Debra Webb - In His Touch Box Set (Here To Stay, Up Close, Tempting Trace, Basic Instincts) (12 page)

Paige locked and pulled the door closed behind her, then bounded off the porch toward the car. The guys had disappeared. Probably in the barn checking on the horses, Paige decided. She sat down behind the wheel and reached for the ignition.

No keys.

“Blast,” she hissed. Paige got out and ran back to the house. She turned the doorknob and pushed. Brick-wall resistance met her. The door didn’t budge. Paige turned the knob again and at once realized her mistake. She had locked the door behind her. An unconscious habit of city life.

“Oh, Lord,” she muttered, suddenly picturing her keys lying on the hall table. She was locked out. All five keys to Robert’s house were inside. Each contractor had turned over their respective key when they had finished the job. How could anyone lock themselves out with that many keys lying around?

Paige shot a weary glance toward the barn. No way would she tell Nathan or Calvin what a stupid thing she had done. She’d had all the humiliation she could stand for one day.

What could she do? Use the phone in the barn to call a locksmith? No, then Nathan and Calvin would figure it out for sure. A smile spread across her face.
Her bedroom window
. She dashed to the far end of the house.

A huge old maple towered next to the house. Limbs from the tree scraped at the siding and her bedroom window in the breeze. She’d done it hundreds of times growing up, Paige reminded herself. She could do it now. She wasn’t that old.

Paige hoisted herself up onto the lowest limb and began to climb up the tree. She and Nathan had used this route for after curfew visits and midnight rendezvous when they were kids—long before the tangled web of emotions had snared them. The climb proved easy enough. Paige paused to catch her breath before making the jump to the roof. The roof that covered the wraparound porch sloped gently, allowing for a fairly even landing.

She shot another glance toward the barn. All clear. The curtains in her bedroom window shifted in the breeze, beckoning her inside. Paige took a deep, fortifying breath and tried to forget that she was thirty years old, not thirteen. Three steps out the limb shifted beneath her. Time to jump. It couldn’t be more than three or four feet, she told herself.

Paige leaped to the roof. She landed squarely on her feet. She smiled at her success and released a pent-up breath. That wasn’t so difficult. She reached for the window ledge but lost her footing. For two or three seconds she teetered, off balance. Her heart surged into her throat, her stomach plummeted to her feet, and then it was over. Paige fell forward. Down and across the asphalt shingles she slid. She clutched at the sandpaper-like surface to no avail. Her body dropped over the edge, legs dangled. She grasped the gutter in desperation.

“Oh, God.” She held on tightly, glanced at the ground some ten or so feet beneath her and then back at her white-knuckled hold on the gutter. A distinct groan sounded as the gutter shifted away from the fascia.

“No...” She tried to scream, but her voice trapped in her throat. She was going to fall. Paige tried to swing her leg up onto the roof. The gutter shifted again. Her heart lurched and she knew it was over. The gutter gave way and she felt herself falling. Fear coursed through her body.

She knew when she hit the ground, though it didn’t hurt as much as she had expected. The air rushed out of her lungs on impact. She stared up at the tangled length of gutter and blinked. Robert wouldn’t be too happy about that. She blinked again. She’d have to make sure Jesse never did anything stupid like this. She sucked in a breath. Pain zipped through her as she tried to push up to a sitting position.

“Don’t move,” Nathan commanded.

He was on his knees at her side. Paige wondered vaguely how he’d gotten there. He seemed to be examining her. His hands moved over her body, touching, testing.

“I’m okay,” she mumbled and tried to sit up again. Nathan didn’t protest, instead he helped her up. Pain shot through her backside and she winced. Her head throbbed insistently.

“What the hell were you doing?”

Paige lifted her gaze to his and the intensity of the fear she saw there tied her insides into knots. “I locked myself out. I thought I could—”

“Dammit, don’t you know how dangerous that was?” Anger replacing the fear in his eyes, he stood, pulling Paige up with him. “You could’ve broken your fool neck.”

She tried for a smile, but didn’t quite make it. “I’m okay. Just shaken.” Her face heated with delayed humiliation. And here she’d thought this day couldn’t possibly get any worse. Groaning, she stretched her neck and shoulders just to make sure everything still worked properly. God, what an idiot she must look like, she realized as she dusted herself off.

