Here to Stay (12 page)

Paige shot a sidelong glance at Myers, who
quickly averted his gaze. “No, your Honor, I can assure you there’s
no hidden agenda behind my appearance this morning,” she told him
meekly.

“Good,” he whispered, and then leaned closer.
“Personally, I kind of like it.”

Paige smiled and returned to the defense’s
table.

“This case will be rescheduled at such time
as Mr. Redmond is physically able to be present. Counsel will
coordinate a new date with the court.”

Paige snatched up her briefcase and strode
out of the court room as the bailiff called the next case. Myers
dogged her step. Once out in the marble-floored hall, Paige whirled
to face him.

“Is there something you need, Mr. Myers?”

“That’s some dress, counselor.” Myers gave
her another slow perusal.

“That’s an inappropriate remark, Mr. Myers,”
Paige said frostily.

“Sorry,” he offered humbly. “I was just
wondering about Calvin Jefferson. His employer says he’s been out
sick for a few days and no one’s seen him around his grandmother’s
house.”

“My client’s health is no concern of yours,”
Paige told him briskly. “Good day, Mr. Myers.” Paige stormed away.
Oh, how she had wanted to light into him about the little deal he
had offered Calvin, but she held back. She didn’t want Myers to
know that she knew just yet. The beginning of a plan had formed in
her mind. Paige smiled. Maybe the morning hadn’t been a total loss
after all.

~*~

She parked in front of Robert’s garage, got
out of her car and slammed the door shut. Except for her time with
Jesse, the day had been the pits so far. Surely it couldn’t get any
worse.

Nathan’s white Corvette roared up behind
Paige’s car. “Whoa, Mama,” Calvin shouted as he hopped from the
convertible. “That’s one bad dress, Miss P!”

Oh, yes, it had just gotten worse. Now her
humiliation was complete. “Don’t give me any lip, Calvin. I’ve had
a bad day and this dress represents only part of the overall
disaster.” Her gaze skittered over to where Nathan stood.

He leaned against the car, crossed his arms
over his chest and crossed his feet at the ankles. The breeze
shifted a strand of long, silky black hair across one shoulder. His
gaze slid over Paige as if she were an enticing entrée and he were
a starving man. Nathan’s smile was slow and easy, but the heat in
his eyes flashed strong and wild. He nodded a silent hello.

Not one word. The man never uttered a single
syllable, yet Paige’s pulse reacted as if he had told her he
intended to throw her across the shiny, classic car and make love
to her. She didn’t need this. She stalked across the yard, up the
steps and to the door. She jammed the key into the lock and let
herself in. Her keys landed on the hall table with a heavy rattle
as Paige headed toward the stairs. Calvin followed right behind
her. Maybe if she ignored him, he’d go away. She didn’t want to
talk right now. She only wanted to get out of Denise’s clothes and
into something of her own. Something comfortable…something with
absolutely no sex appeal.

“Me and Nathan rode over to Jackson to look
at a hose he’s gonna buy,” Calvin told her as he continued to trail
her up the stairs. “That’s one tough car. It’ll fly.”

Paige stopped and turned to face him; she had
to look down since he had stopped three steps below her. “Just how
fast is flying?” she asked, irritated that Nathan would drive too
fast, thus breaking the law, with a teenager in the car.

“Ah, I don’t know…pretty fast, I guess,” he
stuttered. “I’m telling you that Nathan is one cool dude. Everybody
respects him. And the ladies”—Calvin shook his head and shrugged
dramatically—“they just crazy about the man. Everywhere we went he
got the look.”

“The look?” Paige asked, putting the question
of speed aside.

“You know,” Calvin urged. “The I-want-you
look. The baby-you-hot look.”

Paige shook her head. “I get the picture.”
She held up a hand to prevent any further explanation. “I’m glad
you had a nice day. But, if you’ll excuse me I have to get changed.
I have a meeting with Silas in thirty minutes. You can tell me all
about your day at dinner tonight. Okay?” She gave Calvin the best
smile she could manage in her foul mood.

“Sure thing, Miss P.” Calvin returned her
smile and started back down the stairs.

He was a good kid. She sure hoped she could
get him out of the mess that circumstances and poor judgment had
gotten him into. She hurried up the remaining steps. And somehow
she had to straighten out the mess she had made of trying to tell
Nathan about Jesse.

“Hey,” Calvin called from the foot of the
staircase. Paige paused and looked down at him from the
landing.

“Yes.”

“He ignored all of ‘em.”

“What?”

“He didn’t look at nobody the way he looks at
you.” With that said, Calvin sauntered across the entry hall and
out the door.

Paige remained perfectly still for a long
while. She closed her eyes and willed back the surge of emotions
tugging at her heart. Tonight. She had to tell Nathan tonight. Any
further delays were only going to lead to trouble. Heart
trouble.

With renewed determination, Paige cut a trail
to her bedroom. She quickly shed her borrowed clothing and slipped
into a comfortable pair of worn jeans and a pink cotton shirt. Her
sneakers tied, she trotted down the hall and then the stairs. She
would run her idea about Calvin and Myers by Silas to get his
feedback. Personally, she thought the plan would work, but it never
hurt to get an objective opinion.

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 he 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 a 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.