Then There Was You Read online

  Whew. Despite the cool winter air, sweat wound its way down her back. She focused the beam of her headlamp on the next step, arms and legs feeling the burn as they climbed higher, passing the first level with the traffic. The headlights below disappeared into a blur of orange and yellow motion. She looked up, her shoulders and quads straining. It would have been nice if Kat had conjured up a reason for a training regimen to prepare for this. She sucked in a deep breath. One ladder to go before they started walking up the spine of the arch.

  After she reached the top of the final ladder, she paused while a guide swapped her safety gear over to the next line. Once given the all-clear, she stood from her crouched position and peered over the side of the safety railing.

  Time disappeared as she followed the rest of the group up the bridge. The view took her breath away. The harbor spread out in front of her, the golden sun peeked over the far horizon, illuminating the lights and outlines of boats cruising across the calm water. Right below them, the creamy seashell shapes of the Sydney Opera House emerged in the dawning light.

  Ethan would have loved this. The thought flickered through Paige’s mind and before she knew it, tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  Her brother had a long list of things he’d wanted to achieve. Activities on every continent. In Australia, he’d wanted to climb Ayers Rock, scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef, hold a koala, and do exactly what she was doing right now.

  The list had been in his wallet. Folded into four and stashed between receipts and coffee cards. Wallet, watch, phone, and keys. The four items in the clear Ziploc bag returned with his body. The ordinary belongings of a man who had no idea when he pocketed them that it would be for the last time.

  Red, blue, and green pen. Sometimes pencil. The list was a haphazard collection of things added as they occurred to him. Ethan had managed to check off maybe a quarter of the items. He’d thought he had decades ahead of him to get it all done. They all did. She’d folded the paper back up and stashed it in her violin case with all the other dreams that died that day. Forgotten about it. Until right now.

  Her cousin tapped her on the shoulder, gesturing to Paige’s face as she mouthed you okay?

  Paige nodded. She was okay. And since she was here, she was going to experience it for Ethan too. She looked around, trying to imagine what he’d be doing if he were here.

  No doubt he’d be chatting up the gorgeous South American girl toward the back of the group. Though the requirement to keep their headsets on may have hampered his impressive charms, he would have seen it as a challenge, not a setback. He’d definitely be the guy making a face in every photo. Asking the instructors what it took to get a job here. Plotting how he could add “bridge climbing guide” to his long list of adventuring skills.

  Her soul ached as the wind wrapped a cocoon around her. After six years, she was managing to navigate through most days without being sucked into the abyss of his absence. It simply sat on her radar, the never-wavering blip of guilt, ready to pierce her in those increasingly rare moments where she wanted to tell him something or ask his advice.

  Then in moments like these, it seemed impossible that he wasn’t still here, joking he’d take her wheelie thing off the safety line, threatening to climb over her if she didn’t move faster.

  She peered up into the heavens. She wasn’t sure if she believed any of that “watching over us” talk. If heaven was as great as the Bible said, she was sure her brother had plenty to keep him occupied without keeping an eye on what was happening down here. But just in case, she blew him a kiss and waved. The haunting ache in her arm reminding her it was her fault he wasn’t here to conquer the bridge himself.

  Fifteen

  The alarm wasn’t set. Josh peered at the familiar gray box, double-checking the series of lights. Definitely disarmed. Odd. The cleaners were vigilant about making sure it was set when they left at night. Josh locked the front door behind him, and trod through the dim, silent hallways toward his office. Eight on a Saturday morning seemed to be the only time the building was quiet enough for him to get a decent amount of work done without interruption.

  Turning left at an intersection of corridors, he took a sip of his double-shot flat white and hefted his satchel further onto his shoulder before rubbing his temple. Maybe it was time to give into the clamor from the band’s governing board and hire his own assistant. Even with the band’s admin assistant and two interns, the workload was becoming more and more impossible for him to manage.

  Then he’d have to delegate, and anyone who’d ever had to work with him soon learned he was terrible at delegation. He’d thought Paige was going to strangle him with her bare hands earlier in the week when he’d second-guessed part of the travel itinerary she’d put together.

  His chest tightened at the thought. The American was more than adequate at her job; he’d give her that. Great, even. Already she’d managed to save them a few grand on their cargo costs. The team loved her, with her attention to detail, the way she made sure she understood exactly what was needed. But having her spend time in his building, not knowing in any given moment when he might be about to walk into her . . . It was messing with his head. Especially when the more he saw of her, the harder it became to reconcile Paige-the-detail-obsessed-logistics-planner with Paige-the messy-drunk-from-the-plane.

  Light spilled from the open door of his office. He skidded to a halt, coffee sloshing in his cup. He was sure he’d closed the door and turned the lights off as he left last night.

  Josh crept toward the open door and slipped his bag onto a nearby chair, setting his coffee cup beside it. If he found someone in there with sticky fingers, he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t swing first and love them like Jesus second. The cost of insuring all their gear was already ridiculous.

  “Sean, I know you can do better than that. That’s not even as good as the rate you give Triple A members and I’m offering you almost twenty rooms during the off-season.” The familiar accent wafted out from his door.

