Here to Stay (15 page)

“What’s this?” he asked, raising his head to
look more closely in the dim light.

“What?” Paige asked with a dreamy smile.

“This.” He traced the slightly raised mark of
her caesarean scar. The same line of flesh that had been reopened
to remove all that made her whole.

Paige stilled. She had forgotten about that.
How could she answer that question? There had been complications
and she hadn’t been able to have Jesse naturally. Fear slipped into
her anxious heart. No matter how much Nathan still loved her, he
would hate her when he found out the truth about his son. This
wonderful feeling they shared right now would only be temporary.
Paige’s heart ached. And even if he forgave her for that, he would
never want her now. Nathan wanted lots of children and Paige could
only give him one. The one she had kept from him for four
years.

“Paige,” he whispered. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” she muttered. “It’s a surgical
scar. I…I had surgery. You know, female stuff.”

“What kind of female stuff?” he asked,
frowning.

Paige kissed him on the cheek. “I hope you’re
not in too much pain,” she said, changing the subject. She glanced
at the bandage on his stomach and winced when she saw the bright
red. “Nathan, you’re bleeding again. We shouldn’t have—”

“Believe me,” Nathan interrupted, “I didn’t
feel any pain.”

Chapter Nine

Paige smiled pleasantly at each person she
met as she strode leisurely down the corridor to the District
Attorney’s office. A glorious morning for revenge, she thought. She
glanced at her watch. Nine fifteen. Her timing was perfect. Paige
opened the door and entered the DA’s domain. She greeted the
receptionist in the lobby as she crossed the room. There was no
need to ask directions. She had been to Joe Myers’s office before.
She strode down the long hall that separated the individual suites.
At suite 218 she entered the office of Myers’s personal
secretary.

“Good morning, Miss Weston,” Sandra, a plump
lady in her mid-fifties, greeted Paige with an efficient smile.

“Good morning, Sandra,” Paige said, returning
the smile. “I’d like the see Mr. Myers, if he’s available.”

“He’s on the telephone right now, but as soon
as he’s finished, I’m sure Mr. Myers will be happy to see you.
Would you like some coffee, Miss Weston?”

“No, thank you.”

Paige sat down in one of the three chairs in
the small waiting area, crossed her legs and smoothed the gray
shirt of her suit. She directed her gaze to Myers through the glass
wall that separated his office from Sandra’s. He sat, reared back,
in his leather executive chair that certainly wasn’t
government-issue. He had already noticed Paige and nodded,
acknowledging her presence.

She couldn’t hear his conversation with the
door closed, but she could see the changing expressions on his face
as he spoke. She knew perfectly well that the person on the other
end of the line was
her
client.

Before leaving Trinity, Paige and Silas had
synchronized their watches. Calvin had placed his call from Silas’s
office at exactly twelve minutes past nine and Paige had timed her
arrival perfectly three minutes later. Myers couldn’t possible
suspect that Paige had put Calvin up to making the call when she
sat right before his eyes.

She smiled a secret smile and picked up a
magazine to occupy her hands and eyes until Myers finished
tightening the noose around his elegant neck.

After several minutes of conversing with
Calvin, the door to Joe’s office opened and he stuck his head out.
“Paige, come in,” he announced enthusiastically.

“Thank you.” She rose and followed him into
his office. Myers closed the door behind them.

“Have a seat.” He gestured toward the chair
in front of his desk. When Paige had made herself comfortable,
Myers took his seat. “What can I do for you today, counselor?” he
asked, with a roguish smile.

“Actually, I think there’s something I can do
for you,” she said. Her cell phone chirped on schedule. “Excuse me,
Joe.” Paige retrieved the compact phone from her purse. “Yes,” she
said to her caller. ”Great.” She closed the phone and deposited it
back into her purse. She straightened in her chair and set her gaze
back on Myers.

“You were saying?”

“I’d like you to drop the charges against my
client, Calvin Jefferson,” she said pointedly.

Joe laughed long and loud. “You must be
kidding. He’s an important link in our case against Malcolm
Reed.”

