped room was original to the manor and constructed from sourced quarry tiles and copper tresses, which had a century’s worth of patina, and was situated to overlook the Columbia River and downtown Portland. Divided into several intimate sitting areas and greenhouse, the massive room was separated by interior columns and several water features. With bright fuchsia vines hanging against a background of palm and maple trees, and thousands of lavender goblet-shaped autumn-flowers, there wasn’t a more romantic setting in the manor.
Still, Piper was having a hard time channeling any feelings of love and ever after.
Or maybe it was more that Josh was standing too close, which had her questioning the logic behind marriage ideology. Piper never understood why someone would be willing to open themselves up so fully and readily with a nearly fifty percent chance of getting their heart ripped out and trampled on.
People lie. It’s what they do. People hurt other people. Innocently or not, disappointment was part of life. At least, that had been Piper’s experience. Case in point:Hi, I’m Josh, who didn’t seem all that apologetic over the evening’s unfortunate misunderstanding.Which really pissed her off.
“My last name wasn’t significant,” she said. “Yours? Had I known you’re an Easton, our ride would have gone a lot differently.”
“Wouldn’t that have been a shame?” His voice caused all kinds of shameful and exciting things to happen south of her border.
Ignoring this, and him, Piper went up on her tiptoes, stretching as far as her vertically challenged body could handle, hoping to jerry-rig one of her hanging lights to a mature maple tree. If she could only get it high enough, it would bounce through the vintage leaded glass, causing the light to cast a warm and pinkish glow as if there were a setting sun in the background instead of a storm.
“I didn’t want to make things uncomfortable,” he continued. “You know, being the Son of Satan and all.”
“I believe you’d be Satan’s Keeper’s offspring.” Ignoring the tiny ping of guilt over that comment—and the Keep Off sign stationed near a stone water fountain—Piper climbed on and up the stones until she was high enough to reach the top of one of the columns.“And I’m sorry about what I said to you.”
“I noticed you apologized for saying it to me without actually apologizing for saying it at all.”
“Kind of like introducing yourself without actuallyintroducingyourself.” With a smile, she turned to hammer the point home, but nearly lost her balance.
“Let me help with some of your . . . how many cameras do you have?”
“This one is for portraits.” She held up her new EOS camera. “And this one, well, she goes with me everywhere.” Leica might look battered and old, but the 1972 German made camera was a work of art. She was also the first camera Piper had ever owned. Given to her by her mentor, this hand-me-down had become an extension of herself.
“You’re saying, if I were to ask you out on a date I’d be the third wheel?”
Josh now stood directly behind her. His feet were on the ground while hers were still perched on the stone wall, bringing them eye-to-eye in one of those a reach-out-and-touch-someone distances that had her fingers tingling. One manly hand cupped her hip, steadying her, the other reaching up, up and over her head to secure the clamp—giving her an impressive view of his big, bulging bicep.
Josh laughed. It was soft and sexy.
Piper glared. Refusing to go mushy for a pretty boy with an even prettier face, she kept her expression purposefully expressionless when she poked his arm. Her finger bounced back. “You’re totally flexing.”
“You’re totally looking.” His expression was smug and annoying, a fitting one since he was annoyingly smug.
“There you are,” a motherly voice cooed from behind, and Piper felt her stomach hollow out.
Piper didn’t have to guess who had entered the room. She could feel the flames of hell burning a hole through her back.
“Hey, Mom,” Josh said. His hands vanished, his eyes refocused, and that cocky know-it-all vibe morphed into something softer, warmer even, as he went to greet his mom.
In her gray slacks, lavender blouse—which matched the surrounding flora—and reading glasses, Margo looked more like a couture Ms. Claus than her usual abominable snowman self. And when she walked into Josh’s embrace, Piper was shocked at how benign Margo appeared. Maybe it was the effect of being engulfed in her son’s larger frame or maybe she had a nicer, friendlier twin, but Piper almost didn’t recognize the pleasant person in front of her.
The maniacal turned motherly as she took incredible care when straightening Josh’s tie and giving his face a loving pat. It was all too much, the gentle way Josh held Margo and the soft, melodic tone she used with him. Inside Piper was making barfing noises while Outside Piper, who needed this job more than Luke needed the force, busied herself with light checks.
To be fair, it was a sweet and emotional moment between mother and child. But Piper was allergic to sweet and emotional—and she wasn’t all that experienced with mother-child moments.
The few times her mom had reached sobriety, she’d step up as a parent—not a good one, but she tried—and it gave Piper hope. Eventually, she’d meet husband number next, and Piper would be placed on the back burner and left to raise herself. Then the relationship would end, leaving her happiness in the bottom of a bottle, and Piper became completely invisible—something that followed her into adulthood and made for a lonely life. The scars from that time left her wary of others to the point that she would rather be alone than trust the wrong person.
So what little mother-daughter experience she did have made situations like this uncomfortable. Left her feeling as if she were crashing a party, where all the guests had a similar set of genes and characteristics except her. Piper’s genes were nothing to write home about, and her characteristics were said to be an acquired taste. Which was why she was itching her hand as if she’d been exposed to a contagion rather than a healthy show of love. It was as inspiring as it was isolating, and Piper wondered, not for the first time, how Darcy competed with a lifetime’s worth of shared memories and that unbreakable bond some families were lucky enough to have.
“Don’t you look handsome?” Margo said to Josh. “Every time I see you, you look more and more like your father.”
“And you look more and more like a happy grandmother,” Josh said.
“Kylie and I had our first outing. Just the two of us,” Margo said, and there was a wistfulness there that spoke to Piper. “We had a picnic at Pittock Mansion like I used to do with you boys, but Kylie didn’t get mud all over her dress or chase after the geese.”