  What was the American doing here?

  Peering around the door, he found Paige at the spare desk in his office, lounging in the chair with her sneaker-clad feet up on the wood, as if it had been her space for years.

  It wasn’t her space at all. He’d waved to it and mentioned Marcy occasionally sat there, but it hadn’t been an invitation for her to use it. Especially not when there were spare desks down the hall with the interns.

  He leaned against the doorframe, studying her profile. She was so fixated on her conversation and the spreadsheet in front of her, she hadn’t noticed him.

  Her long legs were clad in track pants which looked like they could use a wash, and an oversized white T-shirt enveloped her frame. Her hair was piled on top of her head, held in place by a hideous fluorescent yellow plastic clip. A pair of rectangular glasses perched on her nose.

  She looked a bit undone. Compared to her usual perfectly made-up and attired self, he preferred this look. A lot.

  A smile crept onto her face, but didn’t make it to her voice. “Sean, you’re killing me here. You know how much I love you guys and I so want the band to stay with you, but one-thirty is as high as I can go.”

  She listened for a few seconds, then grinned and punched her free hand in the air. “All right, I can make it work at one-forty if you include breakfast and the upgrade.”

  Josh did the math on the currency conversion and felt his jaw drop. If she was getting similar deals at all their hotels she’d be saving them thousands across the whole tour.

  “Done. These are my details.” She rattled off her email and phone number, then the details of the credit card they used for tour-related bookings. From memory.

  “Can you give me the confirmation number?” She picked up a pen and started scribbling on the pad beside her. “Got it. Thanks, Sean. They’ll be perfect angels, I promise. Make sure you give my love to Mary and the kids.” She ended the call and leaned back in her chair, grinning.

  He was a
bout to step forward when her chair ricocheted back on its wheels and she was on her feet, doing what he could only assume was some kind of victory dance. He’d witnessed a lot of terrible dancing in his time, but this had to be the worst. It looked like a safety video he’d seen once, warning of what it would look like if someone was getting electrocuted.

  It made her more human. It made her more likeable. It made the next month a hundred times harder. How was he supposed to keep a cool distance when he’d been witness to this?

  Now her arms were up in a V and Paige was shaking her behind like she was auditioning for a Beyoncé video. To the computer, jump ninety degrees to the wall, ninety degrees to his computer.

  Oh no. He needed to disappear n—too late. She’d jumped around to face the door, and froze, arms still in the air, with the huge brown eyes of a kangaroo caught in the headlights of a car on the open road.

  In spite of his best effort, he couldn’t contain the grin that took over his face.

  Paige tugged her T-shirt down and tried to sweep her wild hair back into the ugly clip. “Just so you know, you’ve been getting totally robbed on your US hotel rates for years.”

  Josh nodded. “So I heard. Thanks.”

  He couldn’t do it, couldn’t keep a straight face. He held up a hand. “Can you excuse me? Just for a second.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he strode down the hall, only making it as far as his coffee before he lost it.

  The last time she’d been this humiliated, Paige had been sixteen, at a movie with a date. And her father, sitting two rows behind them. Halfway through Notting Hill, Johnny Conroy, football player and bible club co-leader, started to execute the good old yawn-and-stretch maneuver. “Lay a hand on my daughter, and it’s the last time you’ll be using it” had cut across Hugh’s bumbling words to Julia. Needless to say, Johnny Conroy had never called again. Neither had any other guy that year.

  At least Josh had had the decency not to laugh right in front of her. Judging by the sound echoing down the hall, he’d taken it all of fifteen feet away. She peered out the door. He stood there, leaning against the wall, whole body shaking with laughter, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Okay, so she wasn’t the world’s greatest dancer. But she had just saved them like a grand on their Atlanta hotel bill. In this business, you had to claim your wins where you could.

  Slumping back in her chair, she buried her head in her hands as she imagined what he must have witnessed. It wasn’t like she’d just done a minor victory dance. No. She’d pulled out the extended version in all its fist-pumping—oh Lord—booty shaking glory.

  And she was one hundred percent certain it was not the Shekinah kind of glory that dwelt in the tabernacle in the Old Testament.

  Covering her eyes, she groaned.

  “Okay, it wasn’t that bad.” His voice came from the doorway.

  She splayed open her fingers and peered through the gaps. Josh leaned against the door frame still grinning, but no longer weeping.

  “I’m pretty sure it was.”

  He offered one of those pained grimaces people gave when you were right, but they didn’t want to be the one to tell you.

  She dropped her hands from her eyes, wanting to find a reason to be angry at him. Like for being in on a Saturday morning when she should have had every right to do her absurd jig in peace. But the whole situation was so ridiculous, she just couldn’t. “On the upside, at least now you know dance is not one of my spiritual gifts.”

  Walking into the room, he dropped his brown leather satchel on the floor and spun around his chair to face her before sinking into it. “Just quietly, it’s not one of mine either.”

  They stared at each other as he lifted his takeout cup to his lips. “Sorry. If I’d known you were going to be here, I would’ve picked you one up. What are you doing here anyway?” He kicked his feet up on the side of his desk and tilted back in his chair.