“You know those drugs were planted in his
locker as surely as I do. The combination on his locker has been
tampered with. The kid is as clean as they come. You know he’s
innocent.” Renewed fury swept through Paige when she considered the
unfairness of the case against Calvin.

“If I were a betting man, I’d bet you’re
right.” He smiled and raised one eyebrow. “But you see, I need
Calvin and I have absolutely no intention of giving him up.”

“Okay, if that’s the way you want to play,”
she warned. The intercom buzzed. Before Myers could press the
button to answer, Paige interjected, “That’ll be Calvin.”

Myers frowned at her and then pressed the
button.

“Yes?”

“You have a call on line one, Mr. Myers.”

Myers reached for the telephone without
taking his eyes off Paige. “Joe Myers,” he said into the receiver.
As he listened, a pallor slid over his salon-tanned face.

Paige knew Calvin was playing the tape he and
Silas had made of Myers’s unethical offer. When Myers dropped the
receiver back into the cradle, rage glittered in his eyes.

“Just what do you hope to accomplish,
Paige?”

“I don’t want to stir up any trouble, Joe. I
think we can work this out amiably. You drop the charges against
Calvin and I’ll forget about your little offer.”

“No way. I need Calvin.”

“How about I sweeten the deal for you,
Joe?”

“What do you mean?”

“There are two guys who work directly for
Malcolm Reed sitting in Haywood County Jail. Sheriff Holt says the
two are very anxious to cut a deal, especially since one’s up on an
assault charge. That would be assault with a deadly weapon.”

Myers straightened in his cordovan leather
chair. The anger in his eyes quickly changed to eagerness. “You’d
better not be jerking my chain,” he said warily.

“A.J. Davis, Calvin’s cousin, is probably the
one who planted the drugs if I had my guess, with Baby Dave
Simmons. A.J. is a very close associate of Malcolm’s, by his own
account and according to Calvin. Baby Dave seems to be A.J.’s
confidant.”

“You realize that I’ll have to check into
this before I can give you any assurances,” Myers told her
skeptically.

“You have twenty-four hours.” Paige stood.
“After that, I talk to Judge Mattson about your little offer.”

“Be reasonable, Paige,” Myer shot to his
feet. “These things take time.”

“Sheriff Holt can hold A.J. and Baby Dave for
twenty-four more hours. After that I can’t promise you anything
extra. Good day, Joe.”

Paige hurried to her car, then slipped behind
the wheel and buckled her seat belt. She couldn’t wait to see
Jesse. Maybe she would just spend the rest of the day with her
little boy. She and Jesse could treat Beatrice to lunch. Someplace
besides McDonald’s.

After that she would go back to Trinity.
To Nathan
. She leaned her head back against the headrest and
closed her eyes. She relived the memory of Nathan’s hands on her
body, touching her everywhere. Heat simmered in her veins and she
smiled. She took a long, deep breath. She moistened her lips and
recalled the taste of his skin. Being with Nathan made her feel
complete.

That one night they shared together so long
ago had been beautiful—special. Paige had been completely
inexperienced in the art of making love, but Nathan’s ability as a
lover had more than made up for her lack of skill. Nathan had been
patient as best he could, considering the state of mind he had been
in at the time. He had needed Paige so much that night and she had
needed him. They had clung to each other as if the world would end
in the next minute.

When she had thought that Nathan had turned
to someone else, rejected her, Paige assumed that her father had
been right, that Nathan didn’t love her. She had never been able to
get close to anyone else. Not that she feared inadequacy, but
because she had always loved Nathan, even if he didn’t love her.
And then, of course, there was Jesse. The birth of her son had
turned her world upside down, sent her on a new journey. A journey
that altered the course of her life forever. Paige had bloomed like
a rose opening to the sun, become the true person
she
wanted
to be. Not the carbon copy her father had wanted her to be.

Now, she sighed and opened her eyes. All she
had to do was straighten this mess out with Nathan. She had
prepared herself for his hatred. She loved Nathan more than life
itself, but she could endure his hatred for Jesse’s sake. Her son
needed his father a great deal more than Paige needed a lover.