Shaking his head, Nathan turned his back on her and took a couple of steps toward the house. He ran his fingers through his hair, then braced his hands against the side of the house.

Hesitantly and wincing with every step, Paige moved to his side. “Really, Nathan, I’m all right.” He wouldn’t look at her, he just kept staring at the ground. “I know it was a stupid thing to do, but I—”

The look in those black Apache eyes when his gaze connected with hers silenced her. Paige recoiled from the mixture of rage and fear she saw there.

He straightened and took the step she’d retreated. “You scared the hell out of me, Paige.” A muscle flexed in his tense jaw. He took another step, and Paige found herself trapped between him and the house. “Do you have any idea what went through my head when I saw you fall?”

She shook her head, then wished she hadn’t.

He focused that hot, piercing gaze just past her shoulder for a time while he obviously struggled with his anger. It didn’t help. “I can’t—” He closed his eyes and exhaled.

When he tried to draw in his next breath, he trembled. She’d never seen him this way before. Nothing scared Nathan. She reached up to touch his face. His eyes opened and in that instant she knew for certain that he still cared. Deeply. It was more than she could have hoped for. Her heart reacted. And she suddenly wanted to show him how much she still cared.

~*~

Nathan couldn’t take this. He couldn’t lose her... not again. Didn’t she understand? He had never stopped loving her. He wouldn’t until the day he died.

“Paige,” he whispered against her fingers as they trailed over his lips. Slowly, he lowered his head until his lips brushed hers in the promise of a kiss. She tiptoed to make the contact complete. She slid her arms around his neck and time stood still for him. The only sensation he felt was her soft, sweet lips on his. Her tongue slipped into his mouth and he groaned with pleasure as she stroked his tongue. Desire flowed swiftly through him, hardening his sex. He cupped her bottom and pressed her intimately against him. Her responsive moan proved his undoing.

He knew he should be the strong one and stop before they did something Paige would regret, but he couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t do it.

“Take me home with you, Nathan,” she breathed against his lips. “I want you to make love to me.
Now
.”

His heart hammered in his chest, nearly ready to explode. He had waited so long to hear her say those words, for a second he couldn’t believe he’d heard right. But when she arched against his hardened body, he knew he had. Want sizzled inside him. He held her tighter, kissed her harder. He stabbed his tongue into her mouth and explored, teasing and thrusting. He ground his hips against hers.

Paige plunged her fingers into his hair and held him firmly against her mouth, demanding more. “Nathan, I need you now,” she said softly between desperate kisses.

He stilled. This was all wrong. She hadn’t said
Nathan, I love you
—she had said
need you
. No matter what they shared right now, she would be leaving and he just couldn’t endure exposing his heart to that kind of pain again. Who was he kidding? He didn’t have to lose her again. She was already lost to him.

“Nathan?” She caressed his cheek, tried to read him.

He searched her eyes, saw the desire and uncertainty. The fall had shaken her. She couldn’t be thinking straight. As much as he wanted her, this just didn’t feel right. He pulled out of her arms. His whole body shuddered at the loss of contact with hers. He had to close his eyes for a long moment to steady himself against the ache.

“I don’t understand,” she said quietly.

Nathan shook his head, then opened his eyes. “I can’t do this. When you went away to college and never came back here, I almost lost my mind. Then my mother died and you suddenly reappeared. When you left that time, you took...”

He couldn’t form the words to explain the pain that had followed, “Twice I’ve lost you. Twice I’ve grieved the loss. I can’t do that again.”

“I’m sorry. I never intended to hurt you. I did come back,” she reminded gently, “but it was too late.”

He looked away. “I should go. Let Calvin drive you to Silas’s office. You took a pretty hard fall. If you need me for anything, just call. I need...” He swallowed hard and met her gaze. “I have to go.” He turned and walked away from the only woman he’d ever wanted. The one he still wanted.

He didn’t stop until he was in his car. He turned the ignition and the engine roared to life. If he didn’t move fast, he might change his mind and he couldn’t allow that to happen. He couldn’t survive losing Paige again. The best thing he could do was stay away until she went back to Memphis.