  She copied his posture, but without coffee in her hands, she settled for slipping them behind her head. Oh, she wasn’t. She was. Yes, she was still wearing Kat’s hideous yellow banana clip. Would there be no limit to her shame this morning? “It’s Friday afternoon in the US, the best time to get the people I needed to talk to about negotiating some reasonable hotel prices for the tour.”

  “How many have you done so far?”

  “Just Atlanta and Nashville.”

  “And did you break them in Nashville as well?”

  She couldn’t stop the smile the snuck onto her lips. “It would be fair to say the Regency won’t be making a lot of money off you.”

  He shuffled his heels over to where the end of his desk met hers, his chair turning so he faced her directly. “Paige McAllister. We have a bit of a problem.”

  “What?”

  His brow furrowed, and he chewed his bottom lip for a second. “Well you see, I’ve thought about it and I just can’t see how . . .”

  Seriously? He was going to fire her when she’d already saved them like five grand?

  “. . . after this morning, we can still hate each other.”

  What?

  He kept going. “. . . maybe even find a way to be civil to each other.”

  Bad idea. Really bad idea. The only reason she managed to think straight around him was because he made her so mad she could spit. If he turned all nice to go with the accent and the looks . . .Her mind would wander into dangerous territory.

  “I mean you can still be all mean and snooty if you like, that’s fine.” He shrugged. “But I can’t hate on someone who is so great at her job but dances so badly.” He grinned at her, all dark tousled hair and teasing gray eyes.

  Her heart raced like she was a cyclist in the Tour de France. No, not friends. Not with the guy who represented so many things that she hated, but made her forget everything when he unfurled that smile. She had to keep her distance. Be professional. Anything more than that was just asking for trouble.

  She gave him her best deadpan look. “I already have plenty of friends, thanks.”

  He laughed.

  Great. He thought she was joking.

  Sixteen

  Paige knocked on her boss’s doorframe then shifted her immaculately organized stack of papers so they balanced against her chest. Janine had been traveling the last couple of weeks, so they had a lot to catch up on.

  Spending her week split between Grace and the tour had its benefits—Paige was never bored or short of things to do. Although there were a few distinct disadvantages. She now had a front-row seat to Team Josh. Everyone held him in high esteem, a fact made worse by the fact that it appeared well deserved. He worked hard, was first to do the worst jobs, and was always watching out for the interests of his team.

  Now she was losing too much of her sleep and her mind. She couldn’t afford to get emotionally entangled with another guy whose future was in a different direction to her own. She had no interest in putting down roots in Australia. These jobs with Grace and the band were just what she needed on her CV to make her a serious contender for the types of roles beckoning from back home.

  She tapped on the door frame again and peered around the half-open door. This time Janine looked up, her phone pressed against her ear, and waved her in. “I see what you’re saying, but—” She made a face as she was cut off by whoever was at the other end.

  Paige carefully set her pile on the coffee table and wandered toward the large windows overlooking the campus. The late August winter sun was out in full force, giving everything a sparkly and fresh glow. Trees rustled in the breeze, laughter drifting up from the daycare center, along with the sound of people talking as they moved between buildings. She pressed her forehead against the open window and drank it all in for a moment.

  Under the window sat a long, slim table, with a few study and reference books stacked randomly among rows of framed photographs. The front pictures were the Tyler family at various ages and stages, including Janine with the compulsory eighties poodle perm trying to corra
l toddler Amanda and baby Josh. Even then he had a huge thatch of dark hair and serious gray eyes.

  Then there was a photo of the first Harvest church, a school hall with maybe a hundred people gathered outside, dressed in what could only be described as true commitment to late-eighties fashion.

  From that to this. Paige’s confusion had grown over the last few weeks. She’d come with Kat to an early service every Sunday. Every week, she’d sat in her chair, waiting for something to happen that would give credence to her skepticism. And every Sunday they taught the Bible and took up the offering with little fanfare. Nothing even close to the long guilt-inducing lectures on giving she’d been subjected to every week for two years.

  Maybe her suspicions were ill founded. Maybe things were different here. Maybe Australian megachurches had found a balance that some of her homeland counterparts missed, or lost.

  Her gaze moved to the back rows—mainly photos of Greg and Janine with various friends and high-profile acquaintances in Christendom.

  One photo leapt out, and her breath whooshed out of her lungs like it had physically assaulted her. It couldn’t be. But it was. She reached out and lifted the image with two familiar faces. They stood with Greg and Janine, all with their arms around each other, grinning like the whole world was at their feet.

  “I’m never quite sure what to do with that one.” Janine had crept up behind her.

  “Are they . . . close friends?” Please say no.

  Janine sighed, running a hand through her bob. “I would have said they were at the time, but after what happened, part of me wonders if we ever really knew them.”

  Paige’s stomach was leaping around like she was riding a bucking bronco. Did she tell Janine? Just leave it alone? It wasn’t like Janine was standing here defending them, unlike the way some other pastors had closed ranks around them.