She started her car and pulled out onto the
busy street. She had always known what lay in store for her. One
night of love and tenderness hadn’t changed anything. But at least
she had a memory or two to hold in her heart. She wouldn’t kid
herself about the future. Nathan would hate her when she told him.
And she would tell him. Just not today, she decided.

~*~

Sweat rolled down Nathan’s back as he stacked
the last of the hay bales nearest to the loft door. The winter
supply was almost depleted as always at thus time of year. With the
pastures growing greener every day, haying the horses wouldn’t be
necessary much longer.

He peeled off his shirt and wiped the sweat
from his neck and chest, then adjusted the red bandana tied around
his forehead. He pitched his shirt on a bale and drew in a long
breath of barn scents. Any one of the men who worked for him would
be happy to tidy the hayloft for Nathan, but he liked doing this
particular chore himself. Working in the barn and caring for the
horses came second only to his love of riding.

He smiled. And all that took a back seat to
making love with Paige. He hadn’t slept at all last night. He had
tossed and turned and relived their lovemaking over and over again.
The very idea that he had been the only man to ever touch her did
strange things to his heart. He had walked the floors for hours
trying to wear off his insatiable need to make love to her again.
He couldn’t possibly bang on her door in the middle of the night as
he longed to do with Calvin there. Finally, desperate to relieve
the ache in his loins he had taken a long walk in the cool night
air.

Nathan had taken numerous other women to his
bed over the years after Paige had gone off to college and forsaken
him. Each time he had hoped that it would be different. That he
wouldn’t think of Paige when he should have been thinking of the
woman in his arms. And each time he had desperately hoped that he
wouldn’t feel empty inside when it was over, but he always did. He
had never been able to love anyone else. Hadn’t even wanted to. Not
even his doomed marriage had changed that fact.

Nathan surveyed the loft for anything else
that needed doing. He just wasn’t ready to call it a day yet. He
gingerly touched the bandage on his abdomen. Paige had insisted on
coming by this morning and redressing the barely-more-than-a-nick
injury. The way she acted, you would think that he had been near
fatally injured.

Nathan smiled. She had given him the sweetest
kiss before leaving for Memphis. He frowned when he thought of the
conservative suit she had worn to work. The damned thing covered up
everything from neck to knee. Then again, that might be good, he
decided. He didn’t want other men seeing too much of her.
Especially that Myers guy, whom Calvin seemed to think had the hots
for Paige. Nathan didn’t know Myers, but he didn’t like him. He
didn’t like him at all. He had seen him that one time in court.
And, come to think of it, there
had
been something about the
way he looked at Paige that Nathan found unsettling. The man had
damned sure better stay away from her. Because somehow, some way
Nathan intended to make her his again.

“No daydreaming allowed, Blackrope.”

He snapped his head around at the sound of
Paige’s lyrical voice. His smile returned at the sight of her
lovely face. She stepped off the ladder and into the loft,
smoothing the dust from her tasteful but prim suit.

“So, how’d it go with Myers?” he asked,
watching her move toward him. She removed the clasp restraining her
hair and the long, blond tresses cascaded over her shoulders.
Nathan longed to run his fingers through that softness.

“Without a glitch,” she told him, sounding
breathless. She stopped midway across the loft, tossed the clasp
aside, then unfastened the shiny button at her waist. She shrugged
out of her jacket and dropped it to the hay-strewn floor.

Nathan stared at the jacket on the floor and
then at her. Something was up. He had never known Paige to behave
so…so seductively.

“I felt like a female James Bond.” She smiled
a sexy smile, her pink lips begging to be kissed. “It was a real
rush, arousing…almost.” She slowly, one by one, unfastened the tiny
pearl buttons of her blouse.

“Uh…good. I’m—I’m glad your little scheme
worked,” he stammered. His throat tightened as he tried to swallow
with his mouth feeling like a dusty corral. Fire shot to his groin
when the pale silver blouse fell to the wide planks at her
feet.

“Myers didn’t know what hit him,” she purred,
sliding the skirt down her thighs. Paige stepped out of the circle
her skirt made on the floor and moved a step closer to him.