Golden Lies - Barbara Freethy [85]
"Fine. Whatever," he said.
"It's just more difficult to make the choice than to simply let it happen, you know? I guess that makes me a coward."
"Or smart."
"I don't feel smart. I feel ... frustrated."
"That makes two of us. You should go."
"I want to help you with the cleaning."
"Why?"
"Because I do, and because, dammit, I don't want to go home yet. Is that the deal, if I don't sleep with you, I have to leave?"
He smiled at her obvious annoyance. "That's usually how it works."
"That's not the way it works with me. But to be on the safe side, we'll clean down here." She entered the living room. "Has this room been lucky for you?"
"Nope."
"Good."
He laughed. "Not so good for me."
She knelt down next to the pile of photographs on the floor. "This is quite a mess. Your grandmother sure has a lot of pictures."
"My grandmother has been talking about putting those in photo albums since I was a kid. She just never gets around to it."
"Is this you?" She held up a baby picture.
He squatted down beside her, his chest tightening. "No, that's my mother."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I should have guessed." She picked up more pictures of his mother at various stages of her life. Riley didn't want to look. He tried not to remember his mother at all. He certainly didn't want a visual reminder. But as Paige went through them, he found himself looking over her shoulder. His stomach clenched at the one in her hand. His mother was holding him in her lap at what was probably his third Christmas. She was trying to hand him a doll, but he was pushing it away.
"Now, I know this is you." Paige looked at him with tenderness in her eyes. "I recognize the scowl."
"I wanted a fire truck. Not that stupid rag doll."
"Oh, this is you, too." She pulled out a photo his grandmother had taken at his junior high school graduation. "There's that scowl again. Do you ever smile for the camera?"
"I didn't see any point in recording those moments in my life." He paused, remembering that day. He'd only been at his grandmother's house since that Christmas. He'd transferred into yet another school to finish up the eighth grade. His mother was supposed to be at the graduation, but she'd gone off on a weekend retreat that had lasted six months. That's when his grandparents had told him he would be living with them from now on.
"Aren't there any of those naked baby pictures in here? I'd like to see your bare ass on a blanket," Paige said, lightening his mood.
"I'd be happy to show it to you. It's much more impressive now than it was then."
Her brown eyes sparkled at him. "So you say." She picked up another photograph. "This must be your grandparents at their wedding."
"You're really going back in time now As I said, my grandmother never organized any of these. She always said she was too busy living life to look at it."
"That sounds nice." Paige let out a sigh. "There are six photo albums of my life to date, every minor or major event captured on film for generations to see."
"Who was the photographer? Your mother or your father?"
"They usually hired photographers."
"Of course. My mistake."
"They were at my kindergarten graduation and all the other school graduations to follow, birthday parties, Christmas, holiday events, and of course the off-the-shoulder drape portrait for my debutante ball."
"Poor little rich girl. My heart is bleeding."
She tossed the pictures at him. "Then you can clean these up."
"Fine with me." He swept them into a pile, then stopped. The photograph in front of him was an old black-and-white taken in San Francisco. It was the sign in the background that made him pause. "Look at this."
Paige peered over his shoulder. "That's my store," she said in wonder. "That must have been taken years ago. Look at the car."
"I was looking at the men in front of the store." Riley pointed to a man wearing a security uniform. "That's my grandfather. Do you happen to know who he's shaking hands with?"
"Oh, my