He would be doing her a favor as well. No matter how much she had thought she wanted to make love with him, she would have regretted it tomorrow.

They had no future together. Nothing that bound them except leftover feelings from the past.

Chapter Eight

“Litigate? What kind of five-dollar word is that?” Calvin huffed a disgruntled sound. “This ain’t the legal category in Jeopardy.”

“There’s no rule, Calvin, except that it has to be a word Webster’s would officially recognize,” Paige returned coolly. “Litigate means—”

“I know what it means,” he snapped.

“Well then, what’s the problem?”

“It’s supposed to be a word you can guess in this century, Miss P.” Calvin folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t want to play no more. I think that bump on your head done ruined your sense of humor,” he grumbled.

She exhaled a weary breath and leaned back against the couch. “You’re right, Calvin. I haven’t been myself all weekend.”

“It ain’t got nothing to do with lover boy, has it?” Calvin looked her straight in the eye. “I noticed he ain’t been around.”

“No,” she lied, straight-faced she hoped. “I’m just feeling out of sorts.”

“Is it because we’re going to pull that trick on Mr. Myers?”

“No,” Paige said with much more conviction. “Mr. Myers deserves just exactly what he’s going to get.”

“Long as you know what you’re doing, I’m game.”

She smiled at Calvin’s obvious uneasiness with deception. No way was this kid bad guy material. “Trust me, Calvin.”

“I do trust you.” He looked at her solemnly. “With my life,” he added.

Paige held his serious gaze for a moment before she busied herself putting away the pencils and tablets they had used to play a homemade version of Password. She sure hoped this little plan she and Silas had cooked up would work. If Calvin could get Myers to repeat his offer, they would have him over a barrel. The conversation would be taped, thus giving Paige the evidence she needed to gain a little a little leverage with the overly ambitious man.

“Want another glass of tea?” Calvin asked, getting to his feet.

“No, thanks,” Paige muttered distractedly. Calvin had proven entirely too insightful for an eighteen-year-old. His estimation that the bump on her head had little to do with her state of depression was right on the target. Nathan was the problem. He hadn’t called or come by all weekend. It had only been two days, but it felt like forever since she had seen him.

She had mentally kicked herself a dozen times for behaving like a sex-starved nymph. She still couldn’t believe that she had actually asked him to make love to her. Not hinted, mind you. Flat out asked. Demanded, really.

She closed her eyes and recalled the mind-boggling kisses they had shared before Nathan had come to his senses. Warmth flowed through her instantly as the event replayed in her mind. No other man, not that she had dated that many, had ever swept her into such passion with a kiss. It felt right with Nathan. Natural. The feel of his hard body against hers filled her with such need that she could scream with want.

But Nathan had been right. She sighed, a heavy, fatigued sound. He had kept his head on straight when she had lost it completely. Maybe the fall had scrambled her brains. She rubbed the still-tender spot on the back of her head. Whatever had possessed her at that instant she would never understand. The only thing she knew at the time was that she wanted him more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. Her first lovemaking experience had been with Nathan and there hadn’t been anyone since. Paige hadn’t wanted anyone else. She had tried, but her heart would accept no one else.

She prayed she hadn’t ruined the chance of their being able to maintain a friendship. And she still had to tell him about Jesse. What a mess she had made.

Calvin sauntered back into the room. Sorting out other people’s lives seemed so much simpler than straightening out her own. He stretched out on the couch with his iced tea and turned his attention to his favorite sitcom. A knock at the door, followed by several chimes of the doorbell startled Paige from her disturbing reflection.

“Oh, man,” Calvin protested. “That’s prob’ly Nathan and my show ain’t over yet.” He set his half-empty glass of tea on a coaster on the side table.

“Nathan?” Paige asked, her spirits lifting.

“Yeah, he invited me to go to the pool hall with him tonight,” Calvin said as he laced up his high-top sneakers.

“Hogan’s Pool Hall?”

“Yeah, that’s the place.” He stood to go.

“You just sit tight,” Paige ordered. “I need to have a word with Nathan in private.” She stalked into the entry hall and opened the door, prepared to give Nathan a piece of her mind on the subject of bad influence. Only it wasn’t Nathan at the door. Paige found herself face-to-face with two young men who looked more menacing than junkyard dogs.